Annie F. Johnston

“ It was a long time before I could recognize him in the disguise of a poor country doctor. But I think we are apt to be that way about most things in life, my dear. Familiarity disguises the real worth of most of our blessings. We don't appreciate them till we are forced to miss them for awhile."
"But what finally showed you?" persisted Lloyd. "What made you see through the disguise?"
"Oh, my dear," laughed Mrs. Shelby again. "I couldn't explain a thing like that! How do these moon-flowers know what calls them to open, or the tide when it is time to rise? They feel it, I suppose. ”

“ The three sat on the broad white-pillared porch in the moonlight, Lloyd on the step at her father's feet, her arm on his knee. Ever since the telephone message her thoughts had been in a tumult. It was useless for her to pretend that she didn't know why Leland wanted to see her alone, and what it was he was coming to tell her. She was glad and sorry and half frightened and altogether confused. "He isn't the prince at all," she kept saying to herself as if it were a charm that would help her ward off his approach and keep her true to her Hildegarde promise. ”

“ Probably it was because he wore a moustache, while Rob and Malcolm and Alex and Ranald were all smooth-shaven. Maybe it was that same black moustache, with the gleam of white teeth and the flashing glance of his black eyes that gave him that dashing cavalier sort of look. How wonderfully his dark face lighted up when he smiled, and how distinctly one recalled it when he had passed on. And yet it wasn't a handsome face. She wondered wherein lay its charm.
Gay's words recurred to her: "So fiery and impetuous he would ride rough-shod over anything that stood in his way to get what he wants." ”

“ He was so accustomed to being washed and brushed and dressed that he made no objection to what most children of that age consider an unnecessary process, and when Lloyd went about it with unpractised fingers, he gravely corrected her mistakes, and laughed when she made a play of the buttonholes being hungry mouths, that swallowed the buttons in a hurry. Never in her life had she exerted herself so much to be entertaining, for she wanted to take him away without a scene. She wanted, too, for him to look his best, that he might win his own way at The Locusts. ”

“ It was the picture of a rose garden, every bush a glory of bloom, and in the path, her pink dress caught by a clinging brier, was Kitty herself like another rose, looking down over her shoulder at the bramble which held her a prisoner in its thorny clasp.
"It is to illustrate a fairy-tale," explained Miss Marks. "When naughty Esmerelda runs away from the good prince, everything in the garden is in league to help him, and Brier Rose catches at her skirts as she hurries by, and holds her fast." ”

“ It was a sweet flower-starred way, and Lloyd, bubbling over with the spirit of the hour, began to hum a happy little tune. Suddenly she stopped short in the path, turning her head slightly with the alert motion of a young fawn.
"What is it that smells so delicious?" she demanded. "It's almost heavenly, it's so sweet." Then after another long indrawn breath, "I'd think it was lilies-of-the-valley if it were any place but out heah on the edge of the wood-lot. They couldn't be way out heah. It must be some rare kind of wild flowah we've nevah discovered." ”

“ The beginning of Lent was the end of all the social gaieties and most of the girls who had flittered through the season with Lloyd fluttered away like a bevy of scattered butterflies to various resorts on the Florida coast. Kitty departed to make her long-talked-of visit to Gay in San Antonio, Katie Mallard went with an invalid aunt to Biloxi, and Lloyd came back to the country. She was almost as much alone as she had been that winter when she had not been allowed to return to Warwick Hall after the Christmas vacation. ”

“ Then the knocker on the front door was lifted and a hollow clang echoed through the hall.
"Burglars don't knock," said Lloyd with a sigh of relief. "Let's all go to the doah togethah and ask who's there. We needn't open it."
"No, don't!" begged Gay, almost in tears. "It's just like that awful story Kitty started to tell—the knock at the door, the lone woman's voice answering, and the burglar forcing his way over the transom! Our only safety is in keeping perfectly still. If worst comes to worst, then I'll make them think there's a man in the house, but I won't do it till I'm driven to it." ”

“ Here one eats it in a sort of solemn joy."
"It's the spell of the June woods," suggested Miss Marks.
"No, it's youth in the blood," said Leland. "All the Junes in the world and all outdoors wouldn't make a half-baked potato fit for the gods unless one has 'the sun and the wind in his pulses.'"
"No," insisted Gay. "It can't be that, for Jameson isn't much older than you, and he despises prowling around in the woods, as he calls it. ”

“ A father that he can never be proud of! A father that will be only a disgrace to him! Oh, why didn't somebody warn me that it was not only a husband I was choosing but my little Wardo's father! Nobody ever told me that, and I was so young I never thought of any one but myself. And now the poor little innocent soul will have to suffer for it all his life long!"
She was throwing herself about so wildly that Lloyd was frightened, and rose from her chair to call one of the neighbours. But she could not break away. Ida caught at her dress and held her fast in her frenzied clasp. ”

“ Behind its protecting screen she watched the old couple keenly, when the doctor arrived. They had eyes for nothing but Lloyd, and their gaze followed her tenderly wherever she went.
"They're just daffy about her," thought Gay. "It's plain to be seen they'd give anything in the world to get her into the family. I hope Doctor Alex won't come in time to be photographed with her. If he'd never fallen in love with her before he'd have to do it now. He couldn't help himself when she looks like that, and then where would all my plans be for poor Leland?" ”

“ Lloyd stole a quick glance at him to see if he were in earnest. The light tone seemed almost mocking, but the half-closed eyes gazing out across the lawn were serious enough, and she studied her reply a moment, feeling that maybe her opportunity had come at last.
"I think," she began timidly, "that the man who gets the most out of life is the one who makes most of himself—who starts out as they did in the old days to win his spurs and his accolade. ”

“ Crossing the room she seated herself under one of the silver sconces in the chimney corner, so that the candlelight fell on the paper. She had never relinquished the idea that came to her on her return from school that Rob was growing especially fond of Betty. It seemed to her such a desirable state of affairs that she longed to deepen his interest in her.
"I am not being carried to the skies on flowery beds of ease, by any manner of means," wrote Betty. "Life at Warwick Hall as a pupil is one thing. It is quite another to be a teacher. ”

“ He walked along beside her, saying little, but with the same air of repressed eagerness that the whole April day seemed to share, as if like the locusts, he too was conscious of some inner wealth of bloom, some secret happiness whose time for sharing with the spring had not yet come. Once when he answered her enthusiastic discovery of a snowdrop with only an absent-minded monosyllable, she glanced up at him curiously. ”

“ As Lloyd looked up the avenue, and saw the lights from many windows streaming out across the white-pillared porch into the winter night, her gay mood suddenly changed to one of intense feeling.
"Isn't it deah?" she said in a low voice. "I [253] nevah had it come ovah me so overwhelmingly, how good it is to come back to the things that nevah change—that nevah fail! The home-lights and the home-loves, the same old trees and the same old sta'hs and the same old chum!"
Rob made no answer, but his silence was only another proof to Lloyd that she had found her old chum unchanged. ”

“ Again it was Gay who spoke first.
"Doesn't it seem queer to think of Allison's being engaged? It is such a little while since we were all school girls together. Nobody knows whose turn will come next. It makes me feel like a soldier on a battle field—comrades being shot down all around you right and left and you never knowing how soon it'll be your turn to fall. It's awful! Lloyd, what's become of that boy out in Arizona, the one who sent you those orange-blossoms in Joyce's letter when I was here before? He was best man at Eugenia Forbes' wedding." ”

“ I was so interested I hadn't a thought for anything but the story."
"Such appreciation is a thousand times better than salad," laughed Betty, so jubilant over her triumph that her eyes were full of a happy light. "This is a good place to stop until after dinner. I've read until my throat is tired."
Lucy hurried down stairs to hasten the dinner preparations, in order that they might get back to the reading as soon as possible. The four girls folded their work, and sat in the twilight, talking.
"What does this make you think of?" asked Lloyd.
"I know what's in your mind," answered Kitty. ”

“ Again she opened the little red book-case above the back pew, that held the remnants of a scattered Sunday-school library. The queer musty smell of the time-yellowed volumes floated out to her as strong as ever, mingling with the warm spicy scent of pinks and cedar, from the graveyard just outside the open window.
Those tattered books, read in secret to Davy on sunny summer afternoons, had been the first voices to whisper to her that she too was destined to leave a record behind her. And now that she had done it, they seemed to call her back to that starting place. ”

“ Then Gay laid it solemnly beside the silver heirlooms as one of the things "to be carried out first in case of fire."
"Three o'clock and all is well," called Kitty as the chime on the stair began its warning. "The deed is done and all the omens are auspicious."
"That will be a scene to remember always," thought Betty gratefully, looking around at the four pretty girls in the candlelight, as they made a ceremony of the launching of her little ship, their faces filled with loving interest. ”

“ With her days shadowed by anxiety over Ida's illness, the care and responsibility of Wardo and her sympathy for Betty's disappointment, Lloyd still found one bright spot, untouched by other people's troubles. If, like the old sun-dial at Warwick Hall, she had taken for her motto: "I only mark the hours that shine," those hours when Leland Harcourt came to teach her Spanish were the ones that would have been numbered. ”

“ The view I've had of it through my Hildegarde mirror. The knights have come riding, lots of them, and maybe among them I might have found my prince in disguise, but the shadows of the world blurred everything. Out heah in the country I'd grown up believing that it's a kind, honest old world. I'd seen only its good side. I took my conception of married life from mothah and Papa Jack, Doctah Shelby and Aunt Alicia, and yoah fathah and mothah. They made me think that marriage is a great strong sanctuary, built on a rock that no storm can hurt and no trouble move. ”

“ SPANISH LESSONS
The Harcourt carriage swung rapidly along the road, for the Little Colonel held the reins, and was testing the speed of the new horses, just sent down from Lexington.
"Isn't it glorious?" she cried, with a quick glance over her shoulder at Gay and Miss Marks on the back seat. "It's like flying, the way they take us through the air, and they're the best matched team in the country."
Leland, on the seat beside her, watched with growing admiration her expert handling of the horses, and Gay watched him. ”

“ The first of September Betty went away with Elise Walton under her wing, happy in the fact that she was to enter Freshman at Warwick Hall, where the older girls had had such glorious times. The next day the Harcourts closed the Cabin and went back to San Antonio. Gay spent her last night in the Valley at The Locusts, and there were more bed-time confidences before they fell asleep, long after midnight.
"Seems as if the end of the summah brings the end of everything," sighed Lloyd regretfully.
"It's more like the beginning of everything for you," contradicted Gay. ”

“ She called Lucy "Ephraim joined to his idols," because she would not put down the pitcher and ladle even while she crawled through the barb wire fence. They had cut across lots in the twilight, instead of going around by the road, not wanting to be seen with a load which looked so much like burglar's booty.
"If Leland only could have been with us then!" thought Gay regretfully. "And the night before that when we had such a jolly time with the taffy and the duets. He would have been on a real friendly footing with them all by this time. But he's beginning to find it dull. I know he is. ”