That she had interpreted it aright Lloyd knew when he came that afternoon as usual and proposed a walk over past the Lindsey Cabin. He seemed to have put himself into her place so fully that he understood just how she felt towards him; knew that it hurt her to have to withhold the one great thing he desired, and that his friendship was still as dear to her as ever. So with a fine consideration that she was quick to appreciate, he came back to his old place so naturally, and as such a matter of course, that it put her at her ease with him and made it possible for her to ignore the episode of the lilies as if it had never been.
May came with its locust blossoms and the birthday anniversary that made her "old and twenty." One of her gifts was a beautiful saddle-horse, and she began her daily rides again. Several times when Rob could arrange to leave town earlier than usual he rode with her.
Early in June Betty wrote that she was going up into the pine woods of Maine for her vacation. She had been offered a position to teach an hour a day in a sort of summer school, a girls' camp, and the position had too many advantages to refuse. She would be back in time for a week or ten days at The Locusts before the opening of the fall term at Warwick Hall. Lloyd, who had looked forward to Betty's companionship for the entire summer, was sorely disappointed. The same day that that letter came, Rob told her that he was going away for awhile. Some investments his father had made years ago had turned out to be worth investigating, and he was sure he could dispose of them advantageously. At any rate he was going to Birmingham to try. He might be back in a week or two, and he might be away the entire month of June. If Betty had been at home probably Lloyd would not have missed him at all, but because she had to take so many of her walks and rides alone, he was often in her thoughts.
"I can't expect to have every summah as gay as last one was," she said to herself one morning, as she busied herself about her room, changing the arrangement of the pictures. She leaned over to dust the ones above her low bookcase. They ran in a long panel, just above it, the series of garden fancies that Leland Harcourt had suggested. It was on a June morning like this almost a year ago that she had posed for some of them in Doctor Shelby's old garden. It seemed at least four times as long as that. She had grown so much older and wiser. She stooped to look again at the picture of Darby and Joan, under which was written, "Hand in hand while our hair is gray." As she passed her duster lightly over the glass which covered the two dear old faces, she remembered that next week this devoted couple were to celebrate their golden wedding, and that she had promised to let them "borrow" her for a whole week before, to help with the preparations.
An hour later she was opening the gate that led to the old-fashioned door where the ugly little Chinese idol still kept guard and held it open. She found Mrs. Shelby out on her cool upper piazza, behind the moon-vines, in a low sewing chair. She was stitching daintily away on a bit of fine linen. "A wristband for one of Richard's shirts," she explained, after her first moments of delighted greeting. "And I'll go right on with it, for I'm making him a set all by hand for my anniversary present to him. He's always been so proud of my needlework and had so much sentiment for the things I've made myself. I can't begin to tell you how glad I am to have you here. I've been sitting here all morning thinking that if my little Alicia had lived what an interest she would have taken in all my preparations. I keep forgetting that she wouldn't be a young girl like you. It's Alicia's granddaughter who would have been your age."
It took only a question or two to open the gates into this gentle old soul's happy yesterdays, and Lloyd listened and questioned, enjoying the quiet romance that she gathered bit by bit as one gathers the posies of an old garden and clasps them into a full-rounded nosegay.
"Aunt Alicia," she asked presently, "were you suah at the time that you were making no mistake? Didn't you have any doubts or misgivings about the doctah's being the right one?"
Mrs. Shelby laughed. "I must confess that I was a very silly girl who had read so many sentimental stories that my head was full of dreams of some faultless being who should appear like the prince to the Sleeping Beauty and change the whole world for me with a kiss. It was a long time before I could recognize him in the disguise of a poor country doctor. But I think we are apt to be that way about most things in life, my dear. Familiarity disguises the real worth of most of our blessings. We don't appreciate them till we are forced to miss them for awhile."
"But what finally showed you?" persisted Lloyd. "What made you see through the disguise?"