The abandoned farm, and Connie's mistake

by Mary Jane Holmes

CONTENTS

PART I
The Abandoned Farm
CHAPTER		PAGE
I.	Alex. Marsh	[9]
II.	Alex.’s Letters	[16]
III.	Alex. and the Pledgers	[23]
IV.	The Abandoned Farm	[31]
V.	Sherry	[39]
VI.	The Interview	[48]
VII.	Maplehurst	[57]
VIII.	The Arrival	[65]
IX.	The First Evening at Maplehurst	[75]
X.	The Cedar Chest	[87]
XI.	The Fancy Dance	[97]
XII.	The Somnambulist	[112]
XIII.	Finding the Wrong	[130]
XIV.	Righting the Wrong	[141]
PART II
Connie’s Mistake
I.	The 4 Corners	[153]
II.	Kenneth and Harry	[160]
III.	Expecting Connie	[170]
IV.	Connie	[179]
V.	Connie’s Christmas	[187]
VI.	The Morrises	[199]
VII.	Good-bye	[209]
VIII.	After Many Years	[216]
IX.	The House Party	[224]
X.	At Interlaken	[243]
XI.	Connie’s Arrival	[255]
XII.	Connie’s Illness	[260]
XIII.	Connie’s Secret	[270]
XIV.	Mrs. Harry Morris	[278]
XV.	The Photograph	[286]
XVI.	Kenneth and Harry	[293]
XVII.	Life and Death	[306]
XVIII.	Winding Up	[313]

The Abandoned Farm

CHAPTER I
ALEX. MARSH

Breakfast was late at the Marsh’s. It was usually late, and this morning it was later than usual. Alex. Marsh, his sister Amy and cousin Ruth had been to the opera the night before, and to Delmonico’s after it was over, so that it was one o’clock before they were home and in bed. And it was much later before Alex. was asleep. He did not care for operas, or music of any kind; a good play suited him better, and he had only gone to escort his sister and cousin and their friend, Miss Ross. Opera music had no charm for him, and he was feeling bored and wishing he was at home, and was listlessly looking over the house and counting the familiar faces by way of passing the time, when his attention was attracted to a box opposite the one in which he was sitting. It was occupied by a plain, old-fashioned looking couple, whom he had sometimes seen in the park, driving in a turnout as plain and old-fashioned as they were,—a covered buggy, with the top thrown back, and a white horse minus a check rein, and sporting a tail such as nature intended a horse to have, instead of a short stub, telling of cruel pain in the past and inconvenience when flies and gnats are clamoring for horse flesh. The couple seemed out of place in the park, and they seemed quite as much out of place in this box, whose price for an evening Alex. knew.

“I wonder who the old duffers are and if they enjoy this sort of thing,” he was thinking, when a young girl came hurrying in and changed the aspect of the “duffers” at once.

It would seem as if she had dropped something and stepped back to find it, for she held towards the woman a light, thin scarf with a smile and a nod, then, winding it around her neck, she sat down and began to look about her with an eagerness and curiosity which made Alex. think she was new to operas and probably to the city.

“Some country cousin, I dare say,” he thought, as he watched her, fascinated by her fresh, young face, which one moment he decided was only rather pretty, and the next thought beautiful, with the smiles and dimples and bright brown eyes, which seemed to be taking in everything and to be delighted with it. The ladies in his box were in evening dress, too low in the neck and too high on the arms to suit his ideas. “I’ll speak to Amy and have her piece her gown up and down both before she wears it again,” he thought, as he looked at her, and then turned a second time to the girl.

Her dress was of some dark stuff, high necked and long sleeved, with nothing airy or festive about it except the light lace scarf she had knotted around her neck. But there was something about her which attracted him, and he watched her all through the first act, of which he did not hear a word; and saw her evident pleasure in and appreciation of what seemed to him so tiresome. How could she be pleased with that screeching and the talk which no sane people ever talked in real life. Amy and Ruth pretended to be delighted with that sort of thing, but he fancied it was a good deal of pretence, because it was fashionable. And yet this girl evidently liked it, and her face shone and her eyes sparkled, and her dimples came and went, while he looked at her through his glass, bringing her so close to him that he could see how fair she was without powder, such as Amy and his mother kept on their toilet tables. She did not glance at him, but kept her eyes upon the stage, turning but once to the woman beside her, who was nodding in her chair.

“Good, sensible old lady! I’d like to go to sleep myself,” he thought, as he saw the laugh on the girl’s face, and the hand she laid on the arm of the sleeping woman, who started up, and, bracing herself stiff and straight, gave her attention to the play until the close of the first act, when there came a diversion which nearly startled Alex. from his seat.

“By all the saints, if there isn’t Craig Saltus shaking hands with the duffers, and,—yes,—with the girl, too!” he said, under his breath, as a young man entered the opposite box and, after greeting its occupants, sat down by the girl and began talking to her as if he had known her all his life, while she did not seem in the least elated because one of the most fastidious young men in New York was beside her. Money, family, polished manners and an unspotted reputation,—all belonged to Craig Saltus, who had but one drawback. A fall when a child had resulted in a lameness which debarred him from most of the amusements in which young men delight. He could not ride,—he could not row,—he could not dance,—and at evening entertainments, which he rarely attended, he was obliged either to stand, which was rather painful, if he stood any length of time, or sit beside some dowager listening to her tiresome talk. And yet, cripple as he was, he could have his choice of almost any girl of his acquaintance; and he knew it, but treated them all alike, with a courteous attention which meant nothing. And here he was with these plain people, staying through the second act and looking more at the girl than at the actors, until Alex., forgetting his own delinquencies in that direction, began to be vexed and wonder why, when a fellow came to the opera, he didn’t feel enough interest to pay attention to it, and not be watching an unsophisticated girl to see how she took it.

When the curtain went down a second time, Craig rose and, shaking hands again with the “duffers” and the girl, left them, and a few moments later appeared at the entrance of the box where the Marshes were sitting. Instantly there was a flutter of excitement among the ladies, who had failed to see him in the opposite box. Amy, who had her own views with regard to him and did not think his lameness a very great drawback when pitted against his millions and position, was delighted to meet him, and asked where he had kept himself that they had seen so little of him recently.

“I have been in the country, where mother and Rose stayed later than usual,—it is so delightful there when the leaves begin to change,” he replied, adding: “We only came to town yesterday, and to-morrow morning we are off for Europe on the Etruria, which sails so early that we must be on board to-night. How long we shall stay abroad is uncertain. It will depend on mother’s health. We go for her. And now I must say good-by, as I have other calls to make.”

He turned to go, when Alex. detained him a moment.

“Who were the people you were with just now,—the old couple and the girl?”

Amy and Ruth were both talking to Craig, who answered, hurriedly and very low:

“Why, don’t you know Joel Pledger and his wife? I thought everybody knew him. The girl is their grand-niece, come to see the city for a few days;—beautiful, isn’t she?—and now I really must go. Good-by again.”

He was gone, and Alex. sat down, disappointed and annoyed that he had learned so little. Craig had said Joel Pledger, but Alex. understood him Old Pledger, and he repeated to himself “Old Pledger! as if that would tell me who he is, or as if I cared. It’s the girl whose name I want. Why couldn’t he have told it instead of saying their grand-niece from the country and that she was beautiful? Of course she is. Anybody can see that. Old Pledger! That’s a good name for him; I don’t believe though, that the girl is a Pledger. The name don’t suit her. I wonder how I can find out who she is, and why need Craig have been in such an awful hurry. Old Pledger! That don’t sound as if he thought a great deal of him. Well, he’s only her great-uncle.”

By this time the opera was beginning to have some interest for Alex. The prima donna was excelling herself, and the house was ringing with applause, the girl clapping with the rest, and actually making Old Pledger move his cane up and down a little briskly, while the old lady only showed occasional signs of nodding and was promptly pulled up by the girl. For the remainder of the evening Alex. paid pretty good attention to the play, turning his eyes occasionally to the girl, whose interest never flagged, and whose cheeks were like roses and whose eyes were shining with excitement when the performance was over. Alex. had a glimpse of Old Pledger’s stooping shoulders and Mrs. Pledger’s three-years-old bonnet and big-sleeved sacque, and the girl with her wrap on her arm, and then he went out into the crowd, which jostled and surged and pushed him until he found himself close to the Pledgers, and saw the girl in her golf cape, with the high collar drawn up around her ears, for the wintry night was cold. His ladies wore soft, fur-lined opera cloaks, and he did not suppose they owned a golf cape, or would wear one on such an occasion if they did. Well, it didn’t matter what they wore. A golf cape looked well on the slim, straight figure, which was finally lost in the throng.

“Going home in a street car or on the elevated. I’d give a good deal to know where they live. I’ll find out if I can,” he thought, as he followed his party to their carriage and was driven to Delmonico’s.

Here he met several acquaintances, and in the talk and excitement he forgot Old Pledger and the girl until he was home and in bed, when they came back to him with a persistency which kept him wakeful as he wondered who the deuce the Pledgers were and how he could find out.

CHAPTER II
ALEX.’S LETTERS

After waiting an hour for her young people, Mrs. Marsh sat down to breakfast alone, and was finishing her coffee when Alex. came in. He had thought of the Pledgers while dressing, and laughed at himself for being so interested in a strange girl. “I don’t quite understand it, although it is like me to be attracted by every new face if it is at all out of the common,” he thought, “and she was rather uncommon in that expensive box with Old Pledger and his wife, who looked like a muff, and the girl so fair, and without the flumadiddles Amy and Ruth and the rest of ’em wear to such places. And then she had a striking face, though I might not know it again if I saw it.”

He was dressed by this time, and, going to the dining-room, kissed his mother, and, seating himself at the table, looked at the letters lying by his plate. There were two,—one a bill from his tailor, which gave him no concern, as he had money enough to pay it.

“Ball is in a hurry for his cash. I must see to it to-day,” he said, and took up the second letter, which bore in a corner the address of Sanders & Brown, Attorneys, Denver. “I don’t know Sanders & Brown, nor any one else in Denver,” he said, breaking the seal and beginning to read:

“Denver, December 18, 18—.

“Mr. Alexander Marsh—Dear Sir: It is our duty to inform you that your great-uncle, Amos Marsh, for many years our client, died suddenly at his ranch two weeks ago.”

Here Alex. stopped reading and said: “Great-uncle, Amos Marsh! I didn’t know I had one. Have I or had I a great-uncle Amos?”

He was speaking to his mother, who had torn off the envelope of a Denver paper received with Alex.’s letter, and was intent upon a marked column, which read as follows:

“It is with keen regret that we record the death of our old and highly esteemed citizen, Amos Marsh, who was found dead in his bedroom at his ranch, where he was spending a few days. Heart failure was the cause of his death.”

The article then went on to enumerate the many virtues of the deceased, who was noted for his kindness to every one and his charities to the poor, and his great activity for one of his age. A few of his peculiarities were mentioned, and among them his living alone when in town, with no other company than a dog and a cat, and no one to care for him but a Chinaman. His reticence with his friends and his habit of talking to himself were spoken of, and the notice closed with a second eulogy upon him as a good and upright man, who would be greatly missed.

Mrs. Marsh read the article through before she replied to her son.

“Yes, you did have an uncle Amos, but he is dead. There is quite a long obituary of him in this paper.”

She held it toward Alex. But he did not take it. He had run his eyes rapidly over the rest of the letter, which made him hold his breath with surprise. After announcing the death of their client, the lawyer, Mr. Brown, went on to say that for a long time they had urged Mr. Marsh to make his will, but he always refused, giving as a reason that if he made it he must explain some things he would rather not explain to the world. He would leave the explanation in writing to the proper person. That Alex. was the person intended was proven by the fact that when Mr. Marsh was found dead in his bedroom there was on the table before him a partially written page of foolscap, addressed to Alex., which Mr. Brown enclosed in the letter. It had slipped to the floor, but Alex. did not notice it, and read on:

“He told us that his nearest of kin lived in New York, naming you and your sister, and that his property would go to you as the children of his nephew, Henry Marsh, and he always talked as if he expected you to have a farm, or, at least, live on it for a while. He did not leave a large fortune,—he spent so freely for the good of others. There are several thousand dollars in banks and railroad stocks, the interest of which he never cared to use. He was saving it for a particular purpose, he said. He owned quite a valuable ranch, the income from which supported him as his wants were very few. He had a house in town, and an abandoned farm in New Hampshire, among the White Mountains, where he lived a long time, but which he left years ago and came to Denver. For a while it was rented, but so many repairs were demanded and he had so much trouble with his tenants, that he decided to close the house and let the farm run. He went East two years ago, visited the old place, and when he came back he seemed brighter and happier than we had ever seen him, and talked more about you having the farm, or, at least, living there for a time.

“‘I’ve made it right,’ he said, ‘and Alex. will see to it,’ though what he meant we do not know. He was always a little obscure in his talk. Queer, or luny, people called him, but he was a good man. Please write us with regard to your wishes, or come to Denver, if possible, and look into the matter.”

Alex. read the letter through twice to himself and once aloud to his mother and to Amy and Ruth. The young ladies had come into the breakfast room languid and tired, until Alex. began to read the letter, when they became alive and interested at once, Amy looking over her brother’s shoulder as he read, and making sundry comments.

“A ranch in Colorado and an abandoned farm in New Hampshire! How delightful and romantic, and we the heirs! It is like a romance. What is this paper on the floor? Isn’t it the one they found on his table?”

She picked up the half sheet of foolscap and handed it to Alex., who unfolded it reverently, as if he felt the touch of the fingers, which must have stiffened in death in the act of writing. There was no date, and the writing was cramped and quite illegible and not very plain in its meaning. But Alex. deciphered it and read aloud:

“Nephew Alexander: That was your grandfather’s name, and a good one. They say you are honest, with fewer tricks than most young men in the city. I inquired two years ago. I was there and saw your house, but it wasn’t for me to go in. I’ve kept track of my family, what there is left; nobody now but you and your sister. When your father was a boy he came to the farm in New Hampshire and staid a week, but he found me poor company and never came again. If he had and was older, I was going to——; but no matter, I’ve fixed it, and leave it for you to do right for me. Something tells me you will. I am too old to face it, God knows, and he has forgiven me. I am an old man. The doctors say I am not long for this world. I am ninety now, and sitting here alone with no soul in the house; things come back plainer,—folks I knew years ago, and one is standing by the door and looking at me as if he was not satisfied the way I’ve fixed it, and wants me to put it down again, but I can’t to-night, my head is so queer. My candle is nearly out, and I can’t see. To-morrow I’ll try and write again and tell you why you must go to the farm and do right.”

Here there was evidently an effort to write a word with a pen which had no ink in it, and then the hand must have grown powerless and dropped, clasping the side of the table as they found it, and the old man was dead. Alex.’s voice shook as he read this letter, while even the loquacious Amy was silent, wondering what it all meant.

“There’s something on the other side of the sheet,—some words,” she said at last, and turning the paper over, Alex. saw, written very plainly, the name “Crosby,” and after it another name he could not make out, except that the first was “Joel.”

“Can you tell me what that last name is?” he asked his sister.

She could not, and Ruth next tried her skill.

“The first letter is certainly ‘P,’ though a very queer one,” she said. “Can it be ‘Pleasure’?”

“‘Pleasure’? No. There’s a ‘g,’ or a ‘y’ in it. Try again,” Alex. said, and Ruth tried again with better success.

“It must be ‘Pledges,’” she suggested.

“‘Pledges,’” Alex. repeated, and taking the paper from Ruth, he made “Pledgers” distinctly from the irregular letters. “‘Pledgers,’ that’s funny,” he said, with a thought of Old Pledger and the girl.

Neither Amy nor Ruth saw anything funny in the names. They were too much absorbed in what the old man had written, and asked Mrs. Marsh what she knew of him. She knew very little, except that he once lived on a farm among the New Hampshire hills, and her husband, when a boy, had spent a week with him, but was glad to get away.

“Since your father died I have scarcely given the man a thought,” she added. “I did hear, in a roundabout way, that he had gone West; I fancied him dead long ago. He was said to be very eccentric,—half crazy, or something.”

She was not one to care much for people not in her sphere, and Amos Marsh evidently was not, or had not been while living. Now, however, he became an object of importance. He had left her children his money, and although they were not in need of it, as the Marsh fortune was a large one, she was glad for the addition, and, with Amy, began to wonder how much there was in the banks and how much the ranch and house in Denver were worth. She scarcely thought of the farm, which was uppermost in Alex.’s mind, as he sat looking at the papers in his hand.

“Heard I was honest, with fewer tricks than most city young men! I am much obliged to his informant. Who was it, I wonder?” he thought, then, as his eyes fell upon the last words his uncle had written, he said aloud: “It looks as if he had done some wrong which I am to right; but how can I, when I don’t know what it is?”

“Probably nothing but a whim,” Ruth said. “Evidently he was half crazy as people thought. Think of his fancying some one standing in the door as he wrote and seeing things at the farm! It makes one feel creepy. Maybe the old house is haunted.”

“Oh, how delightful!” Amy cried. “I hope it is. A family ghost adds so much éclat to one.”

Alex. did not reply. He was thinking of the two names, Crosby and Joel Pledger. Where did they live, if still alive? Possibly in New York, as his uncle was there so recently. “I’ll look in the directory,” he thought. “Joel Pledger is not a common name, and if I find it I’ll follow it up and see if he ever heard of Amos Marsh. Jolly, what if it should be Old Pledger in the box? I’ve had queer feelings about him ever since I saw him and about the girl.”

An hour later Alex. was poring over a city directory, going through the list of Crosbys and Pledgers and marvelling to find so many, especially Pledgers. He had only expected to find a few, but it seemed to him there was a legion. There were Toms and Johns and Henrys and Elis, and at last Joel,—the only one so far as he could see in the list,—and he lived far down town in a most unfashionable part of the city, where Alex. had not been in years. But he was going there now, and, telling his mother not to wait lunch if he happened to be late, he left the house and, walking to Sixth Avenue, took a down-town car in pursuit of Joel Pledger and the girl!

CHAPTER III
ALEX. AND THE PLEDGERS

He had no difficulty in finding the place, and was rather surprised that the street was so clean and well kept. He had an idea that the side streets down town must be untidy, with a second-class air about them. This street was decidedly clean, with a kind of old-time look, as if old-fashioned but highly respectable people lived there,—not people like his mother and Amy and Ruth, but nice people such as the Pledgers and the girl who was visiting them from the country. He guessed there might be boarding-houses there, for occasionally he caught a whiff from a basement of something cooking, which confirmed him in his belief. In the centre of the block was the number he was looking for, and to make sure he was right he ran up the steps and read upon a brass plate, “Joel Pledger.” The house was three-storied, with a brick front and an air of great respectability, although very different from the tall, brown stone building far up the avenue where Alex. lived.

“This is the place, and I don’t believe it is a boarding-house either,” he said; “but what reason have I to think this Joel Pledger ever knew Uncle Amos? None whatever, and I don’t know why I came here.” Then he thought of the girl, and knew that in some way she was connected with his interest in the Pledgers. “I’m a fool, but I’ll follow it up now I have commenced,” he said, as he retraced his steps towards his own home, which he reached just in time for lunch.

The day was fine and warm for winter, and after lunch he proposed a drive in the park, but there was an afternoon tea on hand for the ladies, and he decided to go alone and drive himself in his light buggy behind his thoroughbred bay, with high check and bobtail. The sun was so bright and the air so balmy that it seemed to him everybody was out, and he met many of his acquaintances in their elegant turnouts, and was thinking what a gay scene it was, when suddenly, at a bend in the road, he came upon Whitey, and behind him Old Pledger and the girl, her eyes shining and her face fresh and bright with the cool air blowing upon it.

“By George, this is luck!” Alex. thought, involuntarily pulling the reins of his horse as if to stop her.

Then, remembering himself, he kept on until he reached a convenient place to turn round, and letting the bay mare have her head, he soon overtook Whitey, jogging on always at the same pace and caring as little for the high steppers around him as did his master. To keep behind the slow vehicle was not an easy matter, for the bay fretted and tossed her head, and would have whisked her tail if she had one to whisk. But Alex. kept her well in hand and followed on, wondering if the “old duffer” would never leave the park. He did leave it at last, and Alex. left it, too, and drove down Fifth Avenue and into Sixth, and still on into a cross street, where Whitey stopped before the respectable looking house with a brick front, a brass plate and “Joel Pledger” upon it. Alex. had been sure he would stop there, and was glad, for the bay mare was getting restless and pulling hard at the bit, and the moment she felt the reins loosened she dashed on over the rough pavement with a clatter, scarcely allowing Alex. time to turn his head and make sure that the girl was going up the steps. He knew now where she was stopping and where Joel Pledger lived, but was it the Joel his uncle Amos knew?

“I’ll find out to-morrow, and if it isn’t, maybe I’ll see the girl,” he thought; and the next morning about eleven o’clock he was ringing the bell at No. 28, noticing, while he stood waiting, how clean everything was around the door and the narrow windows on the sides. “It takes ’em a long time to get here. They must have a mighty lazy maid,” he thought, giving a second pull at the old-fashioned bell.

He was taking out his card for the servant girl, when the door opened and he was confronted by Mrs. Pledger herself, a tall and portly woman of sixty-five, her lips shut tightly together and a look as if she scented a peddler or an agent, both her abominations. But Alex.’s face and manner disarmed her. He was neither an agent nor a peddler, and her lips relaxed a little of their tightness, and in response to his interrogatory, “Mrs. Pledger?” she replied:

“Yes, I am Mrs. Pledger; walk in and take a chair.”

He walked in and took a chair in what he was sure was the best room, and at which he looked curiously, contrasting it with the grand rooms at home, where one article of furniture must have cost nearly as much as every article here would sell for. And yet there was an air of comfort about it, with its cushioned easy-chairs, its wide sofa, its footstools and rugs, made by hand he was sure, and the centre-table, with some books and a vase, with a few roses filling the room with perfume. Somebody liked flowers. Probably the girl and not Mrs. Pledger, whose personal appearance did not bear much relation to hot-house roses, and who was habited in a dark calico with a wide apron, suggestive of the kitchen, from which she had come in answer to Alex.’s summons. She was the most indulgent of mistresses, and her maid of all work went and came about as she pleased. On this particular occasion she had gone to see her cousin off by steamer, and Mrs. Pledger, in the basement, was preparing their twelve o’clock dinner when Alex.’s ring called her upstairs.

“Did you want to see me or Joel?” she asked, as Alex. sat wondering what he was to say and why he was there.

It seemed such a flimsy reason, but he must say something, and he began:

“You will do as well as your husband, and I really think I ought to apologize for intruding upon you, an entire stranger, who may not be the one I want at all.”

“Suppose you tell me what you do want, and not beat around the bush. We can get at it better,” Mrs. Pledger said, her lips beginning to tighten.

Alex. braced up at once and began:

“I want to know if you ever knew my great-uncle Amos Marsh? I’ve had a letter from him, and he’s dead.”

“Dead! How you talk! Amos Marsh dead! That beats me! When did he die, and what ailed him?” Mrs. Pledger exclaimed.

She knew him then, and Alex. hastened to explain, saying nothing at first of the property, but speaking of the letter to himself, in which Mr. Joel Pledger was mentioned.

“Yes, yes,” Mrs. Pledger said, with emotion. “Remembered us, the dear old man. I knew he would. What did he say?”

This was more than Alex. had reckoned on. Uncle Amos had merely written Joel Pledger’s name, but the woman expected something more, and Alex. wished awfully to lie and say something complimentary, but he didn’t. He said hurriedly:

“He wrote such a nice letter that it made me wish to find you and a Mr. Crosby. Do you know him, and do you know anything about the farm where Uncle Amos used to live? I believe it belongs to me and my sister now that he is dead.”

“I rather think I do know something about it. I don’t know who would if I don’t. I was there a great deal when I was a little girl. Eli Crosby was my half brother, twenty years old when I was born. I am sixty-five; he’d be eighty-five if living. We are a long-lived race,” was Mrs. Pledger’s reply.

She was warming to the subject, and Alex. tried to follow her as she told rapidly that Amos Marsh, who lived near the farm, spent half his time there,—he and Mr. Crosby were such fast friends and both such good men,—not an enemy in the world. Then she told how surprised people were when her brother sold his farm to Mr. Marsh, who went there at once to live, and how shocked was the whole community when, not long after the sale, Mr. Crosby was killed on the railroad.

“Mr. Marsh lived on alone,” she said, “and naturally he grew a little queer,—used to talk to himself, and the neighbors said he was off. He talked a good deal to my brother, Mr. Crosby, when nobody was near him, and they say he did this till he died. At last he rented the place and went to Denver, and we saw no more of him till two years ago, when he spent a few days in New York and stopped with us. He was straight enough then in his mind, but kept talking about the time he lived on the farm. He asked about your family, of which he’d kept track, but we couldn’t tell him much, being we are in different spheres,—you in the smart set and we just plain folks, living in the house we bought when we was married. We was quite up town then compared to what we be now, but I’ve never cared to change. I like it here; folks know me, and I know folks. There is Miss Walker next door, has lived here just as long as we have, and Miss Brown the other side. Joel was first in a bank, then he was the bank, then he got into Wall Street, was lucky always, till we are forehanded enough and could live up town in a brown stone if we wanted to. But, land sake, I’m happier here. Everybody knows us, or leastwise Joel. He frequently lends money on good security, you know.”

“Yes,” Alex. interposed, not caring to hear more of her family history, and anxious to ask an important question. “Yes, but about Uncle Amos, who lived on the farm. Wasn’t he a good man?”

“One of the best the Lord ever made. No one ever said a word against him,” was the hearty response, which lifted a load from Alex.’s mind.

There was no wrong of any account he was to right. It was all a fancy of a morbid old man, who, from living alone, had dwelt upon and magnified some trivial circumstance, making a mountain of a mole hill. If he ever found a wrong he should right it, of course, but he should not hunt for or advertise it, and he was glad, for he hated trouble and didn’t know how to right wrongs, and he now began to think of the girl, and wonder how he could manage to see her.

Suddenly from the basement below there came a faint odor of something burning, and stepping to the door, Mrs. Pledger called:

“Sherry, Sherry, won’t you go down to the kitchen and shove back the chicken stew? It is bilin’ over.”

“Yes, auntie,” came in a clear, young voice, and Alex. heard the swish of a gown on the stairs and through the hall down to the basement.

He did not sit where he could see the girl, but he arose as if to go, and, stepping near the door, waited for her to come back. But she didn’t come back, and as Mrs. Pledger, too, arose, as if expecting him to go, he left the house, forgetting to inquire for any Crosbys who might be living and would be her relatives and friends of Amos Marsh.

“Well, no matter,” he thought. “They have nothing to do with it. I’ve found that Uncle Amos was a good man, who never could have done anything really wrong, and I’ve learned that her name is ‘Sherry.’ Pretty, but odd for a girl. I wish I could have seen her.”

If Alex. had looked back in time he might have seen a girl’s face close against the window of the dining-room, where Sherry was trying to get a glimpse of him, while Mrs. Pledger was saying: “A very nice mannered young man, but I don’t see why under the sun and moon he was so anxious to know if we ever knew Amos Marsh, and if he was a good man. Good indeed! The Lord never made a better!”

CHAPTER IV
THE ABANDONED FARM

There are many of them scattered through New England, some on hillsides, some in valleys, some on public highways and some among the mountains, where rocks and ferns seem the only products of the soil. There are houses with slanting roofs, big chimneys, high window stools and small panes of glass; houses whose owners lived their quiet, monotonous lives, with no thought of change for themselves. They were content to till their barren fields, with only an occasional thought of the far West and the capabilities it held for them if they were younger and could get there. Their sons did get there when the fathers and mothers were laid away to rest, and the old homesteads and farms were left for other and distant fields. A few of the houses are in a fair state of preservation, but they look desolate and dreary, with no sign of life around or in them, except the rats or the squirrels, which, finding ingress through some broken window, make themselves a nest in the garret, where they hold high carnival through the winter until the warm sunshine of spring calls them back to their woodland home. After a lapse of time the strongest built house begins to show signs of decay, and nowhere was this more apparent than in the house to which Alex. came on a February day, a few weeks after his receipt of Amos Marsh’s letter. He had been to Denver and consulted with the lawyers, had visited the ranch and the house where his uncle had lived when in town, and had appropriated the Scotch collie, who had been his uncle’s companion since he was a puppy. He was a fine specimen of canines, with his intelligent face, his long wool and shaggy mane, and Alex., who was fond of dogs, fancied him at once. “Laddie” was his name, but Alex. rechristened him “Sherry,” greatly to the disgust of Chinaman Lee, who had been Mr. Marsh’s servant, and who said, “Sherry bad name; he not come for Sherry; he no like wine.”

Alex. laughed and patted the big fellow, who took kindly to him, and if he did not answer at once to Sherry, he soon learned the whistle with which his new master called him. Alex. would like to have taken the cat, but as that was impracticable he left it for Lee, with many injunctions that it should be well cared for, and with his dog started for home, turning aside from the main route to see the farm, about which he had a great deal of curiosity. At the station, which was a mile from the house, he took the only available conveyance, a box sleigh, drawn by a spavined horse and driven by a loquacious man, who informed him that his name was Bowles—“a carpenter by trade in the summer and a jack-at-all-trades in the winter, when folks didn’t have much tinkerin’ of houses to do.”

“Know the Marsh place? You bet,” he said, slapping the reins on Spavin’s back with an injunction to “ca-dap.” “I used to tinker there by odd spells before the old gent went away, and he left me to look after things,—kind of an agent. Nice man? Wall, I guess he was ’bout as good as they make ’em; never heard a breath against him. Little queer sometimes, and talked to himself a good deal; but, land sakes, there was nobody else to talk to half the time, he lived alone so much. It beats all how curis some folks is about an old house,—real old like this one which must have heard the thunder of the Revolution, if it had thundered this way. The grandees who come to the mountains in the summer drive up here, rafts of ’em, and, oh, my suz, what a time the women make over the old place, and how they want to buy things if they was for sale. Why, I could have sold an old chest in the garret a dozen times. It’s full of clothes, women’s clothes, and when I told ’em that they was crazy to see ’em. But I said no;—they wasn’t mine to sell, nor to show. I’ve been a faithful steward, I have. And you are goin’ to take the place? Well, I’m glad to have somebody see to it besides me. It’s a sin the way things has gone on sence he quit rentin’ it square. Old mother Chase and her brood squatted on it one winter. I let ’em in, to be sure, at a nominal rent, but, land sakes, I never got a cent, and they split up the back room floor for wood and half the suller stairs, and then decamped in the night. Farmer Jones kept his cows there in the summer, and somebody else their horses,—in the pasture, I mean,—and I can’t collect a cent. ’Twas the finest farm in these parts once, and might be again with a little care. Going to farm it yourself?”

Bowles glanced sidewise at the young man beside him, wrapped in a fur-lined coat, and thought how unlike he looked to a farmer.

“I don’t know,” Alex. said. “Is the house greatly out of repair?”

“Well, I’d laugh,” was the reply, as Bowles slapped Spavin’s back again and told him to “ca-dap!” “Out of repair? What can you expect of a house standin’ empty for years? It wants shinglin’ all over; leaks like a sieve; suller wall cavin’ in in two or three places; jice rotted here and another there; cistern gone; conductor pipes bust; eaves rotted; two chimneys down, tother ready to tumble; door-jams settled; winder lights smashed, and some frames tetotally gone; roof sagged in, the middle pillars on piazza ready to fall, and floors givin’ away, and——”

“Oh, please stop,” Alex. exclaimed. “You horrify me. It will take thousands to bring it up.”

“No, sir-ee,” Bowles replied, beginning to see a chance for himself. “Lumber is cheap here, and labor, too. I’m a carpenter, I told you, and I’ll take the job reasonable. You’ll have to have it shingled, though, and a suller wall built and a cistern and jice and jams and winders.”

He was going on with the list of needs again, when Alex. stopped him a second time by asking, “Is that the place?” as they came in sight of a great square house, standing on a rise of ground a little back from the road.

“Yes, yes, that’s it! Here we be,” Bowles said, reining up before the gate, or rather where the gate used to be.

It lay on the ground now, covered with snow, as was everything as far as the eye could reach, and Alex. involuntarily thought of the lines he had learned when a boy,

“On Linden, when the sun was low,

All bloodless lay the untrodden snow.”

The snow around him was certainly bloodless and lay white and glistening in the wintry sunshine, glints of which were falling on Mount Washington in the distance and on the hills and tree tops nearer by.

“It’s a beautiful view and must be lovely here in summer,” Alex. thought, as he went up the walk and the ricketty steps on to the piazza, where a board gave way under him and he came near falling.

“Take care, or you will break your neck. I come nigh breakin’ my laig on one of them rotten boards,” Bowles said, putting out a hand to steady the young man.

There was neither lock nor bolt to the door, and they soon stood in the long, wide hall, with a fireplace in a corner, a door at the farther end opening on to another piazza and stairs which led straight to the upper hall, where there was a scampering of little feet as of many animals running over the floor.

“Rats or squirrels,” Bowles said. “The house is full of ’em.”

It was a chilly, grewsome kind of place, and Alex. shivered as he went through room after room,—twelve downstairs and as many more upstairs, besides the attic. They visited that last, and saw where the rats had been and where the squirrels lived, and Alex. sat down near a big chest pushed into a corner and looked about him. Scattered through the garret, which was very large, were piles of old furniture, which would delight relic hunters, and he did not wonder that guests from the hotels had tried to buy them.

“There used to be some pillers here and blankets and things loose,” Bowles said; “but, my land, old mother Chase took ’em. Wonder she didn’t bust open that chist. Guess ’twas too strong for her. That is the one I told you some of the quality wanted to buy.”

Alex. glanced at it now, and saw that it was one of those old-fashioned cedar chests in which housewives of years ago kept their linen and parts of their wardrobe.

“It’s full of things,” Bowles went on; “women’s clothes, all flowered like and silky. He aired ’em when he was here and took as much pains with ’em as if the woman who used to wear ’em was alive,—Mr. Marsh, I mean.”

“Oh, yes,—my uncle. He came here, did he?” Alex. asked, and Bowles replied:

“Yes, and stopped two days with me, but stayed over here most of the day time and wrote letters or something in that chamber where there is a chair and table. That was his sleeping-room when he lived here, and he looked sorry when he went through it, and said, ‘The vandals haven’t left me much.’ Wall, there wasn’t much to leave after the auction. You see, he had a vendue before he left and sold a good deal. What he didn’t sell was put up here, and some has been stole, but there are piles left. This chist is too heavy to carry off, and I’ve kept a sharp look out, too, bein’ here every week. He was in here a good deal airin’ things, and when I ast him whose flowered gown that was on the line, he said, ‘Miss Crosby’s, who used to live here.’”

“Crosby,” Alex. repeated; “that’s the man who first owned the farm?”

“Yes, before I was born, I guess,” Bowles said, “and he and his wife are buried acrost the road. There’s a big monument to their memory,—put up by Mr. Marsh. Mabby you didn’t notice it as we drove up,” and then thinking he heard some one below he started down, followed by Alex., glad to escape from the cold garret, which affected him unpleasantly.

The place was certainly frightfully run down. “But it had great capables, and might be made a first-class summer house,” Bowles said, as they drove back to the station. Some such idea was in Alex.’s mind, and kept growing until, by the time he reached home, it was a fixed fact that he would try the “capables.” He was very fond of the country, and would like to live there half his time, and he meant to bring up the farm to what it used to be, and make over and modernize and add to the house, if necessary, until it could accommodate twenty or more people. He would call it “Maplehurst,” because of the maples which skirted the road leading to it, and he would fill it with his friends and his mother’s and Amy’s and Ruth’s for one summer, at least, and see how it worked. Some should be invited for a week, some for two, some for four and some for the entire season. In short, it was to be a grand house party, such as the English had, only it was to last longer. It would cost a great deal, of course, but he guessed he could stand it for once, and he was planning drives and picnics and excursions to Mount Washington when his train stopped at the Central Station, and he hurried home, full of his scheme, of which his mother and Amy did not at first approve. Their preference was for Saratoga and Newport and similar places, rather than a house in the country miles from anywhere. But his enthusiasm conquered their scruples, and they began at last to look forward with a good deal of interest to the summer they were to spend at Maplehurst when Alex.’s plans were perfected.

CHAPTER V
SHERRY

It was the last of May, and more than a year since the cold February day when Alex. went up the mountain road to the tumbledown house, which was now a fine mansion,—the pride of its owner and the wonder of the people in the neighborhood, who were waiting developments. All through the previous summer and autumn the work of repairs and additions had gone on, with Bowles as head carpenter and Alex. there half the time giving directions and hurrying on the work. The roofs and chimneys and cellar walls and cisterns and windows had all been attended to. The piazza had been extended on three sides of the house and a bowling alley and billiard-room added. The barn and stables had been enlarged to accommodate the horses Alex. meant to have, with carriages and tally-ho for the use of his guests. Two grooms had been hired, with a chef and housekeeper and maids for the kitchen, and a head waiter. Invitations had been given to and accepted by people anxious to try this new departure, which promised so much.

“And now there’s nothing but the table waiters,” Alex. said. “I must advertise for these, and I want four to begin with, nice, pretty girls,—salesladies, I suppose, and stenographers and typewriters, and, possibly, teachers, who will be glad of a change.”

“And put on airs, and think they must sit with us when their work is done, and perhaps practise on the piano. I’ve heard of such things,” Amy said, with a toss of her head.

She was prouder than her brother, and did not believe in waitresses who might put on airs and sit with the family. She wanted girls who would keep their places. Alex. laughed, and said he’d advertise any way, and see what came of it. Two days later there appeared in the leading papers an advertisement to the effect that four or five capable young girls were wanted as table waiters during the summer at Maplehurst, among the White Mountains; the work would be light and the highest wages given. Those wishing for the place were to apply to the housekeeper, Mrs. Groves, No. — West Twenty-fourth Street, and, if accepted, were to report at Maplehurst the last week in June.

The morning after the advertisement was inserted a New York paper found its way to Buford, a little inland town in Massachusetts, where there was a very aristocratic look in the one long, broad street, and an air of sleepiness everywhere. There didn’t seem, however, to be anything drowsy about the young girl who had been for the daily mail, finding only the morning paper, which she read as she walked along the elm-skirted street towards home.

“Oh, mother and Katy, just listen to this!” she cried, sitting down in the doorway and reading the advertisement. “I mean to apply. I am told many young ladies do this very thing just for the excitement and a little money. It will be such a lark, and it’s where our great-grandfather Crosby used to live. You know Aunt Pledger wrote us that a Mr. Marsh was fitting it up for a big house party and calling it Maplehurst. I’ve always wanted to see the swell world without being seen,—have wanted to know how they demean themselves towards each other every day, and how they treat their employees, and here’s my chance. The highest of wages, too, though I don’t care so much for that as for the fun. Yes, I mean to apply.”

She was very much excited, but her ardor was slightly dampened by her more practical sister Kate, who exclaimed:

“Fanny Sheridan Sherman! Are you crazy? Applying for a place as waitress in a hotel, or boarding-house, or whatever it is! Have you no pride, and what do you think Aunt Pledger would say, and how would she like her New York friends to know her niece was a waiter?”

“Aunt Pledger!” and Fanny, or Sherry, as she was usually called, laughed a low, rippling laugh as she leaned against the door-jamb and fanned herself with the paper. “I have never been able to make you understand that Aunt Pledger isn’t a swell woman, if she does live in New York. Her house is away down town on a side street, and her furniture the same she had when she was married years and years ago. She keeps one girl, Huldah, and she is gone half the time, leaving Aunt Pledger to open the door herself and do lots of things. I know she has plenty of money, but is close, and she don’t care what we do to get a living, if it is respectable and we don’t come upon her. When father died last summer and she came to the funeral, didn’t she ask us both what we intended to do, or what we could do, and when I told her I couldn’t do a blessed thing, unless it was housework, didn’t she say, ‘Better that than do nothing and expect to be cared for by others. Young people succeed better who rely on themselves.’ I believe she was afraid we might ask her for help. Little we would get. I know she had me in New York two weeks, and took me everywhere, and she was very kind to me. But that was the first attention she ever showed us, and I don’t believe she would have done that if it hadn’t been for Miss Saltus, whom she met on some charitable work, and who spoke of us and said, ‘The next time either of your nieces are in New York let me know; I’d like to call upon them.’ After that Aunt Pledger invited me and did the handsome thing, for she never does a thing by halves, and then Mr. Saltus came to us in the opera-box and was glad to see me, and that helped. She is an awful good woman, of course,—goes to church twice every Sunday, rain or shine, and half supports a society for the prevention of cruelty to children and animals; but she believes in letting people take care of themselves, if they can. Her pride will not be hurt because I hire out as a waitress. I don’t know enough to teach as you do, but I can wash dishes and wait upon table, and earn some money and not let you be the only bread-winner. Then I shall enjoy immensely being Mr. What’s-his-name’s waitress, and know I am somebody else just as good as he is. He is the man who came to Aunt Pledger’s when I was there, and asked if she ever knew old Mr. Marsh. I nearly broke the window trying to see him as he left the house.”

“Young?” Kate asked, and Sherry replied:

“Yes, and good looking, judging from the back of his head and the fit of his coat. Uncle Pledger knows about him as he does about all the smart set, although he’s not in it. He is just an old-time New Yorker, who has lived in the city fifty years and seen the rise and fall of everybody, and knows everybody by reputation. He might live uptown in one of those handsome brown stones, but, like Aunt Pledger, prefers to stay where he is, leaving the city to roll on as it pleases.”

Here Sherry laughed as she recalled her own and Katy’s ideas of Aunt Pledger’s house and style before her visit there the previous year. Born in Buford and the daughter of a clergyman, she knew little of the world except what she had seen at boarding-school, where, with Katy, she had spent a year. Of fashionable society she knew nothing, except as it was partially represented by the Saltus family, who owned a large house just outside the village, where they spent their summers. Between the Saltuses and Shermans a strong friendship had sprung up, and Sherry was right in her surmise that it was to Rose Saltus she owed her invitation to visit her aunt. With Kate she had talked a great deal of her New York relative,—had wondered why they were never asked to visit her and why she never visited them, or paid them any attention except to send herself and Kate and their mother each a handkerchief and their father a book at Christmas. For the rest of the year she ignored them entirely.

“Another handkerchief? Yes, and here’s the mark she forgot to take off: twenty cents! I have six of them now, all the same size, quality and price,—half cotton,” was Sherry’s contemptuous comment when the last batch of handkerchiefs arrived with the twenty-cent mark upon them.

Sherry was the outspoken one of the family, to whom the most latitude was allowed by her rather stern father while he was living. He had wanted a boy, whom he was to call Sheridan, after his favorite general. But she proved to be a girl, and was christened Fanny Sheridan, and grew up a bright, lighthearted, impulsive girl, fond of excitement and adventure, making friends wherever she went and feeling herself everybody’s equal. To see New York had been the dream of her life, and when Mrs. Pledger’s invitation came she was delighted, for now she should see life as it ebbed and flowed in a great city. She had heard that her Uncle Pledger was a millionaire, and had expected a grandeur which would quite overshadow her own home. Of just what she thought of the reality she never said much until the morning when she received Alex.’s advertisement, and Katy suggested that Aunt Pledger would feel hurt to have her grand-niece a waitress. Mr. and Mrs. Pledger had been very kind to her, and gone far out of their way to entertain her. They had never been to an opera in their lives until they took her there; and when the questions of seats came up they hired an expensive box, Mr. Pledger saying he’d do the whole thing or nothing, and he guessed he could afford to have a spree now and then. He had his spree and slept through half of it, but was glad Sherry enjoyed it, and was proud that Craig Saltus came into the box to call, and hoped those high bucks, the Marshes, saw him. If he was not in the smart set he knew everybody who was, and from having lived in New York so long both himself and wife were as good as encyclopedias with regard to the history of many of the people, and it was his boast that he had at some time loaned money to more than half of his more intimate acquaintances to tide them over some difficulty. He was proud of himself as a money lender,—proud that he could afford to wear plain clothes, live far down town and drive old Whitey. Sherry, however, did not seem quite in keeping with the old horse and buggy. Something in her face made him think of the grand turnouts and the ladies who graced them; and when the drive in the park was suggested, he thought to have a handsome carriage and “show her off with the best of ’em.” But his more frugal wife suggested that this would be quite an expense after the opera box, and though Sherry might grace any carriage he could hire, he would be out of place in his old gray coat and hat. So the carriage was given up and the drive taken behind Whitey. Sherry enjoyed it immensely, and saw Alex. Marsh, who Uncle Pledger told her “was a swell man, but about as good as they made ’em,” and knew that he drove behind them on their way home, and called afterwards to inquire about his Uncle Amos, who owned the farm where her great-grandfather once lived, but she thought no more about him.

Since that time her father had died, leaving his family, as clergymen’s families frequently are left, with little to depend upon besides their own exertions. They owned the house they lived in; there had been a life insurance, and Kate was teaching in a graded school. Sherry, who was the cleverest of housekeepers, and saved her delicate mother in every possible way, was doing nothing, and had puzzled her brain until it ached over the problem as to what she could do. She wanted to see the world and to earn some money at the same time, and here was her chance. The waitress part did not disturb her at all. She would still be Fanny Sheridan Sherman, although she did not intend to make any capital out of that or expect any favors. She would go like the rest of the girls and be one of them. She was rather self-willed when her mind was made up, and overcoming her mother’s and sister’s scruples, she wrote to Mrs. Groves in New York, asking for a situation as waitress at Maplehurst.

“I hope you told her about Aunt Pledger, and that you were a clergyman’s daughter and a lady,” Katy said, and Sherry replied:

“Indeed I didn’t! I just asked for the place and signed myself ‘Fanny S. Sherman.’ I’m going to be Fanny up there and leave Sherry behind with the rest of me.”

In a few days Mrs. Groves’ answer came, very stiffly worded, to the effect that Mrs. Groves would see her on a certain day at a certain hour, and would expect references as to character and ability.

“I told you so,” Katy said. “References from the last lady you worked for.”

“Which is mamma. I can manage that,” Sherry answered, not at all disheartened by Mrs. Groves’ requirements, and with the understanding that she should spend the night with Mrs. Pledger, she left home on the morning of the day appointed by Mrs. Groves for the interview.

CHAPTER VI
THE INTERVIEW

Sherry did feel a little shaky as she went up the steps to No. — West Twenty-fourth Street and touched the bell. The lark did not look quite so funny as it had at first. But with her usual strong will, she put aside any regret she might have felt. It was too late to go back; there was nothing to do but go forward. Her ring was answered, and she was soon face to face with Mrs. Groves, a woman of fifty-five or sixty, who had forgotten her youth, if she ever had any, and thought of nothing except to maintain her position with dignity and discharge her duties conscientiously. She felt it an honor to be chosen as the matron at Maplehurst by the Marshes, and did not shrink at all from the responsibility of choosing the waitresses. She had already dismissed a dozen or more as wholly unfitted for the place, and her forehead was puckered in a frown when Sherry’s card was handed to her.

“Fanny Sheridan Sherman,” she read. “A pretentious name. I remember her writing to me. Show her in.”

This last to the bell boy, who pushed aside the portière and Sherry entered and bowed to the lady rustling in black satin, with a bit of Duchess lace at her throat and gold-rimmed eye-glasses on her nose. There was no servility in Sherry’s manner or appearance of timidity. She was always self-possessed, and never more so than now, when answering Mrs. Groves’ questions.

“What is your name? Oh, yes, I know,—Fanny Sheridan Sherman. Fanny will be sufficient, if I take you. Superfluities like Miss, as some girls like, will not be permitted.”

Sherry bowed and said she was twenty years old, that her home was in Buford, Massachusetts, that she had never been in service and had no references.

“No references!” Mrs. Groves repeated, rather severely, and Sherry replied: “None except what mother might give you. I have never worked out, but have done a good deal at home.”

“What can you do?”

“All that is required of a waitress, I think,” Sherry said. “You can try me, and if I do not suit you can dismiss me.”

“Are you willing to wear a cap?” was Mrs. Groves’ next question.

Two or three applicants for the place had refused caps and been promptly dismissed by Mrs. Groves, who looked curiously at Sherry, waiting for her answer.

“Why, yes, I’ll wear a cap if you wish it and think I’ll do my work any better.”

“It isn’t that,” Mrs. Groves said. “It is not a matter of work. It is a badge,—a sign,—a distinction——”

“Yes, I know,” Sherry replied. “I know what the cap means. I’ll wear it,” and she laughed inwardly as she saw herself in a cap waiting upon a table and imagined Katy’s indignation when she heard of it.

Something of the laugh showed in her eyes, and Mrs. Groves saw it and was puzzled. This was no ordinary girl seeking a situation, and she might make trouble with that high head and that look in her eyes which she could not fathom. But she must begin to make a choice. Alex. had said to her, “Get nice-looking girls, not low-down truck. You know I want everything first-class.” Sherry certainly was first-class and nice looking and not “low-down truck,” and Mrs. Groves decided to take her on trial. “It is settled then, and you will be at Maplehurst the last week in June, where I shall meet you and the other girls and break you in,” she said, after a little further questioning, which elicited nothing from Sherry with regard to Mrs. Pledger, or her father having been a clergyman and her family one of the best in Buford, three points upon which Katy had laid great stress.

She was equal to herself and going to run herself, and when she said good-morning to Mrs. Groves she left that lady in a very perplexed state of mind as to whether she had done well to engage a girl with Sherry’s face and manner, and who had never been in any kind of service.

“I can dismiss her if I do not like her,” she thought, and as she was the first she had accepted, she wrote her down in her book, “Fanny Sherman, Buford, Massachusetts, No. 1. Seems capable but airy, with her head too high. There is something behind, but trust me to manage her!”

Mrs. Pledger was not expecting Sherry, but she was thinking about her as she sat darning Joel’s socks in her basement kitchen and watching the soup simmering on the range. As usual, Huldah was out; she generally was in the afternoon, and evening both, for that matter. Mrs. Pledger’s humanitarian principles carrying her so far as to think a poor girl who worked in the basement all the morning should have a good share of the rest of the day for fresh air and recreation.

“Now, for the land’s sake, who can that be, and Huldah gone!” she said, as Sherry’s ring echoed through the house. “Miss Ellett, I do believe, and she’s come for my subscription to the Humane Society. She always catches me in my everyday clothes. I’ll whip off my big apron anyway.”

She took off her apron, and hurrying up the stairs opened the door to Sherry.

“For goodness’ sake,” she exclaimed, “where did you drop from? Think of angels,—you know the rest, and I was thinking of you. Come in and take off your things. Have you come shopping?” she continued, with a feeling of disquiet as she thought that if Sherry went shopping she must go with her and see that she did not spend her money foolishly.

“Shopping!” Sherry repeated. “No, indeed! I’ve nothing to shop with, but I’m going to have as much as forty dollars. Think of it!” and very rapidly she told of her plan and asked what her aunt thought of it.

“And so you are going out to work?” Mrs. Pledger said, and her under jaw dropped a little, as if she did not quite know whether she liked it or not.

She had been much pleased with Sherry during the two weeks she had been her guest, and had often thought of inviting her again for a longer visit and including Kate in the invitation. But the habits of years are not easily broken, and she shrank from anything which would change her quiet ways as two young girls would do.

“Too much trouble, and costly, too,” she said to herself, thinking of the expense when Sherry was with them the previous year.

They had done the handsome thing then, and it must suffice for a while at least. And still Mrs. Pledger often found herself thinking of the girl who had filled the house with so much brightness, and was making up her mind to take her to some cheap watering place when Sherry appeared and made the startling announcement that she was going as a waitress for the summer to Maplehurst!

“You don’t mean it!” she said, and Sherry replied, “I do, most certainly. I want to do something; and lots of nice girls go as waitresses to these places, and it don’t hurt them any. Nothing hurts that is respectable, and I shall still be Fanny Sherman, and I want to see the world away from Buford.”

In her admiration of the girl Mrs. Pledger came near offering to take her to some fashionable watering place where she could see the world far better than at Maplehurst, but the expense came up as a hindrance. Perhaps it was just as well to let her try her wings a little, and the Marshes were sure to recognize in her a superiority over the other girls and treat her accordingly, she thought, and suppressed her first impulse and began to speak of Maplehurst as it was when she was there as a girl.

“A grand old house, with big rooms and wide halls and fine views,” she said. Sherry’s great-grandmother, Mrs. Crosby, was a beautiful lady, with lovely clothes. “Her wedding dress was a cream brocade,” she continued, “with roses scattered over it, and would almost stand alone, and there was some rich lace with it and some jewels, and she looked like a queen at a reception your uncle gave. All the élite of the different hotels were there, with an ex-governor, and we lighted a hundred wax candles, and the affair was long talked of as the great Crosby party. Your grandmother died the next winter, and Uncle Crosby had her gowns and laces and jewels put away in a big cedar chest, where she kept her best linen. I was there once for a day after I was married. Mr. Marsh owned the place then. He had bought it of your grandfather Crosby, who soon after was killed in a railway accident. They are both buried in a little enclosure on the hillside opposite the house,—Mr. and Mrs. Crosby, I mean,—and Mr. Marsh erected a monument to their memory. You’ll see it, and the chest, if it hasn’t been taken away. It is more than thirty years since I was there. The place has been rented since and abandoned, and there’s no telling what is there and what isn’t. The gowns and things belong to you and Kate. Mr. Marsh told me I could have them, but as I was Mr. Crosby’s niece, not Mrs. Crosby’s, they didn’t belong to me, I said; if Cousin Henry,—that was your father,—ever married, they should go to his wife and children if he had any, I said. ‘All right,’ he answered, but most likely forgot it, he was so absent-minded and queer. Did your mother ever get anything?”

“Never that I know of. I think, though, I have heard that father received something when studying for the ministry. Mr. Marsh sent it, perhaps,” was Sherry’s reply, and Mrs. Pledger went on:

“That would be like him. People wondered what became of the money he paid Mr. Crosby for the farm. Probably your grandfather spent it or gave it away. He was very free handed, and there was barely enough to pay funeral expenses and outstanding debts. If you find the chest, ask Mr. Marsh to open it. The key used to hang on a big tack driven in the back of the chest. It may be there now, though it’s a miracle if it is. The things belong to you and Katy. Tell Mr. Marsh I said so. He has heard of your uncle if he hasn’t of me. Everybody knows Joel by reputation and he knows everybody. The Marshes are first class people,—not fast,—at least the young man isn’t. He is a friend of Craig Saltus, you know.”

Mrs. Pledger had talked very rapidly, while Sherry listened with absorbing interest, more glad than ever that she was going to what was once her great grandfather’s home, and in which she felt she had some rights, especially in the cedar chest, if it was still in existence. She doubted, though, if she should speak of her relationship to Mr. Crosby or the Pledgers.

“I am going just like the other girls, a common waitress, to see how it seems,” she said to her mother and Kate when, on her return from New York, she repeated the particulars of her interview with Mrs. Pledger and Mrs. Groves, the latter of whom she did not quite like. “She acted as if there was an immeasurable distance between us, and said that at Maplehurst I would be known as No. 1 among the waitresses, because she had accepted me first, and I am to wear caps. She laid great stress on that.”

“The snob! I hope you told her you’d never wear that badge of servitude,” Kate said, with a stamp of her foot.

Caps were not common in Buford. Even the Saltus servants did not wear them, and Kate was hot with indignation. But Sherry only laughed, saying she would as soon wear a cap as not, but when Kate asked suddenly, “Did you tell her that you sometimes walked in your sleep?” she was startled, and replied: “Why should I, when I haven’t walked for years, and why did you put it into my mind to think about it? Perhaps I shall now get up some night and frighten them to death.”

“I hope you will. That would be jolly. Caps and snobs!” Kate said, but Sherry’s face was clouded by this reminder of a disagreeable habit of her childhood, which she believed she had outgrown, but which might come back if she allowed her thoughts to dwell upon it.

Her will and nerves, however, were strong, and in the weeks which passed before she was due at Maplehurst she had so much to think about that the sleep-walking was nearly forgotten, or remembered only as something which had been, but would never be again.

CHAPTER VII
MAPLEHURST

It was the first day of July, and Maplehurst was in a state of great excitement, for sixteen people were coming by the afternoon train, and among them Alex., his mother and sister and cousin. Mrs. Groves, with her staff, had been there a week or more, and had carefully drilled her subordinates with regard to their duties, especially the waitresses. There were four of them, all from Boston, except Sherry,—one a saleslady, one a stenographer and one from a restaurant, who felt that she knew quite as much as Mrs. Groves, if not more, because she had been in a restaurant three or four years. But that dignitary soon set her right by telling her that waiting upon every sort of people in a restaurant or hotel was very different from waiting upon such guests as were coming to Maplehurst. Sherry had listened very respectfully to the directions, but there was a look upon her face which said that she, too, had an opinion as well as Polly, the girl No. 4. She had dined once or twice in great state at the Saltuses’ in Buford, and she remembered what she had seen and knew that in some respects it differed from Mrs. Groves’ rules, and when they were told that in no event were they to take in or out more than one dish at a time, she ventured to say, “Excuse me, Mrs. Groves, but that will take so long and necessitate a great many steps, as the kitchen is so far from the dining-room, and there is the anteroom between, and are there not different ways of serving?”

The look on Mrs. Groves’ face would have disconcerted one less self-contained than Sherry, whose expression did not change at all at the lady’s reply: “There can be but one right way. I have told you what that is, and as for steps, you are hired to take them if you walk miles in doing it.”

Sherry bent her head with what she meant to be a civil bow, but Mrs. Groves fancied she saw in it signs of insubordination, and resolved to hold a tight rein on No. 1, who evidently was above her business, and who looked too much like a lady, and was quite too pretty in her black dress and white apron with ruffled shoulder straps and the cap set so jauntily upon her curly hair. On her arrival at Maplehurst Mrs. Groves had found a box of caps sent by Amy Marsh, who had selected them, and for which Alex. had paid. He was shopping with his sister, who had asked his opinion with regard to different styles.

“Great guns! I don’t know about styles of caps. Must they wear them?” he said.

“Our maids do,” Amy answered. “Why shouldn’t these?”

“Oh, ah, well—er—I suppose they must if you and mother say so. But I fancy these are different,—picked, you know,” Alex. said; “salesgirls and schoolma’ams and that sort of thing, you know. Mrs. Groves writes that one is an awful high stepper. She may not take to caps. Some don’t.”

“She will take what we choose,” Amy replied, and her brother answered: “Well, then, get the most becoming and least objectionable. They are all young girls of twenty or thereabouts, and I won’t have them looking like grandmothers. How will this do?” and by chance Alex. selected the smallest and daintiest and prettiest of them all, as well as the most expensive.

But expense was nothing to him. He was always wanting a good time for himself and others, and meant to have it at Maplehurst. “A jam up good time for the whole of us, hired help and all,” he said to himself, using a bit of slang which horrified Amy, but which she forgave because he was her big, unselfish, good-natured brother, giving the good time to others, if there was but one to be had. His mother had hired Mrs. Groves, and he had left the selection of his staff entirely to her, feeling no particular interest in any except the four waitresses—his quartette he called them. He was somewhat particular about these, as he would see them three times a day. He wanted them near the same age and size and good-looking. “Not so good as to detract from the young ladies, but good,” he said to Mrs. Groves, who felt that she had filled the bill well, possibly a little too well with No. 1, who certainly was handsome, and whose manner would always be that of a lady whatever she was doing, and who would be noticed wherever she was. The quartette had come to Maplehurst on the same train and had been received by Mrs. Groves, who had assigned them their rooms, one to each, greatly to Sherry’s satisfaction. She did not mean to be proud or exclusive, but she wanted a room to herself, where she could sometimes be alone. For the rest she meant to be one with her companions,—Susie, the saleslady, Annie, the stenographer, and Polly, the restaurant waitress; Nos. 2, 3 and 4, as Mrs. Groves designated them. They were bright, good girls, glad for this outing and inclined to be very friendly with Sherry, whom they at once recognized as a little different from themselves and treated her accordingly.

Sherry had been nearly a week at Maplehurst, and had been drilled daily and made to wait upon Mrs. Groves as she was expected to wait upon the coming guests. She proved the most apt of all the girls, and for this reason was assigned to the Marsh table.

“You will have Mr. and Mrs. Marsh, and Miss Marsh, and their cousin, Miss Doane, who lives with them, and two or three more, the Saltus family later on, perhaps, and you must be very particular as the Saltuses live in even greater style than the Marshes,” Mrs. Groves had said, and at the mention of the Saltuses the hot blood had flamed into Sherry’s face and then for a moment left it very white as she wondered what they would say to find her there,—a machine, as Mrs. Groves had said she must be, never smiling, and never seeming to see or hear what was being done and giving no sign that she had ever seen them before unless they made some advances.

“Never mind. I am in it and shall go through it,” she thought with the first real twinge of regret she had felt for the lark in which she was engaged.

She had been all over the house, from the basement to the attic, where she had found the chest standing just where it had stood for years. It had a great fascination for her, seeming to link her with the past of years and years ago, when her great-grandmother had come there a bride and brought it with her. Seating herself on a stool near it Sherry sat for a long time wondering what was in it, and looking through the window off upon the lovely panorama of sunshine and cloud, of steep wooded hills and the green valley, and in the distance Mount Washington, blue and hazy in the summer light. Across the road on a knoll was the little cemetery, the mass of evergreens bringing out in sharp contrast the whiteness of the marble shaft Mr. Marsh had erected to the memory of his friends, Mr. and Mrs. Crosby. The yard had a neglected look, and the fence around it was broken in some places, but that afternoon she saw men there at work and heard that Mr. Alex. had ordered a new fence to be built and the undergrowth of bush and bramble to be removed.

The next day she went to the two graves, sunken so low as to be even with the ground. The lettering on the stone was somewhat blurred by the storms which had swept along the mountain road, but she managed to read, “Frances, beloved wife of Peter Crosby, who died in her bloom, being only twenty-five years and six months old, October 10th, 18—.”

“Her name was Frances, which is the same as Fanny,” she said. “I must have been named for her,” and she began to feel a great deal of interest in the woman who had slept on the hillside so many years. “There ought to be something planted around the graves,” she thought, as she looked at the bare spot.

It would be easy to transplant some of the many rose bushes in the Maplehurst premises, and she could do it or ask to have it done, if it did not necessitate her telling why she was interested in the graves. She did not intend to tell anything about herself. Polly, No. 4, had quizzed her a good deal.

“I know you are somebody else besides a waiter like me. You are made of different stuff. Come, now, ain’t you?” she had said, but Sherry did not enlighten her. She was simply Fanny, or No. 1, and Mrs. Groves was calling her, saying it was time for the drill. “Dress parade,” No. 4 called it, saying that she had been put through her paces until she didn’t know her left hand from her right, and whether she was to pass things over the heads of the guests or in front of them. She was full of life and fun, and made faces at Mrs. Groves’ back, and mimicked her voice and manner perfectly.

“‘Now, young women,’” she would say, “or young persons, I suppose we are, ‘remember and pass to the left; take from the right. Never speak unless spoken to. A sociable waitress is bad form. Step softly and slow. Bring in and take out one thing at a time. Don’t stare, or seem to see anybody. Mr. Alex. is very particular to have his guests served properly.’ Mr. Alex.! I am anxious to see him. I suppose he is a great swell, but not greater than I have waited on in Boston, and who didn’t feel too big to say, ‘How are you, Polly? Mind and bring my soup hot, or tea or coffee, and get me some cream.’ I know a thing or two about a table as well as old mother Groves with her silk gown and gold glasses. Why, she was once waiter in a second-class restaurant in New York. I know it from a woman who was with her. Now she is matron of Maplehurst and feels big, but I don’t care for her. I shall say ‘good-morning’ if anybody says it to me,” and Polly executed a part of the skirt dance to finish her speech.

Naturally Nos. 1, 2 and 3 laughed at her performance, and shared her opinion of Mrs. Groves and her desire to see Alex., who had been held before them as one sure to detect the slightest departure from the deference due him and his guests from his employees. Of the four Sherry cared the least, and yet on the day when he was expected with his party she began to feel a little nervous, and to wonder what he would think of his quartette and of her. They were standing now in a row before Mrs. Groves, who was very imposing in her black satin dress, her old lace, gold-bowed spectacles, and her bunch of keys jingling at her side.

“Now, young women,” she said, “I expect you to do your best, and remember it does not matter that you are clerks,”—she would not say salesladies and stenographers and restaurant waiters,—“and—” she paused and glanced at Sherry, not knowing where to place her.

Polly, who admired Sherry greatly and styled her the Duchess, spoke up and said, “A real lady.”

Mrs. Groves frowned, and continued: “No matter what you have been, real ladies, or what, you have hired out to do certain duties, and I expect you to do them to the satisfaction of Mr. Marsh, whose orders I am carrying out. If not, you will be dismissed.”

“Who will take our places?” Polly asked; and Mrs. Groves replied, “Plenty are ready to jump at the chance. Don’t think we are dependent on you.”

Polly, who knew the difficulty there was to get help anywhere, shrugged her shoulders in a way which brought a sourer look than usual to Mrs. Groves’ naturally sour face.

“Mr. Marsh can command the best of help,” she said, “and expects the best of service, and so does his family. Mrs. and Miss Marsh are more particular than he,—that is,—more exacting. Ladies always are of their servants.”

Sherry felt for a moment as if she hated Mr. Marsh and his family, but she gave no sign of any emotion, and when, with a wave of her hand, Mrs. Groves signified that the conference was ended, she walked away with her companions and went to her room to wait for the expected arrival.

CHAPTER VIII
THE ARRIVAL

From the stable-yard there came a blast from an Alpine horn as the cortege started for the station. There was a long wagon for baggage, an open brougham, two buggies and the gayly colored tally-ho, for whose appearance, with the two grooms and four big black horses, the people who lived along the road were watching. It was nearly car time, and Sherry soon heard the rumble among the hills and saw the wreaths of smoke curling up in front of the station where the train was stopping. On a balcony opening from the hall in which the rooms of the quartette opened, Nos. 2, 3 and 4 had assembled, and Sherry finally joined them and stood waiting till the four black horses came prancing up the hill, the clinking of their silver-tipped harness, the blowing of the horn by one of the grooms and the chatter and laughter of the young people, nearly drowned by the barking of the huge dog, who ran sometimes in front of the horses, again under them and again at the side of the road, jumping and rolling over and shaking his handsome head and long mane in token of his delight with the freedom and freshness of the country. It was the dog Alex. had brought from Denver, changing his name from Laddie to Sherry, to which the dog had become so accustomed that he had seemingly forgotten his old name. Occasionally, to test him, Alex. would call “Laddie, Laddie,” when the dog would plant his fore feet firmly on the ground and, lifting up his head, seem to be intently listening to something heard long ago and forgotten. But he would never move from the spot where the sound reached him, no matter how many times “Laddie” was repeated. Call him “Sherry,” and he always came with a bound, oftentimes putting both paws upon the shoulder of his master.

So many things to interest him had come into Alex.’s life since the night of the opera, when he saw Sherry Sherman in old Pledger’s box, that he did not think of her now as much as formerly. Who she was, or where she was, he had no idea, and the only link between her and himself was the dog he had named for her, and who was now barking himself nearly wild in his joy at being free to run as far as he pleased and thrust his nose into every suspicious looking hole along the road, hoping to unearth a woodchuck, or rabbit, or something stronger, it mattered little to him in his exuberance of spirits. As the gay cavalcade swept up the hill, Alex. swung his hat with a cheer for Maplehurst, which was at once taken up by the party, who shouted themselves hoarse as they drew up before the door, where Mrs. Groves was standing to receive them.

“That’s him. I didn’t s’pose first-class folks made such a row as that, and Mr. Marsh is yelling, too, and he looks real good and not at all as if he would eat us,” Polly whispered, her attention concentrated upon Alex., as was that of her companions.

What they saw was a fair-haired, fair-faced young man, who, as Polly suggested, looked as if he was real good. All his life he had been having good times and helping others to have them, and he was having one now as he stood up in the tally-ho hurrahing for Maplehurst. Behind the tally-ho was the brougham, with Mrs. Marsh and the elderly ladies, while the open buggies contained husbands and fathers of some of the party. It was a gay gathering of well-bred, fashionable people, who, like Alex., were having a good time, and Mrs. Groves felt the importance and pride of her position, and bowed low as they descended one by one and began to fill the piazza and the hall, and to exclaim with delight at the beauty of everything.

“Oh, this is lovely! This is paradise! I wish I was to stay all summer instead of two weeks. I hope he will invite me,” Sherry heard as she came down from the balcony and stood at the far end of a side piazza, with a catch in her breath as she thought that her place was with the merry group rather than as a menial waiting for orders from Mrs. Groves.

Just then she was startled by a loud, peremptory call of “Sherry, Sherry, come here!”

Without dreaming that anything or anybody could be meant but herself, she started swiftly in the direction of the sound, and was met and nearly knocked down by a dog who planted his forefeet on her shoulders and stood shaking his head at her with a bit of stick in his mouth. While the rest of the party had been going into ecstasies over the house and the view the dog had been making observations, too, and spying a hole under a rock across the road had at once started for the spot and commenced digging, eager to do battle with anything which might be hiding there. Fearing for the safety of his pet’s long fur, Alex. called quickly, “Sherry, Sherry, come here!”

Obedient to the call the dog came, but picked up as he came a chip, which he hoped some one might throw for him to catch. Seeing Sherry running down the long piazza, he scented fun in that direction and made for her, while Alex. called again, “Sherry, come here,” and hurried around the corner in time to keep the girl from falling, the force was so great with which the dog leaped upon her. She was fond of dogs, but this one frightened her, and her face was very white as she looked up at Alex., and her breath came quickly as she said, “Please call him off.”

She swayed a little, and Alex. put one arm around her, while with the other he grasped his dog by the mane, and said: “Down, Sherry, down! It is only play. He is very good-natured. I hope he has not frightened you,” and he looked anxiously into the face which struck him as one he had seen before.

“Just at first he startled me, he came so swiftly. What did you call him?” Sherry said; and Alex. replied, “Sherry,—odd, I know, but pretty; don’t you think so? I am his master, Alex. Marsh, and you are——?”

Sherry hesitated a moment and then answered, with a laugh, “The girls call me Fanny, and Mrs. Groves, No. 1. I am your waitress.”

“By George!” Alex. said, under his breath, and in his surprise letting go of the dog’s mane.

Not till that moment had he noticed Sherry’s dress, the white apron and cap, which told her position, and which he recognized as one of the lot he had bought in New York.

“By George!” he said again, because he had nothing else to say, while Sherry’s beautiful eyes twinkled with a look of half scorn and amusement at his discomfiture. “Fanny! Yes, that’s so. I ought to have known. I beg your pardon.”

“For mistaking me for a lady?” Sherry said, and now there was scorn and sarcasm both in her voice, which made Alex. wince and feel small, while, for want of something better to do, he wrenched the chip from his dog’s mouth and sent it out upon the grass, followed swiftly by the delighted animal.

It seemed scarcely a second before he was back to where Alex. still stood looking curiously at Sherry and stammering he scarcely knew what except that he hoped she liked it at Maplehurst, and was comfortable and not overworked. He wanted everyone to have a good time, and if there was anything he could do for her she must let him know.

Mrs. Groves, who hated dogs, had heard the clatter of Sherry’s feet and seen him as he disappeared around the corner. She was very careful to have the piazzas kept clean and had had them scrubbed that morning, and here was that huge creature careering over them like mad. His place was at the stables with the horses, where a kennel had been built for him, and she started after him, shooing him as if he had been a hen and shaking her satin skirt at him, but stopped suddenly as she caught sight of Mr. Alexander Marsh talking to No. 1, who stood before him with what Polly, if she had seen her, would have called her grandest Duchess manner, and was actually smiling in his face, and showing her fine teeth and dimples. Mrs. Groves had been constantly expecting something out of the common from Sherry; but nothing quite so barefaced as thrusting herself upon Mr. Marsh’s notice before he had been there half an hour, and every thread in her satin gown rustled and the keys at her side gave out individual jingles as she said, “Young woman, this is not your place; you are wanted in the house to take towels to the rooms in corridor 2.”

Sherry looked at her in surprise, as this was the first intimation she had had that taking towels to the rooms was a part of her duties. Nor was it, and Mrs. Groves had only thought of it as a means of getting rid of her. But Sherry made no protest except with her eyes, which flashed a moment with a look Mrs. Groves had seen before and did not like. Then she said, very respectfully, “Yes, madam,” and with a bow to Alex., walked away, followed by the dog, who was so persistent in letting her know what he wanted that when she reached the end of the piazza she took the stick from him and threw it into the yard, as Alex. had done. There were leaps and bounds, and Mrs. Groves was nearly thrown off her feet as the dog rushed by her to the door through which Sherry had disappeared, shutting it after her. Finding no one there, he looked around with surprise and disappointment, and then came back to Alex. and Mrs. Groves, signalling to the latter that he wished her to continue the play. He might as well have signalled the Sphinx for any response he received, except a frown, as she held her dress away from him.

“He is so glad to be in the country again that he is nearly crazy,” Alex. said.

Mrs. Groves bowed and continued the conversation the dog had interrupted. She had commenced by saying: “I knew she had a great deal of assurance, but I did not think she would go so far as that.”

“As what?” Alex. asked, and Mrs. Groves replied:

“Thrust herself upon your notice the first thing.”

“She did nothing of the sort,” Alex. answered quickly. “My dog nearly knocked her down, as he did you, and I apologized for him, and told her who I was and asked who she was. She said she was sometimes ‘Fanny’ and sometimes ‘No. 1.’ She is a deuced pretty girl any way. Who is she and where did she come from?”

Mrs. Groves frowned. Alex., with his democratic notions, would spoil the servants if she did not keep a tight rein.

“She is Fanny Sherwood, or Sherman, or something like that,” she said. “I don’t try to remember their last names. I call the waitresses Nos. 1, 2, 3 and 4, and she is No. 1, because I hired her first.”

“Do they like it?” Alex. asked, and Mrs. Groves replied: “I don’t consult their wishes. I tell you, Mr. Marsh, you must be strict these days with your help, or they will run over you and expect to be Miss Brown, or Smith, or whatever their names chance to be, especially if they are clerks, or typewriters, or teachers.”

“And what is No. 1?” Alex. asked.

“Nothing, so she says,” Mrs. Groves answered. “Poor, no doubt, and wanted an easy job and some money. I can’t say that she does not do her work well, but there is something about her which tells me that she’s a high stepper and must be curbed.”

“So she is the high stepper you wrote about? Well, don’t draw the bit too tight,” Alex. said, laughingly. “I want everybody to have a good time,—help and all. I could not enjoy myself if they were being ground down like machines,—so treat them well, Mrs. Groves,—treat them well, and if No. 1 wants to step high, let her, provided she does not kick over the traces.”

“Which she will, if you have your way,” Mrs. Groves replied.

“Well, let her kick,” was Alex.’s rejoinder.

He was beginning to feel a good deal of interest in No. 1, who, with a dozen fresh towels on her arm, was going towards corridor No. 2.

“What are you doing? The racks are full of towels,” a chambermaid said to her.

“Obeying Mrs. Groves’ orders,” was Sherry’s reply, as she went on and knocked at the first door in the corridor.

It chanced to belong to Amy Marsh, who, thinking it one of her friends, called out familiarly, “Entrez, if you can get in.”

The tone of her voice changed very materially when she saw who it was.

“Oh,” she said, “I thought Martha was the maid on this floor.”

“She is, but Mrs. Groves sent me,” Sherry answered, laying a part of her towels on the already well-filled rack.

“Yes; well, now you are here, I wish you would put up some of my things, which I have scattered everywhere in unpacking my trunk to get my dress for dinner,” Amy said.

“When I have disposed of these I will help you,” Sherry replied, leaving the room, while Amy looked after her curiously.

The girl’s personality was beginning to impress her. “I wonder who she is,” she thought. “Not an ordinary, sure; but some saleslady, I dare say, or teacher. They usually carry their chins in the air, and hers is very high. No matter, I mean to make her useful.”

Amy’s room was littered with the different articles she had dragged from her trunk, and these on her return Sherry began to put away, while Amy questioned her as to her name, and where she had lived, and in what capacity she was at Maplehurst.

Sherry told her she was waitress No. 1, that her name was Fanny, that she came from the country and was neither a saleslady, nor typewriter, nor teacher. Amy did not ask her last name. Like Mrs. Groves, she did not care. Fanny was enough, and as she seemed willing, notwithstanding the way she held her head and chin, she asked her to button her dress and fasten her collar and see if her skirt hung right. And Sherry did what was required of her and did it so well that Amy said to her, “Seems as if you must be a lady’s maid, you are so handy. Are you?”

“No, I have not that honor. I was never any one’s maid but my mother’s and sister’s. I am glad if I pleased you,” Sherry answered, and her chin certainly did take an upward tilt, and there were red spots on her cheeks as she left the room and went down to receive Mrs. Groves’ last directions before dinner.

Numbers 2, 3 and 4 were already in the anteroom looking a little anxious, except Polly, who said she didn’t care a rush for all the gentry at Maplehurst; she had seen a thing or two in Boston, had waited on a Governor, and could teach madam herself. Further remarks were prevented by the appearance of madam, who began: “Now, young women, this is your first dinner, and everything depends upon the way you acquit yourselves. If you are very awkward and make mistakes I may have to fill your places. Mr. Marsh is very particular about his table service. When the gong sounds you are to walk in slowly side by side with your trays, and take your places at your respective tables, behind the chair at the head, and don’t on any account ever put your hand on the chair or stand lopsided on one hip. Remember!”

With this injunction she went out, leaving Nos. 1, 2, 3 and 4 waiting for the gong, with Polly taking a few steps of the Highland Fling as she waited.

CHAPTER IX
THE FIRST EVENING AT MAPLEHURST

“Now then,” Polly said, when the Fling was finished, “the time for action has come. So, heads up, heels together, toes out, shoulders back, and when the gong sounds, forward march, like soldiers going to battle. There she goes!” and she sobered down as the musical gong echoed through the house, and the four girls, with faces not quite straight, marched into the dining-room and took their places, while on the stairs and in the hall there was a rustle of muslin dresses and ribbons and merry laughter, and then the gay company came in, preceded by the head-waiter, a mulatto, who had arrived that morning and whom Mrs. Groves had not dared take in hand.

He knew his business, and gave her to understand that he did, and with great dignity assigned the party their seats. The Marshes were nearest the door, and Polly, who was on the side with Sherry, gave her a comical smirk and wink as Alex. took the chair behind which Sherry was standing. It was to have been Mrs. Marsh’s seat, but as there was a window at her back which would bring her directly in a draught she exchanged with Alex., who started a little when he saw Sherry pulling his chair out for him. Friendliness and familiarity were a part of Alex.’s nature, and neither his mother nor sister could make him understand the distance there was between him and his inferiors. Pleasant words cost nothing, was his theory, and they came naturally to him for every one he met. Had it been Polly behind his chair he might only have nodded to her, and would have recognized her fitness to be there. But Sherry, with her head and chin so high, her grand Duchess manner, and the look in her face as if she thought it a big joke, was different. He had met her before, and something in her eyes made him say, involuntarily, “Hello,” as to an old acquaintance whom he was surprised and pleased to meet again; then, seeing the look of astonishment on Amy’s and his mother’s face, he said, “I hope you are over your fright.”

Sherry inclined her head and passed him the menu for his choice of soup. But her eyes met his with a laugh she could not repress. Her eyes were always betraying her, and they flashed upon Alex. a look which made him feel hot and cold, and wonder again where he had seen her or some one very like her. He might have asked her had they been alone, but the dignity with which his mother straightened herself and the expression on Amy’s face subdued him, and he sat quite still, watching Sherry as she took the orders and went down the long dining-room in the direction of the kitchen.

“Alex.,” Amy exclaimed, “are you crazy, hallooing the waitress and talking to her as if you knew her?”

“I do know her,” Alex. replied. “I may almost say I have had her in my arms.”

“What do you mean?” Amy and Ruth and his mother asked in a breath, and Alex. replied: “My dog nearly knocked her down, and I got to the spot in time to save her, and, by George, neither of you have more an air to the purple born than she has. She is not a common personage, and ought to be sitting with us instead of waiting upon us.”

“Don’t be foolish, nor talk so loud; here she comes,” Amy said, as Sherry appeared with Mrs. Marsh’s soup and then went back for another dish.

“Well, just look at her and see how she carries herself. All the fellows are watching her, and Charlie Reeves, I know, is dying to be at our table,” Alex. said; then, as it was some little time before his soup came to him, he began to wonder at the delay and why the girls all walked as if in a slow drill when he was so hungry, and there was Charlie Reeves eating dry bread he was so famished.

The dinner progressed slowly, as it must if Mrs. Groves’ orders were followed, and Alex.’s impatience increased, and but for his mother he would have gone into the kitchen to see “why they were so infernally slow, and why they couldn’t bring and carry more than one thing at a time.”

“It is hot here as a furnace, and we shan’t get through till dark. I’m going to tell her to hurry anyway,” he said.

“Tell whom?” Amy asked, and he replied, “Why, Miss—what’s her name? You know.”

“You mean No. 1,” Amy said, and Alex. replied: “No. 1 be hanged! That’s no name for a girl. She has another, of course. What is it? She told me. Fanny? Yes, Fanny! Pretty name, too, and there she comes with one plate of salad, where she might have brought two or three, and by George if there isn’t——”

The rest of his sentence was a loud, “Sherry, you wretch! what are you doing here? Go back!”

Every one in the room was startled, and no one as much as Sherry. She had seen the dog looking in at her from the kitchen door, but had no idea he was following her, and Alex.’s sharp outcry, “Sherry, you wretch!” unnerved her completely. She did not think of the dog, or that he was meant. It was herself. She had done something wrong, and every object in the room began to swim before her and the strength in her arms to leave her. There was a crash, and tray and salad were on the floor, with the dog sniffing at them, and Alex. was bending over the débris, his hair once touching Sherry’s as he picked up the tray and she the broken plate.

“What is it?” he asked, looking at her white face.

“I was so stupid,” she said, “and thought you meant me.”

“You!” Alex. exclaimed, in surprise. “Why should you think that? It was the dog. Didn’t you know he was following you?”

“No,” Sherry answered, and the “no” was like a sob, for she was very near crying.

“Alex., do sit down and let the girl attend to her business,” Mrs. Marsh said, a little sharply, and Alex. sat down, while Sherry, more mortified than she had ever been in her life, took out the broken plate and resumed her duties, while a maid from the kitchen was sent to remove the salad from the floor.

In spite of his master’s commands that he should “get out,” the dog stretched himself by the window, watching every move of Sherry, and occasionally putting out his big paw to touch her dress as she passed him, and once making a motion to follow her. But Alex. kept him down, and the long dinner came to an end just as the sun was dipping behind the high hills around Maplehurst, and shedding a few farewell rays on Mount Washington. The guests hurried to find a cool place on the piazzas or under the great maple, where there were seats around the trunk and chairs scattered over the rugs spread upon the ground.

“Now we will have a good time smoking and talking, and by-and-by we will have some iced lemonade, and if anyone wants a drive there are plenty of lazy horses in the stables and lazy grooms to harness them; and there are three or four wheels, if you would like a spin along the road. I’ve had a path scooped pretty smooth for a mile or two.”

Alex. was distributing palm leaf fans as he said this, and bidding his guests have a good time. He was a prince of hosts, and it did one good just to see how happy he was, moving among his guests, who certainly had a good time watching the lights and shadows as the sun went down and the moon came up and threw its silvery rays upon the valley and hills and mountains. And while the party was having its good time in the cool of the early night, the great, kind-hearted Alex. did not forget that there was another party probably not having as good a time at the rear of the house. In his journey to the kitchen, ordering iced lemonade and tea and biscuits, he had heard the clatter of dishes and seen Nos. 1, 2, 3 and 4 hurrying with their work as if they, too, were anxious for the fresh air and the moonlight. Conspicuous among them was Sherry, her face still very pale and with an expression which made Alex. sorry for her. He was apt to be sorry for people not having as good times as he did, and these dish washers certainly were not.

They ought to be out-doors getting some fresh air after such a tramp as they had at the dinner, walking miles, he believed, when half a one would have answered. Fanny wasn’t used to it, he knew, and she was so tired that she dropped her tray.

If Alex. had questioned himself closely he would have found that a great share of his concern was for Fanny, whose white face haunted him, and after revolving matters for a few minutes he came to a decision that dinner should not again be dragged out so long. The guests wanted to get through and the waitresses wanted to be through. They were human,—yes, very human,—and Sherry’s face came before him the most human of all, as it looked up from the débris on the floor, the lips quivering and tears in the great brown eyes.

“I’ll fix it so everybody will have a good time. I’ll see that Groves woman. She is the high cockalorum who orders things, and, by George, I hate to tackle her; there is something in her steel-gray eyes which makes a fellow feel small. I’ll see the chef first. We are here for a good time and not to spend half of it at the table.”

When Alex. reached this decision the fans and tongues were in full sway on the piazzas and under the maple, and the iced lemonade had been brought out and the clatter of dishes had ceased, and he saw one or two white figures flitting towards an old woodbine-covered arbor, which was at a little distance in the rear of the house, and supposed to belong to the help. Nos. 2, 3 and 4 had started for it the moment their work was done, but Sherry lingered behind. She must see Mrs. Groves, who had not yet heard of the accident, as she was not in the kitchen when it happened, and no one had reported it. She had gone to the piazza seldom used by the guests, as it looked towards the stables. Her first dinner had been a great success, and so far as she knew Nos. 1, 2, 3 and 4 had done credit to her training. There had been no confusion or hurry, and it had occupied nearly two hours, as it ought. There had been seven courses, and to-morrow an eighth was to be added. On the whole, she was satisfied. It was better to be matron here than waitress at an eating-house on the Central Railroad, where she once was, and of which she had no very pleasant reminiscences. She was happy and was fanning herself complacently when Sherry appeared, and in a straightforward way told what she had done, but gave no reason for doing it. She dropped the tray and broke the plate and was sorry,—that was all, and she waited for Mrs. Groves to speak, standing very erect, with her hands locked together and the fingers working a little nervously.

Mrs. Groves was both angry and surprised, and she looked at Sherry as if the offence were so great that she could hardly do it justice.

“Broke a salad plate, and one of the best set!” she began at last, in a voice which made Sherry tremble for what might be coming next. “What possessed you to be so careless? Looking at the guests, no doubt, instead of attending to your business. I ought to discharge you, and will if such a thing occurs again. I shall deduct the price of the plate from your wages. Of course you expect to pay for it?”

“Certainly,” Sherry answered, “and for the whole set, too, if you cannot match it.”

“Have you any idea how much the whole set cost?” Mrs. Groves asked, and Sherry replied: “A great deal, I suppose. Fifty dollars, perhaps.”

“Fifty dollars!” and Mrs. Groves’s lips curled in scorn. “The plate was part of a dinner set which cost more than you can earn in several summers. It is not likely you can match it. You can only pay for the plate. I will see Mr. Marsh about it. Hereafter be more careful, and keep your eyes and mind on your business.”

Before Sherry could reply Alex. appeared upon the scene. He had interviewed the cook first and told him there were to be no more dinners two hours long, with his guests waiting half that time for dishes to be brought.

“’Tain’t my fault, sir,” the chef said to him. “Everything is ready to your hand, but Mrs. Groves orders us that only one thing shall go in or out at a time and the girls must walk as if they was attendin’ their own funerals. Lord, sir, the way she’s drilled ’em is enough to kill cattle. You better see her.”

“I will,” Alex. answered, and, with a slight tremor, he started to find the lady who, the chef said, was on the back piazza.

As Alex. reached the corner near which Mrs. Groves was sitting he caught the sound of Sherry’s voice, and, stopping, heard what passed between her and Mrs. Groves, his blood boiling as he listened and all his dread of Mrs. Groves disappearing.

“She will do nothing of the sort,” he said, coming forward. “Excuse me,” he continued, “I was coming to find Mrs. Groves and could not help hearing the conversation. Pay for a broken plate! I hope I am not so small as that.”

Mrs. Groves took off her eye-glasses and looked at the young man, while she said: “But, Mr. Marsh, it was one of the most expensive set, not a Haviland, and the servants ought to pay for what they break. They always did in General Walker’s family, where I lived three years.”

“I don’t care a picayune what they do in General Walker’s family, or whether the plate was Haviland, or Royal Worcester, or Dresden, or what it cost.” Alex. began gathering courage from Sherry’s eyes, which fairly danced and seemed to him to show different colors, a trick they had of doing when she was greatly pleased or excited.

She was both now, and the color came back to her face in bright waves as Alex. went on: “I shall have none of my broken ware paid for by my—” he was going to say “servants,” as Mrs. Groves had put that word into his mind, but a glance at Sherry stopped him, and he said, “By any young lady in my employ.”

Sherry’s eyes were like stars as they beamed upon him, while Mrs. Groves gave a kind of gasp, as if either the heat or the “young lady” were too much for her. With a wave of her hand she adjusted her glasses, and taking it for granted that she was dismissed, Sherry left Alex. to have it out with Mrs. Groves. There was an attempt on her part at an argument that the plate should be paid for as a warning to the other girls; otherwise every dish in the house might be broken or nicked before the season was over.

“Let them be nicked and broken. I can get more,” Alex. said, rather hotly for him, “and another thing I must speak of, I can’t have the dinners so long. Two mortal hours we were at the table to-night, and half that time we were waiting for plates and things to come in and go out one at a time. At this rate the day will be spent at the table.”

“What do you mean?” Mrs. Groves asked.

“Why, it is like this,” Alex. replied. “If four fresh plates are needed don’t bring them one at a time at a snail’s pace. It takes forever.”

“Do you want a big tray piled with dishes, as at a hotel or restaurant?” Mrs. Groves asked, and Alex. replied: “Of course not; there is a medium, and I want to save time as well as steps for these girls, who must have been fagged to death. The one who was just here, Fanny, I believe, is her name, was white as a sheet when she dropped her tray. I thought she was going to faint. Evidently she is not used to the work.”

There was a call for Alex. from one of the guests, and, with a bow, he walked away, feeling uncomfortable, as he always did when he had made anyone else so; but glad that the interview was over and he had taken the dragon by the horns.

Sherry meantime had gone to the summer-house, where she found Nos. 2 and 3 sitting upon the steps, and Polly, lying upon a seat inside, her feet crossed and her hands clasped under her head.

“Hello, No. 1,” she said, as Sherry appeared. “You still live, I see. What did she say? Did she give you the bounce?”

“No, only a promise of it if I offend again,” Sherry replied, as she took a seat upon the steps and began to inhale deep breaths of the cool air from the hills and to fan herself with her apron.

“I was never so dead tired in my life,” Polly began. “I wonder if any of you can guess how far we walked during the dinner. I have a pedometer my brother gave me, and I thought I’d wear it and know. Guess now.”

No. 3 said it seemed ten miles, No. 2 twenty, and Sherry fifty, judging from her feelings when she dropped the salad.

“All wrong, of course,” Polly said, sitting up and producing the pedometer. “It is six rods from the tables through the long dining-room and anteroom to the supplies in the kitchen,” she said, “and we went forward and back, forward and back, like you do in a cotillion, till we walked nearly two and a half miles,—enough to make a minister swear or sweat this hot day.”

“Oh-h!” came simultaneously from the three girls on the steps, each feeling more tired than before, and each thinking with dread of the next day and the miles which lay before her.

Naturally there was a discussion with regard to the guests and the Marshes and Alex., whom Polly pronounced “O. K.” She was the slangy one of the quartette, and kept them amused and laughing until the stable clock struck eleven, when they started for the house, which the chef was beginning to shut up.

When alone in her room, Sherry stood a long time looking out upon the hills and valley bathed in the moonlight, and listening to the voices in front of the house calling good-night as the guests separated to their rooms. Alex. seemed to be everywhere, and the last Sherry heard he was saying to Charley Reeves, “Good-night, old chap, I hope we shall all have a good time. I mean you shall.” In Alex.’s voice there was a richness and a heartiness which always rang true, and Sherry’s last thought as she fell asleep was, “If all the world were like Mr. Marsh there would be no lack of good times.”

CHAPTER X
THE CEDAR CHEST

The next day was passed much as days in a mountain-house party are usually passed. The weather was perfect. A slight shower in the early morning had cooled the air and freshened the foliage and grass, and the valley lay basking in the glorious sunshine of a summer day. There were drives along the mountain road and wheeling on the smooth path by its side. Three or four of the older guests went to Mount Washington. At four o’clock the tally-ho was brought out, and the Alpine horn went echoing up and down the hills as the gay party swept by. They were certainly having a good time, and were loud in their protestations of delight when they at last met together in the drawing-room waiting for the summons to dinner. Thanks to Alex.’s instructions, this was not more than half as long as the first had been, and Polly’s pedometer registered only a mile and a quarter when it was over. Sherry was not tired at all, but came near forgetting herself once or twice in her absorption in the conversation at the different tables, which she could hear as they were near each other. Some of the party had explored the attic and examined the quaint old furniture, and expressed interest and curiosity in the chest, wondering what it contained.

“I can tell you in part,” Alex. said. “It is the wardrobe of a lady who lived here a hundred years ago, for what I know. She is buried in that little cemetery across the road. My great-uncle, Mr. Marsh, used to air them, Bowles told me, and he talked a good deal about a flowered silk that would stand alone.”

“Oh-h!” and a chorus of voices broke in together. “Just the things for a masquerade, or costume party, or tableaux. Can’t we get into the chest?”

Sherry held her breath as she listened to Alex.’s reply.

“Why, yes. I don’t know where the key is, but we can wrench off the padlock. I suppose the chest belongs to me if the house does.”

“Certainly it does,” his mother said, while Charley Reeves, who sat at the table nearest to Alex., asked:

“Who were the aborigines, anyhow?”

“Crosbys,” Alex. answered. “They owned the place first years and years ago, and if I knew where any of the descendants were living I should feel inclined to send them the old chest, if they cared for it. It seems as if the clothes should belong to them. I have no use for them. There is a relative of the Crosbys in New York,—a woman without sentiment, I should say, who would not care for such old truck. It is young people who go in for relics. Mrs. Pledger seems like one herself. Maybe you have heard of Joel Pledger? Almost every one has, though his name was new to me till recently.”

“Joel Pledger,—old Pledger, the money lender? I rather think I have,” Charley replied. “He helped me through a tight place when I was in college and the governor in Europe. The interest he charged, though, was frightful. But I paid it, or father did. He has been a good Samaritan to a lot of college boys, but always got good interest. They say he is rich as Crœsus. Do you know him?”

“No, I’ve seen him. Drives a queer old rattle-trap in the Park when he might have his carriage, they say. I’ve met Mrs. Pledger, who would have given me the family history if I’d had time to listen,” Alex. said, with a thought of the girl whom Mrs. Pledger called Sherry, and who was now standing by him with his coffee, her hand shaking so that a part of it was spilled in the saucer.

Alex. did not care for the spilled coffee. His thoughts were on the Pledgers, or rather the girl, and he wondered if Charley had ever seen or heard of her. He would finesse and find out, and he said:

“These Pledgers have no children, I believe, or young people, who would like the chest?”

“None that I know of,” Charley answered. “I’ve not the pleasure of Mrs. Pledger’s acquaintance. I was in the house once to see Joel, but she was gone; regular old crow’s-nest, and a maid who hollered up the stairs, ‘Mr. Pledger, here’s a gentleman come to see you in a carriage.’ I did hear, though, a rumor of a deuced pretty girl who visited them once. Maybe she is a Crosby, with a right to the chest.”

“By George! I never thought of that,” Alex. said to himself, beginning to feel unwilling to have the chest opened and its contents appropriated by strangers, and to wonder if he ought not to write to Mrs. Pledger and ask if the girl was a Crosby.

He never dreamed that she was there close to him, her face so white that his mother noticed her at last and asked if she were ill.

“Oh, no,” Sherry answered, pulling herself together and trying to seem natural, as she attended to her duties with her ears strained to catch every word of the conversation concerning the chest.

All the guests were talking of it now, saying they must have it opened and see what ladies wore sixty or seventy years ago. Alex.’s spirits had gone down with thoughts of the girl, but the pressure was so great that he agreed to see what they could do to-morrow, and with this the party left the dining-room.

The next morning was rainy, precluding any outdoor amusements, but just the time for an inspection of old Mrs. Crosby’s wardrobe, some of the young people said, as they gathered at the breakfast table. Sherry, who was at her post, was feeling wretchedly, and could scarcely keep on her feet. The night before, when no one saw her, she had gone to the attic and looked at the chest and tried to move it from the wall, thinking she might find the key, if it was still where Mrs. Pledger had said it was kept years ago. But it was heavy, and she had returned to her room with a feeling that she ought to prevent its contents from being desecrated by stranger hands. Her great-grandmother’s bridal dress was probably there, and Sherry tried to fancy her as she must have looked on that night of the great Crosby party. It was a long time before she could sleep, she was so excited about the chest and what she had heard of the Pledgers, and what Charley Reeves had said of the “deuced pretty girl” who had visited the “old crow’s nest,” where the maid “hollered up the stairs.” She was the girl, no doubt, but the compliment paid her was lost in the sting of the maid and the “crow’s nest,” and she tossed from side to side until at last she fell asleep and dreamed that her grandmother came to her clad in heavy brocade silk, with jewels in her ears and knots of old point lace on her sleeves and at her bosom and on the shoulders, and on her head a white bonnet with pink bows and wide ribbon strings.

“Come,” she had said, beckoning to Sherry, who went with her to the attic, where together they drew the chest a little from the wall, and her grandmother showed her the key to the padlock hanging on a tack which had been driven into the wood, just as Mrs. Pledger had said it was.

Then she woke suddenly, bathed in perspiration, and with a feeling that she had really been to the attic and found the key. She did not try to sleep again and rose early, with a nervous headache, a sense of depression unusual to her and a sensation of trying to recall something which came almost within the grasp of her memory and then eluded it. Her dream was still so vivid that she half resolved on going to the attic to see if the key was really hanging behind the chest. By this time there was a good deal of stir in the house. Servants were moving about. She might be seen and her actions wondered at. She would wait developments, but her nervousness increased and her face grew whiter when at breakfast she heard plans for opening the chest.

“Let’s go and have a look at the old thing. I don’t suppose the party across the road under the sod will care, do you?” Charley Reeves said when breakfast was over, and with Alex. at their head some of the guests were soon climbing the narrow stairs to the attic. “Jolly, what a big room this is! I wonder you don’t have it finished up for a dancing hall,” Charley said.

“What would I do with the trunk?” Alex. asked.

“Sell it at auction. Every article would bring a thundering price if you labelled it a century old, as it must be,” Charley replied, sitting down in a carved chair, the back of which gave way and sent him to the floor amid the jeers of his companions.

Picking himself up, he went with the others to the chest, where Alex. was standing with a puzzled look on his face. When he saw it the day before he was sure it was close against the wall and a little under the rafters, where it would be out of the way. Now one end of it was moved five or six inches. Somebody must have been there, and who? Not one of his guests, surely, and if some one else had a curiosity with regard to its contents, it was time he opened it and saw for himself what it contained. A thought of the pretty girl who had visited the Pledgers had haunted him continually since Charley had spoken of her, and he could not shake off a feeling that if she were a Crosby or a remote connection, she had a better right to the chest than himself and the gay crowd clamoring to have it opened.

“I guess I’ll have to do it,” he thought, taking hold of one end and finding it heavier than he had anticipated.

“Where’s the key?” Charley asked, and Alex. replied:

“Lost or stolen. I must go for something to pry off the padlock.”

Sherry’s room was in the hall from which the stairs led to the attic and only three doors from it. She had gone up to bathe her throbbing head, and as her door was open she heard what Alex. said.

“I have half a mind to tell him to look behind the chest. I believe the key is there, my dream was so vivid,” she thought, and stepped into the hall just as Alex. came down the stairs.

“Oh, Fanny,” he said, “if you are going to the kitchen, won’t you please send Mark up with a wrench, file and screw-driver? I am going to open the chest.”

Sherry’s impulse to speak of the key left her suddenly, as she thought she would probably be questioned as to how she knew it was there, and, bowing to Alex., she went to the kitchen and found the file and wrench, but not Mark, the boy of all work.

“I’ll take them myself,” she said, and, returning with them, she met Amy in the hall just going to the attic and gave them to her.

Her head was still aching, and she had that strange feeling or fatigue she had felt in the early morning.

“I’ll rest a minute,” she thought, sitting down in her room near the open door, where she could hear distinctly what was said in the attic.

Ruth Doane was saying to Amy: “I was right when I thought I heard some one up here last night dragging something on the floor. The chest has been moved from the wall.”

“No!” Amy exclaimed in surprise, while Sherry felt as if a heavy blow had been struck her. Her dream was true in part.

She had not seen her grandmother, but she had been in the attic. The habit of her childhood, which she hoped she had outgrown, had come back, and she knew why she felt so weak and depressed. She had always felt this way after walking in her sleep. She had dreaded these fits of somnambulism, and rejoiced when they left her, and she could not understand why they had returned, unless induced by the unusual strain upon her nerves since coming to Maplehurst and from thinking so much of the chest.

“Yes, it was that,” she said to herself. “It was in my mind when I went to sleep, and that is why I got up. I must have had a great deal of strength to move that chest. But it seems I did it. I was always strong when I was in this sleep. Did I really find the key, and where did I put it if I did? I used to hide things. Oh, this is dreadful!”

In a dazed kind of way she began to look for the key, a cold, clammy sweat breaking out through every pore when she found it in her work-box. For a moment she recoiled from it as from something uncanny, then, picking it up, she whispered: “I must take it to them and tell them, and that it is my great-grandmother’s chest.”

She heard the rasping sound of the file as she began to ascend the stairs, and tried to hurry, when she was suddenly stopped by Alex.’s voice, sounding just as it did in the dining-room when she dropped the salad and saying nearly the same words: “Sherry, go down. You are not wanted here.”

But for the railing on the side of the staircase she would have fallen, she grew so faint and dizzy.

“Yes, I’ll go,” she thought, feeling her way back to her room, where she shank into a chair, with her hands over her eyes and her brain in such a whirl that she did not think of the dog until she felt his paws on her shoulders and his hot breath on her face.

Uncovering her eyes, she saw him looking at her, with an expression so human and full of pity that she put her arms around his neck, and burying her face in his long mane began to cry.

“You dear old dog,” she sobbed; “it was you he meant and not me. I might have known it, but I couldn’t think, I feel so queer.”

The dog’s answer was a low whine as he capered round her with little barks of joy.

“Hush, hush,” she said, trying to quiet him. “They must not know I am here unless I take the key, as I suppose I ought.”

Just then there came to her cries of delight. The chest was opened and the young ladies were going into raptures over its contents, while Charley Reeves was careering around the attic with a white silk bonnet on his head ornamented with pink satin bows and long streamers of wide ribbon for strings. It was Mrs. Crosby’s wedding bonnet of a fashion seventy years back, and the young ladies were wild over it, as they were over everything.

“They do not need the key,” she thought. “I’ll keep it, and before I go away I’ll give it to Mr. Marsh and tell him the truth.”

Dropping it into her work-box, she went downstairs, followed by the dog, who made many ineffectual attempts for her to play with him, as she had often done during her leisure hours.

“Not now, doggie,” she said, patting his head. “I can’t call you Sherry, but next time I hear your master do so I trust I shall have sense enough to know he does not mean me. Three times and out!”

She was beginning to feel better and went about her work with her usual energy, although still depressed when she thought of the return of the somnambulistic habit and what it might lead to.

CHAPTER XI
THE FANCY DANCE

“What do you think has happened and is going to happen?” Polly said, as they were laying the tables for lunch.

Polly generally managed to know what was going on, and was bursting with her news, which she began to impart. They had opened the old chest, she said, and it was full of brocades and laces and mulls, though she didn’t know what that was,—some kind of muslin, she believed,—and pongees and high-heeled, pointed slippers and jewelry and a fine white gown and piles of bed and table linen. The gowns were spread out in Miss Marsh’s room and smelt like dead folks, and they were all in there screeching with delight, and telling what they meant to do, and trying the length of the gowns to see who they would fit, “and, oh, dear Suz, such times as we are going to have! And, oh, I forgot the queer part. Somebody had moved the chest in the night. Miss Doane heard ’em walking softly, as if in their stocking feet, and heard the scrape on the floor. Mother Groves will be asking us next if we were up there. Let her. I can prove an alibi. Here she comes!”

Polly stopped, silenced by the appearance of Mrs. Groves, who came to look over the tables and see that everything was in order. Since Alex.’s interference with the length of the dinner that lady had subsided a good deal.

If Mr. Marsh was going to run things, he could run them, she confided to the chef, who replied:

“’F I’se you, I’d let him. Girls is a ticklish lot to manage. Better give ’em a long rope.”

And Mrs. Groves had given them quite a length of rope, but kept her eyes pretty close on Sherry, whose chin in the air still annoyed and irritated her. On this occasion she stopped to find fault with some trivial arrangement which she wished changed, and then, as Polly had predicted, said to them: “Young women, someone, I hear, was in the attic last night and moved the cedar chest; for what purpose I don’t know, unless to get into it. I took you all for honest girls, and shall be sorry to find I was mistaken. No. 4, were you in the attic last night?”

“No, ma’am!” and Polly squared her elbows as for a fight.

“No. 3, were you there, or do you know who was?” Mrs. Groves continued, while No. 3’s denial was as prompt as that of No. 4.

“No. 2, what do you know of it? Were you there?” was Mrs. Groves’ next question.

“If I were I did not know it, and went in my sleep,” was the reply of No. 2, for which Sherry blessed her, as it made her answer easy.

She was very white, with a look of defiance in her dark eyes, and another,—a strange, far-off look such as they always had after one of her somnambulistic fits. Mrs. Groves noticed it, and hesitated a little before she said, “Fanny, were you there?”

The Fanny was a great concession,—made Mrs. Groves hardly knew why, except that with all her dislike of the girl she had a kind of respect for her.

“If I were there I was asleep and did not know it,” Fanny answered, with a decided upward tilt of her chin, and a flash in her eyes as she continued fearlessly: “If you and Mr. Marsh think either of us would be guilty of trying to break open a chest which did not belong to us, you should dismiss us at once.”

She looked like a young queen as she stood there with that strange shifting light in her eyes, and for a moment Mrs. Groves herself was quelled.

“Mr. Marsh has said nothing to me about it,” she answered. “My information came from another source, and as matron here it is my duty to inquire into things and keep order if I can.”

Sherry bowed her head, while Mrs. Groves departed, with Polly taking a few mimicking steps behind her.

“Oh, Polly!” Nos. 2 and 3 began, when Mrs. Groves was gone. “How did you hear all the stuff you are telling us? You surely have listened.”

“Not a bit of it,” Polly answered. “I was in my room near the attic stairs, and heard the squeals as they took out the things, and saw them bring ’em down to Miss Marsh’s room, and Mr. Reeves had put on a white bonnet with pink strings and a pair of stays, which looked like a saddle, and I heard ’em say the things were nearly a hundred years old, and belonged to that lady buried across the road. If I’se her, I’d appear to ’em, making fun of my clothes. They are to have a fancy dance and wear her things as far as they go. But, for the land’s sake, what’s the matter?” and she turned to Sherry, whose face was white as the lunch cloth and who was clutching a chair for support.

“Nothing much,” Sherry answered. “I did not sleep well and have a nervous headache. Go on and tell us of the fancy dance. When is it to be?”

Polly didn’t know. “We shall hear about it at lunch,” she said, and they did. The young people were all talking of the chest, wondering who could have moved it, and why, but soon dropping that for the more absorbing topic of the fancy dance to come off within a week, as at the end of that time some of them were to leave. People were to be invited from the different hotels in the vicinity; there was to be a string band from Fabyan’s, and the young ladies were to draw lots as to which should wear the dresses unearthed in the cedar chest, and which were in a good state of preservation. Twice a year they had been aired as long as Amos Marsh lived at Maplehurst, and on the occasion of his last visit there he had had them out, as Alex. remembered having been told by Bowles, who drove him from the station when he first visited the farm. The man had spoken of a “flowered silk,” and when, after lunch, Alex. went to Amy’s room to see the finery, he recognized the “flowered silk” in the heavy brocade at which the girls were looking with eager eyes, each hoping the right to wear it would fall upon herself. The lots were drawn and the brocade fell to Amy.

“Eureka!” she cried, holding the dress at arm’s length and pirouetting around the room. “I am in luck, but it needs a great deal of fixing to fit me, and who can do it?” Then, remembering how handy Sherry had been in helping her on the first night of her arrival, she continued: “I believe that girl who waits on us is just the one. I’ll have her up. Call her, Alex.”

He called her, and Sherry came, wondering why she was sent for, and starting when she saw the display on chairs and tables and the bed, the lovely brocade and the lace trimming, yellow with age, but showing how costly it must have been. The room was full of the sickly odor of clothes which had been long shut from the air, and Sherry felt it and held fast to the brass rod of the bedstead, while Amy explained what was wanted and asked if she could do it. Sherry knew she could, for she and Katy had always made their own dresses, but her first impulse was to decline. Then, remembering that she was there to obey, she signified her willingness to do what she could. “But not to-day, please,” she said. “My head aches; to-morrow I shall feel better.”

“To-morrow, then,” Amy replied; “and, by the way, we shall need you all day, and I will see that No. 4 waits upon us. Her table is next to ours.”

That night Sherry slept a quiet, dreamless sleep, and Miss Doane was not disturbed by noises over her head in the attic where the cedar chest stood open, with piles of things in it as yet untouched. The dresses were what were wanted for the present, and after breakfast Sherry presented herself in Amy’s room and asked what she was to do.

“Make this fit me. It is too big in some places and too small in others,” Amy said, putting on the brocade and examining herself before the mirror.

To Sherry it seemed like a wrong to the dead woman as she pinned and unpinned and ripped and basted and tried on, and when it came to the lace, which Amy said must be cut in two or three places to produce the desired effect, she ventured to say: “Can’t we arrange it in some other way? It seems a pity to cut it, and I keep thinking of the lady who used to wear it.”

Amy looked at her, wondering what possible interest she could have in the lady who used to wear it.

“Oh, she was dust and ashes long ago. She don’t mind,” she said, “and as the dress is now mine I want it as I like. So cut the lace here and here.”

Sherry hesitated a moment, and then her scissors slashed through the expensive material, which had cost a fabulous sum and been the wonder and admiration of the neighborhood. It was a hard day for Sherry, working on the old dresses and listening to the talk in which she could take no part. She was for the time being only a seamstress, whose duty was to be silent. The young ladies were well-bred and kind-hearted, and would not willingly injure the feelings of any one, but reared as they had been they felt there was an immeasurable distance between themselves and the girl who sat all day long in their midst, unnoticed except when wanted for advice or for some change in the dresses. She was very pretty, they thought, and very ladylike, and certainly understood her business.

“You must have worked in a dressmaking establishment, you are so deft with your needle and have such good taste,” one of them said to her, and she replied:

“I have made my own dresses, with my sister’s help.”

Amy, who had felt a good deal puzzled by Sherry, now began to question her.

“You have a sister?”

“Yes.”

“And a mother?”

“Yes.”

“Is your father living?”

“No.”

“And your home is in the country?”

“Yes.”

“Where, if I may ask?”

If Mrs. Groves could have seen Sherry then, she would have thought her head and chin higher than ever in the air. She was resenting being catechised so closely, but answered the last question promptly:

“In Buford, Massachusetts.”

“Buford?” Amy repeated. “Why, the Saltuses’ summer home is in Buford. Did you ever see them, Mr. Craig Saltus and his sister? You must have heard of them.”

“Yes, I have heard of them.”

“Is their place a very fine one?”

“Yes, very fine.”

“Inside as well as out? Perhaps, though, you were never inside. Were you?”

“Yes.”

“And have met Miss Saltus?”

“Yes.”

“I hear that she is very familiar with the country people. Invites them and accepts their invitations.”

As this was not a direct question Sherry did not feel called upon to answer. Her eyes were blazing with scorn at the questioning, which might have gone on if Ruth Doane had not called to her cousin and said: “For Heaven’s sake, Amy, don’t spend any more time talking of the Saltuses when we have so much to do; and I want to know if I can have this lovely scarf. See how it becomes me.”

She was draping around her head and neck a beautiful scarf of Spanish lace which Mrs. Crosby had brought from abroad and which was very becoming to Ruth’s dark style of beauty.

“Yes, you can have it,” Amy said, and as she could learn nothing in particular from Sherry she gave her up, but said to one of her friends: “Rose Saltus and I are great friends, although not at all alike. I hoped she might be here this summer, but she has to stay with her mother. But her brother Craig is coming soon. I hope he will be here for the party, though he can’t dance. What a pity he is so lame!”

Sherry was interested now, and her cheeks burned as she thought of Craig Saltus recognizing her as an acquaintance and friend, as she knew he would. She had heard from Mrs. Groves something about the Saltus family coming, but time had passed and they had not come, nor had she heard of them again until now, when she felt every nerve quiver with apprehension and dread. Rose Saltus had been very kind to her and so had Craig, and she wondered what he would say when he found her there.

“He will think me an impostor, and I begin to feel like one,” she thought, half resolving to leave before Craig Saltus came.

But something kept her, and for three days Polly waited upon her table, while she worked on the costumes, in which she became a good deal interested, especially the brocade which Amy was to wear, and which was made to fit her perfectly, thanks to Sherry’s deft fingers and taste. She had cut out a piece here and added a gore there, and made the waist lower so as to show Amy’s fine neck, and with every swish of her scissors she had felt she was inflicting bodily pain upon the great-grandmother she had never seen or scarcely heard of until recently. When the dress was done, Amy, who was about her size and figure, had asked her to put it on, that she might see how it looked and if there were any changes to be made. And Sherry put it on, and stood as a model while Mrs. Marsh and the young ladies and Alex. and Charley Reeves were called in to see what a beautiful dress it was.

“By George!” was all Alex. said, and then walked out.

He did not think it just the thing for Amy to make a model of Sherry to be gazed at, and when Charley Reeves said to him, “I say, Marsh, No. 1 is a stunner,” he felt for a moment as if he hated Charley for speaking thus of Sherry. What business had he to call her a stunner or speak of her as No. 1? He never did. He always called her Fanny and had a growing conviction that she was out of place as a waitress. When he could get time he’d find out somehow. Just now he was too busy with his preparations for the ball, which was to excel anything ever seen in the neighborhood. He had heard from Bowles, who had it from his grandfather, of the great Crosby party, talked of so long by the people. Just what they did at that party neither he nor Bowles knew.

“It was up to snuff,” Bowles said; “with grandees from all over, and dancing till four in the morning, and some of the grandees rather noisy with too much wine.”

Alex. did not mean to have anything of that sort. Otherwise everything should be first class; and he was busy everywhere and tired to death, he said, when the day came for what he called his “blow out.”

“You will have to help me dress,” Amy said to Sherry on the day of the party, and after dinner, which was served earlier than usual, Sherry found herself acting in the capacity of maid to Amy, whose hair she arranged and whose dress she put on, adjusting a ribbon here and a knot of lace there, fastening a brooch of pearls and rubies at her throat and long pendants in her ears.

“How do I look?” Amy asked, when her toilet was completed.

“I think you will be the belle of the evening,” Sherry answered, and Amy, who was beginning to be strangely drawn towards this girl whom she could not understand, said, next: “You will want to see the dance. There will be a crowd looking in at the windows from the piazza, and if you like come in and sit by the door.”

It was a good deal for Amy to unbend in this way, and she felt chagrined that Sherry did not seem more impressed with the permission to sit by the door.

“Thanks. You are very kind,” was all she said, as she left the room.

“She is an enigma,” Amy thought. “I mean to ask Craig Saltus about the family. He must have heard of them. Let me see,—Sherman is her name, I believe, though I only know her as Fanny, or No. 1. Queer fad of Mrs. Groves to designate them by numbers. This girl is certainly superior to the rest and has done my dress beautifully.”

It was time now for the expected guests to arrive, and pleased with herself, Amy went down to meet them. The night was fine. There was no moon, but the stars were out in full force, and the lanterns on the lawn and the reflectors on the piazza made it almost as light as day on three sides of the house, which presented a fairy scene after the dancing had commenced. As Amy had predicted, there were many lookers on. Young people from the different farmhouses in the neighborhood came to see the sight, and with the servants of the house crowded around the windows, watching the dancers, and occasionally, as the music became more and more exhilarating, taking a few steps themselves. Sherry was not with them, nor in the chair where Amy had told her she could sit and look on. With the first strain of music a wave of homesickness swept over her, and she would have given much to have been with her mother and Katy. It was a mistake coming here as she did. She was feeling it more and more, and had had hard work to keep back her tears ever since the guests began to arrive and she was free to do what she pleased. Going to the far end of the piazza, which looked towards the stables, she sat down in the shadow and listened to the sounds of revelry as they came to her from the other side of the house. If there was one thing she liked more than another it was to dance, and she kept time to the music with her hands and feet, until at last, as the strains of her favorite waltz came floating on the night air, she sprang up and began to whirl round and round half the length of the piazza and back to her chair, where she stopped a moment to take breath and then began her solitary dance again, shutting her eyes as she felt a little dizzy, and seeing nothing until she found herself in the arms of a young man coming from the opposite direction.

Alex. was having a good time, and, satisfied that his “blow out” bade fair to equal the Crosby party and that everybody was having a good time, he had started for the kitchen to tell the chef that refreshments were to be served in half an hour. As he turned on to the side piazza, his nearest route to the kitchen, he caught the notes of the soft-toned, even-timed waltz, which was his favorite as well as Sherry’s, and saw the white figure coming towards him in the half shadows on that side of the house. Thinking it was his cousin Ruth, he began to whirl until he caught the figure in his arms, held it close to him and kept on till he reached a side light and saw that it was Sherry.

Wrenching herself from his arms, while her eyes flashed and her lips quivered, she said, “Mr. Marsh, how dare you insult me?”

“By George!” Alex. exclaimed, holding her hands in spite of her efforts to draw them from him. “I beg your pardon. I thought you were Ruth. You are about the same size, and that waltz got into my head. I meant no disrespect. I hope you will excuse me.”

He was apologizing to her as to a lady, and the angry look in her eyes began to soften and the tears to fill them. She couldn’t keep them back, and as Alex. held her hands they dropped upon her cheeks and stood upon her lashes.

“Fanny,” Alex. said, soothingly. “Don’t cry. You make me feel like a cad. I never insulted a woman in my life. I certainly would not begin with you. Why do you cry?”

“I don’t know, unless I am a little homesick,” Sherry replied, getting her hands free and wiping her tears away, while Alex. thought how beautiful she was, seen under that light.

As she met his look of admiration, which she could not mistake, she stepped back and continued: “I like to dance, and that waltz brought things back and made me think of home.”

“Yes, I see,” Alex. answered. “Of course you like to dance. Suppose we take another turn across the piazza.”

He held out his arms, but Sherry shook her head. She knew what was proper better than he, and said, “I think you’d better go. Your guests will be missing you.”

“Let them miss me,” Alex. said, with a feeling that he would rather stay there and talk to this girl, who fascinated and puzzled him, and whose face grew each moment lovelier as her smiles came and went and her eyes beamed upon him. “Fanny,” he said, impulsively, “haven’t I seen you before?”

Sherry shook her head, and he continued: “Then I have dreamed of you, or some one like you. I have it,” and he snapped his fingers exultingly; “I saw a girl at the opera with old,—I beg your pardon,—with the Pledgers more than a year ago. She was very like you. Queer, isn’t it? Where is your home?”

Before she could answer him there was a loud call for “Alex., Alex., where are you? We want you in the Lancers.”

“I must go, as I have to see the chef. I’d forgotten him entirely. You are sure you have forgiven me? I couldn’t help it, and you waltz as if you had been at it all your life,” Alex. said, offering her his hand, in which for answer she laid hers, blushing and withdrawing it quickly as she felt his fingers closing over it with a warm pressure.

The next moment he was gone, and when Sherry next saw him she, with Nos. 2, 3 and 4, was waiting upon his guests, while her cheeks burned as she recalled the waltz upon the piazza and felt again the pressure of Alex.’s hand and heard the tone of his voice as he called her Fanny and told her not to cry.

It was late before the party broke up, and later still before Alex. fell into a disturbed sleep, in which he dreamed of the lovely face which had looked at him so wistfully that he would liked to have kissed it. Other faces which had been close to his and other forms which had been in his arms, with no attempt to withdraw from them, were also in his dreams, as he lived over the events of the night, but Sherry was always to the front, and he was beginning a second waltz with her when Amy pounded at his door, telling him that breakfast had been over an hour and that some of them were going for a drive.

CHAPTER XII
THE SOMNAMBULIST

The day after the dance passed rather quietly, as the young people were tired and preferred lounging upon the piazzas or under the trees to any great exertion. The costumes taken from the cedar chest had been carefully folded and returned to it, ready for the next time, Amy said. The folding and putting away had fallen to Sherry, who took the dresses and jewelry to the attic, laying them carefully in the chest and pausing a moment to open what proved to be the family Bible of Eli Crosby, and which was near the bottom.

“Oh, I wish I could have this,” she thought, and was about to examine it further when Amy came up the stairs, and she closed the book hastily, noticing, as she did so, that it contained two or three loose papers. “Some business papers of grandfather Crosby’s, I dare say,” she thought, and all day her mind was upon the cedar chest and its contents.

As the afternoon drew to a close a thunder storm came up and the night shut in hot and sultry. The young people were tired, and after a few ineffectual efforts to enjoy themselves, as Alex. wished them to do, they retired to their rooms, and at a very early hour quiet had settled upon the house. Alex. was sleeping soundly when there came a knock upon his door and Amy’s voice called to him, “Alex., Alex., are you awake?”

“Yes,—no. What is it? Is the house on fire?” he answered drowsily; and Amy continued in a whisper, “Dress you and come quick. There’s some one in the attic.”

“Nonsense!” Alex. said, springing up and soon joining his sister, who explained that she and Ruth had heard footsteps going up the stairs and then had heard them overhead.

They could not be mistaken. There was some one in the garret, probably the same who had moved the chest,—a burglar, perhaps, and she advised Alex. to bring his revolver or call Charley Reeves.

“Nonsense!” he said again, going with his sister and Ruth to the hall, at the end of which were the attic stairs, where they stopped to listen.

There certainly was some one in the attic moving cautiously, when he moved at all, and Alex. at once started to go up. But Amy held him back.

“Don’t, don’t,” she whispered. “You might get hurt. Whoever is there must come down. We can sit here and wait. You have your revolver?”

“Revolver. No,” Alex. answered, sitting where Amy bade him sit on a bench against the wall, which here made a little curve or alcove, so that while they could see distinctly any one coming down the stairs they could not be seen.

“There, he is coming,” Amy and Ruth both exclaimed, clutching Alex. and holding their breath as footfalls were heard upon the stairs and a glimmer of a light began to show itself in the darkness of the hall.

Amy and Ruth were trembling violently, while Alex. felt a little nervous as the light grew brighter and the steps came nearer. Then, with a smothered exclamation, he rose to his feet as Sherry came into view, carrying the brocade dress and the box of jewelry in one hand and in the other a candle, which she held raised directly in front of her, while she seemed to be looking steadily at it. She had on her dressing-gown and slippers, and her hair was falling over her shoulders. Her face was very pale, with a fixed and strained expression upon it, as if she were in pain or feeling her way over some dangerous place.

“It is Fanny. Who would have thought her a thief?” Amy gasped, while Alex.’s “Sh-sh!” came warningly.

“Don’t you see she is asleep?” he said, and Amy continued, “Let’s wake her, then.”

“No, wait,” Alex. answered, curious to know if Sherry would return to the attic for more goods.

She entered her room and they heard her moving around.

“Hiding the things,” Amy said excitedly, but Alex. kept her quiet until Sherry reappeared, candle in hand, and went to the attic again.

She was not gone long, and when she came back she had the old Bible under her arm and walked very slowly, saying, as she was opposite them, “I’m so tired and this is heavy, but it is mine.”

“Hers,” Amy repeated, in so loud a tone that Sherry stopped as if to listen, but neither turned her head nor her eyes.

Then she went into her room and shut the door.

“Aren’t you going in to wake her now?” Amy asked, and Alex. replied, “Certainly not. It would frighten and mystify her.”

“Yes, but my dress and jewels! She is welcome to the old Bible,” Amy continued; and Alex. replied, “They are safe. When she finds them in the morning she will put them back or bring them to us, and feel crushed and humiliated, no doubt. Go to bed, and hold your tongues. No one but ourselves need know what we have seen. The poor girl has had her mind so full of the dresses and is so tired working on them as she did and then waiting upon us so late last night that she is walking in her sleep. Not the first time probably.”

He was ready to find excuses for her, and told his sister a second time to hold her tongue. It was not in Amy’s nature to hold her tongue when there was an occasion to loosen it, and the occasion came at once. Mrs. Groves, whose room was at the end of the hall, and who boasted that she slept with one eye open, had heard the sound of voices, and coming from her room to investigate, met Amy and Ruth.

“What’s the matter?” she asked. “Why are you here in your dressing-gowns, and what’s that light doing at this time of night?”

She pointed to the light shining over the open transom of Sherry’s door, and started in that direction.

“Don’t go there,” Amy said in a mysterious whisper, and then the whole story came out, Mrs. Groves listening with an incredulous sneer and look of exultation.

“I always mistrusted her and believed there was some mystery back of her, but didn’t think she’d be up to quite so barefaced an act.”

“But Alex. thinks she’s asleep,” Amy said, and Mrs. Groves replied: “That’s a ruse to cover up the theft if discovered. She told one of the maids yesterday that she was homesick and believed she should go home. If she is asleep she will see the things in the morning and either take them back or tell you about it. If she does neither, depend upon it they are in her trunk and she is going to leave.”

This seemed feasible, and with their minds a good deal unsettled with regard to Sherry, Amy and Ruth returned to their rooms. Early the next morning they stole up to the attic, finding Mrs. Groves there before them, looking into the chest, diving to the bottom and pulling the articles out. With an ominous shake of the head she said to them: “I told you so; they are not here, and she has been down more than an hour. She must have seen them. They are in her trunk. Sleep-walking! Fiddlesticks! I walked just as much.”

“Seems as if she wanted to prove the girl guilty,” Amy said, as she went down to the piazza, where she found Alex. and told him of Mrs. Groves’ suspicions.

“Don’t you believe her,” he said. “She has never liked the girl. She is always finding fault with her because she seems superior to the others, and is glad of a chance to hurt her.”

And still he felt anxious, knowing Sherry must see the articles if they were in her room, and wondering what she would say. He found her standing by his mother’s chair as usual when he went in to breakfast, and noticed how pale she was, with dark rings around her eyes, and how languidly she moved, as if very tired. Mrs. Marsh knew the story by this time, and half the guests besides, and Sherry felt instinctively that she was an object of more interest than usual as she waited upon the table. For aught she knew she had slept soundly. She had not dreamed, and could not account for her headache and weakness and the dreadful nausea which sometimes nearly overmastered her. A great aversion to the place had taken possession of her, with a desire to leave it.

“I don’t think it agrees with me,” she thought. “I’ll make that an excuse and give notice this very day. I’ve had enough of it.”

“I expected it,” Mrs. Groves said, when some time during the morning Sherry announced her wish to leave, saying she was not feeling well and had not for some days.

“Mountain air is usually thought very healthy,” Mrs. Groves said with a snap in her voice, “and your duties certainly are not so very great that you need to complain.”

“I am not complaining of the work,” Sherry replied. “That is easy enough. But something ails me and I want to go home.”

“I expected it,” and Mrs. Groves’ lips shut firmly together. “Will you go to-day?”

“Oh, no,” Sherry answered, a good deal disturbed by Mrs. Groves’ manner, which had never been quite as aggravating as it was now. “I will stay till you fill my place.”

Mrs. Groves had not expected this. She thought Sherry would be glad to go at once before her theft was discovered, and she was anxious to be rid of her.

“No necessity for your waiting a day. We can manage very well. Polly is good for two tables, and some from the Reeves’ table leave to-morrow, but keep your place till after lunch,” was Mrs. Groves’ vinegary response, and Sherry left her with a feeling that she had been dismissed, rather than dismissed herself, and also with a feeling of uncertainty as to whether she really wished to go.

There had not been as much fun in her lark as she had anticipated, but,—and she colored to the roots of her hair as she thought of Alex., whom she might never see again. But what did it matter? She could never be more to him than a girl whom he had employed, and to whom he had been kind, as he was to every one. She would go home, and start that afternoon if her head stopped aching. It was throbbing painfully, and black specks were floating before her eyes, sometimes obscuring her vision and again making her see double. “There is something the matter, and the sooner I get home the better,” she thought, and finding a cool place on the piazza, she sat down to rest until it was time for lunch, the last meal at which she would serve.

Meanwhile Mrs. Groves had been busy. Sherry’s offer to stay until her place was filled did not look like guilt, but Mrs. Groves’ mind was unchanged, and she hastened to report to Amy that No. 1 had given notice and was going that afternoon.

“That proves her guilt conclusively, and I told you so. Better see to it at once before she gets away. She ought to be made an example as a warning to the other girls,” and her head and chin and the flabby flesh under it shook as she said it.

“What would you propose if we found the missing articles in her trunk? You would not have her arrested here?” Amy asked.

Her sympathy was a good deal with Sherry, whose look of suffering appealed to her.

“Of course I would not have her arrested, although she deserves it,” Mrs. Groves replied. “Take the things away, and let her know that we all know her for what she is,—a thief!”

The word had an ugly sound to Amy, and still uglier to Alex. when applied to the girl in whom he found he had so great an interest. He fully believed in the sleep-walking, and had hoped that the articles would be returned to the chest, or that Sherry would speak of them. Neither had happened, and urged by Amy he made up his mind to ask her if she ever walked in her sleep.

“It is just to the girl to give her a chance to defend herself against Mrs. Groves, who, I must say, is very bitter against her. I’ll do it,” Alex. said; “but will wait till after lunch, when Craig Saltus will be here. He must know of the girl’s family in Buford, where he has a country house. I’ll ask him about them. Craig always braces me up.”

Craig had written that he would arrive on the eleven o’clock train, but Sherry knew nothing of it till lunch time, when she was rather late at her post. Her head was still aching frightfully with that nausea so hard to bear. Two or three times she had sat down overcome by dizziness before she could rally sufficient strength to go to the dining-room, where the sight and odor of the food nearly overmastered her as she moved slowly up to her table after all were seated, seeing the back of a strange man, but never dreaming who it was until she stood beside him.

“Why, Miss Sherman, you here! This is an unexpected pleasure. Alex. never told me,” Craig exclaimed, offering her his hand, and as quickly as he could, on account of his lameness, getting upon his feet and beginning to pull out the vacant chair next to him.

Then sense and sight for a moment forsook Sherry, who would have fallen if Alex., too, had not risen and taken her arm.

“There is a mistake, and there has been one all the time,” he said to Craig, who was looking at one and then another, but mostly at Sherry, whose white apron and cap struck him at last.

He knew what they meant, but why was she wearing them, and why did Mrs. Marsh and Amy and Ruth seem so bewildered and Alex. so nervous, and why was Sherry so white?

An awful dizziness was coming over her again, and the black specks were thick before her eyes. Turning to No. 4, she said:

“Polly, will you take my place? I must have air.”

She was white as a corpse, and the rings around her eyes grew darker as she left the room, with Alex. beside her.

“What is it, Miss Sherman?” he said, adopting the name Craig had given her. “Why have you never told us you were Craig Saltus’ friend?”

“I don’t know,” Sherry answered faintly, as she sat down on the side piazza, where she had waltzed with Alex., and where the dog came bounding to her and began to lick her cold hands. “Go back,” she said to Alex. “I shall be better alone. By and by I’ll tell you why I was so foolish.”

Alex. went back, finding his mother and Amy and Ruth in a state of great excitement, and Craig quite as much surprised, as each listened to the other and told what they knew of the young lady,—Miss Sherry Sherman, Craig called her, repeating to Alex. what he had already said to the ladies.

“One of the very best families in Buford,” he said. “We know them well; and Rose is very fond of Sherry and her sister Katy.”

“Sherry,” Alex. exclaimed. “I thought her name was Fanny.”

“So it is in part,” Craig answered; “Fanny Sheridan Sherman, but she is called Sherry in Buford.”

“Craig,” Alex. gasped, a light beginning to break upon him, “is she related to old Pledger?”

“To Joel Pledger? Yes. You saw her in the box with him, you know, and asked me who she was.”

“But you didn’t tell me her name. You said his grand-niece,” Alex. replied. “She interested me then. She has puzzled me ever since she came here. Why did she come?”

This question no one could answer, although Craig tried to do so.

“I think she is a little erratic by nature,” Craig said. “I know she is fond of adventure, and probably the fancy struck her, as it does many young girls, to have some diversion in this line. You must have seen she was a lady?”

“Always,” Alex. exclaimed. His interest in Sherry increased tenfold now that he knew she was the girl seen in old Pledger’s box and never forgotten.

Amy said nothing. She was thinking of the dress and the jewelry, and wondering how they were to approach the subject. Questioning Fanny Sheridan Sherman, daughter of a clergyman and friend of Craig Saltus, was different from questioning No. 1. Alex. too, was worried, but it must be done, and the sooner it was off his mind the better. Going to the piazza, where he had left Sherry, he found her still there, with her eyes closed and the traces of tears on her face.

“Miss Sherman,” he began, drawing a chair beside her, “I can’t tell you how surprised I am, and glad that—” he began to stammer, not knowing how to finish the sentence, for Sherry’s eyes were open now and fixed upon him. “Yes, I’m glad,” he went on, “and when you are feeling better you will tell me about it. Now I must speak of something else,—something imperative. Did you ever walk in your sleep?”

Instantly a look of terror leaped into Sherry’s eyes, and her hands grasped the arms of the chair in which she was sitting.

“Yes,” she answered, “when I was a child. I hoped I had outgrown the habit, but it came back to me some days ago and I took the key.”

“What key?” Alex. asked, and Sherry told him the story of the key, leaving out her dream of her grandmother and only saying, “I dreamed some one told me where it was.”

Alex. was more puzzled than ever. Why was she so interested in the chest and its contents? He would ask her later. He must get over the most important part at once, and he said: “The brocade and jewelry and Bible disappeared last night. Do you know where they are?”

For a moment he thought Sherry had fainted, she sat so still and looked so white, and he put his hand on the one of hers nearest to him, and as she opened her eyes and looked at him he said, “Don’t feel so badly; try and remember.”

Then she rallied and said in a choking voice: “No, I don’t know where they are. Did I walk in my sleep, and is that why I feel so dizzy and tired this morning, just as I used to feel? Did I walk in my sleep?”

Alex.’s hand was still on hers, and he felt her cold fingers closing tightly round it; and there was the pallor of death on her face as he told her what he saw.

“Oh,” she gasped, “this is dreadful! You saw me, and it must be true; but I do not remember dreaming at all as I usually do. I must have put the things in my closet. I did not see them as I opened the door this morning to hang up my dress. Your sister and Miss Doane saw me last night, too? Will you ask them to go with me to my room?”

“Let me see you there first,” Alex. suggested, and Sherry did not refuse his help.

Her strength seemed to have left her, and her feet dragged heavily as she climbed the back stairs.

“Sit here till I return,” Alex. said, placing her in a chair near the door and hurrying off for his sister and cousin, whom he found talking to Craig Saltus and telling him of last night’s adventure.

“I remember hearing that she walked in her sleep when a child,” he said. “She was little more than that when we first went to Buford. The whole town knew of it and were interested. She and Rose were great friends, and Rose had her once to spend the night with her, and she scared us all by getting up at midnight and starting for home.”

This swept away any doubt Amy and Ruth might have had with regard to Sherry, and they went with Alex. to her room, where she was sitting with her head dropped as if asleep, but she roused up when they came in, her lips quivering with a pitiful smile as she said: “I didn’t know what I was doing. I have no remembrance of it. I never used to have when I woke. There was only a sick, dizzy, tired feeling, as if I had walked miles, or been terribly frightened. It is dreadful, and you saw me with them. They must be in the closet. Please look. I can’t.”

Amy and Ruth did the searching, while Alex. stood by Sherry, whose face was spotted when they brought out the brocade, which was hanging inside the closet where it could not be seen, if one merely opened the door as Sherry had done in the morning. The jewelry and Bible came next, and the three were placed upon the bed just as Mrs. Groves appeared in the doorway. She had been that morning to see a friend who was to leave that day and had just returned. Consequently she had not heard of Mr. Saltus’ arrival, or of the scene at the table, nor of all that followed, filling the entire staff in the kitchen with wonder. She had started directly for her room, and hearing voices as she passed Sherry’s door, looked in with a sinister expression on her face as she saw the articles on the bed and Sherry sitting white and limp in a chair, with Alex. standing over her as if to prevent her escape.

“So you’ve found ’em,” she said. “I thought you would. Were they in her trunk?”

Instantly the terrible truth flashed upon Sherry that this woman believed her a thief, and it roused all her strength and courage. Springing to her feet and confronting her foe, she began: “And do you dare insinuate that I took the things knowingly and meant to carry them off? It is a fitting end to all the little mean tyrannies you have heaped upon me ever since I came. I have tried my best to serve you well, and you reward me by intimating that I am a thief. Oh, I can’t bear it. Will no one stand between me and this dreadful woman?”

She was terribly excited, and her hands went up, beating the air frantically for a moment; then she stretched them toward Alex., as if asking for help, which he promptly gave. Taking her hands in his, he turned to Mrs. Groves and exclaimed: “Woman, leave this room at once, and never again be guilty of such an insinuation against Miss Sherman.” And Mrs. Groves left, so astonished and shocked that she fairly ran through the hall to her own room, where she sat down more shaken up than she had ever been in her life. Was the world turning topsy-turvy and she turning with it? And was Alex. Marsh crazy, and why should that girl dare to talk so to her, Mrs. Groves, matron of Maplehurst, whom all the servants held in awe, if not in fear? What did it mean? She heard what it meant when Amy came to her after the interview with Sherry was over.

“Well, I never!” Mrs. Groves exclaimed, when the story came to an end. “Been masquerading as somebody else, has she? Do you call that honest and aboveboard?”

Amy had undertaken Sherry’s championship, and she meant to carry it through.

“Certainly,” she replied. “She told you her name was Fanny Sherman, from Buford, didn’t she?”

“Yes,” Mrs. Groves admitted rather reluctantly, and Amy continued: “That was true, and if she wished to hire out as a waitress she had a right to do so. She has made a good one, and I am sorry for her. We are all sorry.”

Mrs. Groves dared not say to Amy all that was in her mind. She did not like Sherry, and she did not mean to like her if she belonged to a hundred good families and Craig Saltus had known her all her life. But she was quelled, and with her head high in the air excused herself, as she must see to some of her household affairs.

“I hope the girl is not going to be sick here. The land knows we have enough to do, and we are awful short with her being off.”

Amy did not reply, and Mrs. Groves departed for the kitchen, talking to herself as she sometimes did when excited. Returning to Sherry’s room, Amy began to fold up the dress, which still lay upon the bed, and as she did so she said to Sherry: “May I ask why you are so interested in the chest?”

Sherry hesitated, and then replied, “Because I think it belongs to Katy and me.”

“Belongs to you!” Amy repeated. “What do you mean?”

Sherry felt that she could not talk much longer before her strength gave out. There were lumps in her throat and a buzzing in her ears, and she saw things through a cloud of spots. Everything was slipping from her. She must explain quickly if she explained at all, and she began very rapidly:

“It was my great-grandmother’s, Mrs. Crosby. She is buried across the way, and because she once lived here I had a fancy to come when I saw Mr. Marsh’s advertisement; mother and Katy opposed me, but I was self-willed; the romance of the affair appealed to me. I wanted to see Maplehurst. I could not come as a guest and so I came as a waitress. I knew many young ladies did such things, and I thought I’d try it. Aunt Pledger of New York, who used to be here, told me of the chest and its contents, and said they were mine and Katy’s, if still in existence. I did not stop to reason that when Mr. Marsh gave the house to your brother he probably gave him all there was in it. I was a foolish girl from the beginning. I thought it would be fun to come to my grandfather’s old home incog. It has been anything but fun, and now it has come to this! Seeing the dresses and cutting into them worked on my brain and brought back the trouble of my childhood, making me seem like a thief. She thinks so, Mrs. Groves. She has never liked me. All the rest have been most kind.”

Sherry’s voice was now a whisper, for the lumps in her throat were choking her and rising higher and higher, until with her last words she broke into hysterical sobs, while her tears ran like rain through the fingers she pressed upon her face.

“Oh, Sherry, Sherry!” Alex. said, calling her by the name he thought the sweetest in the world. “Don’t cry like that! You frighten me. It is all right; everything is right. The chest is yours and everything in it. Don’t cry! Speak to her!”

He turned to Amy and Ruth, who stood appalled, not knowing what to say. Amy’s wits came first, and going up to Sherry she said: “We are surprised, but we believe you and are sorry you are taking it so hard. You are tired and overwrought. Lie down. Rest will do you good.”

Telling Ruth to put the dress and jewels and Bible back in the chest, Amy made Sherry lie down, spread a wet towel on her hot face and head, closed the blind to shut out the light, and then, with Alex., left the room, saying to him, when he suggested sending for a physician: “Wait awhile, she may be better to-morrow, and she does not want it talked about.”

CHAPTER XIII
FINDING THE WRONG

That night Nos. 2, 3 and 4 took turns caring for Sherry, who had grown weak so fast that she could scarcely lift her head from the pillow. They knew now something of her story, and the most exaggerated rumors were afloat concerning her antecedents and why she was there.

“I never believed she was like us, or like me, anyway,” Polly said. “She had an air about her different, and that old hen of a Groves was always naggin’ her. I hate her!”

It was Polly who stayed the longest with Sherry, and who said to Alex. in the morning, “I think she’s awful sick and needs some one with her all the time. I’d stay with her if I didn’t have to wait upon the table. Mrs. Groves is crosser than a bear because there are only three of us, and Mr. Saltus here.”

Alex. did not reply, but it was a troubled face he took to his guests. He could not feel merry with that sick girl upstairs, and many times during the morning he stole to her door to inquire how she was.

As the day wore on Sherry did not rally, but lay with closed eyes, noticing no one except Alex. At the sound of his voice she always looked up and smiled, saying once when he asked if she wished anything, “I want Katy.”

They sent for Katy, who, on her way to Maplehurst, stopped in New York and told Mrs. Pledger of Sherry’s illness.

“For gracious’ sake!” that good woman said. “Sherry sick! I shall go with you and take a trained nurse. It will cost something, of course, for they ask abominable prices, but for once I can afford it, and Sherry must not die for want of care. I have taken a great fancy to her.”

One of the best trained nurses in New York was found, and the three, Mrs. Pledger, Katy and the nurse, reached Maplehurst one afternoon, greatly to the disgust of Mrs. Groves, who did not yet believe Sherry’s illness serious. She was nervous and tired and wanted to be let alone instead of having so much coddling. The girls, Nos. 2, 3 and 4, could sit up with her nights by turns, and if necessary she would for one night stay with her. She thought this a concession worthy of a martyr’s crown. She did not know Katy had been sent for, and great was her surprise and consternation when the ’bus from the station deposited three women at the door, one of whom, Mrs. Pledger, at once took possession of everything pertaining to Sherry, even overshadowing the nurse in her orders and putting Mrs. Groves quite in the background. The kitchen was invaded at all hours, first by the nurse, who came in the discharge of her duties, and next by Mrs. Pledger, who came because she must see what was going on and give her opinion. Katy stayed mostly with Sherry, who had smiled in token that she knew her and Mrs. Pledger, and had then fallen into a stupor from which it was hard to rouse her. Even Alex.’s voice failed. A slight movement of her head was all the response she gave when asked if she knew him. She was very ill, and a doctor from Bethlehem came every day, and most of the guests departed and a great hush fell upon the house where there had been so much hilarity. Alex.’s good times were slipping away, but he did not care. It had come to the point where Sherry was more to him than all the good times in the world, and if she died he would never know another, he said to himself, as he hovered near her door, or sat with Craig Saltus, who at his request remained at Maplehurst, and with whom he talked freely of Sherry and his feeling for her. He had been interested in her when he saw her at the opera. He had been interested in her ever since she came to Maplehurst.

He had stood between her and Mrs. Groves two or three times. He had waltzed with her on the piazza and felt a stir in his pulse such as no other girl had ever awakened, and when in her abasement at Mrs. Groves’ cruel blow she had stretched out her hands to him as if for help and he had taken them in his, the work was completed and he knew that he loved her. Several times a day he went to the door of her room to see if anything was wanting, and the rest of the time he sat upon the piazza or under the maple tree, sometimes with Craig Saltus and sometimes with only the dog lying at his feet in a most subdued state, never even noticing when a rabbit ran across the road to its home in the hillside. The dog had been to Sherry’s room during the first of her illness and looked at her with wondering eyes. Then, failing to get any notice from her, he had gone downstairs and out into the yard where Alex. was sitting, and lifting up his head gave vent to his feelings in a howl which made Alex.’s blood curdle as he grasped the dog’s throat and stopped him, talking to him as if he could understand that quiet was necessary if he would have his mistress live. He called Sherry his mistress, and the dog seemed to comprehend and never again gave vent to a sound which superstitious people, and some who are not superstitious, think a portent of evil. Every morning, however, he went to the door of Sherry’s room, gave a low “woof-woof” by way of greeting, and then trotted back, sometimes to his kennel, but oftener to Alex., who felt his sympathy and was glad of his companionship.

From the first Mrs. Pledger had taken to Alex. as a young man “with as little nonsense as was often found in a city prig.” Every day she reported Sherry’s progress, and was the first to take the good news to him that the crisis was passed and Sherry much better. Then, sitting down beside him she began to talk of her uncle Crosby and his wife who died so young.

“I don’t remember just how old she was,” she said. “Twenty-four or five. It must be recorded on the grave-stone and in the family Bible in the chest, which is nearer. I’ll go and see.”

Mrs. Pledger was never quite happy unless she knew the exact date of the age she was hunting up. Leaving Alex. she went to the attic, and taking the Bible from the chest turned to the record of deaths. As she did so two papers fell out. Ruth had seen them when she carried the Bible back, but feeling that they did not concern her, had not glanced at them. Mrs. Pledger was of a different temperament. She wanted to know what they were, especially the one so yellow and tender that it almost came to pieces in her hand. It proved to be a deed given by Eli Crosby to Amos Marsh more than fifty years before. The other paper, which was much fresher, was a sheet of foolscap folded like a letter, marked “Private” and directed to “Alexander Marsh.” But for the “Private” Mrs. Pledger would have opened it, but that deterred her, and she took both papers to Alex., who was in his usual seat under the maple. For a few minutes Mrs. Pledger stood, hoping Alex. would open the letter, but he didn’t, and she turned to go, then stopped and said:

“I forgot to tell you that she was twenty-five and six months.”

Alex. scarcely heard her or knew whom she meant. He was looking at the deed with a presentiment as if that yellow document were a message of evil to him. In the excitement of the good times he had been having at Maplehurst he had scarcely thought of the wrong he was to right, though he had fancied it had something to do with the farm. Of course he should right it if he ever found what it was, he said, and had dismissed it from his mind. Now, however, it came back to him with this time-worn deed, which he read twice, wondering why it remained in Mr. Crosby’s possession when by right it belonged to his Uncle Amos, who should have kept it with his papers.

“Possibly the letter will throw some light on it,” he thought, and opening it at last he read it, while the cold sweat came out on his forehead and hands, making him shiver, although the day was hot.

“Nephew Alexander,” it began, “I’m here in what was once my home, so-called, though never mine by right. I’m a wicked old man on the verge of the grave, and I cannot die till I have confessed a secret which I have borne for years because I had not courage to face the world which thinks me so good. I’m not good. I’m false to the core, and this is my story:

“Eli Crosby and I were fast friends. What one knew the other knew. If one wanted a favor the other granted it, and we helped each other over difficulties. He was a good man, free as water with his money, and when a friend asked his name to a note of four thousand dollars he gave it against my advice. Then, as some ugly rumors reached him, he came to me and said, ‘I’ll bet I’ll have to pay that note, and if so it will take my farm. I’ve nothing else. What shall I do?’

“I thought a moment, and said: ‘Deed it to me and give out that you have done so, but keep the deed yourself. The farm will be as much yours as it is mine, and when the trouble is over, if there is trouble, I will deed it back and no harm will be done.’

“I don’t think he was quick to grasp an idea, but I made him understand, and when he hesitated and asked if it wasn’t a fraud, I said: ‘If it is it is often practised, and may save your farm.’

“He went through the form, the deed was drawn but was never delivered to me, but kept in his family Bible, where it is now. As God is my witness, I meant fair and honest at first. His wife was dead. I never married. Both of us were alone, and at his request I came to live with him as at my own home and called it mine. Three months after the transaction he went West and was brought back dead,—killed on the railroad. Two months later I heard the note was paid, and then the devil entered into me. I liked the farm, and did not want to give it up, or tell of the fraudulent sale, as I would have to do. Eli’s only daughter had married and died, leaving a son, who had been sent through college and given a few thousand dollars, all Eli could spare. Where he was I didn’t know. Eli was not quite pleased with his daughter’s marriage, and after sending her boy to college, did not try to keep track of him. To make the story short, I did not tell that the place was not legally mine, and when people wondered what Eli had done with the price of the farm I knew no more than they did. There was a little from the sale of some of his effects, and a little in a bank. To this I added a thousand dollars, and sent it to the young man, Eli’s grandson, who, by inquiry, I found was studying for the ministry. Then I settled down to enjoy my farm, but never knew a moment’s real happiness. That deed haunted me and Eli haunted me, too, till I could endure it no longer. As I would not add another sin to my soul by selling the farm when I could not give a clear title, I abandoned it and went to Denver. I saved all I could and put it in banks, feeling that some time I should make restitution. Eli’s grandson was the Rev. Henry Sherman, who preached in Buford, Mass. I kept track of him after I found where he was. He is dead, but he has a widow and two daughters living. The farm is rightfully theirs, and the money too, the way I figure it. The ranch and Denver house are really mine. I bought them with means honestly my own.

“I might write all this to Harry’s widow, but I’d rather tell you, my own kin. I have been to New York and seen Joel Pledger, whose wife was Eli’s half sister. I’ve known her since she was a child. She was here once. I asked about you and your family. Joel knows everybody, whether dead beats or honest men. He spoke well of your reputation: ‘Fashionable, but not fast,’ he said.

“I am on my way home and have stopped at the old farmhouse, which is more haunted than ever. Rats and noises everywhere. Some things I left have been stolen, but, for a wonder, nobody has broken into the chest. It is heavy to handle. I found it under the rafters just where I pushed it when I left. The Bible is in it and the deed, and I made up my mind to write the whole thing out and put it in the Bible, with the deed. I am sure you will find it some day. It is hardly in nature that you will not open the chest, you or your mother or sister. Bowles, the man who has had things in charge, has looked after them pretty well and knows there are women’s clothes in it,—Mrs. Crosby’s clothes, which I have taken out and aired. I shall hang the key on a little nail at the back of the chest, where it has hung for years. Somebody will find it.

“Sometimes I think I’ll go back to New York and tell you everything or hunt up those Shermans and tell them. But I can’t, I can’t; so I write the story and pray God you may find it when I am gone. My lawyers have urged me to make a will, but don’t you see, I’d have to tell why the farm and the money in the bank was not mentioned. I’m a coward, but am trying to make restitution and right the wrong. The old place does not seem worth much in the present condition of the house, but, much or little, it is theirs. Forgive your old uncle, and find those girls.

“Amos Marsh.”

This was the letter, and for a few minutes Alex. felt as if all power to move had left him. There was a blur before his eyes, and still the glare of sunlight hurt them, and he closed them to shut it out. Then he opened them and looked around him—at the handsome house, where he had had such good times and hoped to have more; at the stretches of pasture, where his cows were feeding; at the meadows and fields, where his men were gathering a late growth of hay, and at the wooded hills in their cool summer dress. “It is a goodly heritage, but not mine,” he said, with a groan, just as Amy came out and sat down beside him, asking why he looked so sad, and if they could not have out more of their friends now Sherry was better.

“Read that,” he said, giving her the letter.

She read it, growing white and rigid as she read, and saying in a whisper: “Oh, Alex., Maplehurst is not ours! It is theirs!” and she nodded towards the room where Sherry lay in a sleep which was giving back her strength, while Katy sat beside her.

“Yes, it is Sherry’s,” Alex. replied, thinking only of her, and feeling the pain grow less because it was Sherry and not a stranger who was to take Maplehurst from him.

“What will you do?” Amy asked, and Alex. replied, “Make reparation, of course.”

He had met the wrong and would right it as soon as Sherry was able to be told. It was well for Alex. that Craig Saltus was still there, for in him he found a tower of strength and a safe adviser. Craig had studied law a little and knew what was to be done and how to do it.

“It is hard on you,” he said to Alex., after he had heard the story, and Alex. replied: “Yes, but it would be harder if any one but Sherry were the usurper.”

Craig looked at him a moment, and then said: “I think I know what you mean. I have guessed it all along and am glad for both of you. Sherry is the finest specimen of sweet young girlhood I ever knew. Too impulsive, perhaps, and fond of adventure, as was proven by her coming here as she did. I may tell you now that I don’t know what I might have done but for my infirmity, which will keep me from ever marrying.”

Alex. began to protest, but Craig stopped him. “I know my value in one way, but hold myself too high ever to ask anyone to marry a cripple. If she said yes, it would be for my money. I wish you success.”

He walked away and sat down alone for a moment to think of the happiness which was probably in store for Alex. and could never be his.

Then he began to feel how much Sherry had been in his mind since he first met her in Buford,—a merry, sunny-faced girl, no more impressed with him because of his money than with the poorest men of her acquaintance. He had felt shocked to find her at Maplehurst as other than a guest, but her illness had followed so quickly that he had scarcely given anything else a thought, and now this affair of the deed was crowding it entirely from his mind. He had seen Alex.’s growing interest in Sherry, and had said to himself: “She is worthy of him, and I am glad for his sake that she is one of the heirs of Maplehurst.” Everything he could do to adjust matters Craig resolved to do, and at once set himself about it so quietly and thoroughly that Alex. left everything in his hands and devoted himself to Sherry, waiting anxiously for the day when it would be safe to tell her.

CHAPTER XIV
RIGHTING THE WRONG

Mrs. Pledger heard the story with ejaculations of surprise and incredulity. That Mr. Marsh could have been guilty of a fraud she would not believe until she read his letter.

“Well, if that don’t beat me! Who can we trust, I’d like to know,” she said; then, as her loyalty to the dead asserted itself, she continued: “Well, I don’t care. He was a good man, and repented and God forgave him, and he is in heaven with Eli, who did a mean trick putting the farm out of his hands. I’m glad for the girls. Have you told Katy?”

He had not, but he did the next day. Katy was of a very different temperament from Sherry and received the news almost as if she had expected it.

“I am glad for Sherry and me,” she said, “but sorry for you, who have put so much expense on a place which did not belong to you, and I don’t see how we can pay you either, unless you rent the place for summer boarders until you are paid.”

Alex. knew her scheme was impracticable, but it was like her sense of justice.

“That can’t be,” he said. “You would not like to turn Maplehurst into a boarding-house. Sherry would not like it either. How is she to-day?”

“Better, but very weak,” was Katy’s reply. “She must not be excited in the least the doctor says. You must wait.”

And Alex. did wait very impatiently for Sherry’s convalescence. It progressed rapidly when once it began, and she was at last well enough to take a drive with him along the regular highway for a mile or two, when he turned into a grassy road leading into the woods, where in a clearing picnics had been held. The tables and seats were still there, and on one of the latter he sat down with Sherry, asking if she were tired from the drive.

“Tired!” she said, with a merry laugh. “No. It is so nice to be out again, to feel that I am getting well, that I could shout for joy; it is so lovely here in the shade, with the sunshine trying to find us through the trees, that I wish it might go on forever.”

Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes were shining and there was a ring of gladness in her voice which made Alex. take one of her hands in his and hold it fast while he said, “I am glad you are so happy, and I think I can make you happier. I have brought you here to tell you something which will surprise you.”

Was it his love he was going to declare? It seemed like it, and Sherry’s whole soul sprang to meet it. During her convalescence she had learned to love the master of Maplehurst, and with her woman’s intuition guessed that he loved her. She could flirt with the young men at Buford, and keep half a dozen in her train, each thinking he was the favored one. But with Alex. it was different. She must deal fairly with him, and her eyes were cast down as she asked:

“What do you wish to tell me?”

She expected a declaration of love and was not prepared for the story Alex. told her, making her feel as if her blood were leaving her drop by drop until she was cold as the stones around her. Then she cried,—not a low cry, but loud with sobs, which shook her whole body and made Alex. pass his arm around her, and draw her head down upon his shoulder, where she let it lie. Through all the telling his love for her had shown itself, and it was to that she was responding, rather than to the story she heard of the sudden prosperity which was hers.

When her sobs had ceased Alex. said to her: “Have you nothing to say to this good fortune? Don’t you understand that Maplehurst is yours?”

Then she lifted up her head and dashing the tears away turned her bright eyes upon him and said: “I won’t have it! I’ll never take it from you, never! I give it back,—my share of it, and I’ll make Katy give hers,—and you must take it.”

Alex. had not intended to speak of the subject uppermost in his mind so soon, but something in Sherry’s face wrung it from him, and drawing it closer to him, he said: “I can only do that by taking you with it.”

“Take me, then!” was Sherry’s prompt answer, as she hid her face in his bosom and began to cry again.

After that it was very easy, and they sat for an hour or more talking of the past when Alex. first saw her at the theatre and again in the Park; of his call on Mrs. Pledger and learning that her name was Sherry; of the dog named for her, and the share she had in his thoughts until she came to Maplehurst.

“Don’t talk about that,” Sherry said, with a sound of more tears in her voice. “It was a foolish girl’s quixotic idea. I wish I could blot it out.”

“I don’t,” Alex. replied. “I am glad of it, as it brought you to me, who might never have found you, or the letter either, which takes Maplehurst from me and gives me you in return, a priceless payment, for which I can never be sufficiently thankful; and now, Sherry, kiss me in token that you are mine.”

Only the birds singing in the trees heard or saw the reply, but Alex. was satisfied, and a great light of pride and joy was in his eyes when on his return to the house he said to his mother and sister: “Congratulate me, Sherry is to be my wife.”

They were expecting it, and if in their hearts there was a wish that it was otherwise they did not show it. They would a little rather that Alex.’s wife had never been a waitress, but that could not be helped. The circumstances made a difference. It was a girlish escapade over which they would laugh when they talked of her to their friends. That she would be a leader in any society they knew, and remembering Maplehurst, made up their minds that Alex. had done well, and that in all probability they could come again to this charming spot, which had never seemed so lovely as when they thought it lost. It had been thought desirable to keep the story of the finding of the deed and letter from the household generally until Sherry knew of it. Now that secrecy was no longer necessary, Mrs. Pledger took it upon herself to carry the news to the employees. She and Katy had heard of the engagement from Alex., and Sherry had been kissed and congratulated and made to lie down, as Mrs. Pledger said she did the first thing after Joel had proposed and left, she was so wobbly in her knees.

“I’m going to tell ’em,” she said to Alex., as she heard the clatter of dishes in the servants’ dining-room, where they were having their lunch.

Nos. 2 and 3 had gone, as their services were not needed, but Polly was still there and listened open-mouthed until it came to the engagement, when she gave a shout and insisted upon three cheers from her companions, which they gave with a will, bringing Mrs. Groves to the door, asking: “Why this noise? Are you crazy?”

“Yes,” Polly answered, “crazy with joy! No. 1 is the owner of Maplehurst. They have found papers in the chest proving it, and she is to marry Mr. Marsh! He proposed this morning. Hurrah!”

Mrs. Groves’ chin dropped, but not until she said to Mrs. Pledger: “And so she’s got him at last. Perseverance sometimes has its reward.”

Mrs. Pledger was angry, and replied: “Reward or not, my niece is worthy of Mr. Marsh, and you know it, and have known it all the time that she was your superior, and that is why you badgered her so much. That is the way of some mean minds. Sherry is now the mistress of Maplehurst, and I don’t believe you will come here another year. Good-morning!”

She made a mocking curtesy and left Mrs. Groves more discomfited than she had ever been in her life. She had looked forward to several seasons at Maplehurst, with the fine salary she received. But that was now impossible. “New lords, new laws,” she said to herself. “I must stand it. I wish I had been a little softer to the girl,” and calling to No. 4 reproved her sharply for some trifling omission on the table. Polly, who felt intuitively that Mrs. Groves’ day was over, went on humming to herself and took her time to make the required change.

The next day Mrs. Pledger started for New York, enjoining upon Katy and Sherry that they spend a few days with her on their way to Buford. To Alex. she said: “An old woman’s advice is not good for much, but I’m going to give it just the same. Don’t put off the wedding. Marry as soon as Sherry is well,—say the last of September, and if you will be happier to own Maplehurst with all its jimcracks buy Katy’s share. She will sell. I’ve sounded her. Sherry’s is the same as yours now. Have another house party next summer, but don’t put that Groves woman at the head. They all hate her like pizen. Put me at the head, if you like. I can save you dollars and run things as well as she has.”

Alex. laughed and said he would remember her advice, especially with regard to the wedding, which he would like to have at once. As to Maplehurst, it would take some time to settle everything and know what belonged to the Crosby heirs and what to him, but Craig Saltus and a first-class lawyer in New York were seeing to that. Relieved of care in that direction, Alex.’s good times came back like good measure pressed down and running over, and the world had never been so bright as during the two weeks he stayed at Maplehurst, while Sherry was recovering her strength and growing each day more beautiful, it seemed to him.

Sometimes he drove with her through the lovely country, but oftener sat by her under the maple tree watching the kindling light in her eyes and the dimples coming and going with her blushes, as he told his love over and over again, dating its beginning at the time he saw her at the opera, and its rapid growth when he waltzed with her on the piazza and nearly bumped his head against hers as they bent over the salad plate, and its completion when she turned to him for help against Mrs. Groves’ insinuations.

Alex. was very happy, and it was with regret that he at last left Maplehurst to accompany Katy and Sherry to Buford, where Mrs. Sherman received him as her future son-in-law, and the people came flocking in, ostensibly to see Sherry after her illness, but really to see Alex. He had in mind a trip to Europe for the winter, and as he had a dread of the sea he insisted that their marriage should take place before the autumnal storms came on.

“No need for finery. We can get that in Paris,” he said, and with his push and breeziness he carried his point, and invitations were issued for the last of September.

It was a large wedding, for all Buford was invited, with many of Alex.’s acquaintances from New York. Among the guests were Nos. 2, 3 and 4,—“treated just as good as anybody,” Polly said, when discussing the affair with her friends. “Say,” she whispered to Sherry, when presented to her by an usher, “say, be you going to Maplehurst next summer?”

“Perhaps,” Sherry answered, and Polly continued, “Well, remember me, will you, and let me wait on your table; but for pity’s sake don’t have that old cat Groves there! If you do, excuse me!”

She curtesied and passed on to make room for others. Mrs. Groves had not been included in the list of guests, and she gnashed her teeth when she heard of the grand wedding and who were there.

“Evidently my connection with the Marshes is ended,” she said, “and I working like a slave to please them! I call that the basest ingratitude, and all on account of that girl who made me so mad with her chin in the air and her way of looking at me.”

The next day Mrs. Groves advertised for a position as housekeeper in some hotel, or as a chaperone to a party of young ladies during the next summer.

The winter which followed the wedding was passed mostly in Italy. April and May were given to Paris and Switzerland, and one day in June the Buford Gazette announced the return of Mr. and Mrs. Alexander Marsh, who were to reopen their country house at Maplehurst and entertain a large house party. All the necessary steps had been taken with regard to the place. Alex. had paid Mrs. Sherman and Katy the money left by Amos Marsh in banks and stocks,—a sum sufficient to insure their independence the rest of their lives. The wrong had been righted. Maplehurst was virtually his, Sherry was his, and he was steeped in times so good that he occasionally trembled lest the cup he was drinking should be dashed from his thirsting lips. Sherry would prefer a more quiet life than Alex. who is the happiest when a great many people around him are having a good time as well as himself. And he had it last summer. Maplehurst was full, and Sherry as the mistress was the star around which everyone revolved. The Marshes were there, and Sherry’s mother and Katy and Mrs. Pledger. Nos. 2 and 3 were missing. One was married, and one slept under the flowers in Mount Auburn, but Polly was there and was advanced to Mrs. Groves’ place, which she filled admirably and satisfactorily to all parties. The dog was there, too, and Alex. tried to change his name back to Laddie, but couldn’t.

“One Sherry is enough for me,” he said, but the dog was obstinate, paying no attention when called by the old name.

He was Sherry, and whenever he heard the name, whether addressed to him or to his mistress, he pricked up his ears and started for the stick he expected thrown for his diversion.

As I write the last page of this story a fierce blizzard is sweeping over the hills and mountains of New Hampshire and the highways are blocked with snow. Alex. and Sherry are in Florida, but invitations are already out for a large house party in July, when there will again be sounds of revelry by day and night at Maplehurst, which is now cold and silent in the grip of midwinter, with no sign of life except when Bowles goes up to see that all is safe.

THE END.