Ailsa

“ Ailsa Paige arose in wrath and stretched out a warning arm among her leafless roses; but Camilla placed both hands on the fence top and leaned swiftly down from the veranda steps,
"Forgive me, dear," she said penitently. "I was only trying to torment you. Kiss me and make up. I know you too well to believe that you could care for a man of that kind."
Ailsa's face was very serious, but she lifted herself on tiptoe and they exchanged an amicable salute across the fence. ”

“ One of my first thoughts, when the decision was finally made and I was appointed, was, 'Perhaps I shall come across Peter Carew's son.'"
Ailsa rested her elbow on the table and leaned her head on her hand, still with the glisten of tears in her eyes. "It makes one feel there is surely a Providence," she told him softly, "for my chance meeting with you may save him, and that other, from everlasting regret." ”

“ Paige and Marye, astonished, watched her without a word. Ailsa stood with one hand resting on the mantel, a trifle pale but also silent, her startled eyes following this new incarnation wearing the familiar shape of Celia Craig.
"Ailsa!"
"Yes, dear."
"Can you think evil of a people who po' out their hearts in prayer and praise? Do traitors importune fo' blessings?"
She turned nervously to the piano and struck a ringing chord, another—and dropped to the chair, head bowed on her slim childish neck. ”

“ But she remained coldly aloof, controlling even a shiver of astonishment when Colonel Arran's hand, which held hers, groped also for Berkley's, and found it.
Then with an effort he turned his head and looked at them.
"I have long known that you loved each other," he whispered. "It is a happiness that God sends me as well as you. If it be His will that I—do not recover, this makes it easy for me. If He wills it that I live, then, in His infinite mercy, He also gives me the reason for living."
Icy cold, Ailsa's hand lay there, limply touching Berkley's; the sick man's eyes were upon them. ”

“ And every figure in uniform thrilled the girl with suppressed excitement and pride.
Berkley, eyeing them askance, began blandly:
"Citizens of martial minds,
Uniforms of wondrous kinds,
Wonderful the sights we see—
Ailsa, you'll agree with me."
"Are you utterly without human feeling?" she demanded. "Because, if you are, there isn't the slightest use of my pretending to be civil to you any longer." ”

“ I should make you a kind and faithful husband, Ailsa. Every day I have come to love you more, and if I am sometimes harsh and rough it is simply because my life has had no softening influence. I am a business man, and that in this country means a wolf running with the pack. The slightest sign of weakness, and one is down for the others to rip and tear. Come, Ailsa——”
He reached for her hand, but the girl drew back, frightened, yet fascinated. Against her knee she felt a low vibration as Mac crowded close, his hackles lifting slightly, and his pale eyes fixed on David. ”

“ Besides, who in Carrick would harm a maid going homeward from her love-tryst?'
The Dominie rose and walked away to the other side of the Rock of Ailsa, where for long he sat by himself and fingered the necklace of beads. His face was fixed, as if he were making of the rosary a very catena of hate, a receptacle of dark imaginings and vengeful vows. Scarcely could I recognise my quaint and friendly Dominie.
It was that night, as the blackness grew grey towards the morn, that I yielded my watch upon the roof of the little Castle of Ailsa to the Dominie. ”

“ Camilla yawned again, rose, and, arranging her spreading white skirts, seated herself on her veranda steps in full sunshine.
"We did have a nice party, didn't we, Ailsa?" she said, leaning a little sideways so that she could see over the fence and down into the Craig's backyard garden.
"I had such a good time," responded Ailsa, looking up radiantly.
"So did I. Billy Cortlandt is the most divine dancer. Isn't
Evelyn Estcourt pretty?"
"She is growing up to be very beautiful some day. Stephen paid her a great deal of attention. Did you notice it?" ”

“ And Camilla's pale face was pressed against her hot cheeks and the girl's black sleeve of crape encircled her neck.
She whispered: "I—I try to think it reconciles me to losing Jimmy.
. . . War gave me Stephen. . . . Yet—oh, I cannot understand why
God's way must sometimes be the way of battle!"
Ailsa saw and heard and understood, yet, all around her fell an unreal light—a terrible fiery radiance, making voices the voices, of phantoms, forms the outlines of ghosts. ”

“ All of which painfully mortified the two young nurses of Sainte Ursula, especially when passing the fashionably-dressed throng gathered in front of the Willard and promenading Lafayette Square.
"Oh, dear," said Ailsa, "I suppose he's only a boy, but I didn't know soldiers were permitted to be so impudent. What on earth do all these people think of us?" ”

“ Ailsa remained standing by the window, looking steadily at nothing, a burning sensation in both cheeks.
At intervals, through the intensity of her silence, she heard Celia's fresh, sweet laughter, and Berkley's humorous and engaging voice. She glanced sideways at the back of his dark curly head where it bent beside Celia's over the album. What an insolently reckless head it was! She thought that she had never before seen the back of any man's head so significant of character—or the want of it. ”

“ Ailsa knew that they liked and admired her, and as she paused, her foot half in her shoe, and thought of the consternation that she was presently to cause, her heart almost failed her, and she wished that she had yielded to her first impulse, and fled to the refuge of her relative's house immediately on leaving the head of the family. ”

“ But Miss Ailsa, with a spirit and independence that challenged her father’s, here suddenly fluttered between them with sparkling eyes and outstretched hands.
“And ye’ll say to him from me that a more honorable, noble, and generous man, and a kinder, truer, and better friend than he, cannot be found anywhere! And that the foolishest and most extravagant thing he ever did is better than the wisest and most prudent thing that anybody else ever did, could, or would do! ”

“ Ailsa standing by the window, watching the orioles in the maple, could no longer distinguish what they were saying.
He said: "You were bridesmaid to my mother. You are the Celia
Paige of her letters."
"She is always Connie Berkley to me. I loved no woman better. I love her still." ”

“ Of all his nurses, Kenric loved best that Ailsa should thus come to him, for she was as a very gentle and sweet sister, and never did the Gaelic words sound so musical as when spoken by her rosy lips; never did sunlight shine more brightly than the light that shone in her beautiful eyes. ”

“ Ailsa Craig, like thousands of her sisters, tore the red-white-and-blue rosette from her breast and flung it down among the bayonets with a tremulous little cheer.
Everywhere the crowd was breaking into the street; citizens marched with their hands on the shoulders of the soldiers; old gentlemen toddled along beside strapping sons; brothers passed arms around brothers; here and there a mother hung to the chevroned sleeve of son or husband who was striving to see ahead through blurring eyes ”

“ I won't let you become morbid. Think of your beautiful watch! Think of dear Dr. Benton." "I—I am," gasped Letty, and fell to crying again until she sobbed herself to sleep in Ailsa's tired arms.
Supper was spread in Dr. West's private office; Hallam had obtained leave, and Ailsa expected him; Colonel Arran was in Washington and could not come, but the company was to be a small one at best—Ailsa, Letty Lynden, Dr. West, Dr. Hammond, and Hallam were all who had been expected for Christmas Eve supper. ”

“ Craig," said Ailsa.
"I don't believe it," he said. "You haven't grown-up children!"
"Don't you really believe it, Mr. Berkley? Or is it just the flattering Irish in you that natters us poor women to our destruction?"
He had sense and wit enough to pay her a quick and really graceful compliment; to which she responded, still laughing:
"Oh, it is the Ormond in you! I am truly ve'y glad you came. You are Constance Berkley's son—Connie Berkley! The sweetest girl that ever lived."
There was a silence. Then Mrs. Craig said gently:
"I was her maid of honour, Mr. Berkley." ”

“ He was a much faster worker than the girl, though lacking in her truer sense of color and draftsmanship, and it was always Ailsa who pulled the picture together in the end, giving it the magic touch of life and motion that raised their joint production so far above others of the same character, and made of what might otherwise have been a blot upon the fair face of nature something that pleasantly attracted and held the eye of the casual observer. ”

“ Doubtless his girl wife had told him how the boy had come to be there, and that she had banished him; but the clash between maturity and adolescence is always inevitable; the misunderstanding between ripe experience and Northern logic, and emotional inexperience and Southern impulse was certain to end in disaster.
Ailsa considered; and she knew that now her brief for Colonel Arran was finished, for beyond the abstract right she had no sympathy with the punishment he had dealt out, even though his conscience and civilisation and the law of the land demanded the punishment of these erring' ones. ”

“ Meryl's face had in it something too strong and too distinctive for actual beauty; and yet Ailsa thought of all the lovely women she had ever seen none were quite so attractive. And because she was a tender-hearted woman, the thought crossed her mind to wonder if perhaps, out of the dark shadow that she knew hung ever over Peter Carew's life, there might yet be a way of escape; a gracious healing, and a final joy. Could two such humans meet and not love? Could anything truly separate them if once the love were born? ”

“ The tourists crossed to Ireland for a short trip, and after returning to Scotland, made their way into Ayrshire, entering it a little beyond Cairn. Their walk led them into a long wooded glen. 'At the end,' writes Keats, July 10, 1818, 'we had a gradual ascent and got among the tops of the mountains whence in a little time I descried in the Sea Ailsa Rock, 940 feet high—it was 15 Miles distant and seemed close upon us. The effect of Ailsa with the peculiar perspective of the Sea in connection with the ground we stood on, and the misty rain then falling gave me a complete Idea of a deluge. ”

“ Ailsa was in the backyard garden, a trowel in her hand, industriously loosening the earth around the prairie roses.
"Camilla," she said, looking up from where she was kneeling among the shrubs, "what was it you said this morning about Mr. Berkley being some unpleasant kind of man?"
"How funny," laughed Camilla. "You asked me that twice before."
"Did I? I forgot," said Mrs. Paige with a shrug; and, bending over again, became exceedingly busy with her trowel until the fire in her cheeks had cooled.
"Every woman that ever saw him becomes infatuated with Phil Berkley," said Camilla cheerfully. ”

“ Ailsa liked his laugh. It was boyish and merry, and showed a double row of very nice white teeth.
“Is that a joke?” he asked.
“Not at all,” she protested. “I should much rather be a sign painter than a nursery governess. One is more free and independent, and lives out in the open air. Besides, I like to paint—and really I'm not half bad at it.”
“You can paint better than I,” he answered, and stared at her thoughtfully. “It's rather hard work; but, after all, you have the rainy days to rest up.”
“On rainy days one could make sketches and block them out to enlarge to scale,” said Ailsa. ”

“ Ailsa and Letty had worked slippers for the two doctors, greatly appreciated by them, apparently; Hallam had some embroidered handkerchiefs from Ailsa, and she received a chain and locket from him—and refrained from opening the locket, although everybody already had surmised that their engagement was a fact.
Letty sent an orderly for her guitar, and sang very sweetly an old-fashioned song:
"When the moonlight
Shines bright
Silvery bright on the sea."
Ailsa sang "Aileen Aroon," and "Oft in the Stilly Night," and everybody, later, sang "The Poor Old Soldier." ”

“ Berkley stared out of the window at a confused and indistinct mass of waggons and tents and moving men, but the light was still too dim to distinguish uniforms; and presently Celia leaned forward and drew the curtains.
Then she turned and took Berkley's hands in hers.
"Phil, dear," she said softly, "I suspect how it is with you and
Ailsa. Am I indiscreet to speak befo' you give me any warrant?"
He said nothing.
"The child certainly is in love with you. A blind woman could divine that," continued Celia wistfully. ”

“ Try to get some sleep, Letty. You're tremendously pretty when you've had plenty of sleep."
They both laughed; then she went indoors and he turned away across the road, under the windows of the ward where Ailsa was on duty, and so around to his store-room dwelling-place, where he sat down on the cot amid the piles of boxes and drew from his pocket the crumpled sheets of the letter that Ailsa had given him. ”

“ Honey-bud, you are all rose colour to-day," said Celia Craig, smiling; and, on impulse, unpinned the pink-and-white cameo from her own throat and fastened it to Ailsa's breast.
"I reckon I'll slip on a gay gown myse'f," she added mischievously. "I certainly am becoming ve'y tired of leaving the field to my sister-in-law, and my schoolgirl daughters."
"Does anybody ever look at us after you come into a room?" asked Ailsa, laughing; and, turning impulsively, she pressed Celia's pretty hands flat together and kissed them. "You darling," she said. ”