"But," began Rob, "maybe it is just as well that she shouldn't choose any of them. The prince's coming doesn't always bring happiness. Look at old Mr. Deckly. For thirty years he and his fair bride have led a regular cat and dog life. And there are the Twicketts and the Graysons and the Blackstones right in this one little valley, to say nothing of all the troubles one reads of in the papers."
"No!" contradicted Eugenia, emphatically. "You have no right to hold them up as examples. It is plainly to be seen that Mrs. Deckly and Mrs. Twickett and Mrs. Grayson and Mrs. Blackstone were not Hildegardes. They failed to earn their third leaf by doing their weaving wisely. They didn't use their yardsticks. They looked only at the 'village churls,' and wove their webs to fit their unworthy shoulders, so that the men they married were not princes, and they couldn't bring the diamond leaf."
"The name of the prince need not always be Man, need it?" ventured Joyce. "Couldn't it be Success? It seems to me that if I had struggled along for years, trying to make the most of my little ability, had worked just as faithfully and wisely at my art as I could, it would be perfect happiness to have the world award me the place of a great artist. It would be as much to me as the diamond leaf that marriage could bring. I should think you'd feel that way, too, Betty, about your writing. There are marriages that are failures just as there are artistic and literary careers that are failures, and there are diamond leaves to reward the work and waiting of old maids, just as there are diamond leaves to reward the Hildegardes who use their yardsticks. Sometimes there are girls who don't marry because they sacrifice their lives to taking care of their families, or living for those who are dependent on them. Surely there must be a blessedness and a happiness for them greater than any diamond leaf a prince could bring."
"There is probably," answered Eugenia, "but it seems as if most people of that kind have to wait till they get to Paradise to find it."
"I don't think so," said Betty. "I believe all the dear old-maid aunts and daughters, who earn the first three leaves, find the fourth waiting somewhere in this world. It is only the selfish ones, who slight their share of the duties life imposes on every one, who are cross and unlovely and unloved. They probably would not have been happy wives if they had married."
"Well, but what about me!" persisted Lloyd. "I nevah expect to have a career, so Success in big lettahs will nevah bring me a medal or a chromo. I am not sacrificing my life for anybody's comfort, and I can nevah have any little nieces and nephews to whom I can be one of those deah old aunts Betty talks about, and there is that dreadful teacup!"
She did not hear Doctor Bradford's laughing answer, for Phil, turning his back on the others, looked down into her upturned face and began to hum, as if to himself, "From the desert I come to thee!" Only Mary understood the significance of it as Lloyd did, and she knew why Lloyd suddenly turned away and began passing her hands over the grass around her, as if resuming her search. She wanted to hide her face, into which the color was creeping.
A train whistled somewhere far across the orchard, and Rob took out his watch. The sight of it suggested something in line with the conversation, for when he had noted the time, he touched the spring that opened the back of the case.
"Never you mind, Little Colonel," he said, in a patronizing, big-brotherly tone. "If nobody else will stand between you and that teacup, I'll come to the rescue. Bobby won't go back on his old chum. I'll bring you a four-leaf clover. Here's one, all ready and waiting."
Lloyd looked across at the watch he held out to her. "Law, Bobby," she exclaimed, giving him the old name she had called him when they first played together, "I supposed you had lost that clovah long ago."