The girls did not wait for him to finish, but hand in hand they made a rush for the house, and flew up the outraged and groaning old stairs, to bathe their flushed faces and to brush into propriety certain flying locks of hair, and, in old-time parlance, to "prink" themselves generally for the coming interview. As they hastened down again they were disappointed to see their father standing at the gate.
"Oh!" cried Dorothy, "why did he not stay here and let her ride up to the porch for the stirrup. Then we could have appeared naturally and as a matter of course; now——"
"Now!" broke in Sybil, "as a matter of course we'll appear unnaturally, thrusting ourselves forward like ill-bred children! Oh, let's run down and bring papa back!"
And away they started, but almost immediately the "clipperty-clapperty-clip" of the approaching horse was heard, and they stopped. Dorothy, noting how swiftly the color came and went on her sister's cheek, said, piteously: "I wonder if—oh, I hope she will be nice, dear!"
"Nice?" repeated Sybil, savagely. "Why should she be nice? She is on the top wave of success—we're two little nobodies! Why nice, pray? But my pride is pushed well down in my pocket, Dorrie, and, if need be, I'll grovel for the help she alone can give me!"
She said no more, for the horse had already been pulled up, and with a laugh Miss Morrell held out her hand for the broken stirrup; but with almost incredible determination Mr. Lawton not only refused to give it up, but, leading the horse into the willow's dense shade, he produced an old awl and some twine, at sight of which the rider smilingly lifted her knee from the pommel and twisted about in the saddle, to give him a chance to find the broken strap—and the girls looked at her in amazement.
They had seen her often at the theatre—had wept themselves sick over her stage heart-break and death; but now they saw no faintest trace of that moving actress in the pleasant-faced woman before them—a fair-complexioned, wholesome-looking woman, with lots of brown hair, that had glittering threads all through and through it that were accentuated by the blackness of the velvet derby-cap she wore. Her straight nose was a little too short, her cheek-bones a little too high, her mouth a little too wide; in fact, she had escaped being a beauty so easily that one could not help feeling she had never been in danger. All of which did not prevent her from being adored by women. Presently Mr. Lawton called: "Girls, come here and help me a moment! One of you keep this horse still and the other hold Miss Morrell's habit out of the way for me."
Dorothy, forgetting her timidity, ran to the big chestnut's head, so that her sister might take the place nearest to the rider; and as Sybil held the habit's folds out of her father's way, she raised such passionately pleading dark eyes that the actress, ever sensitive to human emotions, felt her heart give a quickened throb, and said to herself: "What on earth is it this girl is demanding of me?" Then she spoke: "I beg your pardon, sir, but if these are your young daughters, will you not introduce them to me?"
And John Lawton, who had the twine between his lips and the awl just piercing the strap, jerked his head to the right, and mumbled: "M—m—my oldest daughter, Sybil," then jerked it to the left, with: "M—m—my youngest daughter, Dorothy—Miss Morrell."
And pulling off her loose riding-glove, Miss Morrell gave her hand to each of the girls with a close, warm pressure of the long, nervous fingers that was like the greeting of an old friend.