CHAPTER I
A SMALL CLOUD
There were persons in Dorfield who said that Mary Louise’s life was too easy; that Fortune had smiled on her more than any one mortal had a right to expect. Why should beauty, charm, intelligence, and riches all belong to one girl? Why should she have an enormously wealthy grandfather whose one idea was to gratify her every wish, when any other girl, if she had any grandfather at all, was, perhaps, forced to support him or, at any rate, never got even a taste of the breast of the chicken because of the troublesome old gentleman’s predilection for that portion of the fowl? Why should Mary Louise marry the best looking and most promising young man who had settled in Dorfield for many a year? To be sure, when Danny Dexter first came to Dorfield at the close of the World War, he was not considered so very desirable by the mothers of the young women of the town. Not one had cast her nets for him and Mary Louise was considered quite quixotic to have adopted the returned soldier with his uncertain fortunes and scarred face. It was looked upon as another proof of Mary Louise’s unfailing luck that she should have discerned the true worth of young Dexter through his ragged uniform and unhealed scars.
Those persons who gave voice to such sentiments concerning Mary Louise were ignorant of the girl’s past history or they surely would have felt that she had suffered enough as a child and young girl to deserve some good fortune from the Fate who is supposed to even up things sooner or later. What that suffering was and the adventures through which the young girl had finally come victorious, are well known to the true friends of Mary Louise. We will not dwell upon them but bring our history down-to-date.
Colonel Hathaway was palpably failing. Anyone could see it with half an eye, and poor Mary Louise had to shut both eyes to keep from acknowledging that her old grandfather had lost not only his physical vigor, but that his mind was growing feeble. His old friend and lawyer, Peter Conant, who lived next door, had noticed that there was something queer about the Colonel. He had mentioned it to his wife Hannah, and Hannah being very deaf, he had been forced to mention it in such a loud tone that his niece, Irene Macfarlane, who was in the next room, could not help overhearing the conversation.
“I heard what you said to Aunt Hannah, Uncle Peter,” Irene said, wheeling herself into the sitting room where her uncle and aunt had settled themselves for the evening. Irene, Mary Louise’s best friend, was a lame girl who went everywhere in a rolling chair. “I heard some of it and I simply had to come and hear more,” she continued, her sweet face flushing and her clear steady eyes filling with tears. “I have noticed too that our dear old neighbor is not quite himself and I’ve been so worried about it.”
“Does Mary Louise notice it?” asked her uncle.
“I don’t know but she must think he talks strangely,” answered Irene sadly. “Colonel Hathaway has always been so kindly and genial and now he seems suspicious and a little bitter. He has taken an unaccountable dislike to Danny lately. He picks on the poor fellow all the time. You remember he used to think the world and all of Danny even when he was so down and out that he hired himself to the Colonel as a chauffeur. Now he is doing splendidly and being advanced right along at the automobile factory. Laura Hinton says her father thinks he is the most promising young man he knows—certainly the best one in the factory.”
“Too bad! Too bad!” sighed Uncle Peter. “We must never forget what our old friend has been, and we must not deal harshly with him in our hearts for what he is now. A mind diseased! God grant it is merely a phase and will pass.”
Aunt Hannah had been listening to the above conversation with two ear trumpets, a method she employed when anything very interesting was being discussed.
“It may be a blood clot on the brain and he may be as right as a trivet again,” suggested Aunt Hannah, who always took a cheerful view of life and even death when the persons for whom she had prognosticated a perfect cure finally passed away. “I knew a man once—”