“Did you bring me any letters?” Max replied, and his friend continued, “Yes, a cart load. Six, any way,” and he began to take them from his side pocket. “One, two, three, four, five; there’s another somewhere. Oh, here ’tis,” he said, taking out the sixth, which looked rather soiled and worn. “I suppose it’s for you,” he continued, “although it’s directed to Mr. Max Marshall, Esq., and is in a school-girl’s handwriting. It came long ago, and we chaps puzzled over it a good while; then, as no one appeared to claim it, and it was mailed at Merrivale, where your sister spends her summers, I ventured to bring it with the rest. If you were not such a saint I’d say you had been imposing a false name upon some innocent country girl, and, by George, I believe she’s here now with your ulster over her! Running off with her, eh? What will Miss Raynor say?” he went on, as his eyes fell upon Maude, who just then stirred in her sleep and murmured softly, “Our Father, who art in Heaven.”
She was at home in her little white-curtained bedroom, kneeling with her mother and saying her nightly prayer, and, involuntarily, both the young men bowed their heads as if receiving a benediction.
“I think, Dick, that your vile insinuation is answered,” Max said, and Dick rejoined, “Yes, I beg your pardon. Under your protection, I s’pose. Well, she’s safe; but I must be finding that berth of mine. Will see you in the morning. Good-night.”
He left the car, while Max Gordon tried to read his letters as best he could by the dim light near him. One was from his sister, one from Archie, three on business, while the last puzzled him a little, and he held it awhile as if uncertain as to his right to open it.
“It must be for me,” he said at last, and breaking the seal he read Maude’s letter to him, unconscious that Maude was sleeping there beside him.
Indeed, he had never heard of Maude Graham before, and had scarcely given a thought to the former owners of Spring Farm. His sister had a mortgage upon it; the man was dead; the place must be sold, and Mrs. More asked him to buy it; that was all he knew when he bid it off.
“Poor little girl,” he said to himself. “If I had known about you, I don’t believe I’d have bought the place. There was no necessity to foreclose, I am sure; but it was just like Angie; and what must this Maude think of me not to have answered her letter. I am so sorry;” and his sorrow manifested itself in an increased attention to the girl, over whom he adjusted his ulster more carefully, for the air in the car was growing very damp and chilly.
It was broad daylight when Maude awoke, starting up with a smile on her face and reminding Max of some lovely child when first aroused from sleep.
“Why, I have slept all night,” she exclaimed, as she tossed back her wavy hair; “and you have given me your shawl and ulster, too,” she added, with a blush which made her face, as Max thought, the prettiest he had ever seen.
Who was she, he wondered, and once he thought to ask her the question direct; then he tried by a little finessing to find out who she was and where she came from, but Maude’s mother had so strongly impressed it upon her not to be at all communicative to strangers, that she was wholly non-committal even while suspecting his design, and when at last Canandaigua was reached he knew no more of her history than when he first saw her, white and trembling on the boat. She was going to take the Genesee stage, she said, and expected her uncle to meet her at Oak Corners in Richland.