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Title: The Pleasant Street Partnership
       A Neighborhood Story

Author: Mary F. Leonard

Illustrator: Frank T. Merrill

Release Date: June 26, 2007 [EBook #21944]

Language: English

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The Pleasant Street Partnership




BOOKS BY MARY F. LEONARD.

       *        *       *       *       *

        =THE SPECTACLE MAN.= A STORY OF THE MISSING
        BRIDGE. 266 pages. Cloth. $1.00.

        =MR. PAT'S LITTLE GIRL.= A STORY OF THE
        ARDEN FORESTERS. 322 pages. Cloth. $1.50.

        =THE PLEASANT STREET PARTNERSHIP.= A
        NEIGHBORHOOD STORY. 269 pages. Cloth.

[Illustration: A SMALL BOY . . . STOOD SURVEYING THEM WITH GREAT
COMPOSURE]





The
Pleasant Street Partnership

_A Neighborhood Story_

       *        *       *       *       *

  By
  Mary F. Leonard


  _Illustrated by_
  Frank T. Merrill

[Illustration]

        W. A. WILDE COMPANY
        BOSTON      CHICAGO




        _Copyright, July, 1903._
        BY W. A. WILDE COMPANY.
        _All rights reserved._

       *        *       *       *       *

        THE PLEASANT STREET PARTNERSHIP.




=To Charlotte=




CONTENTS


  CHAPTER                                        PAGE

      I. A WAVE OF IMPROVEMENT                   11

     II. WHAT SHALL WE CALL IT?                  21

    III. AN ALIEN                                24

     IV. MISS WILBUR                             35

      V. THE SHOP                                42

     VI. IN THE EYES OF THE NEIGHBORHOOD         50

    VII. A SPOOL OF TWIST                        60

   VIII. A MATTER OF LOYALTY                     72

     IX. IN THE SHOP                             82

      X. ALEXINA                                 90

     XI. THE LAST STRAW                          98

    XII. THE DISCOVERY                          107

   XIII. AFTERWARD                              115

    XIV. MRS. MILLARD DEPARTS                   121

     XV. GIANT DESPAIR                          129

    XVI. CHARLOTTE                              138

   XVII. AN EVENING CALL                        146

  XVIII. THE ADVENTURES OF A BIRTHDAY CAKE      156

    XIX. TEA AND TALK                           166

     XX. MERRY HEARTS                           175

    XXI. THE RICH MISS CARPENTER                185

    XXII. VALENTINES                            192

   XXIII. NEIGHBORS                             203

    XXIV. WAYLAND                               215

     XXV. THE PRICE OF A BOND                   222

    XXVI. NORAH'S ARK                           229

   XXVII. AN ANNIVERSARY                        236

  XXVIII. WHAT IT MEANT                         248

    XXIX. A LETTER                              253

     XXX. CHANGES                               262




ILLUSTRATIONS.


                                                                     PAGE
  "A small boy . . . stood surveying them with great composure"
                                                 _Frontispiece_       17

  "Securely entrenched behind the lace curtain, she levelled her
      glass"                                                          61

  "She sank into a chair"                                            109

  "James Mandeville's taste was exacting"                            194




The
Pleasant Street Partnership

=A Neighborhood Story=




CHAPTER FIRST

A WAVE OF IMPROVEMENT


Pleasant Street was regarded by the Terrace as merely an avenue
of approach to its own exclusive precincts. That Pleasant Street
came to an end at the Terrace seemed to imply that nothing was to
be gained by going farther; and if you desired a quiet, substantial
neighborhood,--none of your showy modern houses on meagre lots, but
spacious dwellings, standing well apart from each other on high
ground,--you found it here.

It could not be denied that the Terrace was rather far down town.
Around it the busy city was closing in, with its blocks of commonplace
houses, its schools and sanitariums, its noisy car lines, until it
seemed but a question of a few years when it would be engulfed in a
wave of mediocrity. Fashion had long ago turned her face in another
direction, and yet in a way the Terrace held its own. It could boast
of some wealth, and more distinguished grandfathers were to be heard
of within its small area than in the length and breadth of Dean
Avenue.

Its residents felt for each other that friendliness born of long
association. Some of the best people of the town had built their homes
here between thirty and forty years ago, and a comparison of
directories would have shown a surprising proportion of the old names
still represented.

Perhaps no one thing contributes more to a sense of dignity than long
residence in one house, and it was natural enough that the Terrace
should shrug its shoulders at the row of toy dwellings that sprang up
almost magically on Pleasant Street. That this thoroughfare, so long
given over to side yards and vacant lots, was showing a disposition to
improve, was a matter of no concern to the Terrace until unexpectedly
its own territory was invaded.

On the northeast corner of the Terrace and Pleasant Street there had
long stood a cottage. In the midst of a large lot, with fine
shade-trees around it and a beautifully kept lawn, it had never seemed
out of place among its more pretentious neighbors; but now upon the
death of its owner the property was divided into three lots and
offered for sale. What this might mean was at first hardly realized,
until one day men were discovered to be at work on the corner, digging
a foundation.

Upon inquiry it developed that a drug store was to be built. The
neighborhood did not like this, but felt on the whole it might have
been worse,--this conclusion, as Wayland Leigh pointed out later on,
being founded on the mistaken hypothesis that all drug stores are
pretty much alike.

It happened that the druggist had for a brother a young and aspiring
architect, who conceived the idea of putting up a building in keeping
with a residence district. The result was a sloping-roofed structure
whose shingled second story projected over the first, which was of
concrete. It might have been a rural station, or post-office, or a
seaside cottage, but a drug store it did not remotely suggest.

The store opened on Pleasant Street; to reach the private entrance you
must go in from the Terrace, where there was a square of lawn and a
maple tree, relic of better days.

The worst of it was its utter incongruousness, the best--so Alexina
Russell said--that it invariably made you smile, and anything in this
weary world that caused a smile was not wholly bad. Miss Sarah Leigh
pretended to admire it, and declared she wanted to meet the architect.
Of all things she liked originality. Mrs. Millard heard her
disdainfully. Any departure from tradition was objectionable in her
eyes, and she was deficient in a sense of humor. Judge Russell
complained that now St. Mark's had taken to high-church customs, and
the Terrace was degenerating, it was time for him to be put away in
Spring Hill Cemetery.

Pretty Madelaine, his granddaughter, looked longingly toward Dean
Avenue, being divided between a desire for its new splendors and a
complacent consciousness that it was something of a distinction in
these days to live in the house where your father was born. Alexina,
her sister, treated this with scorn. She loved the shabby old house
for other reasons.

In spite of the original intentions of the builder, fate decreed that
this much-talked-of place was not to be a drug store after all, and
early in the summer, before it was finished, it was advertised for
rent.

The plastering stage was beginning when the agent in charge one day
appeared conducting a young woman over the premises. If the agent's
manner revealed some slight curiosity concerning her, it was not to be
wondered at, for it was more than probable he had never before seen so
charming a person in the guise of a possible shopkeeper.

Her bearing was dignified and businesslike, and if a smile hovered
about her lips as they explored the odd little house, it did not go
beyond the bounds of a polite interest. At length she seated herself
on an empty nail keg in the shop, and became absorbed in thought. The
agent leaned against the door frame and waited.

"I shall want a few changes made if I lease it," she announced
suddenly, after some minutes of silence.

The agent started as her eyes met his. "Oh, certainly," he replied, as
if ready to agree without hearing what they were. On second thought he
added that the architect was at that moment coming up the street, and
the best plan, perhaps, would be to submit her wishes to him.

To this she graciously assented, and he left her. When he was gone,
the young woman's dignity relaxed. She smiled broadly; she even
laughed. "How ever did it happen!" she exclaimed.

She produced a tape-line and made measurements, then she stood with
the tip of her tongue touching her upper lip. "I do wish Marion could
see it," she said. "She will never believe what a fascinatingly funny
place it is."

She was surveying the neighborhood from the front door when the agent
returned, accompanied by the architect.

She wanted very little, she announced reassuringly; a fireplace in the
shop was the chief thing.

The agent suggested that it would be far more expensive to heat the
room with an open grate than with an anthracite base burner. Whereupon
she explained that an open fire was part of her stock in trade, and it
would be impossible to carry on her line of business without one.

The agent ventured to inquire what her line was, and she answered with
a twinkle in her eye, "Notions."

The architect was doubtful about the fireplace, but not unwilling to
discuss it, and they grew so friendly over the matter that the agent
retired to the door and stared gloomily up the street.

From the fireplace the discussion turned to other things. As a
possible tenant, the young lady consulted the architect about the best
color for the walls, so adroitly insinuating her own ideas as to the
proper stain for the woodwork that they seemed his own.

While they talked, a small boy in a gingham apron, with a sailor hat
on the back of his curly head and a gray flannel donkey under his arm,
wandered in and stood surveying them with great composure.

"Who's going to live here?" he presently asked, his brown eyes upon
the lady.

She met his gaze with a smile that drew him a step nearer, but caused
no break in his seriousness. "I am thinking of it," she said, adding,
with a twinkle of mischief in her eyes, "if they will let me have a
fireplace in this room. Shouldn't you want a fireplace if you were
going to live here?"

He nodded, "'Cause if you didn't, Santa Claus couldn't come."

The lady turned gravely to the architect. "That is a consideration
which had not occurred to me, but it is an important one. I shall not
take it without the fireplace." Her manner said there was no need for
further discussion.

"What is your name?" she asked the small boy.

He shook his head.

"Do you mean you haven't any?"

Another more vigorous shake.

"Perhaps you have forgotten it?"

"No, I haven't."

"Why not tell, then? I am always willing to tell mine."

"What is it?" he inquired with great promptness.

"But I don't think it is fair to ask me when you won't tell yours."

"You said you would."

The lady laughed. "Very well, I am Miss Pennington."

The small boy pondered this for a moment, then announced with much
distinctness, "My name is James Mandeville Norton."

"Well, James, I am glad to meet you. I see you are a fair-minded
person. Do you live in this neighborhood?"

James Mandeville pointed in the direction of the row of toy houses on
Pleasant Street, and said he lived over there.

"Then if they give me a fireplace, you and I will be neighbors."

They were standing in the door, just outside which, on the sidewalk,
was a velocipede. This James Mandeville now mounted with gravity. He
did not express a hope that she might come to live near him, but there
was friendliness in the tone in which he said good-by as he rode
away.

"Good-by Infinitesimal James," replied the lady.

"My name's James Mandeville," he called back.

In the course of a day or two the matter of the fireplace was adjusted
and the lease signed. Norah Pennington was the tenant's name, and her
references all the most timorous landlord could ask.

On the afternoon of the day on which the transaction was closed Miss
Pennington might have been seen walking along the Terrace, gazing
about with interested eyes.

"What dear old houses," she said to herself. "I am sure Marion will
like it here. This might be Doubting Castle, and there is Palace
Beautiful, a little out of repair."

She stood for a moment on the corner in the full blaze of the summer
sun. The happy courage of youth seemed to radiate from her. There was
a vitality, a sparkle in her glance, in the waves of her sunny hair,
in her smile, as with a slight gesture that embraced the Terrace, and
Pleasant Street, too, she said half aloud, "Good-by till September."




CHAPTER SECOND

WHAT SHALL WE CALL IT?


"And now what shall we call it?" Norah asked.

"Call it?" echoed Marion.

They sat on the rocks beside a mountain stream that filled the air
with its delicious murmur.

"Certainly, everything has to have a name. Shall it be _Carpenter and
Pennington, Dry-goods_?"

Marion removed the dark glasses she wore, turning a pair of serious
eyes upon her companion. "How absurd," she said.

"No," insisted Norah, taking the glasses and adjusting them on her own
nose, "not at all. It is businesslike. Can't you see it?--a large
black sign with gilt letters."

"Give me my glasses, and don't be silly. It is not to be a dry-goods'
store in the first place, and above all things let us be original. If
such signs are customary, ours must be different."

"Here speaks wisdom. Here the instinct of the born advertiser betrays
itself. Let us think." Norah buried her face in her hands.

Marion watched her with a half smile, then as an expression of
weariness stole into her face she restored the glasses and sighed, as
with her elbow supported on a ledge of rock she rested her chin in her
palm and looked down on the swift running water. She was extremely
slender, and it was easy to guess she was also tall, and that, seen at
her best, she was a person of grace and elegance rather than beauty.

"I have it," Norah cried presently. "_The Pleasant Street Shop._"

"Or _The Neighborhood Shop_," Marion suggested.

"No, let us have Pleasant Street in it. It seems a good omen that the
street is called Pleasant."

Marion smiled. "Have you told Dr. Baird?" she asked.

"Yes. He said I should be a novelist, and confine my wild-goose
schemes to paper."

"_The Notions of Norah_ would be a taking title," laughed Marion, the
weariness gone from her face.

"But as I told him, 'Deeds, not Dreams,' is my motto, and I'll show
him if it is a wild-goose scheme. I am convinced that deep down in his
heart he was interested; and although he made no promises, I believe
we may count on him."




CHAPTER THIRD

AN ALIEN


With the swiftness of a small tornado, Charlotte descended the long,
straight stairway only to sink in a heap on the broad step at the
bottom. "Oh, dear!" she said, her chin in her hand, "Oh, _dear_!"

A ray of sunlight falling through the side-lights of the door with
their pattern of fleur-de-lis on a crimson ground, cast a rosy stain
on the neutral-tinted carpet and brought to notice a few atoms of dust
on one of the rosewood chairs that stood to attention on either side
of the tall hat-rack. The wall against which they were ranged was done
in varnished paper to represent oak panelling, and on it hung one or
two steel engravings.

"If only something were crooked!" Charlotte sighed.

Now at Aunt Cora's nothing was straight. Etchings and water colors
fought for the honors of the walls, and chased each other up the side
of the stairway. Tables and shelves were crowded with trifles, costly
and otherwise, the chairs were deep and cushiony, except now and then
a gilt toy which was distinctly for show; the divans were smothered
with gay pillows. In contrast this house in Kenton Terrace seemed
unbearably stiff and prim.

Why had not Uncle Landor allowed her to stay with him instead of
sending her so far away? Perhaps, after all, he had not wanted her.
Nobody wanted her--dreadful thought!--unless it were Aunt Cora; and
Charlotte knew in her heart Uncle Landor was wise in deciding she was
not to travel about with Aunt Cora any more.

Since she had been taken away, a child of seven, her memories of this
southern town had grown vague, and it seemed strange to hear Uncle
Landor refer to it as her home. He also said it was the sort of a
background she needed for the next few years, until she should be
ready for college. After that he promised, if she still wished it, she
might come and keep house for him.

But it would be so long. How could she stand it? If only she might
have gone to boarding-school. Why had Aunt Caroline and Aunt Virginia
agreed to her coming? They did not like her. Nothing she did pleased
them. Charlotte looked about for a refuge where she might fling
herself down and cry her heart out. She rose and stole on tiptoe into
the drawing-room.

Here the same absolute order prevailed. She felt sure the carved
chairs and sofas, with their covering of satin brocade, had occupied
these same positions ever since they first appeared on the scene when
Aunt Caroline made her début, more than thirty years ago. Fancy Aunt
Caroline having a party! Aunt Virginia had described it to her, but it
sounded unreal. Thirty years ago was too far in the past. Charlotte's
own mother had been a little girl then.

The buhl cabinet near the window, the inlaid chess table in the corner
beside the white marble mantel, even the folds of the handsome lace
curtains, seemed petrified into their present positions. For thirty
years the mantle mirror had been reflecting the Dresden clock and
candelabra, and the crystal pendants of the chandelier; the face and
figure that confronted Charlotte in the pier glass was, however,
something new and alien.

It was a brown face with blue eyes that danced with mischief or
flashed with anger, or grew soft with entreaty beneath their black
lashes, as occasion might demand. Her hair, too, was brown, and
shadowed her face in a wavy mass held most objectionable by her aunts.
That a girl barely fourteen should have decided views on the subject
of dress, and insist upon wearing what she called a pompadour and
having her belts extremely pointed in front, was surprising to Aunt
Virginia, shocking to Aunt Caroline.

As she stood facing her own image, the sound of sweeping skirts on the
stairway sent her flying behind the half-open door.

"What has become of Charlotte?" she heard Aunt Virginia ask.

"I am sure I don't know," responded Aunt Caroline.

"And what is more, you don't care," added Charlotte, under her breath.

When the door had closed behind them, she ran to the window and
watched as they went down the walk and entered the waiting carriage.
Two very charming ladies, an unprejudiced observer might have
pronounced them. A little precise in their elegance, perhaps, but
pleasant to look upon, especially Aunt Caroline, from head to foot a
shimmer of silver gray. Aunt Caroline was Mrs. Millard, the widow of
an army officer, and Charlotte had expected to like her best; but
after all, Aunt Virginia, who was only Miss Wilbur, had proved the
least objectionable.

She was not so handsome, but seemed kinder; and when she laughed,
Charlotte always felt a little thrill of sympathy. When Aunt Caroline
laughed, it was in a reserved, controlled manner. Charlotte had
arrived at the conclusion that Aunt Virginia stood in awe of her
sister; and this might have been a bond of union if it had been
possible to become really acquainted, but Aunt Virginia held aloof.
It was almost as if she were afraid of Charlotte, too. Still there was
something rather nice about her. Charlotte hardly realized how often
she returned to this opinion.

When they had driven away, she went to the library,--a less formidable
apartment than the drawing-room,--and making herself comfortable in an
arm-chair by the window, began to consider what she should say to
Cousin Francis, for she had decided that pouring out her soul in a
letter would, after all, be more satisfactory than tears.

She looked out across the garden to where, on the other side of
Pleasant Street, stood the little corner shop with its gray-green
shingles, its upper windows all aglow in the afternoon sunshine.
Before it stood a furniture van, and Charlotte idly watched the
unloading.

She had made up her mind that life here was going to be hopelessly
dull. She swung her foot listlessly, and, forgetting her letter,
thought of Aunt Cora's home in a gay little suburb where something was
always going on,--teas, dinners, receptions, where, although in the
background, she had had her share of the excitement.

At the Landors', where she sometimes spent several weeks while Aunt
Cora, worn by her strenuous social life, went down to Atlantic City to
recuperate, it was much quieter. And still she loved to be there. The
elder Mr. Landor was a busy lawyer, his son Francis a literary person,
and they lived in a tall, brown stone house in the old part of
Philadelphia, among any number of others exactly like it. It was a
man's house, overflowing with books and pictures, and yet showing the
lack of a woman's presence. Charlotte was very fond of her guardian
and his son, who petted and made much of her on the occasions of her
visits. She was conscious, however, that Uncle Landor was not quite
satisfied with her. He had a way of looking at her long and steadily
through his glasses, as if he were studying her.

Cousin Frank, perhaps because he had no responsibility in the matter,
treated her as a comrade in a way that was flattering. She was, of
course, an ardent admirer of his stories and verses, and upon one or
two rare occasions had been made blissfully happy by being allowed to
listen to one fresh from the typewriter. But most interesting of all
had been a discovery made on her last visit in the spring. Between the
leaves of a manuscript she had been allowed to read she found some
verses beginning:--

        "I love her whether she love me or no,
         Just as I love the roses where they blow
         In fragrant crimson there beyond the wall."

There was something more about roses being sweet although out of
reach, and teaching a lesson to his heart; but before she had quite
grasped the idea, Francis took the paper away from her with an
exclamation of impatience.

"Why should Francis have minded, unless those verses meant something
personal?" Charlotte wondered. As she thought it over, she recalled
some remarks of Aunt Cora's about a little water-color portrait of a
child in Uncle Landor's study.

"Who is this?" Mrs. Brent asked one day, pausing before it.

"That is old Peter Carpenter's granddaughter May, when she was ten
years old. He had two portraits done of her, and liking the other
better, gave this to me not long before he died."

Aunt Cora said, "Ah!" and studied it with interest. "So this is _the_
Miss Carpenter, is it? I presume Francis has a more recent likeness."

"I do not know that he has. We see very little of May in these days.
She is a great lady." Uncle Landor spoke as one who dismisses a
subject.

Then one rainy afternoon Mrs. Wellington, the Landors' housekeeper,
entertained Charlotte with stories of this same young lady who, it
turned out, lived just across the street in a house distinguished from
the rest of the block by a garden at one side. According to Mrs.
Wellington she was beautiful and rich, and if one more touch were
needed to make her an irreproachable heroine, the long illness from
which she was then beginning to recover supplied it. Watching at the
window, Charlotte had the pleasure of seeing her carried out for a
drive once or twice, but she never had a glimpse of her face.

Putting two and two together, she became quite sure that this Miss
Carpenter was the rose which was out of reach; but though she was on
the point of it several times, she never quite dared to question
Cousin Francis about her.

Charlotte had woven a charming romance with these slender threads,
being at the romantic age when real life is seen beneath the
lime-light of fairyland. Was it any wonder things seemed dull here in
Kenton Terrace?

These entertaining memories being for the time exhausted, her thoughts
turned to the grievance that had sent her downstairs with such
vehemence,--a thrilling, fascinating story taken from her at the most
critically exciting point.

"I cannot allow you to read novels when you are going to school," Aunt
Caroline had said; adding, "and this book is not at all the sort of
thing for a little girl."

At the recollection Charlotte put her hand to her hair. Little girl,
indeed! When people wished to be disagreeable, they reminded you that
you were a little girl.

"I have always read what I pleased," she insisted, relinquishing the
book unwillingly.

"I cannot understand Mrs. Brent's allowing it; but however that may
have been, while you are with us your Aunt Virginia and I will
exercise some supervision over what you read."

Questions about the owner of the novel followed, and here was another
grievance. It had been lent to Charlotte by one of her schoolmates, a
girl with fluffy yellow hair and many rings, whom after a week's
acquaintance,--to use her own phrase,--she simply adored. Her name was
Lucile Lyle--in itself adorable--and the intimacy with her had
resulted in Charlotte becoming Carlotta.

"Lyle?" Aunt Virginia repeated questioningly.

"Don't you remember Maggie McKay, Virginia? This is her daughter," was
Aunt Caroline's reply. To Charlotte she said, "To-morrow I shall give
you this book to return, and while of course I wish you to be polite,
I do not wish you to be intimate with this girl."

"I don't care what she says, I shall read it, and be as intimate as I
please with Lucile," Charlotte told herself; which goes to show that
Mr. Landor was right when he felt she needed different training.

And now having nothing else to do, she wandered to the piano, and
finding an old music book, turned its pages, playing snatches of
"Monastery Bells" and "Listen to the Mocking-bird." She was putting a
good deal of feeling into "I'm a Pilgrim, and I'm a Stranger," when a
sound behind caused her to start.

"You have a pretty touch, my dear," said Aunt Virginia. "We have been
out to Marat's greenhouse, and I have brought you some roses." She
laid them on the piano as she spoke, and slipped away before Charlotte
could make any response.

Was it a peace offering?




CHAPTER FOURTH

MISS WILBUR


Miss Wilbur was perplexed to the point of annoyance, a state of mind
most unusual with her.

She was by nature a serene person, quite content with her easy,
uneventful life. The outside world she faced with a timid reserve
which had not diminished with years and indulgence, finding her life
in her family circle and the round of small cares, her flowers and her
embroidery. She disliked responsibility, and except in what she
considered matters of principle was inclined to distrust her own
judgment. She was full of family loyalty, and had been satisfied to
look on from her place in the background, while her more clever and
ambitious sisters and brothers one by one passed from the home into
the world.

Naturally enough she had not married. She had not cared to, and had
never given any one the opportunity to combat this indifference. Most
people liked her, but she had few intimate friends, having apparently
no desire to be singled out in any way, and yet she was warmly
affectionate. In truth Miss Virginia was an elusive sort of person,
sometimes allowing a glimpse of herself in all her unselfish
sweetness, and then, presto! her reserve had taken alarm, the vision
was gone.

She was conventional, made so by her environment; yet her failings,
many of them, so her sister Caroline declared, were those of an
untrained child. She was careless,--as Charlotte had noticed, she
sometimes forgot the fastenings of her skirt; when she wrote, she
invariably inked her fingers; and she was constantly losing or
breaking her glasses. She treated these matters lightly herself, but
tried to conceal them from her sister.

In their girlhood this sister, a few years older than she, had been
the object of her deepest devotion. Caroline was beautiful and clever,
and to question her opinions never entered Miss Virginia's mind. It
puzzled and hurt her loyal heart that she could not quite get back to
the old attitude when Caroline returned to her home a widow. She
submitted when Caroline assumed command of the household; but after
their father's death relieved her of the position of devoted nurse,
Miss Virginia found life a little empty; and what made it the harder
was that she no longer felt herself altogether in sympathy with her
sister's opinions and methods.

Her aspirations had never gone beyond making home pleasant for
somebody, and now even this was taken from her. The things that most
absorbed Mrs. Millard were of little interest to her; she began to
feel useless and unhappy. She was a failure. Life had somehow slipped
by unawares. She felt old at forty-eight.

Above everything she disliked change, and the sale of the corner lot
and the building of the shop caused her many a pang. In the midst of
all this disquietude Mr. Landor's letter arrived.

"I have most agreeable recollections of your home," he wrote, "and I
realize I am asking a good deal of you, for our little niece is a
somewhat tumultuous person. She has suffered from both over indulgence
and neglect. She needs a different atmosphere, and much in the way of
training that her old guardian cannot give her, so he ventures for
Helen's sake to ask if you will take charge of her daughter for a few
years."

This half sister, twelve years younger than herself, had come and gone
like some happy dream in Miss Virginia's life. She had grown up under
the care of her grandmother, almost a stranger in her father's house,
to which she returned in her gay young girlhood, and for the one time
in her experience Miss Wilbur had been swept into a whirl of gayety as
Helen's chaperon. Her charge had married early, and after a few years
went abroad with her husband and little girl in search of health she
was never to find.

The thought of Helen's child aroused memories both bright and
sorrowful, but at least here was an opportunity to be useful again. It
would be pleasant to have a child in the house, Miss Virginia thought,
studying the photograph of Charlotte at seven, bright-eyed and demure.

The tall, well-grown girl had been a surprise to her aunts. Her
assured manner and pronounced style of dress were not exactly what
one desired in a girl of fourteen. At sight of her Miss Virginia had
been seized with a fit of shyness; in consequence the reins had been
taken by Mrs. Millard, who was not shy and was, besides, a born
manager.

Miss Virginia felt a sympathy for Charlotte, even while disapproving
of her; she felt her sister to be too peremptory. In the matter of the
novel it would have been better to allow Charlotte to finish it, with
the understanding that it was to be the last. What could be more
aggravating than to have to give up a story with only two-thirds of it
read? It was an interesting story, too. Miss Virginia herself sat up
till midnight to finish it. Some time perhaps she would tell Charlotte
the end. Then she reminded herself that this would never do.

It was no use talking to Caroline, and yet Mr. Landor had asked _her_
to take charge of Charlotte, and Caroline had no right to assume
command. Miss Virginia wished they had not agreed to take the child.

She paced back and forth on the front porch one afternoon, thinking of
all this and of the peaceful days of the past, feeling that dulness
was better than problems like these. Across Pleasant Street was the
little shop already showing signs of habitation. As she stood idly
with her hand on the rail, a boy came up the walk and handed her what
at first glance she thought was a note, but it proved on investigation
to be an announcement.

               THE PLEASANT STREET SHOP
                      WILL OPEN
               WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER SECOND

        Dainty Turnovers     Pretty Draperies
        Ribbons              Bright Chintzes
                      Baskets
                      Pottery
        Needles and Pins and Other Small Matters
                    A Specialty.

"How absurd!" thought Miss Virginia. "A shop of this sort in the
Terrace!"

"Have you heard about the new shop, Miss Virginia?" called Alexina
Russell from the gate.

Miss Wilbur held up the card. "I am just reading the announcement. Who
can be starting it? and isn't it too bad?" As she spoke, she descended
the steps and joined the young girl.

"It is the funniest little place I ever saw," answered Alex. "I
suppose it is not nice to have shops springing up in the
neighborhood, but--sometimes I wish I were going to keep a shop."

"My dear! I trust you will never have to do that."

"Haven't you ever felt that you would like to be doing something?--to
be in things--part of the real working world?" Alexina spoke with
fervor.

"I never wanted to keep a shop, I am sure," answered Miss Wilbur.




CHAPTER FIFTH

THE SHOP


James Mandeville did not forget the pretty young lady who said she was
coming to be his neighbor if they would give her a fireplace. He had
kept an eye on the shop all summer, and he knew there was a fireplace.

He saw plasterers, carpenters, and painters come and go as he rode
back and forth on his velocipede at a rate of speed altogether out of
proportion to the effort put forth by his plump legs, bare and brown
above his socks. From beneath the brim of his old sailor hat he looked
on with solemn intentness. He was on excellent terms with the workmen,
and often carried home a whole armful of treasures--odd-shaped pieces
of wood, curly shavings, and bits of tile.

At length all was done; the square of lawn on the Terrace side was
sodded, and from the street in front of the shop all the débris was
carried away. Surely, she would come now!

Some rainy days followed, and when the weather permitted James
Mandeville and his velocipede to be abroad again, the place showed
unmistakable signs of occupancy. There were muslin curtains in the
upstairs windows, and, peeping in through the glass door of the shop,
he saw packing-boxes. At another time a woman stood on the curbstone
buying vegetables from a wagon, but she was far removed from the lady
of his dreams. His heart fell.

The door of the shop stood open the next time he passed. James
Mandeville halted, letting one foot slip along the pavement as a
brake. Under his left arm, pressed close to his linen blouse, was a
tin horn. At this moment a lady came to the door and looked out. She
was not the lady of the fireplace,--a glance told him that,--yet she
was quite different from the one who bought vegetables. She was tall
and dark, and wore unbecoming smoked glasses. She took no notice of
him, but turned and went back into the shop. James Mandeville
dismounted and followed.

The packing-cases had been removed, and the sunshine that streamed in
above the sheet tacked across the lower part of the west window
lighted up a scene of cheerful disorder, pervading which was a
pleasant odor of newness. With her back toward him, the lady began to
measure off lengths of some green fabric, standing before a long
table.

He waited, but still she took no notice. Should he go away? He
summoned all his courage and gave voice to the question that was
asking itself in his own mind: "Where is she?"

The lady turned in surprise and looked down upon him. If he could have
expressed his feelings, he would have said she was a haughty person.
But as she looked at him her manner changed, and she smiled as she
asked, "What is it? I don't understand."

James Mandeville struggled to reply, but words were hard to find. As
he stood silent a voice behind him cried, "Why, if it isn't
Infinitesimal James!" and there she was, with her shining hair and
laughing eyes. He laughed, too, for very relief.

"There's a fireplace," he announced, going to meet her. "I saw them
make it."

"So you knew I would come back, didn't you? Yes, it is a very nice
fireplace, and will be all ready for a visit from Santa Claus," she
replied, shaking hands. Then quite unexpectedly she picked him up and
set him on the table among the waves of green stuff. "Now you look
like Triton," she said.

James Mandeville held fast to his horn and eyed his captor doubtfully,
as if he had a mind to escape.

"Do you remember my name? I am Miss Norah, and I want to introduce you
to my partner, who is almost as nice as I am. She is Miss Marion."

The other young lady smiled. "Do you believe in blowing your own horn,
as Miss Norah does?" she asked.

James Mandeville looked at his horn, and then at the speaker; but as
he did not understand, he made no reply.

"She asks foolish questions, doesn't she?" said Miss Norah. "As you
are the first neighbor to call on us, you shall not be required to
answer. You may help me trim the show window, if you like."

James Mandeville wriggled out from among the green waves. "What are
you going to keep in your store?" he asked.

The reply was disappointing. "Why don't you keep candy?" was the next
question.

"Because Miss Marion would give it all away, and we shouldn't be able
to make a living."

"Would you?" he asked, turning to that lady with earnest eyes.
Clearly, she might be worth cultivating.

She laughed and left the room for a moment, returning with something
in her hand wrapped in silver paper. "Do you like chocolate?" she
inquired; adding, "I don't know how it would be if I kept it; but as I
don't keep it, of course I give it away."

This had a puzzling sound. James Mandeville almost forgot to say thank
you. He decided to go, feeling he could better enjoy the chocolate
alone. He edged toward the door.

"Good-by," called Miss Norah. "Come again."

"All right," said James Mandeville, and disappeared from the scene.

After his departure all was quiet in the shop for a time, except for
the occasional sound of Norah's hammer as she worked in the window.
Marion was putting things away in the cases which stood against the
wall. It was she who first spoke.

"I wonder if we shall have any customers?"

"That is reflection upon my skill as a decorator. Do you think the
public can resist the display which is about to dawn upon it on the
morrow?" was Norah's reply.

Marion left her work and sat on the window ledge. Norah wore a blue
dress and a large white apron, and as she stood to drive a tack, the
sunshine sparkled in her hair. She looked the incarnation of cheerful
industry.

"I do not know that I altogether believe in show windows," Marion
said, smiling up at her friend.

"Of course not. It is all of a piece with your haughty reserve. Let me
remind you that after we have made a success and have a name we can
retire into our shell and become the sought rather than the seeker,
but at present it is needful to catch the public eye. You have imbibed
your ideas from the rich Miss Carpenter, but _we_ have our living to
make." She drove her tack with emphasis, then sat down on the floor of
the window. "I am not sure I shall not always like this way best,"
she continued. "Think, if there were no show windows at Christmas!
Marion, think of Christmas!"

"Isn't it a little early? There is a good deal to be done between now
and then." Marion spoke calmly.

Norah tossed a ball of twine at her. "I see it will be by the hardest
work if I get any fun out of life. But to resume my train of thought
which you interrupted--"

"I beg your pardon, you interrupted yourself."

"Did I? Well, to resume, at any rate: my idea is that it will be much
nicer to keep a shop which will attract both great and small, so to
speak. To make a specialty always of nice, simple things."

"Flannelette?" suggested Marion.

"Why not? It is a useful fabric."

"I foresee if we enter into a discussion of this momentous question
your window will not be finished, and I own to some curiosity as to
how you mean to attract the great, for instance."

Marion returned to her baskets, and there was silence again for a
time.

"Your idea of the bookcases was a happy one," she said presently,
standing back to view her work. "These baskets have the air of a
collection of curios behind the glass."

"A charming touch of color against our olive walls. Confess, did you
ever have such a good time in your life?"

"My enthusiasm is sprouting vigorously."

"And the fun is only just beginning. But do come here--quick, Marion!
I want you to see Giant Despair."

A tall, heavily built old man was passing along Pleasant Street, his
brows drawn together in a tremendous frown. He swung a stout
walking-stick in his right hand, as if he would have been pleased to
lay it over somebody's shoulders. At the corner he paused and looked
back at the shop.

"Did you see? He shook his fist!" cried Norah.

"Have we an enemy?" asked Marion.




CHAPTER SIXTH

IN THE EYES OF THE NEIGHBORHOOD


Its isolation in the heart of the city had something to do, no doubt,
with certain village-like customs that prevailed in the Terrace. The
neighbors ran in upon one another with their needlework for a social
afternoon. If Alexina or Madelaine Russell were going to a party,
there was sure to be an audience of two or three waiting to see them
after they were dressed. When the Leigh's cook, Aunt Minty, made
jumbles, a plateful always found its way over the back fence to Miss
Virginia Wilbur; and when the Wilburs had something particularly nice
for dessert, some neighbor had a share of it. Judge Russell and Mr.
Goodman played chess together and talked of old times, and on the
whole friendliness prevailed, with only an occasional neighborly tiff,
when perhaps some one was heard to wish that Caroline Millard would
mind her own business. There were other occasions when Mrs. Millard's
executive ability proved helpful and was warmly appreciated.

The strenuous life had not as yet invaded the Terrace. Mrs. Millard,
to be sure, belonged to the Woman's Club, and presided at various
board meetings, but she was the exception.

The Terrace had its problems. We know Miss Virginia's; but Alexina,
not suspecting it, watching her in church on Sundays, wished she
herself were middle-aged and had all her troublesome questions
answered, for at forty-eight one must have solved life's problems,
Alex thought.

Madelaine only wanted money to gratify her taste for pretty things.
Given plenty of money, and life would be a simple matter. And so it
seemed to Miss Sarah Leigh, always cheery, yet always burdened with
the doubt where next month's bread and butter were to come from, and
with the regret that her nephew, Wayland, must work instead of going
to college.

Old Mr. Goodman had the money, and his great tomb of a house was full
of valuable things, but his problem was hardest of all; for having to
a sad degree lost his faith in men and things, he found no use for it.
Judge Russell sighed for the good old days; but it was a gentle sigh,
and soon forgotten in the companionship of his beloved books.

If from one point of view the neighborhood characteristic was
sociability, its attitude toward the outsider was another matter. A
new resident must undergo a term of probation before being in any
sense accepted. Charlotte Creston, as the Wilburs' niece, was received
and freely discussed. She was only a child, and for that reason
something of a novelty in the Terrace, since the Russells and Wayland
Leigh had grown up.

Toward the shop, which divided with Charlotte the distinction of
latest comer, the feeling was decidedly antagonistic. It was as if
that monster Business had suddenly reached out from his own domain,
blocks away, and laid his hand upon their peaceful territory.

Something like a council of war took place in the Wilburs'
drawing-room several evenings before the opening. Charlotte, supposed
to be studying in the library, became an interested listener, shielded
from view by the half-drawn hangings.

Alexina Russell was the first comer. Charlotte had not yet made up
her mind about Alex, she was so different at different times. She
might have been almost as pretty as Madelaine, if she had fluffed her
hair and dressed a little less plainly. Sometimes she was full of
animation, again, as this evening, she appeared abstracted and silent.

After Miss Sarah Leigh and her aunt arrived there was no more silence;
it had no charms for either of these ladies. Charlotte had at first
felt something like contempt for a person so odd as Miss Sarah, who
wore skirts short enough to display to advantage her serviceable
shoes, and poked her head out when she walked. But if Miss Sarah had
no pretensions to beauty or style, her face was pleasant, her eyes
really fine, and her smile full of kindly humor. Charlotte learned
from Aunt Virginia that Miss Sarah had an unusual number of
distinguished ancestors, which went to show how little appearance can
be relied on in such matters.

Mrs. Leigh suggested a bit of pretty old china of a pattern grown
rare. Her eyes were bright, there was a hint of pink in her cheeks,
and the silvery puffs beneath her lace cap had the exactness born of
long years of training in the way they should go. When she walked, it
was with a lightness wonderful in a woman of seventy-eight.

Before the Leighs were fairly seated one or two others dropped in,
until it seemed quite like a called meeting of the neighborhood. Aunt
Caroline was in the chair which, on this occasion, happened to be
placed where the rosy glow from a shaded lamp fell becomingly on her
soft gray draperies. Aunt Virginia fluttered about, constantly
interrupting conversation with footstools or sofa cushions, or
irrelevant remarks.

"Miss Virginia is always wondering if one more cushion or some other
chair would not make you a little more comfortable," said Alex, as
that lady appeared after her sixth excursion to the hall, this time
with a light shawl for Mrs. Leigh's rheumatic shoulder.

"Do come and sit down, Virginia," laughed Miss Sarah; "you have no
repose of manner."

"It is very fortunate that so many of us happen to be together this
evening," began Mrs. Millard, "for I think we should decide upon our
course in regard to the shop." Her white hand, veiled in a fall of
lace, made a slight motion in the direction of the corner.

"Don't you want some chocolate candy?" asked Miss Virginia, in an
audible aside to Miss Sarah. "Charlotte and I made some this
afternoon."

"When we have decided the fate of the shop," the lady whispered back.

"Seriously," continued Mrs. Millard, turning toward her sister with a
slight frown, "should we not take some action?"

"You are right, Caroline. In my day shops kept to their own
territory," Mrs. Leigh responded. "I remember the colonel used to
say--but there! I promised Sarah I wouldn't tell any stories this
evening. She says I bore people."

"Why, Aunt Sally! you are telling the biggest kind of a one this
minute," cried her niece.

A good-natured warfare waged continually between these two. Mrs.
Leigh, who was in reality the most petted and indulged of old ladies,
pretending to live in constant fear of Miss Sarah.

"But what can we do?" Alexina was heard asking, as the skirmishers
finally retired, Mrs. Leigh having the last word. "We can't exactly
blame these persons, whoever they may be, for coming here. They could
not know we did not want them."

"I saw some one standing in the door of the shop this morning who
_looked_ like a lady," Miss Virginia remarked.

"How do you define a lady, Virginia?" her sister asked with some
severity.

"Why, Caroline, I am not a dictionary; I wish you wouldn't ask me to
define things," replied Miss Virginia, with a little laugh. Then with
the manner of one who regretted this flippancy she added, "I think I
understand the word as you do."

"It seems to me we are too often content with a surface meaning," Mrs.
Millard continued.

"That is true," agreed Alex. "Now, there is no reason in the world why
these shopkeepers may not be ladies."

Mrs. Millard looked at her doubtfully. "Still," she interposed,
"ladies do not as a usual thing keep shops."

"No; they sweep and scrub and cook, and pretend they don't,--that is
the difference," put in Miss Sarah, crossing her knees and bending
forward with the air of one who had found a congenial theme. "I am a
paper-hanger, a painter, and a maid-of-all-work; and this is what it
usually means to be a lady when you are poor."

"Teaching has always seemed to me a most suitable occupation for a
woman," suggested Mrs. Millard.

"The day has passed, Caroline, when just anybody can teach."

"I don't know any girl who had a better education or was more studious
than you, Sarah," spoke up her aunt.

"And when Brother Willie died I didn't know how to write a check or
make the discount on a gas bill."

"I feel as you do, Miss Sarah. It is dreadful to be so ignorant as
women are of the simplest things," exclaimed Alexina.

"Still, I think it is more comfortable not to have to know about them,
don't you?" Miss Virginia asked timidly.

"What are you people talking about?" The question came from the
doorway, where Madelaine stood, a vision of such airiness, daintiness,
and ethereal charm that nothing else seemed worth a thought. Behind
her towered Wayland Leigh.

"May we join the party and help decide the burning question?" he
asked. "Don't get up, Miss Virginia; we'll find chairs."

"I know it is the shop," said Madelaine, floating across the room to
an ottoman beside Mrs. Millard. Madelaine, too, had an instinct for
the effective, and nothing could have made a more charming picture.
"Grandpa and Mr. Goodman were at it a few minutes ago. Mr Goodman
talks about an injunction."

"We began with the shop, but we seem to have switched off on to
education," said Mrs. Leigh. "One never heard such talk when I was
young. Then we had plenty of servants, and there was always some man
to attend to business. After the war I asked our old Malinda one day
how she liked freedom. 'Well, Miss Sally,' she said, 'I likes it, and
I don't like it. I tell you what, Miss Sally, freedom's monstrous
industrious.' That is what I think about these times,--'they's
monstrous industrious.' Goodness, I have gone and told a story!"

"I shall have to take you home before you transgress again," said her
niece, rising.

"Don't go. We haven't decided what we must do," urged Miss Virginia.

"What do you think, Mrs. Millard?" asked Madelaine, with an upward
glance, and flattering emphasis.

Mrs. Millard caressed the hand that lay on her lap as she replied, "My
own feeling is that we should refuse our patronage--not that they are
likely to have anything we'd care to buy--and use our influence
against it."

"Well, I for one shan't make any promises; if I need a spool of thread
and can save a walk, I shall go over there to get it," Miss Sarah
announced positively.

"You might add that your patronage is not likely of itself to save the
shop from bankruptcy," put in her nephew.

Everybody seemed to be going. Charlotte tucked her history under her
arm and ran upstairs. As she went to the window to draw the curtain a
bright light shone from the shop across the street.

"I wonder if you'll be sorry you came here?" said Charlotte to
herself.




CHAPTER SEVENTH

A SPOOL OF TWIST


The shop windows on the opening day proved most alluring to Miss
Virginia. There were two,--one overlooking the square of lawn on the
Terrace, the other, Pleasant Street. Between them, placed across the
corner, was the door.

The Terrace window was full of plants, while on the Pleasant Street
side there was a tempting display of color. Miss Virginia hunted up
her distance glasses, which she seldom used, in order the better to
view it; but she failed to make out anything in particular. Her ardor
might have suggested an archćologist over a cuneiform inscription, as
she tried to decide whether a certain patch of blue and white was a
pillow or a table-cover.

Charlotte openly stopped to view the window on her way home from
school, and Miss Virginia, observing it, privately questioned her.

[Illustration: SECURELY ENTRENCHED BEHIND THE LACE CURTAIN SHE
LEVELLED HER GLASS]

"You ought to go over and look in, Aunt Virginia," she said. "There
are the prettiest baskets you ever saw."

Miss Virginia adored baskets.

"And there is the dearest sofa pillow."

She had decided on a pillow for Caroline's birthday.

"And, Aunt Virginia, there are the cunningest little collars with
cuffs to match," Charlotte continued with mischievous eyes.

Miss Virginia grew impatient. It was out of all reason that such
desirable things should be brought almost to her door and yet be
beyond her reach.

"It wouldn't be giving them much encouragement just to look in the
window," observed Charlotte. "I'll tell you," she cried the next
minute, "opera glasses!"

"My _dear_, look at my neighbors through an opera glass?"

"But they _want_ to be looked at," insisted Charlotte, with
unanswerable logic.

Miss Virginia allowed herself to be persuaded, and, securely
entrenched behind the lace curtain, she levelled her glass. As is ever
the case with one who dallies with temptation, the result was an
increased desire to have that pillow in her hands.

Standing absorbed in contemplation, she suddenly, without intending
it, turned her gaze upon one of the upper windows; and as she did so
the muslin draperies parted and a pair of merry eyes belonging to a
pretty face looked straight into hers.

"I beg your pardon," cried Miss Virginia, dropping her glass and
sinking into a chair, "I shall be ashamed of this to my dying day,"
she groaned, while Charlotte went off into fits of laughter.

It was some time before she could be brought to realize she had not
been seen. "Not that that makes it much better," she added contritely.
"And, Charlotte, don't mention it to your Aunt Caroline. I think my
ideas of propriety are as strict as hers, but I do not succeed so well
in living up to them. I fear I am, as she says, childish."

"I shall not say anything about it, and I am sure I think you are very
nice, Aunt Virginia," answered Charlotte, still laughing.

The suspicion that Charlotte liked her better than she did Caroline
was a secret pleasure to Miss Virginia, and she flushed prettily as
she said, "Thank you, dear; I am far from what I should be."

Charlotte went to take her music lesson; Mrs. Millard was attending a
club meeting; the house was very quiet as Miss Virginia sat down to
her embroidery. While she worked, the face so vividly imprinted on her
memory in that moment's view continued to rise before her. She began
to feel something like sympathy for its owner. She had not supposed it
would be such an attractive shop. What possible harm could there be in
going over just to look? She might even go in and explain to the
proprietor that she had made a mistake in coming into the
neighborhood. It would be a kindness. She could use a spool of
buttonhole twist as an excuse. She really needed it.

Then she saw the foolishness of all this and tried to think of
something else. She worked another scallop, and concluded to go for a
walk.

When she stepped out of the gate, she turned her back upon the shop
and walked in the opposite direction, but a quarter of an hour later
she might have been seen approaching it by way of Pleasant Street.

It was a beautiful October day; there was a suggestion of autumn in
the maples, but the air was soft as spring. As she stood before the
door her heart beat guiltily; her own home across the way wore an
oddly unfamiliar look.

Being a shop one was, of course, expected to open the door and walk
in. Miss Virginia did so, and for a bewildered moment felt she had
made a mistake, for there was nothing in the room she entered that
seemed to bear any relation to a shop.

In the window, where the ferns and palms were, three persons sat, two
young women and a small boy in socks. One of the three rose and came
to meet her. The identity of the face with the one she had seen
through the opera glass so recently, added to her confusion.

"Can I show you something?"

Miss Virginia gazed at the speaker despairingly. "I have forgotten
what I came for," she stammered.

It might have been an everyday occurrence to have customers who had
forgotten what they wanted, for anything the manner of the young woman
showed. She smiled indeed, but sympathetically, saying she often
forgot things herself; and, pushing forward a willow chair, added,
"Won't you sit down and let me show you some of our things?"

Not seeing her way clear to escape, Miss Virginia accepted the chair.
There were other chairs of the same variety, some of them supplied
with cushions; around the olive-tinted walls were low cases which
might hold books or anything; there was a table with a lamp and
magazines upon it, and in the corner fireplace a low fire flickered.
The most businesslike piece of furniture was the long table upon which
the young woman was laying out a bewitching assortment of collars and
cuffs of a daintiness that went to the heart. Miss Virginia forgot her
embarrassment in her pleasure at the array of pretty things.

The small boy crossed the room, and depositing a gray flannel donkey
on the table leaned upon Miss Virginia's chair. He was a pretty child,
and she smiled at him as he lifted his serious brown eyes.

"Jack likes to see what you are doing, but you mustn't sell him by
mistake, Miss Norah," he said.

"Is this your little boy?" she asked.

"No, James Mandeville is a neighbor and very good friend of ours.
Aren't you, Infinitesimal James?"

He nodded emphatically, and continued to look on with interest while
Norah hung soft-tinted fabrics over a convenient rack, and brought out
baskets of all colors and shapes.

It was clearly James Mandeville's fault that Miss Wilbur was unable to
preserve that distant manner which was the only proper attitude toward
this objectionable shop. When he laid his plump hand on hers and
looked up at her in silent good fellowship, she felt a thrill of
pleasure. Could any one refuse a child's offer of friendship? Not Miss
Virginia, certainly. She bent and touched his cheek with her lips.
James Mandeville, moved to further demonstration, brought the donkey
and laid him on her lap.

"Don't show me anything more," she said, patting the donkey.
"Everything is beautiful. I really didn't come expecting to buy, but
I must have one of these collars." She laid a bit of embroidery
against her sleeve and looked down at it thoughtfully.

The sunlight fell slantingly across the room, gleaming in James
Mandeville's short curls and emphasizing all the cosiness and
pleasantness of her surroundings. The spirit of friendliness grew
strong in Miss Virginia. She felt in no haste to leave.

While Norah searched for something in one of the cases, Miss Wilbur
peeped around the chair back at the occupant of the window who was
employing herself with knitting. She was not--so Miss Virginia
thought--as attractive as her associate, although she could not be
called ordinary. Meanwhile James Mandeville investigated her shopping
bag with absorbed interest.

The opening of the shop door interrupted her thoughts, and before she
had time to push aside the draperies which, disposed upon the rack,
intervened between her and the door, she heard a cool, clear voice
announce, "I wish a spool of twist--black if you please."

Miss Virginia gazed wildly toward the door at the other end of the
room, her first impression being that Caroline had come in search of
her. The next moment she realized with surprise and amusement that her
sister had come altogether on her own account and had asked for the
very same thing she herself had thought of purchasing. Miss Virginia
braced herself for the inevitable encounter, and when Miss Norah
returned, thanked her for her kindness in showing so many of her
wares, and selected one from the collars before her. The while she
heard her sister's voice.

"Do you consider this a good locality for a shop?" Mrs. Millard asked.
"It seems to me quite otherwise, and I think it the only proper course
to tell you that the neighborhood strongly objects to such an
intrusion."

Miss Virginia felt her face grow hot.

"Isn't it a little late to tell us this?" The tall young woman who had
put down her knitting to serve the newcomer seemed not a whit abashed
at Mrs. Millard's manner. If anything, she was the more queenly of the
two, and might have been bestowing a favor as she handed back the
change.

Norah's sunny face intervened, "We are very sorry if you don't want
us," she said, "for we shall have to stay for the present. We think we
are quite as nice as a drug store, and perhaps we shall be able to
convince you of it before long."

Could Caroline hold out against such winning address? What she might
have said or done was never known, for James Mandeville, desiring to
see what was going on, and attempting to crawl under the rack with its
burden of fabrics, precipitated it upon himself and was lost in the
ruins, while Miss Virginia was revealed in all her ignominy, with a
flannel donkey in her lap, to the eyes of her relative.

"Virginia! I am astonished!"

Miss Wilbur rose to the occasion. "So am I, Caroline. I, too, came to
get a spool of twist." There is good authority for the assertion that
one may smile and be a villain, but hitherto such depths of perfidy
had been unsuspected in Miss Virginia.

The united efforts of the shopkeepers were required to disentangle
James Mandeville and quiet his cries of alarm. In the struggle Miss
Wilbur's bag suffered a complete upturn, and her small change was
scattered to the four corners of the room.

Mrs. Millard stood apart looking on in disdain at the confusion, when
again the shop door opened, this time to admit Miss Sarah Leigh who
advanced and addressed her, fumbling in her pocket-book meanwhile and
not lifting her eyes. "I want a spool of twist," she said, producing a
sample of blue silk. "Why, Caroline Wilbur!" and she stared in
amazement.

Norah who had set James Mandeville, still weeping, out of harm's way
on the table, met Miss Sarah's bewildered gaze with a frank smile, as
if she appreciated the joke.

"Do you call this a shop?" Miss Sarah demanded; adding, "Well, if
there isn't Virginia! Are Judge Russell and Mr. Goodman hiding
somewhere? Is this a conspiracy?"

"I'll explain later," said Mrs. Millard, with dignity. "Virginia, are
you ready?"

As they crossed Pleasant Street together, Miss Sarah was disposed to
make merry at Mrs. Millard's expense, but that lady's haughtiness was
extreme. There was nothing funny in her actions. She had gone to the
shop with a purpose, thinking it only the part of fairness to tell
them frankly they were not wanted in the neighborhood.

"That is what I thought of doing," said Miss Virginia. But who can
blame her sister for looking incredulous.

"Well, I'm going again," said Miss Sarah, pausing at the gate. "It is
an interesting place."

Miss Virginia agreed with her, and yet she was beginning to feel a
little doubtful about her own behavior this afternoon. She feared she
had not been quite dignified.

"Sarah Leigh was never a person of very strong convictions," her
sister remarked, as they waited at the door.

"Why, I don't know, Caroline,--perhaps they are just different."

"Really, I don't understand you, Virginia," was Mrs. Millard's
response, nor did she manifest any desire for enlightenment.

Miss Virginia felt that her conduct that afternoon was embraced in her
sister's remark, and that it would be quite hopeless to try to
explain.




CHAPTER EIGHTH

A MATTER OF LOYALTY


Mrs. Millard's irritation was not long in bearing fruit. On the hall
table lay a card, and pausing on her way upstairs she examined it
through her jewelled lorgnette. Charlotte, halfway down, leaned over
the rail and watched her, admiring the sweep of her gown, the
perfection of the gloved hand that held the card.

One might object to Aunt Caroline's methods and rebel against her
mandates, and yet not be blind to the exquisite perfection of her
appearance and belongings. Charlotte had privately borrowed one of
Aunt Virginia's skirts, and practised before the cheval glass, but the
flowing lines that so much pleased her she found unattainable.

"Miss Lucile Lyle," Mrs. Millard read aloud.

"It is for me, Aunt Caroline," said Charlotte, from above. "I have
been walking with Miss Alex and missed her."

"Which is rather fortunate than otherwise; for," Mrs. Millard tapped
the card with her glass, "I desire you not to make a friend of this
young lady."

Charlotte sat down on the step. "Does that mean I am to be rude to
her?"

"Certainly not. There are ways of letting people know you do not care
for their society without being rude."

"I don't see how you can do it without being unpleasant," argued
Charlotte; "and I like Lucile."

"That last fact has nothing to do with it. It is important at your age
to form proper friendships. This I do not consider desirable, and I
expect you to be guided by me."

"What am I to do?" Charlotte persisted.

"I see no occasion to do anything."

"She will think it rude if I do not go to see her."

"What she thinks is of little moment. You can say your aunt does not
care to have you make visits while you are occupied with your
studies."

"But she knows I have been to see the Mays."

"Well, really, Charlotte, I cannot argue the question further. I
simply expect to be obeyed in the matter." With this final utterance
Mrs. Millard swept past her.

Charlotte had come in from her walk in good spirits. She felt it an
honor to be chosen as a companion by a grown young lady, and Miss Alex
had been very entertaining as they walked about the park under the
beech trees. In these days Charlotte's ideals were in an unstable
state. On the one hand, she admired Lucile, longed to be Carlotta and
the heroine of romantic adventures. On the other, she recognized a
certain distinction in Alexina's severe style, and felt proud of her
notice.

This afternoon Alex's influence had been in the ascendant. She had
shown a flattering interest in all Charlotte told about her life at
Aunt Cora's and the Landors'. She had read some of Cousin Frank's
stories and poems and admired them, making Charlotte proud of being
even distantly related to him.

"It must be splendid to do things," Alex said. "To feel that you have
your own special work to do in the world."

"I should love to write stories or paint pictures," agreed Charlotte.

"Any sort of useful work,--work there was a demand for, and that I
could do better, or at least as well as any one else, would satisfy
me," said Alex.

Alexina had gone on to give Charlotte a great deal of good advice
about making the most of her opportunities. She listened gravely to
the story of the borrowed novel Aunt Caroline had taken away; and
while she acknowledged it was trying, she pointed out that it was a
foolish story, and not worth reading.

When Charlotte went on to describe Lucile, Alex did not seem
impressed, only saying, "I wonder who the Lyles are; I never heard of
them. Of course they may be nice people, but Lucile Lyle is such a
silly name."

"I think it is beautiful," cried Charlotte, wondering what Miss Alex
would think of Carlotta Creston.

"No," the young lady said, as if replying to her thought, "I prefer
plain names. For instance, if you should turn out to be a brilliant
beauty and all that, there is nothing inappropriate in your name,
Charlotte Creston. You can glorify it; but if you are only an ordinary
person, you are made absurd by a name you cannot live up to."

This was a new view to take of it. Charlotte wavered, and really
Lucile's influence was a little on the wane when the encounter with
Aunt Caroline gave it new life. At school next day Charlotte came
again under her spell.

Lucile was undeniably pretty and almost as grown up in appearance as
Miss Alex, though only fifteen. She was intensely romantic, her own
personal experiences at this early age would have supplied several
novels, and her manner toward Charlotte was caressing and flattering.
Charlotte was one of the few who understood her, she said. They were
kindred souls.

Lucile wrote verses which seemed to Charlotte quite as good as Cousin
Frank's, and she could sing any number of love-songs charmingly. The
girls would gather about the piano at recess and beg her to sing. The
favorite was one beginning:--

        "Teach, oh, teach me not to love thee!
         Turn those beauteous eyes away,"

and Lucile always bent a soulful gaze upon Charlotte when she sang it.
Charlotte wondered if her eyes were beauteous.

"When are you coming to see me Carlotta?" Lucile asked one day.

They were walking home from school, and had paused on the corner where
their ways divided.

"I don't know. They don't like me to go out alone," was the answer,
given with a flushed face.

"But the cars bring you almost to our door. I shall be terribly hurt."

Charlotte looked gloomy. "I can't come if they won't let me. You don't
know. They think I am six years old."

"You don't love me. I see it plainly." With a tragic gesture Lucile
drew a ring from her finger and held it out. "Take it back," she said.

In the first ardor of their friendship they had exchanged rings,
Charlotte feeling a little mortified at the time that Lucile's was so
much handsomer than hers, and she had kept it carefully turned in to
avoid comment. But after all it was not giving up the ring she minded.
Lucile's apparent distress touched her affectionate heart.

"Don't say that!" she entreated, drawing back. "I do love you, and I
will come to see you whether they let me or not." In the glow of her
devotion she felt like a heroine in one of Lucile's favorite tales. It
was a question of loyalty now. She had promised to be friends before
Aunt Caroline issued her commands. So they parted with renewed vows,
and Charlotte's assurance that she would come that very afternoon on
her way from her music lesson, if she could escape unobserved.

Charlotte had very imperfectly learned the lesson of obedience to
higher powers, and it was not difficult to convince herself that she
was justified. It did seem a little underhand, this was all that
troubled her.

Aunt Virginia, who was going down town in the carriage, offered to
take her to her lesson; adding, "You can find your way back, I
suppose."

"I should think so, after so many times," Charlotte answered, feeling
guilty.

Aunt Virginia was particularly agreeable and funny that afternoon.
Charlotte was really becoming very fond of her. She was a merry
companion; she liked foolish things, such as soda-water and candy, and
was even willing to stop and watch a circus parade.

"If it is cool when you leave, be sure to put your jacket on," was her
parting injunction.

"And if it rains, I'll put up my umbrella," Charlotte called after
her, saucily. At the same time she felt ashamed of what she had
planned to do. If it had not been for the memory of Lucile's
reproaches, she would have given it up.

It must have been the thought of Aunt Virginia that kept the call from
being the pleasure she had expected. Lucile was very glad to see her,
and took her over the large, showy house, which seemed exactly suited
to the large blond woman with a complexion of pinkish lavender, whom
she introduced as her mother. Mrs. Lyle wore a costume of black and
white, in broad stripes, and a wonderful, black plumed hat, which
brought to mind Aunt Cora's poster room.

She was most gracious, complimenting Charlotte's eyes, and asking if
she did not find the Terrace dreadfully far down town. She also asked
about the Russells; said Alexina was odd and Madelaine a beauty, and
that it was a great pity the judge had not known how to keep his
money,--all of which seemed strange to Charlotte, when she remembered
Alex's question, "Who are the Lyles?"

Lucile seemed proud of the house and told the cost of a good many
things. She wanted to know why Charlotte's aunts did not sell their
house in the Terrace and build out on the Avenue.

"I don't believe they want to," Charlotte answered; "and I think the
Terrace is very nice," she added, feeling Lucile was rather too
complacent.

"Why, they are beginning to put up stores there!" Lucile exclaimed.

Charlotte had herself freely criticised the Terrace, but this did not
keep her from resenting Lucile's remarks, and she carried away with
her a consciousness of the friction. As she walked home, she felt a
vague dissatisfaction with life in general, and heartily wished she
had not gone. She could not help seeing, just a little, why Aunt
Caroline did not care for the Lyles.

Charlotte had a strong impulse to confess, and say she was sorry for
what she had done; but the right moment did not come. Aunt Caroline
was out that evening and Aunt Virginia in one of her shy, elusive
moods. She got as far as "Aunt Virginia, I want to tell you,--I did
something dreadful to-day--" when a visitor was announced. Her aunt
looked relieved.

"Never mind, my dear; if you are sorry, I have no doubt it will be all
right," she said, rising hastily. "Go to bed early."

How could you tell people things if they did not want to listen? At
any rate she would not go to the Lyles' again, and she gave herself to
her studies with a new earnestness born of repentance.




CHAPTER NINTH

IN THE SHOP


The opposition of the neighborhood resulted in advertising the shop to
some extent. Whoever saw the odd little place was certain to tell some
one else; and this person and that, dropping in out of curiosity to
look, remained to buy, if only a trifle.

The wares were novel and attractive, the prices reasonable, and the
shopkeepers themselves afforded food for speculation. Like their
wares, they were unusual,--considered as shopkeepers, that is. To all
appearances ladies, their manner of speech betrayed they were not
Southern; yet they did not single out the letter _r_ as worthy of
peculiar emphasis,--a thing the Terrace could not tolerate.

To those who often passed the shop, James Mandeville became a familiar
figure; for from the first he elected to bestow upon its proprietors
his unqualified friendship, and a day rarely went by without a visit
from him. He quickly learned to adapt himself to the rule that he must
not finger things, nor interrupt when customers were present. He
usually brought some plaything with him,--most frequently the flannel
donkey,--and amused himself quite happily, with an occasional appeal
to the sympathy of his companions.

His new friends began to look forward each day to his coming and to
the invariable piece of news with which he entered.

"Miss Norah, what do you think?" he exclaimed one morning. "The moon's
awake and it's daytime!" and drawing her to the door he pointed out
the misty phantom in the southwestern sky, with the air of a
discoverer.

On another occasion, "Miss Norah, I can't stay very long to-day,
'cause my geranium is going to bloom."

It developed that James Mandeville's mother was ill in a sanitarium,
his father absorbed in business, and his only guardian an old colored
woman, known as Mammy Belle. Mammy Belle was of the type fast
disappearing. She wore head handkerchiefs of bright colors, and her
purple calicoes were stiff with starch and spotlessly neat. She
possessed the peculiar dignity that accompanied a faithful,
unquestioning acceptance of her station in life.

Mammy had sole charge of the Norton household, and no doubt it was a
relief to her to know that her charge had found so safe an asylum; but
on the occasion of her first visit the shopkeepers felt they were
being weighed in the balance. Her manner was apologetic and reserved,
as she stood, her hands folded on her white apron.

"'Tain't possible to keep dat chile at home," she explained. "Yes'm. I
takes keer of him. Miss Maimie, she's in a hospital, an' dey ain't
nobody to raise James Mandeville but his old mammy."

"I ain't comin', mammy," declared her charge, positively.

"Yes, you is comin', honey; don' you talk to mammy dat way. 'Tisn't
pretty. Looks like it's mighty hard to raise you polite, James
Mandeville."

Norah delighted to talk with her, and gathered from her conversation
that her greatest pleasure, next to a funeral, was to take James
Mandeville to white folks' church on Sunday afternoon, "to see dem
chillen march and sing." To her enthusiasm was due the aspiration of
her charge to be a choir boy, and he was often heard singing lustily
versions of "Onward, Christian Soldiers," and "O Paradise," which were
all his own.

"Dey's ladies, store or no store," Belle was overheard remarking to
Susanna. "I knows quality; you can't fool Belle, no'm."

       *        *       *       *       *

"I never in my life felt so rich," Marion said, rattling the money
drawer.

It was Saturday evening at the end of their first week. All was in
order in the shop, the long table pushed back, the small one with the
lamp brought forward, the shades drawn, the door barred, and Norah now
rested comfortably in one of the roomy chairs with a gay pillow behind
her head.

"We have done very well, I think," she agreed.

"I perceive this is one subject upon which my enthusiasm is greater
than yours. It must be because you have made money before." Marion
still hung over the money drawer.

"I don't consider that we have made anything yet; but the difference
between us is that I expected all along to do very well, while you
were a doubting Thomas."

"As I always am." With surprising ease for one so tall, Marion slipped
down on the rug at her friend's feet.

Norah caressed the dark head against her knee. "But you are improving,
dearest," she said, "and I'm glad, indeed, if this first week has
encouraged you." She laughed a little as she added, "I believe I am
just a bit more anxious to prove to our friend Miss Carpenter that in
lending us the capital for our venture she has not done a reckless and
unwise thing."

"But, Norah--"

"I know what you are going to say. She is not worrying about the money
and could well afford to take the risk, but with you and me it is a
matter of principle. We must succeed and justify her confidence. So we
won't count our chickens too soon, but lay low, like Brer Rabbit, and
say nothin'."

"At any rate I know what it is to have worked all the week, and to be
tired and glad of Sunday. Norah, it is nonsense expecting people
really to care for Sunday when they don't work."

"I hope you haven't tired yourself too much;" Norah bent forward till
she could see the face on her knee. Her manner was oddly motherly; she
seemed so much the younger and smaller of the two.

"Oh, no; and sometimes I have almost forgotten--"

"Go on forgetting, dear. I know you need not fear, if you will only
think so."

"If I were only sure," Marion sighed. "And sometimes I am," she added.

"At least I am charmed with the neighborhood," Norah went on, "If the
haughty lady across the street continues her opposition, our success
is assured. Her name, I have discovered, is Millard, and that dear
Miss Virginia is her sister, of course; and there is a bright-looking
little girl who goes in and out, and seems to belong to them.

"And I forgot to tell you my adventure this morning. When I got off
the car at Walnut Street, coming home, there was an old gentleman with
some books just behind me. He had an armful, and as he stepped to the
ground they slipped and fell in the dust. He was evidently lame and
stiff with rheumatism, so I picked them up for him. He was a beautiful
old man, with a most courtly manner; and he seemed to think as I had
helped him, I was entitled to know about the books. We walked along
together, and he explained they were some he had found at a
second-hand store. One of them was a first edition of the 'Essays of
Elia' which he thought a tremendous bargain; and it was, I'm sure.

"We fell to discussing books, and he seemed delighted to find I was
not absolutely ignorant and ended by inviting me in to see his
library. He lives in the house that needs paint so badly,--where you
have noticed that beautiful Ginkgo tree."

"Did you accept his invitation?"

"No, I told him I had not time just then. He asked if I lived near;
and, Marion, you should have seen his puzzled look when I said, 'On
the corner of Pleasant Street.' 'You are visiting?--the Wilburs,
perhaps.' he said. 'No,' I answered, 'I am one of the proprietors of
the shop.' He was terribly shocked and disappointed, I could see. I
had really made an impression. He grew a little distant, but was still
charming, thanking me again for my kindness; however, he said no more
about the library."

"It is funny--" began Marion, but she did not finish her sentence, and
they sat in silence for a while. Presently Marion took possession of
the hand that was touching her hair so lightly, and laid her cheek
against it. Not many people, she thought, had such a friend. One who
had been everything in a time of need, who had given her new hope and
courage in an hour of darkness. She felt herself unworthy, because she
did not believe she could ever be such a help to any one.

"Do you remember, when you were a child, Norah, how sometimes when you
had found some delightful game that stirred your imagination, you
would go to sleep at night with the most blissful sense of waking up
to go on with it in the morning? I have had much the same feeling
lately."

"Then I am satisfied about you. 'As little children' is the key to the
best things of life, I firmly believe. Let's read a bit of 'The Golden
Age' before we go to bed," said Norah.




CHAPTER TENTH

ALEXINA


Alexina Russell longed to be of use in the world. It fretted her to
live as they did, pensioners on her grandfather, whose fortune had
sadly dwindled of late years. Her mother's income was barely
sufficient to clothe the three of them, and Alex felt she ought to be
earning her own living. That her grandfather made them more than
welcome, and besides had an old-fashioned horror of a woman going out
into the world as a worker, did not alter her conviction.

She did not feel competent to teach. Delicate as a child, she had gone
to school intermittently, and the best of her somewhat scrappy
education had been gained in her grandfather's library; but she found
it difficult to combat the prejudice of the whole family against any
other method of supporting herself. Alex loved the old house,--the
outside of which time and coal-dust had turned a uniform dingy
gray,--and sometimes wondered how she could ever stand it to live
anywhere else. There is a point where dinginess becomes picturesque;
and the vines, undisturbed by repairs, were doing their best to hide
all deficiencies. The grounds were ample for a city; and the tall
Ginkgo tree which reached out its fern-like branches protectingly
toward the timeworn mansion was only one of many other fine trees and
shrubs. Inside, the lofty rooms and handsome furnishings of many years
ago, some fine old portraits, and many valuable books and prints gave
it a distinction not to be achieved by many modern houses.

Pretty Mrs. Russell, almost as dainty and girlish as her youngest
daughter, shed tears over Alex's oddity; and Alex, who sincerely loved
and admired her mother, felt her burden all the greater because she
was a disappointment. She had submitted for one winter to be taken to
receptions and teas, and to have a dinner given in her honor, in the
newspaper accounts of which the rare old Russell silver figured
effectively, and on the whole she had enjoyed it. But a season of it
was enough; her practical mind rebelled against the expense and
uselessness of such a life. She adopted the plainest style of dress,
declined invitations, and privately studied shorthand.

In the bottom of her heart Madelaine thought it just as well. Plain
things became Alex, and it was nobody's fault but her own if she
preferred the background. And Alex was not in the least jealous of her
sister's popularity. She had something of the responsible feelings of
a father or brother toward her mother and Madelaine.

Alex's refuge was the library and the companionship of her
grandfather, who often told her she took life too seriously.

"You are young yet. Be happy, and things will work out of themselves."

But Alexina did not share his gentle optimism. It seemed to her at
once the charm and weakness of her grandfather's character. She was
impatient; she wanted to know what was the right path for her to take,
not to waste years in finding it.

Mrs. Russell sometimes laughingly declared that Alex's most intimate
friends were Miss Virginia Wilbur and Miss Sarah Leigh, and it was
true she often sought their society. Miss Wilbur had made pets of the
Russell children from their babyhood, and they were both fond of her.
There were times when Alex found her placid absorption in everyday
matters rather soothing, at others Miss Sarah suited her mood better.

Miss Sarah had all manner of troubles and worries, but she did not box
them up and label them "Personal"; instead, she offered them to her
friends dressed up in whimsical fashion for their entertainment, until
it was difficult to consider them seriously. Old Mrs. Leigh was heard
to say she did not know what Sarah would find to laugh about if she
ever became prosperous.

Alexina found shorthand depressing, and after spending an hour or more
over it one afternoon she gave it up in despair and went over to see
Miss Sarah. As she entered the sitting room Mrs. Millard stood talking
to Mrs. Leigh.

"I suppose the next thing we'll be going to the Poor House," the old
lady was remarking cheerfully, for she was not far behind her niece in
the ability to extract pleasure from adversity. "Sarah says the Cement
Company has passed their dividend again. I know that means we don't
get any money."

"Dear me!" exclaimed Mrs. Millard; "why, Sarah, what are you living
on?"

The person addressed looked up from her sewing with a grim smile. "I
don't know--Caroline. We--are just living--_on_."

"I don't see how you can _smile_," said Mrs. Millard, with reproachful
emphasis. She was never guilty of making light of affliction.

"Well, there are funny things about being poor, Caroline; but I
suppose it takes a poor person to appreciate them." Then observing
Alex in the door, Miss Sarah added, "Come in and cheer us up, Alex."

"I am ashamed to say I came to be cheered," Alex said, after Mrs.
Millard had rustled away.

"Well, misery loves company, so just come to the kitchen with me while
I stir up a spice cake for Wayland, and we'll swap woes and have a
good time. I let Anne go to see her sister this afternoon."

When the materials had been collected and Alex assigned her share of
the task, Miss Sarah continued: "I have two things to tell you. First,
I have made up my mind to take boarders. I was trembling in my shoes
all the while Caroline was here, for fear Aunt Sally would tell her.
She will think it a disgrace to the neighborhood; I'll be ranked with
the shop, but I must do something. We can't sell the house, and it
would break Aunt Sally's heart if we could, for it is all she has."

"I don't think it will hurt the neighborhood, and I hope you will
succeed. I'm sure I should love to board with you."

"Would you really, Alex? Doesn't the house strike you as very forlorn?
I'll tell you what I am going to do," and Miss Sarah launched forth
into an account of how she meant to cut the hall carpet in two and
turn it around so the worn part would come under the stairs. "But dear
me!" she interrupted herself to say, "how absurd to bother you with
all this. It is your turn to say something."

"I like to hear it. I am interested, and my worries are the same old
ones. I do want to learn how to do something to support myself, and
stenography is so--abominably dull. I am angry with myself for finding
it so." Alex rested her chin in her hand, and looked at Miss Sarah
disconsolately across the table.

"I do not believe you were meant for that sort of thing," Miss Sarah
said stoutly. "Of course I can't tell you what you _were_ made for;
but I know what I'd like to do, and that is, keep a shop such as the
one on the corner."

"What would Mrs. Millard say to that?" Alex asked, laughing.

"She can't say much since she was caught there herself. You needn't
tell me curiosity had not something to do with it. But I am forgetting
the other thing I had to tell you. I have made trouble in the Wilbur
household."

"What do you mean? How?"

"I was never more provoked with myself. The other day I happened to be
out on Dean Avenue, and whom should I see going into the Lyles' but
Charlotte Creston. You know that big, showy house near the park. What
possessed me to mention it, I don't know, but I did, one evening when
Caroline and Virginia were here. I knew in a minute something was
wrong. I have an idea Charlotte went without permission."

"Who are the Lyles?" asked Alex.

"Mrs. Lyle was at the glove counter at Mason's years ago; she was then
Maggie McKay, and a vain, pretentious thing. She married a plumber
with a romantic name, and her rise has been rapid. Now, if you and I
could only be plumbers!"

"I remember Charlotte mentioned a Lucile Lyle, and seemed rather
fascinated, but I did not think she would be so silly as to go there
against her aunt's wishes. I am afraid she is headstrong."

"She is the sort of a child to be goaded to distraction by Caroline. I
wish I had held my tongue. I can see Virginia is dreadfully upset
about something."

"I think I'll go over and talk to Charlotte," Alex said, as Miss Sarah
shut the oven door on the spice cake. Alexina had had dreams of
influencing Charlotte, and she felt a little annoyed that what she had
said on the subject of this foolish friendship had made such a slight
impression.

"Now don't you go and make matters worse, Alex," cautioned Miss Sarah.
"I have no doubt Caroline has harped on the matter till the child is
desperate. I feel terribly guilty."

"I am disappointed in her, and I mean to tell her so," Alex replied
firmly.




CHAPTER ELEVENTH

THE LAST STRAW


Charlotte was closing the piano after an hour's practice when Alexina
walked in. A week had passed since the discovery of her
disobedience,--a week of increasing unhappiness. The blow had fallen
unexpectedly. One day at dinner she had been conscious of something
amiss. A remark of her own met with no response; Aunt Caroline looked
haughty, Aunt Virginia despondent. Charlotte had not, however, guessed
the cause until she was summoned into the library and the question put
to her by Mrs. Millard, "Did you go to the Lyles' in defiance of my
express wishes, Charlotte?"

"I--"

"Yes or no, if you please."

"Yes," Charlotte answered, "but--"

"I want no explanations. There can be none."

"But, Aunt Caroline, you don't understand--"

"You are the one who seems not to understand," again Mrs. Millard
interrupted. "You have deliberately disobeyed. I see you are not to be
trusted. Hereafter, whenever you go out, you shall be provided with an
attendant. The carriage will take you to and from school, your Aunt
Virginia or I will accompany you to your music lesson when possible;
at other times Martha will go."

"Aunt Caroline, you might let me speak. I tried to tell Aunt
Virginia--I had promised Lucile--I had to go; but I am dreadfully
sorry, and--"

"Charlotte, I will not have any words on the subject. You have
deliberately disobeyed. Nothing you can say alters that." Mrs. Millard
swept from the room, almost running down Miss Virginia, who hovered
about the door.

"She did try to tell, Caroline," Charlotte heard her say.

"Nonsense, what difference can that make?" was the reply.

Not to be allowed one word in self-defence was hard. Charlotte locked
herself in her room and shed bitter tears of anger and mortification.
That she was sorry and had tried to confess seemed to her to be very
much to her credit, and Aunt Caroline was unreasonable as well as
cruel. She refused to go down to supper, saying her head ached; and it
would have been in harmony with her state of mind if she had been
compelled to go without any, but it was sent up to her without
comment.

The worst was to come, however. To a high-spirited girl, used to the
greatest freedom, the constant surveillance was unbearable. She was
not locked up, but in all other respects she felt herself a captive.

She was certain Aunt Virginia was sorry for her,--in an aloof and
timid fashion she showed her friendliness; but Charlotte longed for
some one to whom she could pour out all her unhappiness; and for this
Aunt Virginia allowed her no opportunity.

How long was it to last? Aunt Caroline gave no word. As the days
passed, Charlotte began to wear a sullen, dogged look. The sight of
Alexina brought a thrill of hope. Surely, Miss Alex would listen to
her, and be sorry.

"Charlotte, what is this I hear about you?" Alexina demanded, seating
herself on the piano-stool.

"Oh, Miss Alex, I am so unhappy." Charlotte, who was kneeling to put
away some music in the cabinet, sank in a forlorn little heap at her
feet. "She won't let me go anywhere by myself,--not even to school;
and she wouldn't listen when I said I was sorry." Charlotte's tone was
guarded, but none the less appealing.

But Alex hardened her heart. "I suppose it is because you were
disobedient. I must say I am disappointed in you, for it seems to me
you were deceitful as well as disobedient."

Charlotte sat up. Her last hope of a confidante was gone. "You have no
right to say that. I had to go: I had promised. I was willing to be
punished, but she has no right to treat me like a baby. I wish I had
never come."

"Probably your aunts wish so too," Alex observed coolly. "You are not
reasonable, Charlotte. You have acted like a silly child and made
yourself talked about, and you are just worrying Miss Virginia to
death. But don't look at me in that way. I am sorry for you, and if
you will be patient and accept your punishment, it will come out all
right." Alex laid her hand on Charlotte's shoulder, but the girl
twitched it away. Rising, she stood stony and silent. Alex's
condemnation was the last straw.

As she went drearily up the stairway, Charlotte's thoughts turned with
a great longing to her guardian and the quiet house in Philadelphia.
He did perhaps care a little for her. He had sent her here because he
thought it best, but it had turned out a terrible mistake. She would
write to-night and tell him so. Tell him how impossible it was to
endure it any longer, and implore him to send her to boarding-school.

But would he understand? It was so difficult to write things. If only
she could be with him and Cousin Francis for half an hour and tell
them her story, she was sure she could make them see the matter as she
did. And now a daring thought entered her mind. Why not go to them?
Naturally self-reliant, the thought of the long journey by herself did
not terrify her. In the little silver purse (Aunt Cora's parting
gift) were two gold pieces,--more than enough to buy a ticket to
Philadelphia.

Charlotte's misery grew less at the picture her imagination drew of
her aunts' consternation when her flight should be discovered.
Probably there would be more talk; but little would she care, safe
with Uncle Landor.

Carried away by the excitement of the idea, she found a daily paper
and sat down in the dainty room prepared for her with so much loving
care by Aunt Virginia not three months ago, to study the time-table
and lay her plans.

There was a through train at half-past eight at night which would
exactly suit. She could steal away after supper. It was the evening
for Aunt Caroline's Antiquarian Society, and Aunt Virginia could be
easily eluded.

In stories people who ran away usually left notes. Charlotte
considered this, and decided she would write one to Aunt Virginia. It
took a long while and a great deal of note-paper was wasted before it
was done, and her enthusiasm had cooled a little as she folded it.

She carried a flushed face and an abstracted manner to the supper
table, but her aunts were evidently too much interested in some
matter they were discussing to notice her. If she had been less
absorbed, her curiosity would have been aroused by the guarded manner
in which they talked.

"It is a case where duty seems to call one in opposite directions,"
said Mrs. Millard, studying the handle of her spoon with an air of
profound seriousness that provoked one of those occasionally profane
suggestions from her sister.

"You'll have to toss up a penny," remarked Miss Virginia.

The thought of Aunt Caroline tossing a penny caused Charlotte a
moment's diversion, and a faint smile curled about her lips as Aunt
Virginia promptly took it all back.

"I realize, of course, Caroline, that it is hard to decide; but,
really, I think you can't refuse Georgiana."

"I shall take the matter under careful consideration till to-morrow,"
replied Mrs. Millard.

Before they left the table Miss Sarah Leigh looked in to ask Virginia
about a Mount Mellick stitch. Thus fortune seemed to favor Charlotte's
plans.

"Are you going to study, dear?" Aunt Virginia asked.

Charlotte flushed at the kind tone, "I am going upstairs, Aunt
Virginia," she answered. "I am tired."

If Aunt Virginia's kindness weakened her resolve to run away, an
encounter with Aunt Caroline in the upper hall made it strong again.

While the servants were at supper and Miss Virginia occupied with the
embroidery lesson, and just as Mrs. Millard left the house by the
front door, a slight figure in a long gray coat with a blue veil over
her face slipped down the back stairs, bag in hand, and out of the
side door.

Pleasant Street was full of swaying shadows, for the wind had risen
and the electric light on the corner swung slowly to and fro.
Charlotte held to the gate a moment to steady herself; she seemed
swaying, too. Not a single person was to be seen. For the first time
in her life she was alone on the street at night. She told herself
there was nothing to fear, but she looked wistfully at the lighted
windows of the houses along the Terrace, and the cheerful glow that
shone from the little shop across the way; but she did not think of
going back. It was not far to the street-car, which would take her to
the door of the station; after that all would be perfectly simple.




CHAPTER TWELFTH

THE DISCOVERY


It was still early when Miss Sarah rolled up her work, saying her aunt
was not well and must not be left any longer alone.

After she had gone Miss Virginia moved about the drawing-room, pushing
chairs back into their places, changing by a few inches the position
of some ornament, and rearranging the folds of the curtains. Meanwhile
she was thinking that, in part at least, the problem that had been
weighing upon her was about to be solved. She had not felt so cheerful
in weeks.

At last she was to have a chance to redeem herself and silence that
troublesome conscience which continually reminded her she was shirking
her duty. Her relief was not unmixed, for at times she felt convicted
of disloyalty.

Ever since the episode of the spool of twist Caroline had been a
little disagreeable, though in an intangible way that hardly stood
analysis. Where Charlotte was concerned, Miss Virginia considered her
sister's severity extreme, and she had been hurt that her own protest
and plea of extenuating circumstances should have been so scornfully
dismissed. Now if events turned out as they promised, all would be
well again. If only she dared give Charlotte a hint. The child looked
pale and unhappy.

Could there be any harm in saying to her that something was about to
happen which would make everything right? Miss Virginia resolved to do
it. There could be no reasonable doubt as to what Caroline's decision
would be. She ran upstairs light-heartedly.

Charlotte's door was closed, perhaps she was already asleep. Softly
Miss Virginia turned the knob. The room was dark, except for the
outside electric light that threw a vivid shadow of the window-frame
and curtain on the opposite wall. She crossed the room to lower the
blind, and as she did so, discovered the bed was unoccupied.

[Illustration: SHE SANK INTO A CHAIR.]

With nervous haste she searched for the matches. Why did she tremble
so? It seemed an age till she found them. No, Charlotte was not
there; but how absurd to be alarmed, she must be somewhere in the
house. Mechanically Miss Virginia began to fold a ribbon that lay on
the dressing-table. Then her eye fell on a folded paper addressed to
herself. Scarcely able to breathe, she sank into a chair and opened
it. It was written in a large, schoolgirl hand.

        "DEAR AUNT VIRGINIA: I am going away to Uncle Landor.
        I am sorry to give you so much trouble. I am going to
        ask him to send me to boarding school, because I can't
        stand it any longer. I know how to go to Philadelphia,
        and I have money enough. I did not mean to be
        deceitful, but Miss Alex said I was, and that I was
        making you miserable, so I think I ought to go.

                            "Your niece,
                                    "CHARLOTTE CRESTON."

To Philadelphia--that child! Miss Virginia, who never travelled alone,
was overcome with the terror of it. What could she do? Was it too late
to stop her? Oh, for some one to help! She ran out into the hall, but
something checked her first impulse to call the servants. At what
hour did the evening train leave for the north? She hastened
downstairs for the paper.

"It is all my fault! all my fault!" she murmured to herself, as with
trembling hands she searched for the railroad column. It was too late;
the train must have left half an hour ago.

She must consult somebody. Surely, something could be done. Opening
the front door, she looked out into the night. A bright light shone
from the Russells' across the way. Forgetting to close the door behind
her, she hurried over the street and rang the bell.

She told the servant tremblingly that she wished to speak to Miss
Alex, who presently came to her in evident surprise.

"Why, Miss Virginia! Is anything the matter?"

"Oh, Alex, something dreadful has happened!" In her agitation it was
not possible to say more.

"Is any one ill?"

"No, it is Charlotte--she has gone!"

"Gone?" echoed Alex. "But do come in, Miss Virginia."

"I can't; I left the door open. I don't want people to know. Oh, Alex,
what shall I do?"

"I'll go back with you," said Alex. "I don't understand yet what has
happened. Where has Charlotte gone?"

Once inside her own door, Miss Virginia thrust Charlotte's note into
Alexina's hand. "What shall I do?" she cried. "That long journey
alone, and it is all my fault!"

"Don't say that; I am afraid it is partly mine. I was hard on her this
afternoon, but I didn't dream-- There must be some way to stop
her,--by telegraphing ahead, you know. I wonder-- It should be done at
once. The train left half an hour ago, you say?"

Miss Virginia nodded; words were beyond her.

And now into the drawing-room, where they stood in agitated
uncertainty, walked Miss Pennington, the shopkeeper. Her face was
flushed, her hair a little disordered by the wind, but she was
smiling, and somehow her presence seemed at once to relieve the
tension.

"Perhaps you can help me," cried poor Miss Virginia, hardly knowing
what she said.

"I am sure I can," answered the stranger, going to her and taking the
trembling hands in her own firm ones. "Are you worried about
Charlotte? If you are, I have come to tell you she is safe, and is not
going to Philadelphia to-night."

"You are sure? How do you know?" cried Miss Virginia, in bewilderment.

Alex drew near in surprise. She had not at first recognized Miss
Pennington.

"I'll tell you about it as quickly as I can, but you must sit down;"
and Norah drew her to a sofa, where, sitting beside her, she explained
that her friend, Miss Carpenter, had had occasion that night to go to
the station with her maid, whose nephew was to pass through the city
on his way to a western army post. In the waiting-room her attention
had been attracted by the efforts of a man to annoy a little girl.
Finally it became so marked, and the child seemed so alarmed, that
Miss Carpenter interfered, and appealed to a passing official. Then,
surprised that a girl of her appearance should be travelling alone at
night, she questioned her; and thoroughly frightened, Charlotte had
revealed the fact that she was running away.

"Miss Carpenter is a very decided person, and when she understood the
matter, would not let her go, but instead brought her home, where we
talked it over. I hope you won't think me very presuming when I say
that it seemed to us if there were any way of keeping it quiet, it
would be so much better. It was just the momentary rebellion of a
high-spirited girl. I know she is sorry now."

"Caroline need never know a thing about it," exclaimed Miss Virginia,
looking at Alex.

"I am sure that would be best. I'll never speak of it," answered Alex.

"Then I'll bring her over," said Norah, rising. "She is a good deal
excited, so I offered to come over and pave the way."

"You can tell her I will be as good to her--things are going to be
very different." Tears came into Miss Virginia's eyes.

"I am sure you are always good. I haven't the least doubt she was
naughty, but girls are very foolish sometimes." Norah looked at Alex
as if she might be expected to agree to this.

       *        *       *       *       *

A very pale, subdued Charlotte made her appearance soon after. There
was nobody to receive her but Aunt Virginia, who waited at the door.

Little was said that night. "We'll just pretend it never happened,
dear," Aunt Virginia said tearfully, as she took her into her arms and
kissed her. "You didn't know it, but your Aunt Caroline is going away
for the winter," she added. "It is a secret yet, but she is going very
soon; and I was thinking you and I would have such a good time, and
then--" They both fell to crying over this in a manner to suggest to
one unenlightened that a good time without Aunt Caroline would prove
but a dreary affair.

"I am so sorry, and I am going to be good," Charlotte whispered, when
her aunt came to tuck her in. "And oh, Aunt Virginia, they are lovely!
They were so good." This, of course, referred to the shopkeepers.

"I didn't thank Miss Pennington; I didn't say one word, so far as I
remember," exclaimed Miss Wilbur, "and she was certainly kind. I shall
have to go over and express my appreciation. Judging from her
appearance she is a charming young woman."




CHAPTER THIRTEENTH

AFTERWARD


The newly built fire crackled and blazed merrily, putting to rout what
little daylight sifted through the slats of the window-shutters. How
pleasant to lie there safe and warm! Charlotte hugged her pillow in
thankfulness.

Far from being the heroine she had imagined herself, she realized she
was only a foolish little girl. For once she felt the truth of that
objectionable phrase. The experience of the night before had subdued
her. She went all over it as she lay there, waiting for the rising
bell.

On her way to the station the persistent stare of a man who sat
opposite in the street-car made her uneasy; and when at the station,
after she had bought her ticket, he again appeared and attempted to
talk to her, even following her when she changed her seat, her
uneasiness became alarm.

The dreadful loneliness of that great station, with its hurrying
crowds, she would not soon forget. If it had been day, Charlotte was
sure she would have been braver. In her despair Miss Carpenter came to
her rescue. She recalled vividly how the young lady swept down upon
her tormentor, with blazing eyes, demanding imperiously what he meant
by annoying a little girl; and then Charlotte, clinging to the
friendly hand held out to her, had allowed herself to be led meekly
away. It was all over in a moment, and in a quiet corner out of the
crowd she was replying brokenly to the questions of her rescuer.

Why was it that under the serious gaze of those dark eyes all her
self-confidence and determination had oozed away? Miss Carpenter's
manner was kind, but her decision had been prompt and final. It seemed
to Charlotte no one could have resisted her.

"My child," she said, still holding Charlotte's hand, "you cannot take
such a journey alone. I cannot let you. Come home with me, where we
can talk it over. We'll find some way out of the trouble." And she
added: "You live on the corner of Pleasant Street and the Terrace,
don't you? I think I have seen you there. I am Miss Carpenter of the
shop."

In a sort of bewilderment Charlotte had submitted, and escorted by
Miss Carpenter and the elderly maid she rode back to the Terrace. And
that half-hour in the shop, where they found Miss Pennington
comfortably established by the fire with a book! Charlotte could still
feel the atmosphere of sympathy and reason that enveloped her as she
poured out her story to these strangers with all the pent-up
unhappiness of the past week. How gently they had pointed out that
running away would only add difficulties to the situation.

Her face grew hot now at the thought of how silly she must have seemed
to them. And she wished these young ladies to think well of
her,--which, of course, they never could do.

Aunt Virginia had been good, too. A wave of warm affection surged up
in Charlotte's heart, and with it a determination to be a comfort to
her after this. As she dressed, she wondered if she would ever again
be free from this dreadful feeling of shame. She hated to go down to
breakfast, even though Aunt Caroline did not know.

Later in the day Aunt Virginia called her into her room and closed
the door. There was a pretty flush on her face as she sat erect in an
arm-chair which, like the other furniture in the room, had been her
grandmother's. Beside her on a table was an old Bible with yellow
leaves, and some ancient books of devotion.

"I have been talking to your Aunt Caroline," Miss Wilbur began.

Charlotte started.

"I do not mean about last night. While I feel almost deceitful in
keeping it from her, I have decided to do it. As I told you, your Aunt
Georgiana is out of health and must go to California, and it seems
Caroline's duty to go with her. This will leave you in my charge. You
were really put in my charge at first, but I felt inexperienced and--"
Miss Virginia hesitated, then continued: "What I have been thinking is
this. I should like to try again, starting fresh and forgetting all
that has happened. I think if you would promise always to be frank
with me, and perhaps put up with some things that seem to you foolish
and old-fashioned notions, that we could get along together. I loved
your mother, and I want to love you and have your affection. But if
you cannot be happy, I will write to Mr. Landor and explain--"

"Aunt Virginia, I do love you. I don't want to go away. I am so sorry
about last night!" Charlotte buried her face in her aunt's lap.

"Don't cry, dear. It is all over, then, and we will forget it." Miss
Virginia caressed the brown head.

"But I am so ashamed. It hurts--I can't forget."

"Well, dear, perhaps you had some excuse. Caroline overlooked the fact
that you have lived an unusually independent life, and I think she did
not just understand how you felt about Lucile. I don't mean you were
right to go there, but-- Well, from now on you are my charge, and the
punishment is over. After this we'll try to understand and trust each
other."

"I am going to be good; you'll see," Charlotte whispered, her arms
about her aunt's neck.

She felt impatient to show Aunt Virginia she was really in earnest.
What could she do? As she dressed for the evening an idea occurred to
her. With many a pang she shook out her wavy brown hair and combed it
resolutely back from her face. It had always taken an absurd length of
time to arrange that drooping mass in just the proper manner, but
Lucile had commended her skill. It was much easier to brush it back in
a way to show how prettily it grew about her forehead, but Charlotte
really considered herself a fright as she tied a blue ribbon on her
long braid.

The change gave her rather a chastened look, combined as it was with a
timid self-consciousness when she entered the dining-room. Her aunts
surveyed her with evident astonishment.

"Well, Charlotte," Mrs. Millard remarked, affably, "you are really a
nice-looking little girl when you let yourself alone."

Aunt Virginia patted her hand and said nothing, but Charlotte felt
sure she understood.




CHAPTER FOURTEENTH

MRS. MILLARD DEPARTS


Relieved and thankful though Miss Virginia felt, and confident, too,
that she and Charlotte would now get on very well together, she still
had something on her mind. The feeling that she was concealing
something from her sister weighed upon her, but not so heavily as her
sense of obligation to the shopkeepers. In her agitation she had
hardly thanked Miss Pennington; and the more she considered it, the
more remarkable their kindness and thoughtfulness appeared. Would
Caroline call it officiousness?

Mrs. Millard had gone so far as to acknowledge the shopkeepers
_seemed_ to be persons of refinement, and their effort to make a
living was, of course, creditable; but she feared they did not quite
know their position. Perhaps they were from some small town, where
social distinctions were overlooked.

"Perhaps they are well born, but have lost their money and have to do
something," Miss Virginia suggested, thinking that the manners of the
young women in question were not in the least rustic.

Ignoring this her sister continued: "It is quite evident to my mind
that they are pushing. Why else should they have come into a
neighborhood like this, instead of going where they belong, among
other shops? They evidently hope for some social recognition, and this
is why I lay stress upon not giving them our patronage in any respect.
I see plainly they will leave no stone unturned to ingratiate
themselves."

Did this account for Charlotte's rescue? Miss Virginia shivered at the
thought. It had seemed to her the extreme of neighborly kindness. One
thing was certain,--Miss Carpenter had not invented the occasion. Had
she seized it in the hope of advancing her own interests? Miss
Virginia felt this was silly.

How friendly and helpful Miss Pennington had seemed! Could a
commonplace, pushing young woman have so won Miss Virginia's heart?
She lay awake at night thinking about it, wondering how she could
suitably express her gratitude and at the same time preserve a distant
dignity. In the silence and darkness all sorts of dreadful
possibilities floated through her mind. Perhaps these harmless-looking
young women were adventuresses, come into the neighborhood with some
deep scheme, and the attractive shop as a blind. They might be
burglars. One read of astonishing things done by women in these days.

Miss Virginia felt impatient over this new problem, and her irritation
caused a display of unusual spirit when her sister began to give her
parting instructions.

"You'd better send the drawing-room curtains to Lucinda in January,"
said that lady, thoughtfully, balancing her pencil above the pad on
her knee. "I have made a list--"

"It is quite unnecessary, Caroline," interrupted Miss Virginia; "I
kept house for a good many years without you, and you can't expect to
run things here while you are in California."

"It seems to me, Virginia, you use very unbecoming expressions. I have
no desire to _run things_; I only supposed you would be glad of a few
suggestions."

"I am sure I don't wish to be rude, but I will be frank and tell you,
Caroline, that I mean to do as I please while you are away."

Mrs. Millard gazed at her in surprise. "Why, Virginia, one would
suppose you had been a captive in chains! Very well, I wash my hands
of it all,--only," relapsing into a tone of pathetic reproach, "you do
such singular things at times, you know."

She was manifestly shaken by this declaration of independence, but she
was committed to her older sister. It was too late to change her
plans. She ventured one parting injunction. "Pray, Virginia, do not
patronize the shop. Let me beg of you, if you have any regard for me."

       *        *       *       *       *

In Mrs. Millard's sudden departure the Terrace naturally felt an
interest.

"So Caroline's going to leave us," Judge Russell remarked at the
breakfast table. "We shall be free to do as we please this winter.
I'll have that poplar set out in February."

"Aren't you ashamed, grandfather!" laughed Madelaine. "As if you had
not strength of mind to do as you like."

The judge smiled as he stirred his coffee. "Caroline is a forceful
woman; and then, too, she is generally right. It may be, as she says,
the tree will not grow, but I want to try it."

"I wonder she is willing to leave Virginia all the responsibility of
Charlotte. She is such a headstrong child, and so northern," said Mrs.
Russell.

"Now, mother," expostulated Alexina, "isn't that dreadfully narrow?"

"What harm is there in liking your own part of the country best?"
asked her sister.

"I did not mean any such thing," cried Alex. "I only insist that no
locality has the monopoly of nice people."

"But some peculiarities are northern and some are southern, and I
don't see that it is narrow to prefer one sort above the other,"
Madelaine persisted. "How can Mrs. Millard make up her mind to leave
the shop?" she continued. "Miss Sarah has gone over to the enemy, and
Alex is going."

"I don't understand about that shop," said her grandfather, not for
the first time, by any means. "I told you about that young lady who
so kindly picked up my books,--a most intelligent person, and as
pretty as--as Madelaine." This with a smile at his youngest
granddaughter.

"Here is another conversion," laughed Madelaine.

"I can't understand about the shop," the judge repeated.

"Why isn't keeping a shop just as respectable as teaching or keeping
boarders?" asked Alex. She had in truth been strongly attracted to
Miss Pennington that evening at Miss Wilbur's, and had a secret desire
to see more of her.

       *        *       *       *       *

Wayland Leigh brought the news of Mrs. Millard's proposed departure to
his two aunts. He had it from Madelaine Russell.

"I wish you could have such a trip, Sarah," said Mrs. Leigh. "It would
do you a world of good. As Aunt Nancy used to say, you are so thin you
have to stand up twice to cast a shadow."

"Caroline is going from a sense of duty, you may be sure. And what
would my boarders do while I was skylarking in California?" her niece
demanded. This was a mild joke, for the boarders had not as yet
materialized.

"I wish you would give up that idea, Aunt Sarah," growled Wayland.

"You agree with Mrs. Millard, I suppose. She thinks it involves the
whole Terrace in a downward step. But what am I to do? Caroline
assured me she could secure the position of matron at the Children's
Home for me, but what would you and Aunt Sally do then, poor things?"

"Oh, it is easy to laugh--" began Wayland.

"Is it? Then I wish you would favor us sometimes, my dear nephew."

"I was going to say," continued Wayland, with dignity, "that it was
easy to make fun of Mrs. Millard, but she is my idea of an elegant
woman."

"Far be it from me to deny Caroline's elegance. I am often proud to
know her. I believe there could be no emergency great enough to make
her say 'hello!' over the telephone, and I saw her on one occasion put
up her lorgnette when she answered a call."

"Now, Sarah," said Mrs. Leigh, laughing.

The two ladies talked on about neighborhood affairs, but Wayland paid
little heed, being absorbed in his own thoughts. He was in an
impatient and critical mood. What he considered his aunt's oddity
annoyed him. He wished she would dress like other people,--meaning
Mrs. Millard. He was twenty years old, and was working in a bank for
fifty dollars a month, with small chance of promotion. He had wished
to go to college,--not so much, however, as his aunt had wished it for
him,--but now this was overshadowed by the ambition to be rich. And
all for Madelaine. Sometimes he fiercely resolved that he _would_ be
rich; and again he lost heart at the thought that lovely, dainty
Madelaine was certain to find another palace long before his was
built. Her frank worldliness did not weaken his adoration, strange to
say.




CHAPTER FIFTEENTH

GIANT DESPAIR


"Miss Norah, I am afraid Miss Marion is falling back." Susanna stood
in the doorway, a tea towel in one hand, a cup in the other.

Norah, who was putting in order certain shelves before the day's work
began, asked, "Why do you think so, Susanna?"

"Well, Miss Norah, I caught her walking around the house with her eyes
shut, feeling her way like she was trying to get used to it." Susanna
advanced and spoke in a whisper, "And she hasn't had a smile for
anybody this last day or two. Haven't you noticed it?"

"To tell the truth, I have, Susanna; but, after all, it is not
unnatural. The excitement of getting settled and beginning work made
her forget, and now the novelty is wearing off she has, as you say,
slipped back. All this rain and fog is in itself depressing. Don't
worry, Susanna. Hasn't everything I promised you come true up till
now?"

"I suppose so, Miss Norah," was the reluctant answer.

"Then don't worry, and I'll let you keep shop this afternoon."

Where the shop was concerned, Susanna was like a child; and nothing
pleased her more than to be left in charge for an hour or so. Her own
domain, the three bedrooms, dining room, and kitchen, she kept in
spotless order, creating the daintiest repasts as if by magic, and
seeming always to have time to spare.

She went back to her dishes, and Norah worked away with a thoughtful
frown. Presently Marion entered and dropped into a chair with a weary
sigh. "It is a horrid day," she said.

"There is a bit of blue in the west; by afternoon it may be pleasant,"
Norah responded.

When one is immersed in gloom, the sight of determined cheerfulness is
irritating. So Marion found it.

"The air is so heavy one can hardly breathe," she went on. "I believe
I'll let Susanna attend to the plants; I am tired."

"I have time to do it," said Norah, closing the door of the case.

Marion rose impatiently. "You shall not touch them. If Susanna cannot
do them, I will."

"Susanna would cut off her hand if you asked it; but I know she has
more than usual to do this morning, and we agreed the shop was to be
our part. I am not in the least tired. Please, Marion!" Norah stood
between her and the door.

"Very well. I shall attend to it myself," and Marion swept by her.

"O dear!" sighed Norah, "I feel like a tyrant; but she must not give
up."

Marion returned presently and began washing the palms and clipping
away the dead leaves. She worked listlessly, her face wore an
expression of deep melancholy.

A diversion was created by the entrance of James Mandeville. He had
been kept in several days by a cold, and the joy of release radiated
from his small person.

"Mammy says she reckons the sun's going to shine by and by, so she let
me come," he announced.

"Mammy and I are of the same opinion, then," said Norah, helping him
off with his coat. "Can't you think of something to cheer Miss Marion?
She is very tired of this rainy weather."

"I'll sing her a song, that's what I'll do," James Mandeville cried
eagerly. "You wait."

He disappeared into the next room, where presently his voice was heard
uplifted in "Onward, Christian Soldiers," and if the tune was a trifle
uncertain, nothing was lacking in spirit. Through the open door he
marched, holding the morning paper before him, and proceeding the
length of the shop.

        "One in hope of _doctor_, one in _cherry tree_,"

he proclaimed lustily.

Even Marion must smile a little at this.

"It is beautiful," said Norah, "though I don't quite understand it. I
seem to feel a sort of connection between the doctor and the cherry
tree, too."

"There's a heap more of verses," James Mandeville assured her. "Do you
feel better?" This to Marion.

Who could resist? She laughed as she drew him to her and kissed him.
"I am cross this morning, and you are a nice boy to sing for me. I
make life very hard for Miss Norah. Suppose you go tell her I am
sorry."

James Mandeville trotted off obediently to find Norah, who had left
the room a moment before. Marion, having finished with the plants, was
absently looking out of the window when the door opened with a jerk
and some one bounced into the shop. Turning with a start, she
recognized the personage Norah called Giant Despair.

"What do you mean?--" he began, then paused and stared about in
bewilderment. "Where am I?" he demanded; and as Marion advanced he
removed his hat, displaying a massive head covered with shaggy gray
hair.

"We call this the Pleasant Street Shop," she answered.

"See here--I thought it was the plumber's. I am getting so blind I
shall soon have to be led around. So you call this a shop? Does it
belong to you? For I can tell you now you have made a mistake in
coming here." His voice was gruff, and as he spoke he peered this way
and that, as if to get some idea of his surroundings.

"If we can't make a success here, we will go elsewhere, but we are
doing very well," Marion said, "The plumber is on the next block."

"I know that now. I am not losing my mind as well as my sight."

Something impelled Marion to say, "I am sorry about your eyes. Can't
something be done?"

"Sorry? How can you be sorry? Nobody knows anything about it who
hasn't tried it."

"I have lived in constant fear of blindness for a year." Marion seldom
spoke of her eyes, but the sight of trouble like her own broke down
her usual reticence.

The old man softened. "You have? A young thing like you?" He peered at
her in his intent way. "I guess you have grit," he said.

"Not much," she answered. "But my eyes are better, they tell me. Time
will show. Can't something be done for yours?"

"Oh, yes, they are going to operate on the right one in the spring,
but it is not likely to do any good; and then I shall have just half
an eye left."

Norah and James Mandeville now entered unobserved.

"I have got to row up that plumber," Giant Despair continued, looking
at his hat. "As I told you, I don't approve of a shop in this
neighborhood, but I don't see anything that looks like one. Good day,"
and with a grim smile he went out more quietly than he had entered.

"Who would ever have expected a visit from Gi