"Oh, yis, I'm all av that an' more. Marjie, I'm goin' to kape these flowers till—well, now, Marjie, shall I tell you whin?"
"Yes, O'mie," Marjie said faintly.
"Well, till I see the pretty white veil lifted fur friends to kiss the bride an' I catch the scent av orange blossoms in thim soft little waves." He put his hand gently on her bowed head. "I'll get to do it, too," he went on, "not right away, but not fur off, nather; an' it won't be a little man, ner a rid-headed Irishman, ner a sharp-nosed school-teacher; but—Heaven bless an' kape him to-night!—it'll be a big, broad-shouldered, handsome rascal, whose heart has niver changed an' niver can change toward you, little sister, 'cause he's his father's own son—lovin', constant, white an' clane through an' through. Be patient. It's goin' to be all right for you two." He closed the book and put it back in its place. "But I mustn't stay here. I've got to tag Lettie some more. Her an' some others. That's what my tin days' vacation's fur, mostly." And O'mie leaped through the bushes and was gone.
The twilight was deepening when Marjie at last roused herself.
"I'll go down and see if he did get my letter," she murmured, taking her way down the rough stair. There was no letter in the crevice where she had placed it securely two nights before. Lifting her face upward she clasped her hands in sorrow.
"He took it away, but he did not come to me. He knows I love him." Then remembering herself, "I would not let him speak. But he said he hated 'Rockport.' Oh, what can it all mean? How could he be so good to me and then deceive me so? Shall I believe Lettie, or O'mie?"
Kneeling there in the deep shadows of the cliff-side with the Neosho gurgling darkly below her, and the long shafts of pink radiance from the hidden sunset illumining the sky above her, Marjie prayed for strength to bear her burden, for courage to meet whatever must come to her, and for the assurance of divine Love although now her lover, as well as her father, was lost to her. The simple pleading cry of a grief-stricken heart it was. Heaven heard that prayer, and Marjie went down the hill with womanly grace and courage and faith to face whatever must befall her in the new life opening before her.
In the days that followed my little girl was more than ever the idol of Springvale. Her sweet, sunny nature now had a new beauty. Her sorrow she hid away so completely there were few who guessed what her thoughts were. Lettie Conlow was not deceived, for jealousy has sharp eyes. O'mie understood, for O'mie had carried a sad, hungry heart underneath his happy-go-lucky carelessness all the years of his life. Aunt Candace was a woman who had overcome a grief of her own, and had been cheery and bright down the years. She knew the mark of conquest in the face. And lastly, my father, through his innate power to read human nature, watched Marjie as if she were his own child. Quietly, too, so quietly that nobody noticed it, he became a guardian over her. Where she went and what she did he knew as well as Jean Pahusca, watching in the lilac clump, long ago. For fourteen years he had come and gone to our house on Cliff Street up and down the gentler slope two blocks to the west of Whately's. Nobody knew, until it had become habitual, when he changed his daily walk homeward up the steeper climb that led him by Marjie's house farther down the street. Nobody realized, until it was too common for comment, how much a part of all the social life of Springvale my father had become. He had come to Kansas a widower, but gossip long ago gave up trying to do anything with him. And now, as always, he was a welcome factor everywhere, a genial, courteous gentleman, whose dignity of character matched his stern uprightness and courage in civic matters. Among all the things for which I bless his memory, not the least of them was this strong, unostentatious guardianship of a girl when her need for protection was greatest, as that Winter that followed proved.
I knew nothing of all this then. I only knew my loved one had turned against me. Of course I knew that Rachel was the cause, but I could not understand why Marjie would listen to no explanation, why she should turn completely from me when I had told her everything in the letter I wrote the night of the party at Anderson's. And now I was many miles from Springvale, and the very thought of the past was like a knife-thrust. All my future now looked to the Westward. I longed for action, for the opportunity to do something, and they came swiftly, the opportunity and the action.