“I shall do nothing of the kind! I am heavily armed with magazines and I shall read the rest of the way to Waupegan. Besides, I need time for planning my work to-morrow. It will be my busiest day!”
It was dark when the train paused at the lake station, and Mrs. Redfield was waiting, having come over in a launch to meet Mrs. Waring. She was wrapped in a long coat and carried a lantern, which she held up laughingly to verify her identification of the Poet.
“Marian and I have just been talking of you! She and Marjorie have told me all about the garden-party, and of the beautiful time you gave the children.”
“If she didn’t mention the beautiful time they gave me, she didn’t tell the whole story. And if I hadn’t gone to Mrs. Waring’s party, I shouldn’t be here!”
“Don’t pay any attention to him,” interposed Mrs. Waring, counting her trunks as they were transferred to the miniature steamer that plied the lake. “There’s some joke about his coming here; he’s told you one story and an hour ago he was assuring me that he had come up to fish!”
She turned away for a moment to speak to some old friends among the cottagers, leaving Mrs. Redfield and the Poet alone.
“I’m glad you are here,” said the Poet, “for I shall stay a few days and I hope we can have some talks.”
“I hope so; but I must go very soon. I’ve only been waiting for Mrs. Waring to come. It was like her to make a chance for me to get away; you know Waupegan is like home; my father used to have a cottage here and we children were brought up on the lake.”
She was a small, dark-eyed woman, a marked contrast to her tall, fair sister. Her sense of fun had always been a delight to her friends; she was a capital mimic and had been a star in amateur theatricals. The troubles of the past year—or of the years, to accept Redfield’s complaint at its full value—had not destroyed her vivacity. She was of that happy company who carry into middle life and beyond the freshness of youth. She had been married at twenty, and to the Poet’s eyes she seemed little older now.