John Royce came. He was another cousin, but a young one, twenty-five years old, blue-eyed and yellow-haired. He kept his yellow hair ruthlessly short, however, and he frowned more or less over his blue eyes, owing to much yachting and squinting ahead across the glaring water to gain an inch's length on the next boat. He was brown and big, with a rolling gait; the edge of a boat tilted at one hair's-breadth from going over entirely, was his idea of a charming seat; under a tree before a camp-fire, with something more than a suspicion of savage animals near, his notion of a delightful bed. He did not have much money of his own; he was going to do something for himself by and by; but Cousin Adelaide had always petted him, and he had no objection to a hunt among those Southern mountains. So he came.
He had met Honor almost immediately. Mrs. Kellinger was a welcome visitor at the Eliot home; she seemed to make the whole ravine more graceful. The Colonel's wife and all the children clustered around her with delight every time she came, and the old Colonel himself renewed his youth in her presence. She brought John to call upon them at once, and she took him to the library also; she made Honor come and dine with them at the inn. She arranged a series of excursions in a great mountain-wagon shaped like a boat, and tilted high up behind, with a canvas cover over a framework, like a Shaker bonnet, and drawn by six slow-walking horses. The wagoner being a postilion, they had the wagon to themselves; they filled the interstices with Eliot children and baskets, and explored the wilder roads, going on foot up the steep banks above, drinking from the ice-cold spring, looking out for rattlesnakes, plucking the superb rhododendrons and the flowers of the calico-bush, and every now and then catching a new glimpse of the unparalleled crowd of peaks over toward the Tennessee line. Stephen went everywhere patiently; Honor went delightedly; John Royce went carelessly; Mrs. Kellinger went as the velvet string which held them all together; she was so smooth that they slid easily.
But, in the intervals, Wainwright still taught his librarian.
Mrs. Eliot had become Adelaide's warm friend. The sweet-voiced Southern wife, with her brood of children, and her calm, contented pride, confided to the Northern stranger the one grief of her life, namely, that she was the Colonel's second wife, and that he had dearly loved the first; anxiety as to the uncertain future of her children weighed far less upon her mind than this. The old-time South preserved the romance of conjugal love even to silver hairs; there may have been no more real love than at the North, but there was more of the manner of it. The second month came to its end; it was now August. Mrs. Kellinger had sent many persons to the library; she had roused up a general interest in it; villagers now went there regularly for books, paying a small subscription-fee, which was added to Honor's salary. Honor thanked her for this in a rather awkward way. Mrs. Eliot, who was present, did not consider the matter of consequence enough for thanks. She had never even spoken to Wainwright of Honor's office of librarian, or the salary which came out of his pocket. Money-matters were nothing; between friends they were less than nothing. Stephen had two hours alone with his librarian every morning, when there was no excursion; Mrs. Kellinger had arranged that, by inventing a rule and telling it to everybody in a decided tone: no one was expected at the library before eleven o'clock.
"Did you do this?" said Stephen, when he discovered it.
"I did."
"Because I thought you would like it," replied Adelaide. He looked at her questioningly; she answered immediately to the look. "You are interested in a new study of character, Stephen; you are really doing the child a world of good too; although, as usual, I confess that my interest in the matter is confined principally to your own entertainment." She spoke good-humoredly, and almost immediately afterward left him to himself.
His mind ran back over a long series of little arrangements made for his pleasure on all sorts of occasions. "She is the best-hearted woman in the world," he thought. And then he took his note-book and went over to the library.
Their lessons would have amused a looker-on; but there was no looker-on. Honor was interested or absent-minded, irritable or deeply respectful, humble or proud, by turns; she regarded him as her benefactor, and she really wished to learn; but she was young, and impulsive, and—a girl. There was little conversation save upon the lessons, with the exception of one subject. The man of the world had begun his study of this girl's deep religious faith. "If you can give it to me also, or a portion of it," he had said, "you will be conferring a priceless gift upon me, Miss Honor."