The Little Colonel's Knight Comes Riding

by Annie F. Johnston

It must be awful she thought, hugging him closer, to love a child with the passionate devotion that Ida loved this one, and have it grow up into a worthless vagabond like Ned Bannan. Then a stray wonder crossed her mind if Leland Harcourt's mother would have been disappointed in him if she could have lived to see him wasting his splendid talents and opportunities; just drifting along in an aimless, thistledown sort of existence when he might be such a power for good if he would only exert himself.

"He doesn't measuah up to the third notch at all," she admitted with a feeling of regret.

Just then there was a long distance call for her at the telephone, and hastily putting Wardo down she went to answer it.

"It's from Mistah Harcourt," she called carelessly, in answer to her mother's inquiry from the next room. "He was coming ovah to-night but something detained him in Louisville, and he called me up to tell me not to expect him."

She hoped that she had kept the flutter out of her voice that the sound of his voice brought into her pulses. For at the close of this commonplace message was the request that she make no engagement with any one else for the next night. He had something to tell her, and then—there was that same word with which he had closed his note—that soft musical name, seeming twice as personal and significant because of the tone in which he said it. She felt that he must be conscious of the quick blush it brought to her face as she hastily hung up the receiver.

That night for the first time that summer Lloyd was alone with her father and mother. Betty had Madam Chartley's letter to answer, and the old Colonel had gone out to dinner. The three sat on the broad white-pillared porch in the moonlight, Lloyd on the step at her father's feet, her arm on his knee. Ever since the telephone message her thoughts had been in a tumult. It was useless for her to pretend that she didn't know why Leland wanted to see her alone, and what it was he was coming to tell her. She was glad and sorry and half frightened and altogether confused. "He isn't the prince at all," she kept saying to herself as if it were a charm that would help her ward off his approach and keep her true to her Hildegarde promise.

And yet—his wooing was the kind one reads of in books. She would be sorry to have that come to an end. It was so delightful to have some one write poems to her and sing songs in such a way that every tone and glance dedicated them to her alone. If one could only go on that way through all the summers, being adored in that fashion, knowing she was crowned queen in somebody's heart, how delightful it would be. But she didn't want things to come to a crisis when she would have to make grave decisions and solemn promises. She didn't want to go one step farther than this borderland of romance where they lingered now. What she wanted was just to go on building her little castles as she had done that day on the sea-shore, and yet be assured that the tide wouldn't come creeping up any farther. It was just far enough now to be interesting. She wished they would begin to talk about things like that, but she shrank from bringing up such a subject herself. After awhile she broached one almost akin.

"Mothah," she asked, breaking a long comfortable silence that had fallen on them, "do you think that Lucy is happy?"

"No, not entirely—that is just at present," Mrs. Sherman answered slowly, as if considering. "She's hardly adjusted herself yet to the new order of things, but she will in time because she's such a yielding little soul, and is really devoted to her husband. For instance, when he insisted she gave up her church to please him and joined his. It meant a great struggle and a sacrifice on her part, and he is not at all devout, doesn't attend services more than twice a year; so it couldn't have made such a vital difference to him where she went. Then at home her father always placed a certain amount in the bank every month to his wife's credit, so there never was any unpleasantness about money matters. While Jameson is very wealthy and lavishes luxuries and beautiful clothes on her, he reserves the pleasure of buying and spending entirely to himself. Treats her like a child in their financial arrangements, and doles out little allowances as if she couldn't be trusted to spend it intelligently. She's so sensitive that she'd rather go without than ask him for a cent, and it often puts her in an embarrassing position to be without."

"In other words," put in Papa Jack, "he's thoroughly inconsiderate and selfish, although I imagine he'd be mightily amazed if any one applied that term to him since he is so lavish in giving things in his own way."