"I forgot to tell you, Lloyd! When we were out hunting yesterday we stopped at a cabin ever so far from here, to rest and warm. And what do you suppose we saw on the pendulum of an old clock, swinging away on the mantel as big as life? Your picture! The one of the Princess, you know, with the dove. I couldn't believe my eyes at first. The old man told us it had been given to his daughter, and when he found out who Ranald was he sent a message to Mrs. Walton about her. She's in a hospital and will soon be well enough to come home. Mrs. Walton told us all about it last night, how the girl imagined every time the clock ticked that you were saying, 'For love will find the way.' It made quite a pretty story, but you can't imagine how queer it was to stumble across your picture in such an out-of-the-way place, and fixed up in such odd shape, on a pendulum, of all things!"
"MALCOLM, LEANING ON HIS GUN, STOOD WATCHING HER."
"It helped Corono ever so much, mother said," remarked Allison. "That's one good thing our Shadow Club led to, if nothing else." She climbed up on the stile and stood looking over, exclaiming at the beauty of the old gray walls, draped in the masses of brilliant bittersweet; then, springing down, ran across the churchyard to join Betty and Keith on the other side and make her own selection of vines.
Rob leaned his gun against the fence and took out his watch. "Only half an hour longer," he announced. Then, opening the back of his watch-case, he held it out toward Lloyd.
"Do you remember that?" he asked, nodding toward a little four-leaf clover which lay flat and green inside. "Your good-luck charm worked wonders, Lloyd. It helped me through my Latin in such fine shape that I intend to carry it through college with me all the way. It's like the picture on the pendulum, isn't it? only this says, 'For luck will find the way.'"
As Lloyd began some laughing reply about his being superstitious, Betty's voice called from the vestry door, "Oh, Rob! Come around here a minute, please! Here's the loveliest bunch of berries you ever saw, and it's too high for any one but you to reach!"
With one leap Rob was over the stile hurrying to Betty's assistance. Lloyd had filled both pockets of her jacket with hickory-nuts on her way through Tanglewood, and, seating herself on the top step of the stile, she began cracking them with a round stone which she had picked up near the fence. Malcolm, leaning on his gun, stood watching her.
"You never gave me any four-leaf clover, Lloyd," he said, in a low tone, as Rob strode away.
"You nevah happened to be around when I found any," answered Lloyd, carelessly. "Have a nut instead." She nodded toward the pile on the step beside her.