The Opened Shutters Part 40

"We'll send two boys and an extra boat," returned Edna. "The island is rich in both commodities."

She let Dunham go to the little hotel that evening.

"But it will be the last time," she said to Miss Lacey after he had gone. "Why shouldn't I have a house party while Sylvia is here?"

"A man is a disturbing element on general principles," remarked Miss Martha, "but I like him, and always did, from the moment he dusted a chair for me with his handkerchief." She cleared her throat with sudden embarra.s.sment as she glanced at Sylvia, who was listening with serious eyes.

That day's errand seemed strange and remote.

"Where have you and Mr. Dunham met before?" asked Edna, turning suddenly to her guest.

Sylvia was prepared for this question. "In Boston, only once. He met me there to arrange some business for Uncle Calvin."

"He is quite overcome by the change in your appearance. I'm not going to tell you the nice things he said about you. I don't approve of turning curly heads."

Sylvia colored and met Edna's kind eyes with a pleased, eager gaze. How lovely if the Prince should like her as did her Princess.

CHAPTER XXII

BLUEBERRYING

Benny was still unfurling his sail when his party came down to the floating dock the next morning.

Dunham was laden with lunch boxes, pails, and sweaters, and Benny looked somewhat darkly upon him as his laugh rang out in reply to a speech of his companions.

"I was givin' ye half an hour more," said the boy, as they greeted him.

"Ye usually"--

"Don't betray me that way, Benny," interrupted Edna. "I'll have to confess, though, that this promptness is all owing to Mr. Dunham. He has pursued and hurried us since eight o'clock."

"I've traveled on my virtuous early rising up to the present moment,"

remarked Dunham; "but now I'll confess that I wasn't so crazy over the sunrise as I was at it. It was a very unwelcome pageant in my room at 3 A.M."

"Oh, surely!" exclaimed Edna sympathetically. "Those cruelly light windows."

"Did you ever try a black stocking?" asked Sylvia earnestly.

"Well--occasionally," replied Dunham, regarding his feet.

"I mean on your eyes."

"No. Is that the latest? I'm from the country."

"People talk about sunshine in a shady place," said Sylvia. "I think shade in a sunny place is quite as important. Always put a black stocking under your pillow when you go to sleep in a blindless room.

The light wakes you, you draw the stocking across your eyes,--and off you go again."

"Yes, but supposing the stocking does the same?" objected Dunham.

The girls laughed, much to Benny's disapproval.

"You shouldn't toss around so, then," said Edna.

"That isn't kind," remarked John. "Benny, I trust there is something black on board to draw across these lunch boxes. It is one hundred in the refrigerator on this dock."

Benny took the lunch stolidly, and stowed it under cover.

He considered Mr. Dunham an entirely superfluous member of this party.

"He's the freshest lobster ever I see," was his mental comment. "I wonder which of 'em he's sweet on?"

The pa.s.sengers jumped aboard.

"Guess I'll save you the trouble of sailing her, eh, Benny?" asked John.

"You better guess again," drawled the boy, returning to his place and taking possession of the ropes. "I've got to take care of Miss Edna."

"Oh, Benny," said the girl gently, "you know this is Mr. Dunham's vacation."

"Hadn't ought to work in his vacation," returned Benny doggedly.

John was standing undecidedly looking down at him. There was an evident and large thunder cloud across Benny's brow.

"Why the grouch?" asked John _sotto voce_, looking down at Edna. "Is it chronic?"

"There are monsters in this deep, John, with green eyes," she replied mysteriously, smiling. "They're tamable when young, though. Sit down a while."

"He don't know nawthin' 'bout these ledges, does he?" asked Benny defensively.

"No," replied Edna. "That's right. You get us by the ledgy places and out into the middle of the Sound, and then Mr. Dunham will take her."

"Oh, I don't know," remarked John, dropping down in the boat with a sigh of content as the sail filled and they glided forward. "I don't know that I want anything better than this." He leaned against the gunwale and regarded Sylvia, who was sitting beside the mast. The morning stars shone in her eyes. "Miss Sylvia looks as if she agreed with me," he added.

She smiled and glanced away. Neither of these two suspected that she was a spell-bound maiden skimming over the blue waves in an enchanted shallop to some blest island, where waited a magical berry that would set her free. How should they understand that this holiday picnic was in reality a pilgrimage.

John continued to look at her. He wondered if Nat knew what he had lost.

"A penny for your thoughts, Miss Sylvia," he said after a minute.

She shook her head at him. "This isn't bargain day," she returned.

"Are they that precious?"

"They're priceless," she answered.

"Really no use bidding?"