Rilla of the Lighthouse

by Grace May North

“Why should I want him,” she said slowly and in a voice quivering with emotion, “since he did not care for me?”

Faith’s arms were about her. “Dear, dear girl,” she said, “do forgive me for having spoken of your father. I didn’t know. I didn’t understand.”

“Nor do I understand.” Muriel smiled through her tears as she held out a hand to her other dearest friend, who stood silently near, her sweet face expressing tender sympathy. “I know nothing whatever about my father. If Grand-dad knew about him, he never told me. He had promised to tell me all about my girl-mother’s marriage when I was eighteen years of age. I am nearly that now, but Grand-dad is not here. I do not believe that anyone else knows. I have often wanted to ask Uncle Barney, but since Grand-dad died I haven’t seemed to care. I have felt that if my own father could desert his baby girl, surely he would not want her when she was grown.”

How deeply Faith regretted that she had spoken to Muriel of her unknown father, but it was done and could not be helped.

All that day, as Rilla went about her tasks, she could think of nothing else. How she hoped that some day she would find that she had been wronging the man whom her girl-mother had loved.

How wonderful it would be, she thought, to have someone who would be her very own to love her as her grand-dad had loved her. Everyone was kind, but no one could quite take the place in the heart of Muriel of the three for whom she prayed ever since she was a child—the girl-mother who had died, the grand-dad who had sheltered her, and the father who never came. How she loved them all, and how she longed for them.

Why, just then, she should have thought of her brother-friend she could not have told, but she did think of him, and she resolved that just as soon as the lessons for the day were done she would write Gene Beavers that first letter for which he had so long and patiently waited.

* * * * * * * *

Gene Beavers was just leaving the house in which he lived with his parents and sister on the outskirts of London when a maid recalled him to give him the morning mail. She wondered at the sudden brightening of his expression. He glanced at the several envelopes, tossed all but one back upon the hall table unopened, slipped that one into his pocket and again went out. He wanted to read this very first letter from his “storm maiden” by the stream in the Wainwater Woods. He was on his way to spend the day with his boon companion, the viscount. Wonderful days they were that these two spent together, sometimes galloping across country on horseback and at other times hiking, stopping in lovely secluded places to rest, read and dream.

A stranger would not have guessed that the lad had so recently been an invalid, for his face once more was bronzed by the wind and sun, and in his eagerness to reach his destination, he fairly ran down the deserted highway. Having reached a sheltered spot, he threw himself down upon the bank of the stream, took the letter from his pocket and looked admiringly at the neat and really pretty handwriting. He had known that Muriel did not intend to send him a letter until she could write well and form her sentences correctly, but, even so, he was surprised with the contents of her missive.