“Mercy!” she suddenly exclaimed. “What will Mrs. Terhune think? Please hurry back to her! And you’ll tell her—about Will, won’t you?”
He did hurry back, leaping over the fence again and running across the field.
“But where’s Mildred?” asked his aunt, terribly disappointed.
“She was too busy to come,” he said, with a smile. “She’s too busy waiting for Mallet.”
“Oh, dear, how very foolish! She’s a splendid girl, but she is so obstinate. I can’t bear to lose her again!”
“Don’t worry,” said her nephew cheerfully. “We’ll arrange all that, Aunt Kate. I’m rather obstinate myself.”
IV
Mildred lived in the most wonderful little cottage, so tiny, so neat, like the cottage of the three bears, or the abode of the dwarfs. The old woman who came to keep it so bright and spotless was exactly like a witch, too, and Mildred herself might well have been an enchanted princess—except that she worked rather hard, and kept accounts. A small sign in the window read, “Miss Mildred Henaberry—piano lessons,” and all through the day confirmation[Pg 107a] of this floated out across the garden and into the road—stumbling scales, painful excursions in Czemy, and then the masterly touch of the teacher herself, showing what might be done.
Her pupils liked her, because she was patient, polite, and always clear and definite. She liked them because they were young, and because they had such stubby little fingers, such earnest scowls, and such jolly laughs.
On this morning of pelting summer rain she had escorted one of them to the front door—a rosy, moonfaced little girl in spectacles—and was opening a minute umbrella that would shelter the little cropped head, when she saw, coming down the lane, the young man who had been Mrs. Terhune’s emissary. He saw Mildred, raised his hat, and came splashing on through the mud, with his coat collar turned up and his cap pulled down. He entered the gate and reached the veranda steps just as the little girl was coming down.