The S. W. F. Club Part 25

"Some of them." Harry glanced through the open doorway, to where Hilary sat resting. She was "making" a picture now, he thought to himself, in her white dress, under the big tree, her pretty hair forming a frame about her thoughtful face. Taking a portfolio from a table near by, he went out to where Hilary sat.

"Your small sister says you take pictures," he said, drawing a chair up beside hers, "so I thought perhaps you'd let me show you these--they were taken by a friend of mine."

"Oh, but mine aren't anything like these! These are beautiful!"

Hilary bent over the photographs he handed her; marveling over their soft tones. They were mostly bits of landscape, with here and there a water view and one or two fleecy cloud effects. It hardly seemed as though they could be really photographs.

"I've never done anything like these!" she said regretfully. "I wish I could--there are some beautiful views about here that would make charming pictures."

"She didn't in the beginning," Harry said, "She's lame; it was an accident, but she can never be quite well again, so she took this up, as an amus.e.m.e.nt at first, but now it's going to be her profession."

Hilary bent over the photographs again. "And you really think--anyone could learn to do it?"

"No, not anyone; but I don't see why the right sort of person couldn't."

"I wonder--if I could develop into the right sort."

"May I come and see what you have done--and talk it over?" Harry asked.

"Since this friend of mine took it up, I'm ever so interested in camera work."

"Indeed you may," Hilary answered. She had never thought of her camera holding such possibilities within it, of its growing into something better and more satisfying than a mere playmate of the moment.

"Rested?" Pauline asked, coming up. "Supper's nearly ready."

"I wasn't very tired. Paul, come and look at these."

Supper was served on the lawn; the pleasantest, most informal, of affairs, the presence of the older members of the party serving to turn the gay give and take of the young folks into deeper and wider channels, and Shirley's frequent though involuntary--"Do you remember, Senior?" calling out more than one vivid bit of travel, of description of places, known to most of them only through books.

Later, down on the lower end of the lawn, with the moon making a path of silver along the water, and the soft hush of the summer night over everything, Shirley brought out her guitar, singing for them strange folk-songs, picked up in her rambles with her father. Afterwards, the whole party sang songs that they all knew, ending up at last with the club song.

"'It's a habit to be happy,'" the fresh young voices chorused, sending the tune far out across the lake; and presently, from a boat on its further side, it was whistled back to them.

"Who is it, I wonder?" Edna said,

"Give it up," Tom answered. "Someone who's heard it--there've been plenty of opportunities for folks to hear it."

"Well it isn't a bad gospel to scatter broadcast," Bob remarked.

"And maybe it's someone who doesn't live about here, and he will go away taking our tune with him, for other people to catch up," Hilary suggested.

"But if he only has the tune and not the words," Josie objected, "what use will that be?"

"The spirit of the words is in the tune," Pauline said. "No one could whistle or sing it and stay grumpy."

"They'd have to 'put the frown away awhile, and try a little sunny smile,' wouldn't they?" Patience observed.

Patience had been a model of behavior all the evening. Mother would be sure to ask if she had been good, when they got home. That was one of those aggravating questions that only time could relieve her from. No one ever asked Paul, or Hilary, that--when they'd been anywhere.

As Mr. Dayre had promised, the party broke up early, going off in the various rigs they had come in. Tom and Josie went in the trap with the Shaws. "It's been perfectly lovely--all of it," Josie said, looking back along the road they were leaving. "Every good time we have seems the best one yet."

"You wait 'til my turn comes," Pauline told her. "I've such a scheme in my head."

"Am I in it?" Patience begged. She was in front, between Tom, who was driving, and Hilary, then she leaned forward, they were nearly home, and the lights of the parsonage showed through the trees. "There's a light in the parlor--there's company!"

Pauline looked, too. "And one up in our old room, Hilary. Goodness, it must be a visiting minister! I didn't know father was expecting anyone."

"I bet you!" Patience jumped excitedly up and down. "I just bet it isn't any visiting minister--but a visiting--uncle! I feel it in my bones, as Miranda says."

"Nonsense!" Pauline declared.

"Maybe it isn't nonsense, Paul!" Hilary said.

"I feel it in my bones," Patience repeated. "I just _knew_ Uncle Paul would come up--a story-book uncle would be sure to."

"Well, here we are," Tom laughed. "You'll know for certain pretty quick."

CHAPTER X

THE END OF SUMMER

It was Uncle Paul, and perhaps no one was more surprised at his unexpected coming, than he himself.

That snap-shot of Hilary's had considerable to do with it; bringing home to him the sudden realization of the pa.s.sing of the years.

For the first time, he had allowed himself to face the fact that it was some time now since he had crossed the summit of the hill, and that under present conditions, his old age promised to be a lonely, cheerless affair.

He had never had much to do with young people; but, all at once, it seemed to him that it might prove worth his while to cultivate the closer acquaintance of these nieces of his.

Pauline, in particular, struck him as likely to improve upon a nearer acquaintance. And that afternoon, as he rode up Broadway, he found himself wondering how she would enjoy the ride; and all the sights and wonders of the great city.

Later, over his solitary dinner, he suddenly decided to run up to Winton the next day.

He would not wire them, he would rather like to take Phil by surprise.

So he had arrived at the parsonage, driving up in Jed's solitary hack, and much plied with information, general and personal, on the way, just as the minister and his wife reached home from the manor.

"And, oh, my! Doesn't father look tickled to death!" Patience declared, coming in to her sisters' room that night, ostensibly to have an obstinate knot untied, but inwardly determined to make a third at the usual bedtime talk for that once, at least. It wasn't often they all came up together.

"He looks mighty glad," Pauline said.

"And isn't it funny, bearing him called Phil?" Patience curled herself up in the cozy corner. "I never've thought of father as Phil."

Hilary paused in the braiding of her long hair. "I'm glad we've got to know him--Uncle Paul, I mean--through his letters, and all the lovely things he's done for us; else, I think I'd have been very much afraid of him."

"So am I," Pauline a.s.sented. "I see now what Mr. Oram meant--he doesn't look as if he believed much in fairy stories. But I like his looks--he's so nice and tall and straight."

"He used to have red hair, before it turned gray," Hilary said, "so that must be a family trait; your chin's like his, Paul, too,--so square and determined."

"Is mine?" Patience demanded.