The Liberty Girl

by Rena I. Halsey

To Nathalie, the crimson branches of the reddening maples, showing vividly bright from among the green leaves of the spruce, fir, oak, or beech, softened with the glow from the silver poplars as they quivered in the wind, seemed like red banners. As they swayed in undulating motion, to her they were flags, curling and beating the air for that which is every man’s right, liberty.

The girl felt a little depressed at the thought that the summer was over, for the crumpled and autumn-hued leaves, as they fell from the trees, or swept by on the wings of the wind in their dying splendor, seemed to be calling a sad and mournful farewell. Oh, how she would hate to leave these rocky heights that rose in such statuesque grandeur before her, the splendors of the sky with its glory of sunset, the forest gnomes in their crooked and gnarled ugliness, and the green fields, now starred with the yellow beauty of our national flower, the goldenrod!

What an odd summer it had been! So different from what she had expected. How she would miss her beautiful companions on her morning walks, the blue-hazed mountains! And yet she had made friends. Ah, there was the soldier-boy. She wondered if he would write to her. Then there was Janet. Well, she was never going to let her go out of her life, for she was to visit them next winter.

Her eyes saddened as she thought of the Sweet-Pea ladies. Oh, how sorry she would be to bid them good-by, for Miss Whipple seemed to grow frailer every day, and then what would become of poor Miss Mona? And her queer little old friend in the red house? Well, she didn’t suppose that she would ever see her again, for she said that she never wrote to people. Yes, it was depressing to think that you had to meet people you liked, and then go away and just have to forget them, because they passed out of your life.

And the kiddies? She hated to think of their going back to that slum life again. She wondered if any of the country people up in the mountains would like to take them to live with them, for, yes, Tony and Danny could learn to be very useful. But poor Jean—and Sheila! Then she wondered if her trying to make them Sons of Liberty would help them to be good and honorable men. Sometimes it seemed as if she hadn’t accomplished much, and then again she could see how different they were from what they had been when they came to her. O dear! they were problems.

And Philip de Brie? Surely she had made a friend of him, at least he was more than a friend to Janet, who—the perverse thing!—was so careful not to let her know if she really cared for him or not. Perhaps it was on account of Cynthia, for she had overheard that young lady telling Janet that Philip was an impostor, and that he had fooled her the way he had Nathalie Page and her mother. The story of his being a British soldier, and that story, too, about his grandmother, was all folderol.

And poor Janet had meekly made no reply to this tirade, but Nathalie, in imagination, saw the red mount into her cheeks, and knew how humiliated she felt. Well, he was better than that funny little Mr. Buddie anyway. She believed it was just jealousy on Cynthia’s part, for she herself had tried to be very nice to Philip, but somehow he didn’t seem to understand her,—no sensible person could,—and although he had always been very courteous to her, he had never made a friend of her.

Well, she had done her best to clear him of the horrible suspicion that had lost him his pupils; but, alas, she seemed to have made the matter worse, or, at least, she had not done him any good, for when his cabin on the mountain had been burned one night, people had declared that he had set it afire himself to destroy evidences of his guilt.

And then, when the manager of the hotel had the ground dug up, where she and the children had discovered those pieces of jewelry, nothing had been found. And Mr. Keating, alias the Count, had gone, called to Chicago, he claimed, the very night before they dug up around the rock,—the very night, too, that the cabin had been burned. No, Philip had not been arrested, for certainly the evidence was not strong enough to warrant such action. And then the detective had disappeared, although Nathalie had a feeling at times that he was hanging around somewhere near the place, in disguise, perhaps, watching Philip.

And the people who had been so nice to Philip, now acted very queerly whenever they saw him, and Philip, the poor fellow, had said nothing, although Nathalie was afraid that he suspected that something was wrong. Her mother had persuaded him to come down to Seven Pillars after the burning of the cabin, and although he had accepted their kind hospitality for the time being, he chafed under the favors showered upon him, and showed that he was inwardly suffering to have to be placed in such a position, for Janet said he resented charity. Yes, and ten days had passed, and Nathalie had not heard one word from the detective. O dear! the world was a queer place to live in, anyway.