"And what will your name be?" asked Uncle Hughie, striving in his pity to say something friendly which this strange man would not resent.
"My name," said the man slowly, "my name"—he stood and looked about him in a dazed way—"yes, yes, it's McIntyre—John McIntyre." He wavered a moment, then fell, fainting, in the young doctor's arms.
CHAPTER IV
THE ORPHAN ARRIVES
O little wild feet, too softly white
To roam the world's tempestuous night,
The years like sleet on my windows beat,
Come in and be cherished, O little wild feet.
My heart is a house deep-walled and warm,
To cover you from the night and storm.
—C. G. D. ROBERTS.
Miss Arabella Winter and her parrot lived alone in a tiny house, next door to her brother's home, and were "managed," in company with the rest of the village, by her smart sister-in-law. In all Susan Winters' realm there was no more obedient subject than the meek little lilac lady.
She had been very pretty in her youth, and much of her girlhood's beauty lingered yet in the faint pink of her cheeks and the droop of her long lashes. Her golden-brown hair was still abundant and wavy, though in accordance with her sister-in-law's instructions she pulled it back so tightly that its undulations were quite smoothed out. And just so Miss Arabella tied down and smoothed out all the beauty curves of her life to suit the rigid lines of Susan's methods. That she ever longed for more breadth and freedom could never have entered the head of any one in the village. But then the village did not know the real Miss Arabella.
She was hurrying through her morning's work, for a column of smoke curling up from the other side of her next neighbor's orchard told that the Sawyers had returned; and if Susan did not mind, she hoped she might run over and see what kind of baby Jake and Hannah had brought home.
She shook the breakfast tablecloth out at the back door, and the hens came running to pick up the crumbs. Like all houses in Elmbrook, Miss Arabella's front door looked out upon the narrow confines of the village street, with its double row of elms and maples; but her back door commanded a view of a whole world of sky and field and wood. High up in an apple-tree of the Sawyers' orchard a bluebird was caroling joyously. Miss Arabella had never heard of the man who said that the bluebird carried the sky on his back, but she involuntarily glanced from the brilliant azure dot in the tree-top to the vivid blue of the heavens. "They're awful alike," she whispered, with a smile; then she glanced inside, "and it's the same color, too! I've a good mind"—she paused guiltily and glanced toward her brother's house. "I'll just take one glimpse," she added hurriedly. She put the tablecloth away in its drawer and ran into the little sitting-room. The old floor, under its gay covering of rag-carpet and home-made rugs, sank and creaked with even her light weight. At the sound a querulous voice from the veranda called "Arabella, Arabella!"