The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor Part 22

"As if I were an old spidah, weaving webs for everybody that comes along!" cried Lloyd, indignantly. "She's no right to talk that way."

"I think it's because she really cares so much, and not that she does it to be spiteful," said Katie. "She hasn't a bit of pride about hiding her feeling for him. She openly cried about it while she was talking to me."

"What do you think I ought to do?" asked Lloyd, with a troubled face. "I like Mistah Shelby evah so much, and I'd like to be nice to him for the old doctah's sake if for no othah reason, for I'm devoted to _him_. And I really would enjoy seeing him often, especially now when everybody else is gone or going for the rest of the summah. Besides, he'd think it mighty queah for me to write to him not to come next Thursday. But I'd hate to really interfere with Bernice's happiness, if it has grown to be such a serious affair with her that she can cry about it. I'd hate to have her going through the rest of her life thinking that I had deliberately wronged her, and if she's breaking her heart ovah it"--she stopped abruptly.

"Oh, I don't see that you have any call to do the grand renouncing act!"

exclaimed Katie. "Why should you cut yourself off from a good time and a good friend by snubbing him? It will put you in a very unpleasant light, for you couldn't explain without making Bernice appear a perfect ninny.

And if you don't explain, what will he think of you? Let me tell you, it is more than she would do for you if you were in her place. Somehow, with us girls, life seems like a game of 'Hold fast all I give you.'

What falls into your hands is yours by right of the game, and you've no call to hand it over to the next girl because she whimpers that she wants to be 'it.' Don't you worry. Go on and have a good time."

With that parting advice Katie hurried away, and Lloyd was left to pace up and down the avenue more undecided than before. It was late in the afternoon of the next day when she finally found the answer to her question. She had been wandering around the drawing-room, glancing into a book here, rearranging a vase of flowers there, turning over the pile of music on the piano, striking aimless chords on the harp-strings.

Presently she paused in front of the mantel to lift the lid from the rose-jar and let its prisoned sweetness escape into the room. As she did so she glanced up into the eyes of the portrait above her. With a whimsical smile she thought of the times before when she had come to it for counsel, and the question half-formed itself on her lips: "What would _you_ do, you beautiful Grandmother Amanthis?"

Instantly there came into her mind the memory of a winter day when she had stood there in the firelight before it, stirred to the depths by the music this one of "the choir invisible" had made of her life, by her purpose to "ease the burden of the world"--"to live in scorn of miserable aims that end with self."

Now like an audible reply to her question the eyes of the portrait seemed to repeat that last sentence to her: "_To live in scorn of miserable aims that end with self!_"

For a moment she stood irresolute, then dropping the lid on the rose-jar again, she crossed over into the next room and sat down beside the library table. It was no easy task to write the note she had decided to send. Five different times she got half-way through, tore the page in two and tossed it into the waste-basket. Each attempt seemed so stiff and formal that she was disgusted with it. Nearly an hour pa.s.sed in the effort. She could not write the real reason for breaking her engagement for the ride, and she could not express too much regret, or he would make other occasions she would have to refuse, if she followed out the course she had decided upon, to give Bernice no further occasion for jealousy. It was the most difficult piece of composition she had ever attempted, and she was far from pleased with the stiff little note which she finally slipped into its envelope.

"It will have to do," she sighed, wearily, "but I know he will think I am snippy and rude, and I can't beah for him to have that opinion of me."

In the very act of sealing the envelope she hesitated again with Katie's words repeating themselves in her ears: "It's more than she would do for you, if you were in her place."

While she hesitated there came a familiar whistle from somewhere in the back of the house. She gave the old call in answer, and the next moment Rob came through the dining-room into the hall, and paused in the library door.

"I've made my farewells to the rest of the family," he announced, abruptly. "I met Betty and Mary down in the orchard as I cut across lots from home. Now I've got about five minutes to devote to the last sad rites with you."

"Yes, we're going on the next train," he answered, when her amazed question stopped him. "The family sprung the surprise on me just a little while ago. It seems the doctor thought grandfather ought to go at once, so they've hurried up arrangements, and we'll be off in a few hours, two days ahead of the date they first set."

Startled by the abruptness of his announcement, Lloyd almost dropped the hot sealing-wax on her fingers instead of the envelope. His haste seemed to communicate itself to her, for, springing up, she stood with one hand pressing her little signet ring into the wax, while the other reached for the stamp-box.

"I'll be through in half a second," she said. "This lettah should have gone off yestahday. If you will post it on the train for me it will save time and get there soonah."

"All right," he answered. "Come on and walk down to the gate with me, and we'll stop at the measuring-tree. We can't let the old custom go by when we've kept it up so many years, and I won't be back again this vacation."

Swinging the letter back and forth to make sure that the ink was dry, she walked along beside him. "Oh, I wish you weren't going away!" she exclaimed, forlornly. "It's going to be dreadfully stupid the rest of the summah."

They reached the measuring-tree, and taking out his knife and pocket-rule, Rob pa.s.sed his fingers over the notches which stood for the many years they had measured their heights against the old locust. Then he held out the rule and waited for her to take her place under it, with her back against the tree.

"What a long way you've stretched up between six and seventeen," he said. "This'll be about the last time we'll need to go through this ceremony, for I've reached my top notch, and probably you have too."

"Wait!" she exclaimed, stooping to pick something out of the gra.s.s at her feet. "Heah's anothah foah-leaved clovah. I find one neahly every time I come down this side of the avenue. I'm making a collection of them. When I get enough, maybe I'll make a photograph-frame of them."

"Then you ought to put your own picture in it, for you're certainly the luckiest person for finding them I ever heard of. I'm going to carve one on the tree, here by this last notch under the date. It will be quite neat and symbolical, don't you think? A sort of 'when this you see remember me' hieroglyphic. It will remind you of the long discussions we've had on the subject since we read 'Abdallah' together."

He dug away in silence for a moment, then said, "It's queer how you happened to find that just now, for last night I came across a verse about one, that made me think of you, and I learned it on purpose to say to you--sort of a farewell wish, you know."

"Spouting poetry is a new accomplishment for you, Bobby," said Lloyd, teasingly. "I certainly want to hear it. Go on."

She looked down to thrust the stem of the clover through the silver arrow that fastened her belt, and waited with an expectant smile to hear what Limerick or nonsense jingle he had found that made him think of her. It was neither. With eyes fixed on the little symbol he was outlining on the bark of the tree, he recited as if he were reading the words from it:

"Love, be true to her; Life, be dear to her; Health, stay close to her; Joy, draw near to her; Fortune, find what your gifts Can do for her.

Search your treasure-house Through and through for her.

Follow her steps The wide world over; You must! for here is The four-leaved clover."

"Why, Rob, that is _lovely_!" she exclaimed, looking up at him, surprised and pleased. "I'm glad you put that clovah on the tree, for every time I look at it, it will remind me of yoah wish, and--"

The letter she had been carrying fluttered to the ground. He stooped to pick it up and return it to her.

"That's the lettah you are to mail for me," she said, giving it back to him. "Don't forget it, for it's impawtant."

The address was uppermost, in her clear, plain hand, and she held it toward him, so that he saw she intended him to read it.

"Hm! Writing to Alex Shelby, are you?" he said, with his usual brotherly frankness, and a sniff that plainly showed his disapproval.

"It's just a note to tell him that I can't ride with him Thursday," she answered, turning away.

"Did you tell him the reason?" he demanded, continuing to dig into the tree.

"Of co'se not! How could I without making Bernice appeah ridiculous?"

"But what will he think of you, if you don't?"

"Oh, I don't know! I've worried ovah it until I'm neahly gray."

Then she looked up, wondering at his silence and the grave intentness with which he was regarding her.

"Oh, Rob, don't tell me, aftah all, that you think it was silly of me! I thought you'd like it! It was only the friendly thing to do, wasn't it?"

He gave a final dig with his knife, then turned to look down into her wistful eyes. "Lloyd Sherman," he said, slowly, "you're one girl whose friendship means something. You don't measure up very high on this old locust, but when it comes to doing the square thing--when it's a question of _honor_, you measure up like a man!"

Somehow the unwonted tenderness of his tone, the grave approval of his smile, touched her in a way she had not believed possible. The tears sprang to her eyes. There was a little tremor in her voice that she tried to hide with a laugh.

"Oh, Rob! I'm so glad! Nothing could make me happier than to have you think that!"

They started on down to the gate together. The only sound in all the late afternoon sunshine was the soft rustling of the leaves overhead.

How many times the old locusts had watched their yearly partings! As they reached the gate, Rob balanced the letter on his palm an instant.

Evidently he had been thinking of it all the way. "Yes," he said, as if to himself, "that proves a right to the third leaf." Then he dropped the letter in his pocket.

Lloyd looked up, almost shyly. "Rob, I want to tell you something. Even after that letter was written I was tempted not to send it. I was sitting with it in my hand, hesitating, when I heard yoah whistle in the hall, and then it came ovah me like a flash, all you'd said, both in jest and earnest, about friendship and what it should count for. Well, it was the old test, like jumping off the roof and climbing the chimney. I used to say 'Bobby expects it of me, so I'll do it or die.'

It was that way this time. So if I have found the third leaf, Rob, it was _you_ who showed me where to look for it."

Then it was that the old locusts, watching and nodding overhead, sent a long whispering sigh from one to another. They knew now that the two children who had romped and raced in their shadows, who had laughed and sung around their feet through so many summers, were outgrowing that childhood at last. For the boy, instead of answering "Oh, pshaw!" in bluff, boyish fashion, as he would have done in other summers gone, impulsively thrust out his hands to clasp both of hers.

That was their good-by. Then the Little Colonel, tall and slender like Elaine, the Lily Maid, turned and walked back toward the house. She was so happy in the thought that she had found the golden leaf, that she did not think to look behind her, so she did not see what the locusts saw--Rob standing there watching her, till she pa.s.sed out of sight between the white pillars. But the grim old family sentinels, who were always watching, nodded knowingly and went on whispering together.