THE BIG MOGUL

By JOSEPH C. LINCOLN

THE BIG MOGUL
QUEER JUDSON
RUGGED WATER
DOCTOR NYE
FAIR HARBOR
GALUSHA THE MAGNIFICENT
THE PORTYGEE
“SHAVINGS”
MARY-’GUSTA
CAP’N DAN’S DAUGHTER
THE RISE OF ROSCOE PAINE
THE POSTMASTER
THE WOMAN-HATERS
KEZIAH COFFIN
CY WHITTAKER’S PLACE
CAP’N ERI
EXTRICATING OBADIAH
THANKFUL’S INHERITANCE
MR. PRATT
MR. PRATT’S PATIENTS
KENT KNOWLES: “QUAHAUG”
CAP’N WARREN’S WARDS
THE DEPOT MASTER
OUR VILLAGE
PARTNERS OF THE TIDE
THE OLD HOME HOUSE
CAPE COD BALLADS
THE MANAGERS

The Big Mogul

by
Joseph C. Lincoln
Author of “Queer Judson,” “Rugged Water,”
“Shavings,” etc.

D. Appleton and Company
New York 1926 London

COPYRIGHT, 1926, BY
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
Copyright, 1926, by The Crowell Publishing Company
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

THE BIG MOGUL

THE BIG MOGUL

CHAPTER I

THIS was the library of the Townsend mansion in Harniss. Mrs. Townsend had so christened it when the mansion was built; or, to be more explicit, the Boston architect who drew the plans had lettered the word “Library” inside the rectangle indicating the big room, just as he had lettered “Drawing-Room” in the adjoining, and still larger, rectangle, and Mrs. Townsend had approved both plans and lettering. In the former, and much smaller, home of the Townsends there had been neither library nor drawing-room, the apartments corresponding to them were known respectively as the “sitting-room” and the “parlor.” When the little house was partially demolished and the mansion took its place the rechristened sitting-room acquired two black walnut bookcases and a dozen “sets,” the latter resplendent in morocco and gilt. Now the gilt letters gleamed dimly behind the glass in the light from the student lamp upon the marble-topped center table beside which Foster Townsend was sitting, reading a Boston morning newspaper. It was six o’clock in the afternoon of a dark day in the fall of a year late in the seventies.

The student lamp was a large one and the light from beneath its green shade fell upon his head and shoulders as he sat there in the huge leather easy-chair. Most of the furniture in the library was stiff and expensive and uncomfortable. The easy-chair was expensive also, but it was comfortable. Foster Townsend had chosen it himself when the mansion was furnished and it was the one item upon which his choice remained fixed and irrevocable.

“But it is so big and—and homely, dear,” remonstrated his wife. “It doesn’t look—well, genteel enough for a room in a house like ours. Now, truly, do you think it does?”

Her husband, his hat on the back of his head and his hands in his trousers’ pockets, smiled.

“Maybe not, Bella,” he replied. “It is big, I’ll grant you that, and I shouldn’t wonder if it was homely. But so far as that goes I’m big and homely myself. It fits me and I like it. You can have all the fun you want with the rest of the house; buy all the doodads and pictures and images and story-books and trash that you’ve a mind to, but I want that chair and I’m going to have it. A sitting-room is a place to sit in and I mean to sit in comfort.”

“But it isn’t a sitting-room, Father,” urged Arabella. “It is a library. I do wish you wouldn’t forget that.”

“All right. I don’t care what you call it, so long as you let me sit in it the way I want to. That chair’s sold, young man,” he added, addressing the attentive representative of the furniture house. “Now, Mother, what’s the next item on the bill of lading?”

The leather chair came to the library of the Townsend mansion and its purchaser had occupied it many, many afternoons and evenings since. He was occupying it now, his bulky figure filling it to repletion and his feet, of a size commensurate to the rest of him, resting upon an upholstered foot-stool—a “cricket” he would have called it. A pair of gold-rimmed spectacles were perched upon the big nose before his gray eyes and the stump of a cigar was held tightly in the corner of his wide, thin lipped, grimly humorous mouth. He was dressed in a dark blue suit, wore a stiff-bosomed white shirt, a low “turn down” collar and a black, ready-made bow tie. Below the tie, a diamond stud glittered in the shirt bosom. His boots—he had them made for him by the village shoe-maker—were of the, even then, old-fashioned, long-legged variety, but their leather was of the softest and best obtainable. Upon the third finger of his left hand—stubby, thick hands they were—another diamond, set in a heavy gold ring, flashed as he turned the pages of the paper. His hair was a dark brown and it and his shaggy brows and clipped chin beard were sprinkled with gray.

There was another chair at the other side of the table, a rocking-chair, upholstered in fashionable black haircloth and with a lace “tidy” upon its back. That chair was empty. It had been empty for nearly a month, since the day when Arabella Townsend was taken ill. It was pathetically, hauntingly empty now, for she who had been accustomed to occupy it was dead. A little more than a week had elapsed since her funeral, an event concerning which Eben Wixon, the undertaker, has been vaingloriously eloquent ever since.

“Yes, sir-ee!” Mr. Wixon was wont to proclaim with the pride of an artist. “That was about the most luxurious funeral ever held in this county, if I do say it. I can’t think of anything to make it more perfect, unless, maybe, to have four horses instead of two haulin’ the hearse. That would have put in what you might call the finishin’ touch. Yes, sir, ’twould! Still, I ain’t findin’ fault. I’m satisfied. The music—and the flowers! And the high-toned set of folks sittin’ around all over the lower floor of that big house! Some of ’em was out in the dinin’ room, they was. If I had half the cash represented at that Townsend funeral I’d never need to bury anybody else in this world. I bet you I wouldn’t, I’d have enough.”

Foster Townsend read his paper, became interested in a news item, smiled, raised his head and, turning toward the vacant rocker, opened his lips to speak. Then he remembered and sank back again into his own chair. The paper lay unheeded upon his knees and he stared absently at a figure in the Brussels carpet on the floor of the library.

A door in the adjoining room—the dining room—opened and Nabby Gifford, the Townsend housekeeper, entered from the kitchen. She lit the hanging lamp above the dining room table and came forward to draw the portières between that room and the library. Standing with the edge of a curtain in each hand, she addressed her employer.

“Kind of a hard old evenin’, ain’t it, Cap’n Townsend,” she observed. “It’s rainin’ now but I declare if it don’t feel as if it might snow afore it gets through.”

Foster Townsend did not answer, nor did he look up. Mrs. Gifford tried again.

“Anything ’special in the paper?” she inquired. “Ain’t found out who murdered that woman up to Watertown yet, I presume likely?”

He heard her this time.

“Eh?” he grunted, raising his eyes. “No, I guess not. I don’t know. I didn’t notice. What are you doing in the dining room, Nabby? Where’s Ellen?”

“She’s out. It’s her night off. She was all dressed up in her best bib and tucker and so I judged she was goin’ somewheres. I asked her where, but she never said nothin’, made believe she didn’t hear me. Don’t make much odds; I can ’most generally guess a riddle when I’ve got the answer aforehand. There’s an Odd Fellers’ ball over to Bayport to-night and that Georgie D.’s home from fishin’, so I cal’late—”

Townsend interrupted. “All right, all right,” he put in, gruffly. “I don’t care where she’s gone. Pull those curtains, will you, Nabby.”

“I was just a-goin’ to.... Say, Cap’n Townsend, don’t you think it’s kind of funny the way that woman’s husband is actin’—that Watertown woman’s, I mean? He says he wan’t to home the night she was murdered but he don’t say where he was. Now, ’cordin’ to what I read in yesterday’s Advertiser—”

“All right, all right! Pull those curtains.... Here! Wait a minute. Where’s Varunas?”

“He’s out to the barn, same as he usually is, I guess likely. He spends more time with them horses than he does with me, I know that. I say to him sometimes, I say: ‘Anybody’d think a horse could talk the way you keep company with ’em. Seems as if you liked to be with critters that can’t talk.’”

“Perhaps he does—for a change. Well, if he comes in tell him I want to see him. You can call me when supper’s ready. Now, if you’ll pull those curtains—”

The curtains were snatched together with a jerk and a rattle of rings on the pole. From behind them sounded the click of dishes and the jingle of silver. Foster Townsend sank back into the leather chair. His cigar had gone out, but he did not relight it. He sat there, gazing at nothing in particular, a gloomy frown upon his face.

The door leading from the rear of the front hall opened just a crack. Through the crack came a whisper in a hoarse masculine voice.

“Cap’n Foster!” whispered the voice. “Cap’n Foster!... Ssst! Look here!”

Townsend turned, looked and saw a hand with a beckoning forefinger thrust from behind the door. He recognized the hand and lifting his big body from the chair, walked slowly across the room.

“Well, Varunas,” he asked, “what’s the matter now? What are you sneaking in through the skipper’s companion for?”

A head followed the hand around the edge of the door, the head of Varunas Gifford. Varunas was Nabby Gifford’s husband. He was stableman on the Townsend estate, took care of the Townsend horses, and drove his employer’s trotters and pacers in the races at the county fairs and elsewhere. He was a little, wizened man, with stooped shoulders and legs bowed like barrel hoops. His thin, puckered face puckered still more as he whispered a cautious reply.

“Cap’n Foster,” he whispered, “can you just step out in the hall here a minute? I’ve got somethin’ to tell ye and if I come in there Nabby’s liable to hear us talkin’ and want to know what it’s all about. Come out just a minute, can ye?”

Townsend motioned him back, followed him into the dimly lighted hall and closed the door behind them.

“Well, here I am,” he said. “What’s the matter?”

Varunas rubbed his unshaven chin. His fingers among the bristles sounded like the rasp of sandpaper.

“You know Claribel?” he began anxiously.

Claribel was the fastest mare in the Townsend stable. The question, therefore, was rather superfluous. Claribel’s owner seemed to consider it so.

“Don’t waste your breath,” he ordered. “What’s the matter with her?”

Varunas shook his head violently. “Ain’t nothin’ the matter with her,” he declared. “She’s fine. Only—well, you see—”

“Come, come! Throw it overboard!”

“Well, I was cal’latin’ to take her down to the Circle to-morrow mornin’ early—about six or so; afore anybody was up, you know—and try her out. Them was your orders, Cap’n, you remember.”

“Of course I remember. I was going to remind you of it. You’re going to do it, aren’t you?”

“I was cal’latin’ to, but—well, I heard somethin’ a spell ago that made me think maybe I hadn’t better. I’ve been give to understand that—” he leaned forward to whisper once more—“that there’d be somebody else there at the same time me and Claribel was. Um-hum. Somebody that’s cal’latin’ to find out somethin’.”

Foster Townsend’s big hands, pushed into his trousers pockets, jingled the loose change there. He nodded.

“I see,” he said, slowly. “Yes, yes, I see. Somebody named Baker, I shouldn’t wonder. Eh?”

Varunas nodded. “Somebody that works for somebody named somethin’ like that,” he admitted. “You see, Cap’n, I was down to the blacksmith shop a couple of hours ago—got to have Flyaway shod pretty soon—and me and Joe Ellis was talkin’ about one thing or ’nother, and says he: ‘Varunas,’ he says, ‘when is the old man and Sam Baker goin’ to pull off that private horse trot of theirs?’ he says. Course everybody knows that us and Sam have fixed up that match and it’s the general notion that there’s consider’ble money up on it. Some folks say it’s a hundred dollars and some says it’s five hundred. I never tell ’em how much ’tis, because—”

“Because you don’t know. Well, never mind that. Go on.”

“Yup.... Um-hum.... Well, anyhow, all hands knows that our Claribel and his Rattler is goin’ to have it out and Joe he wanted to know when ’twas goin’ to be. I told him next week some day and then he says: ‘I understand you’ve been takin’ the mare down to the Circle and givin’ her time trials in the mornin’s afore anybody else is up.’ Well, that kind of knocked me. I never suspicioned anybody did know, did you, Cap’n?”

“I told you to take pains that they didn’t. You haven’t done it but once. Who saw you then?”

“Why, nobody, so I’d have been willin’ to bet. I never see anybody around. Lonesome’s all git out ’tis down there that time in the mornin’. And dark, too. How Joe or anybody else knew I had Claribel down there yesterday was more’n I could make out.”

“Well, never mind. It looks as if they did know. Did Ellis tell you what time the mare made?”

“No. But he give me to understand that Seth Emmons, Baker’s man, was figgerin’ to come over from Bayport and be somewheres in that neighborhood to-morrer mornin’, and every mornin’, till he found out. Joe wouldn’t tell me who told him, but he said ’twas a fact. Now what had I better do? It’s the story ’round town that Rattler has made 2:20 or better and that the best Claribel can do is in the neighborhood of 2:35. If folks knew she’d made 2:18½ around that Circle Baker might have Rattler took sick or somethin’ and the whole business would be called off. I’ve known his horses to be took down in a hurry afore, when he was toler’ble sure to lose. When you’re dealin’ with Sam Baker you’re up against a slick article, and that man of his, Seth Emmons, is just as up and comin’. I better not show up at that Circle to-morrow mornin’, had I, Cap’n Foster?”

Townsend, hands in pockets, took a turn up and down the hall. His horses were his pet hobbies. Besides the span of blacks which he was accustomed to drive about town and which, with the nobby brougham or carryall or dog-cart which they drew, were the admiration and boastful pride of Harniss, he owned a half dozen racers. At the Ostable County Fair and Cattle Show in October the Townsend entries usually carried off the majority of first prizes. They were entered, also, at the fair in New Bedford and sometimes as far away as Taunton. Between fairs there were numbers of by-races with other horse owners in neighboring towns. A good trotter was a joy to Foster Townsend and a sharply contested trotting match his keenest enjoyment. The Townsend trotters were as much talked about as the famous and long-drawn-out Townsend-Cook lawsuit. The suit was won, or seemed to be. The highest court in Massachusetts had recently decided it in Foster Townsend’s favor. Bangs Cook’s lawyers were reported to have entered motion of appeal and it was said that they intended carrying it to the Supreme Court at Washington, but few believed their appeal would be granted.

Sam Baker was an old rival of his on the tracks. Baker was the hotel keeper and livery man at Bayport, ten miles away. He was not accounted rich, like Townsend, but he was well to do, a shrewd Yankee and a “sport.” The trotter Rattler was a recent acquisition of his and a fast one, so it was said. He had challenged Townsend’s mare Claribel to a mile trot on the “Circle,” the track which Townsend had built and presented to the town. It was a quarter mile round of hard clay road constructed on the salt meadows near the beach at South Harniss. A lonely spot with no houses near it, it was then. Now a summer hotel and an array of cottages stand on or near it. Foster Townsend used it as an exercise ground for his trotters, but any one else was accorded the same privilege. In the winter, when the snow was packed hard, it was the spot where the dashing young fellow in a smart cutter behind a smart horse took his best girl for a ride and the hope of an impromptu race with some other dashing young fellow similarly equipped.

Varunas Gifford watched his employer pace up and down the hall, watched him adoringly but anxiously. After a moment he returned to repeat his question.

“Better not be down to the Circle to-morrow mornin’, had I, Cap’n?” he suggested.

Townsend stopped in his stride. “Yes,” he said, with decision. “I want you to be there.”

“Eh? Why, good land! If that Seth Emmons is there spyin’ and keepin’ time on Claribel, why—”

“Sshh! Wait! I want you to be there, but I don’t want the mare to be there. Is Hornet all right for a workout?”

“Sartin sure he’s all right. But Hornet can’t do better’n 2:40 if he spreads himself, not on that Circle track anyhow. You ain’t cal’latin’ to haul out Claribel and put in Hornet, be you? There wouldn’t be no sense in that, Cap’n, not a mite. Why—”

“Oh, be quiet! If he does 2:45 it will suit me just as well, provided that is the best you can make him do. You say it’s dark down there at six o’clock?”

“Dark enough, even if it’s a fine mornin’, this time of year. A mornin’ like to-day’s—yes, and the way it looks as if to-morrow’s would be—it’s so dark you can’t much more’n see to keep in the road.”

“All right. The darker the better. If it’s dark to-morrow morning you hitch Hornet in the gig and go down there and send him a mile as fast as he can travel. He is the same build and size as Claribel, about, and the same color.”

“Eh?... Gosh!” Varunas’ leathery face split with a broad grin. “Yus—yus,” he observed, “I see what you’re up to, Cap’n Foster. You figger that Sam Emmons’ll see me sendin’ Hornet around the Circle and he’ll take it for granted—Eh! But no, I’m afraid ’twon’t be dark enough for that. Hornet is the same size and color as Claribel but he ain’t marked the same. Claribel’s got that white splash between her eyes and that white stockin’ on her left hind laig. Hornet he ain’t got no white on him nowheres. If ’twas the middle of the night Sam might be fooled, but—”

“Sshh! You’ve been whitewashing the henhouses this week, haven’t you? And as the job isn’t finished, I imagine you’ve got some of the whitewash left. If you have, and if you’ve got any gumption at all, I should think you could splash a horse white wherever he needed to be white and do it well enough to fool anybody on a dark morning, particularly if he wasn’t on the lookout for a trick. You could do that on a pinch, couldn’t you?”

Mr. Gifford’s grin, which had disappeared, came back again, broader than ever.

“I shouldn’t be surprised to death if I could,” he chuckled. “I see—yus, yus, I see! Sam he’ll see Hornet all whitewashed up like a cellar door and he won’t be suspicionin’ nothin’ but Claribel, and so when Hornet can’t do no better than 2:40 or 2:45 he’ll naturally—Hi! that’s cute, that is! Yes, yes, I see now.”

“Well, I’m glad you do. Go ahead and do your whitewashing. Whitewash isn’t like paint, it comes off easy.”

From behind the closed door of the library a sharp voice called: “Cap’n Townsend! Cap’n Townsend! Supper’s ready!”

Varunas started. “I must be goin’,” he whispered. “Don’t tell her about it, Cap’n Foster, will ye. She’ll pester me to death to find out what’s up and if I don’t tell her, she— But say!” he added admiringly, “that is about as slick a trick as ever I heard of, that whitewashin’ is. How did you ever come to think that up all by yourself?”

Foster Townsend, his hand on the knob of the dining room door, grunted.

“I didn’t think it up all by myself,” he said, curtly. “There’s nothing new about it. It’s an old trick, as old as horse racing. I remembered it, that’s all, and I guess it is good enough to fool any of Sam Baker’s gang. You can tell me to-morrow how it worked.”

He opened the door, crossed the library and sat down in his chair at the lonely supper table. Nabby Gifford brought in the eatables and set them before him.

“I made you a fish chowder to-night, Cap’n Foster,” she said. “I know you always liked it and we ain’t had one for a long time. Ezra Nickerson had some real nice tautog that his boy had just caught out by the spar buoy and there’s no kind of fish makes as good chowder as a tautog. Now I do hope you’ll eat some of it. You ain’t ate enough the last week to keep a canary bird goin’. You’ll be sick fust thing you know.”

Townsend dipped his spoon in the chowder and tasted approvingly.

“Good enough!” he declared. “Tastes like old times. Seems like old times to have you waiting on table, too, Nabby. Mother always liked your fish chowders.”

Mrs. Gifford nodded. “I know she did,” she agreed. “Time and time again I’ve heard her say there was nobody could make a chowder like me. Um-hum. Oh, well! We’re here to-day and to-morrow the place thereof don’t know us, as it says in the Bible. Ah, hum-a-day!... Speakin’ of waitin’ on table,” she added, noting the expression on his face, “I wanted to talk to you about that, Cap’n Townsend. There ain’t any reasons why I shouldn’t do it all the time. You don’t need two hired help in that kitchen now any more than a codfish needs wings. Ellen, she and that Georgie D. of hers will be gettin’ married pretty soon—leastways all hands says they will—and when she quits you mustn’t hire anybody in her place. If I can’t get meals for one lone man then I’d better be sent to the old woman’s home. You might just as well let me do it, and save your money—not that you need to save any more, land knows!”

Foster Townsend shook his head. “A pretty big house for one pair of hands to take care of,” he observed. “When Ellen goes—or if she goes—you better hire some one else, Nabby.”

“Now, Cap’n Foster, what’s the use? What for?”

“Because I want you to, for one reason.... There, there, Nabby! don’t argue about it. I know what I’m doing. At any rate I guess I can spend my own money, if I want to.”

“I guess you can. I don’t know who’s liable to stop you doin’ anything you want to, far’s that goes. Nobody has done it yet, though there’s a good many tried.... But while I’m talkin’ I might just as well talk a little mite more. I don’t see why you keep on livin’ in this great ark of a place. ’Tain’t a bit of my business, but if I was you I’d sell—or rent it, or somethin’—and have a little house that I wouldn’t get lost in every time I went upstairs.”

Her employer shook his head. “This is my house and I stay in it,” he said, crisply.

“Well, if you will you will, of course. When you bark at a body that way there ain’t a mite of use barkin’ back, I know that. And I realize that you and—and her that’s gone had the best time in the world buildin’ over this house and riggin’ it up. It’s just that I know how lonesome you are—a blind person could see that.... Here, here! You mustn’t get up from that table yet, Cap’n Foster. You’ve got to have some more of my tautog chowder.”

“No. Had enough, Nabby.”

“My soul! Well, then you must have a helpin’ of baked indian puddin’. I made it ’special, because I knew how you liked it. Don’t tell me you won’t touch that puddin’!”

“All right, all right. Bring it along. And I’ll have another cup of tea, if you’ve got it.”

“Got it! I’ve got a gallon. That Varunas man of mine would drink a hogshead of strong tea all to himself any time if I’d let him. I tell him no wonder he’s all shriveled up like a wet leather apron.”

She disappeared into the kitchen to return, a moment later, with the refilled cup. She was talking when she went out and talking when she came back.

“You hadn’t ought to keep on livin’ in this house all alone,” she declared, with emphasis. “I said it afore and now I say it again. It ain’t natural to live that way. It ain’t good for man to be alone, that’s what the Good Book says. Land sakes! afore I’d do that I’d—I’d do the way the rich man in the—what-d’ye-call-it—parallel done. I’d go out into the highways and byways and fetch in the lame and the halt and the blind. Yes, indeed I would! I’d do it for company and I wouldn’t care how halt they was, neither; they’d be better’n nobody. Speakin’ about that parallel,” she added, reflectively. “I’ve never been real sure just what ailed a person when he was a ‘halt.’ A horse—mercy knows I hear horse talk enough from Varunas!—has somethin’ sometimes that’s called the ‘spring halt,’ but that, so he tells me, is a kind of lameness. Now the parallel tells about the lame and the halt, so— Good gracious! Why, you ain’t through, be you, Cap’n Foster? You ain’t hardly touched your puddin’.”

The captain had risen and pushed back his chair. “I’ve eaten all I can to-night, Nabby,” he said. “My appetite seems to have gone on a voyage these days and left me ashore.... Humph! So you think I’d better have somebody come and live here with me, do you? That’s funny.”

“Why is it funny? Sounds like sense to me.”

“It’s funny because I had just about made up my mind— Oh, well, never mind that, I’m going out pretty soon. If any one comes to see me you can tell them I’ve gone.”

“Where shall I say you’ve gone?”

“If you don’t know you won’t have to say it.... Good-night.”

“Shall I tell Varunas to have the carriage and team ready for you?”

“No, I’m going to walk.”

“Walk! What’ll people think if they see you out a-walkin’ on your own feet like—like common folks? The idea!”

“Good-night. One thing more: If the minister comes tell him I’ll keep up Bella’s subscription to the church the same as she did when she was here—that is, for the present, anyhow. If he says anything about my giving money toward the new steeple tell him I haven’t made up my mind whether or not the steeple is going to be rebuilt. When I do I’ll let him know.... That’s all, I guess.”

He went into the library, drawing the curtains with his own hands this time. He glanced at the ornate marble and gold clock upon the mantel, decided that it was too early for his contemplated walk, and sank heavily into the leather chair. He picked up the paper from the floor, adjusted his spectacles and attempted to read. The attempt was a failure. Nothing in the closely printed pages aroused his interest sufficiently to distract his thoughts from the empty rocker at the other side of the table. He tossed the paper upon the floor again and sat there, pulling at his beard and glancing impatiently at the clock. Its gold plated hands crept from seven to seven-thirty and, at last, to ten minutes to eight. Then he rose and moved toward the front hall.

In that hall he took from the carved walnut hatstand a long ulster and a black soft hat. He had donned the ulster and was about to put on the hat when he heard Mrs. Gifford’s step in the library. She was calling his name.

“Well, here I am,” he answered, impatiently. “Now what?”

Nabby was out of breath, and this, together with the consciousness of the importance of her errand, did not help her toward coherence.

“I—I’m awful sorry to stop you, Cap’n Foster,” she panted, “and—and of course I know you didn’t want to see nobody to-night. But—but he said ’twas serious and he’d come all the way from Trumet a-purpose—and it’s rainin’ like all fire, too—and bein’ as ’twas him, I—well, you see, I just didn’t know’s I’d ought to say no—so—”

Townsend interrupted. “Who is it?” he demanded.

Nabby’s tone was awe-stricken. “It’s Honorable Mooney,” she whispered. “Representive Mooney, that’s who ’tis. He’s drove all the way from Trumet, rain and all, to see you, Cap’n Foster, and he says it’s dreadful important. If it had been any one else I wouldn’t have let him in, but honest, when I see him standin’ on the steps to the side door, lookin’ just as big and—and noble as he done when Varunas took me to that Republican rally and he made such a grand speech, I—well, I—”

Again her employer broke in.

“You have let him in, I take it,” he said, curtly. “And of course you told him I was in.... Well, I’ll give him five minutes. Send him into the sitting-room.”

The Honorable Alpheus Mooney was a young man serving his first term in the Massachusetts Legislature as Representative for the Ostable County district. He was extremely anxious to continue his service there, had been renominated and was now facing the ordeal of the election which would take place early in November. His manner as he entered the library was a curious mixture of importance, deference and a slight uneasiness.

“How do you do, Cap’n Townsend?” he gushed, changing his hat from his right hand to his left and extending the former. “How do you do, sir?”

He seized the Townsend hand and shook it heartily. The captain endured the shaking rather than shared in it. He did not ask his caller to be seated.

“How are you, Mooney?” he said. “Well, what brought you over here this wet night?”

Mr. Mooney sat without waiting for an invitation. He placed his hat upon the floor, clasped his hands in his lap, unclasped them again, crossed his knees, cleared his throat, and agreed that the evening was a wet one. Townsend, still standing, thrust his own hands into his trousers pockets.

“Well, what’s the matter?” he asked, dismissing the subject of the weather.

Mooney once more cleared his throat. “Oh—er—oh, nothing in particular, Cap’n,” he said. “Nothing much. I was over here in Harniss and—and I thought I would drop in for a minute, that’s all. I haven’t seen you since your—er—sad loss—and I—er—I can’t tell you how sorry I was to learn of your bereavement. It was a great shock to me, a dreadful shock.”

Townsend’s face was quite expressionless. “All right,” he observed. “Nabby said you wanted to see me about something important. Well?”

“Well—well, I—er—I did. Not so very important, perhaps—but ... you were going out, weren’t you, Cap’n Townsend?”

“Yes. I am going out in five minutes. Perhaps a little less.”

“I wouldn’t think of keeping you, Cap’n, of course not.”

“All right.”

“Cap’n Townsend, I—er—well, I am going to be—I am going to speak right out, as man to man. I know you would rather have me speak that way.”

Townsend nodded. “There aren’t any women here, as I know of,” he agreed. “Go ahead and speak.”

“Yes.” Mr. Mooney seemed to find the “man to man” speaking difficult. “Well,” he began, “it has come to my ears—far be it from me to say it is true; I don’t believe it is, Cap’n Townsend—but I have heard that you weren’t so very—well, anxious to see me reëlected Representative. I have heard stories that you said you didn’t care whether they reëlected me or not. Now, as I say, I don’t believe you ever said anything of the kind. In fact, I as good as know you didn’t.”

He paused and looked up eagerly, seeking confirmation of the expressed disbelief. The Townsend face was still quite expressionless, nor was the reply altogether satisfactory.

“All right,” said the captain again. “If you know it, then you don’t need to worry, do you?”

“No. No-o; but—you haven’t said any such thing, have you, Cap’n Townsend?”

Townsend did not answer the question. He regarded his visitor with a disquieting lack of interest.

“I was given to understand that you said you were as good as reëlected already,” he observed. “If you said that, and believe it, then what I said or what anybody else said isn’t worth fretting about, let alone cruising twelve miles in a rainstorm to find out about.”

“Well, but, Cap’n Townsend—”

“Heave to a minute. See here, Mooney, you’ve got the Republican nomination.”

“Yes. Of course I have, but—”

“Wait. And there hasn’t been a Democratic Representative from this district at the state house since the sixties, has there?”

“No, but—”

“All right. Then you don’t need to talk to me. If you’re a Republican, ready to vote every time with your party and for the district, you are safe enough. Especially,” with a slight twitch of the lip, “when you say yourself you’re as good as reëlected.”

This, perhaps, should have been reassuring, but apparently it was not. The Honorable Mr. Mooney shifted uneasily in his chair.

“Yes, yes, I know,” he admitted. “That’s all right, so far as it goes.... But, Cap’n Townsend, I—well, I know you aren’t as—well, as strong for me as you were when I ran before. You thought, I suppose—like a good many other folks who didn’t know—that I ought to have voted for that cranberry bill. You, nor they, didn’t understand about that bill. That bill—well, it read all right enough, but—well, there was more to it than just reading. There were influences behind that bill that I didn’t like, that’s all. No honest man could like them.”

“Um-hum. I see. Well, what was it that honest men like you didn’t like about that bill? I was one of those ‘influences,’ behind it, I guess. It protected the cranberry growers of the Cape, didn’t it? Looked out for their interests pretty well? I thought it did, and I read it before you ever saw it.”

“Yes. Yes, it protected them all right. But there are other sections than the Cape, Cap’n Townsend. They’re beginning to raise cranberries up around Plymouth and—and—”

“I know. And there are influences up there, too. Well, what has that cranberry bill got to do with you? You didn’t vote against it. Of course you told me and a few others, before you were elected the first time, that you would vote for it, but you didn’t do that, either. You weren’t in the House when that bill came up to a vote. You’d gone fishing, I understand.”

Mr. Mooney was indignant. “No such thing;” he declared, springing to his feet. “I hadn’t gone fishing. I was sick. That’s what I was—sick.”

“Yes?” dryly. “Well, some of the rest of us were sick when we heard about it. Never mind that. The bill was defeated. Of course,” he added, after a momentary interval, “it may come up again this session and Jim Needham, the Democratic candidate, says he shall vote for it, provided he’s elected. But you say you’re going to be elected, so what he may or may not do won’t make any difference.... There! my five minutes are up, and more than up. I’ve got to go. Honest men are scarce in politics, Mooney. Maybe all hands around here will remember that on election day and forget their cranberry swamps. Maybe they will. Sorry I’ve got to hurry. Good-night.”

He was on his way to the hall door, but his visitor hurried after him and caught his arm.

“Hold on, Cap’n Townsend,” he begged. “Hold on just a minute. I—I came here to tell you that—that I’d changed my mind about that bill. I—I’m going to vote for it. Yes, and I am going to work for it, too.”

“Oh!... Well, speaking as one of those ‘influences’ you were talking about, I’m glad to hear you say so, of course. But you said so before. What makes you change your mind this time—change it back again, I mean? Has that honesty of yours had a relapse?”

The Honorable Mooney ignored the sarcasm. He had journeyed from Trumet in the rain to say one thing in particular and now he said it.

“Cap’n Townsend,” he pleaded desperately, “you aren’t going to use your influence against me, are you? There’s no use beating around the bush. Everybody that knows anything knows that a word from you will change more votes than anybody else’s in the county. If you say you’re going to vote for Needham—well, this is a four to one Republican district, but I guess you can lick me if you want to. You won’t do that, will you? I’m going to work hard to get that cranberry bill through the House; honest, I am. I was a fool last session. I realize it now. If that bill can be shoved through I’ll help do it. That’s the honest God’s truth.”

Foster Townsend regarded him in silence. Mooney’s eyes met the grim intentness of the gaze for a moment, then faltered and fell. The Townsend lip twitched.

“You’re goin’ to make a speech here in Harniss sometime this week, aren’t you?” the captain asked.

“Yes. Next week, Tuesday night, at the town hall.”

“Um-hum. Going to say anything about that cranberry bill?”

“Yes, yes, I am. I am going to come out for it hard. I am going to tell everybody that I was wrong about it, that I’ve seen my mistake and they can count on me as being strong for it. That’s what I am going to tell them.... Say,” he added, eagerly, “I’ve got my speech all written out. It’s in my pocket now. Don’t you want to read it, Cap’n? I brought it hoping you would.”

Townsend shook his head.

“I can wait until Tuesday, I guess,” he replied. “I was planning to go to the rally. I’ll be there, along with some more of the dishonest influences. They will all want to hear you.”

“And you won’t work against me, Cap’n Townsend? I can’t tell you how sorry I am about—about this whole business.”

“Never mind. You can tell it all at the rally. It ought to be interesting to hear and, if it is interesting enough, it may bring some votes into port that have been hanging in the wind. I can’t say for sure, but it may.... There! I can’t spare any more time just now.... Nabby!” raising his voice. “Nabby!”

Mrs. Gifford appeared between the curtains. Her employer waved a hand toward his visitor.

“Nabby,” he said, “just see that Mr. Mooney finds his way out to his buggy, will you.... Good-night, Mooney.”

The honorable representative of an ungrateful constituency, thus unceremoniously dismissed, followed Mrs. Gifford to the dining room and from there to the side entrance to the mansion. Foster Townsend watched him go. Then he shrugged, sniffed disgustedly, and, pulling the soft hat down upon his forehead, strode through the hall, stopped to take an umbrella from the rack, and stepped out through the front door into the rainy blackness of the night.

The few who met and recognized him as he tramped the muddy sidewalks bowed reverentially and then stopped to stare. For Captain Foster Townsend, greatest among Ostable County’s great men, to be walking on an evening such as this—walking, instead of riding in state behind his span of blacks—was an unheard-of departure from the ordinary. Why was he doing it? Where was he bound? What important happenings hung upon his footsteps?

They could not guess, nor could their wives or sons and daughters when the story was told them. They were right, however, when they surmised that the magnate’s errand must be freighted with importance. It was—vastly important to him and no less so to the members of another household in the village of Harniss.

CHAPTER II

IN the Harniss post office Reliance Clark was sorting the evening mail. The post office was a small building on the Main Road. It sat back fifteen or twenty feet from that road and a white picket fence separated the Clark property from the strip of sidewalk before it. A boardwalk, some of its boards in the last stages of bearability, led from the gap in that fence to the door. Over the door a sign, black letters on a white ground, displayed the words “POST OFFICE.” On the inner side of that door was a room of perhaps fifteen by ten feet, lighted in the daytime by two windows and at night by three kerosene lamps in brackets. There was a settee at either end of the room, a stove in the middle, and a wooden box filled with beach sand beside the stove. The plastered walls were covered with handbills and printed placards. The advertisement of the most recent entertainment at the town hall, that furnished by “Professor Megenti, the World Famous Ventriloquist and Necromancer,” was prominently displayed, partially obscuring the broadside of “The Spalding Bell Ringers” who had visited Harniss two weeks earlier. Beneath these were other announcements still more passé, dating back even as far as the red, white and blue placards of the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia in ’76. The room was crowded with men and boys, dressed as befitted the weather, and the atmosphere was thick with tobacco smoke and the smells of wet clothing, fishy oilskins and damp humanity.

Across the side of the room opposite the door was a wooden partition, divided by another door into two sections. On the left was a glass showcase displaying boxes of stick candy, spools of thread, papers of pins and needles, and various oddments of the sort known as “Notions.” Behind the showcase was standing room for the person who waited upon purchasers of these; behind this a blank wall.

At the right of the door, and extending from floor to ceiling, was a wooden frame of letter boxes with a sliding, ground-glass window in the center. This window was closed while the mail was in process of sorting and opened when it was ready for distribution. In the apartment on the inner side of the letter boxes and window, an apartment little bigger than a good-sized closet, Reliance Clark, postmistress of the village of Harniss, was busy, and Millard Fillmore Clark, her half-brother, was making his usual pretense of being so.

Reliance was plump, quick-moving, sharp-eyed. Her hair had scarcely a trace of gray, although she was nearly fifty. The emptied leather mail bag was on the floor by her feet, packages of first and second class mail matter lay upon the pine counter before her and her fingers flew as she shot each letter or postal into the box rented by the person whose name she read.

Millard Fillmore Clark was older by five years. He was short, thin and inclined to be round-shouldered. He was supposed to be sorting also, but his fingers did not fly. They lingered over each envelope or post card they touched. Certain of the envelopes he held, after a precautionary glance at his half-sister, between his eyes and the hanging lamp, and the postal cards he invariably read.

“Humph! Sho!” he muttered aloud, after one such reading. Reliance heard him and turned.

“What is it?” she asked. “What’s the matter now?”

Millard, who had spoken without being aware of it, looked guilty.

“Why, nothin’ special,” he answered, hurriedly. “I just— Humph! Seems that Peter Eldridge’s wife’s nephew has had another baby. That’s news, ain’t it!”

Reliance sniffed.

“Yes, I should say it was,” she observed, dryly, “if it was the way you put it. His wife’s niece, you mean, I suppose.”

“Well, it’s his wife’s nephew’s wife. That’s the same thing, ain’t it. He’s the one that married the girl from up to Middleboro. Simpson—or Simpkins—seems to me her name was, as I recollect. She—”

“Mil Clark, you put that postal in the box where it belongs. This mail is late enough already and I don’t want to stay out here in this office all night. If you would only mind your own business as well as you do everybody else’s you’d be the smartest man in this town, which—”

She did not finish the sentence. Mr. Clark regarded her suspiciously.

“Well, which what?” he demanded, after a momentary pause. “Which what? What was you goin’ to say?”

“Nothin’ in particular. Go to work and stop talkin’.”

“I know what you was goin’ to say. You’ve said it too many times afore. I’m gettin’ sick of havin’ it hove up to me, too. Just about sick of it, I am. A man can stand about so much and then he gets desperate. He don’t care what he does to himself. Some of these days you’ll be surprised, Reliance Clark—you and Esther and all the rest of ’em.”

His sister did not seem greatly alarmed.

“Um-hum,” she sniffed. “Well, just now you can surprise me by doin’ your share of this mail sortin’.... Oh, my soul and body!” she added, snatching the postal from his hand. “Either go to work or get out of my way, one or the other. Go out in the back room and sit down. You can sit down as well as anybody I ever saw.”

Millard Fillmore did not accept the suggestion. With the expression of a martyr he proceeded to cut the twine binding the bundles of papers and second class matter, muttering to himself and shaking his head as he did so. The contents of the bundles followed the letters and postals into the boxes. At last Reliance heaved a sigh of relief.

“There!” she exclaimed. “That’s done. Open the window.”

Mr. Clark slid back the ground-glass window. An eager crowd was standing at the other side of the partition. Millard faced his fellow-citizens with an air of importance. This was the part of the post-office routine which he liked.

“All right!” he announced, briskly. “Now then! Cap’n Snow’s first. Yes, sir! here you are. Quite a bunch of mail you’ve got this evenin’. All right, Hamilton, you’re next ... just a minute, Mr. Doane; I’ll attend to you in a jiffy.... Now, now, you boy! you hold on; you take your turn. No use shovin’, you won’t get it any sooner. This business has to be done systematic.”

The group before the window thinned as its members received their shares of the mail matter. Some departed immediately, others lingered to open envelopes or for a final chat. Suddenly there was a stir and a turning of heads toward the door. Some one had entered, some one of importance. There was a buzz of respectful greeting.

“Why, good evening, Cap’n Townsend!”... “How d’ye do, Cap’n?”... “Kind of bad night to be out in, ain’t it? Yes, ’tis.”

The salutations in general were of this kind. There were a few, and these from persons of consequence, which were more familiar. Judge Wixon said “Good evening, Foster,” and paused to shake hands, but even he was not in the least flippant. The Reverend Mr. Colton, minister of the old First Church, was most cordial, even anxiously so. “I stopped at your door, Captain Townsend,” he began, “but Mrs. Gifford told me—I gathered from what she said—”

The great man broke in. “Yes, all right, Colton,” he said. “I’ll see you pretty soon. I haven’t made up my mind yet. To-morrow or next day, maybe. Hello, Ben! Evening, Paine.”

He moved forward to the window, those before him making way for his passing. Millard Fillmore Clark’s bow was a picture, his urbanity a marvel. He brushed aside a lad who was clamoring for the copy of the Cape Cod Item in the family box and addressed the distinguished patron of the postal service.

“Good evenin’, Cap’n Townsend,” he gushed, “Yes, sir! I’ve got your mail all ready for you. It’s such a mean night I didn’t hardly expect you’d come for it yourself, but I had it all laid out cal’latin’ if Vaninas showed up, I’d—Eh? Oh, yes, here ’tis! There’s consider’ble of it, same as there generally is. Yes, indeed!”

Foster Townsend paid no attention to the flow of language. He took the packet of letters and papers and thrust it into the pocket of his ulster, and, pushing the speaker unceremoniously out of the way, leaned through the window and addressed the postmistress.

“Reliance,” he said.

Miss Clark, already tidying up the little room preparatory to closing for the night, looked over her shoulder.

“Yes,” she said. “What is it?”

“Come here a minute. I want to speak to you.”

Reliance finished brushing the counter before she complied. Then, pushing her half-brother a little farther from the window, she stepped to the place he had occupied. Millard accepted the push with as much dignity as was possible under the circumstances. It was no novelty; he was pushed out of some one’s way at least a dozen times a day.

“Well?” queried Reliance, briskly. Her tone in addressing Ostable County’s first citizen was precisely that which she used when addressing others less consequential. Of the two, it was Foster Townsend who seemed embarrassed, and embarrassment was not usual with him.

“Is—is that niece of yours in the house?” he asked.

For just an instant Reliance hesitated. She was regarding him intently.

“I suppose likely she is,” she said. “Why?”

“Hasn’t gone to bed, has she?”

“She usually sits up till I come in.”

“Um.... How much longer will you be out here in the office?”

“I expect to lock up at nine, same as I usually do.”

“I see. Going into the house then, aren’t you?”

“I certainly am. I don’t expect to go out walkin’ in a pourin’ down rainstorm like this one.”

Townsend’s embarrassment seemed to increase. He pulled at his beard.

“Well,” he said, “I—I want to have a talk with the girl and—er——”

Again he paused. Reliance, her gaze fixed upon his face, broke in.

“What’s that?” she asked, sharply. “Do you mean to say you want to talk with her—with Esther?”

“Yes, I do. I’ve got something to say to her, something rather important. I want you to be there when I say it. I’ll wait and go into the house with you when you’re ready. That is, if it’s all right.”

Another momentary pause. Then Miss Clark nodded.

“No reason why it shouldn’t be all right,” she said. “You better come into the shop and wait.... Be still, Millard! Here, you let Cap’n Townsend through into the shop and light the lamp there. Yes, and when you’ve done it you come straight back and help me sweep up. Bring the broom with you. Hurry now!”

Mr. Clark, whose eager ears had been strained to catch this conversation, hastened to unlock the door between the post-office waiting-room and the official quarters. He ushered the visitor into the large apartment at the rear of the building—or would have done so if the said visitor had not pushed him aside and gone in first. About this room were stands displaying finished hats and bonnets. Others, but partially finished, lay about upon tables and chairs. In the room also were two sewing-machines, workbaskets, scraps of ribbons and cloth, spools of thread, and the general disorder of the workroom of a millinery shop. Reliance Clark was the town milliner as well as its postmistress. “I and Esther and Mil have to live on somethin’,” Reliance had more than once told Abbie Makepeace, the middle-aged spinster who was her partner in the millinery business, “and what Uncle Sam pays me for sortin’ letters is nothin’, or next door to it.”

Millard Fillmore, agog with excitement, pulled forward a chair, carefully wiping its seat with a soiled handkerchief, and Foster Townsend sat down. Mr. Clark cleared his throat and offered apologies.

“We don’t usually look so—so sort of messed up out here, Cap’n Foster,” he explained; “but the mail’s been so extry heavy lately—election day comin’ and all—that we ain’t neither of us had hardly a minute to spare.... It ain’t any of my business, Cap’n,” he added, lowering his voice, “but did I understand you to say you’d come here to-night to see—to see—Esther? I wasn’t quite sure as I heard it straight, but—”

From the adjoining room his sister’s voice issued an order. “Bring that broom,” she commanded.

Mr. Clark hesitated.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to excuse me, Cap’n Foster,” he explained. “You see, there’s a little too much work for Reliance to handle, and she—yes, yes, I’m comin’, Reliance. Heavens and earth! can’t you wait a minute?”

He took the broom from the corner and joined his sister. Foster Townsend, left alone, crossed his knees and leaned back in the chair.

At eight fifty-nine Miss Clark extinguished the bracket lamps in the waiting-room and locked the front door. A half minute later she appeared in the workshop, threw a black cloth waterproof over her shoulders and turned to her caller.

“All ready,” she announced. “Millard, put out that light.”

The trio emerged from the side entrance of the building just as the clock presented to the First Church by the late Arabella Townsend struck the hour. It was still raining heavily. They followed a path across a small yard and stood beneath a latticed portico covered with honeysuckle, the dry tendrils of the latter rattling as the rain fell upon them. Reliance opened the door beneath the lattice and they stepped into a tiny sitting-room. By a table, with a paper-shaded lamp upon it, a girl of seventeen was sitting, reading a public library book. She turned as Miss Clark and her brother entered, but when the bulky figure of Foster Townsend came through the doorway she rose, an expression of astonishment upon her pretty face. She was Esther Townsend, daughter of Freeling Townsend, Foster Townsend’s much younger brother, and Eunice, his wife. Freeling Townsend died in eighteen sixty-nine. Eunice, Millard Clark’s own sister and half-sister to Reliance, died five years later. Esther had lived with the Clarks ever since. And during that time not once, until this evening, had her father’s brother come to that house. She stood and gazed, but she did not speak.

Characteristically it was Millard Fillmore who broke the silence and, just as characteristically, it was Reliance who interrupted him.

“Esther,” began Mr. Clark, with bustling importance, “don’t you see you’ve got a caller? Can’t you say good evenin’? Take off your things, Cap’n Foster. Here! let me help you with your coat. Esther, can’t you see he’s holdin’ his umbrella? Don’t stand there gawpin’. Get—”

And here Reliance broke in. “Millard,” she ordered, “be still! Yes, you’d better take off your coat, Foster; that is, if you’re goin’ to stay any time. It’s warm in here. Esther usually has this house hot enough to roast a Sunday dinner. Esther, get him a chair.”

The girl brought forward the rocker she had been sitting in. Townsend pulled off his ulster and handed it and his hat and umbrella to Mr. Clark who was obsequiously waiting to receive them. He lowered himself into the rocker. Then he turned to the others.

“You better sit down, all of you,” he said. “What I’ve got to say may take a little time. Sit down, Reliance. Sit down, Esther.”

Mr. Clark’s name was not included in the invitation, but he was the first to sit. Esther took a chair at the other side of the table. Reliance was shaking out her waterproof.

“Sit down, Reliance,” repeated Townsend. Miss Clark’s reply was promptly given.

“I intend to, soon as I’m ready,” she declared, with some tartness.

The caller looked up at her. “Reliance,” he observed, with a grim smile, “you don’t change much. When you were a girl I remember you used to say ‘Black’ whenever anybody else said ‘White.’ Well, independence is a good thing, if you can afford it.”

Reliance, having arranged the waterproof to her satisfaction, hung it on a hook by the door. She drew forward a chair from the wall.

“I’ve managed to scratch along on it so far,” she announced, placing herself in the chair. “Well, what is it you’ve come to this house for, after all these years, Foster Townsend?”

Townsend was looking at his niece, not at her. And it was the niece whom he addressed.

“Esther,” he said, after a moment, “how long has it been since your father died?”

The girl met his keen gaze for an instant, then looked down at the book upon the table.

“Ten years,” she said. Her tone was not too cordial. This rich uncle of hers had been a sort of bugbear in her family. Her father never mentioned his name while he lived and, although her mother had mentioned it often enough, it was only to call its owner a selfish, proud, wicked, stubborn man. When their daughter and Foster Townsend met on the street he sometimes acknowledged the meeting with a nod and sometimes not. His wife had been quite different; she always sent the girl presents at Christmas and was kindly gracious. Esther would have liked her, or would have liked to like her. And she envied her, of course; every female in Harniss did that. She envied Foster Townsend, too, but she was far from liking him.

He repeated her words. “Ten years, eh?” he observed, meditatively. “Humph! is it possible! It doesn’t seem so long—yet, of course it is. And the last time I was in this house was at his funeral. No wonder you’re surprised to see me here now. I’m surprised, myself, to be here.... You’re surprised, too, aren’t you, Reliance?”

Millard hastened to declare that he was, but was awful glad, of course. His sister’s reply was a surprise in itself.

“I don’t know that I am, altogether,” she said. “I’ve been rather expectin’ you, if you want to know.”

Townsend swung about in the rocker. “You have!” he exclaimed, sharply. “What do you mean by that?”

“I mean what I say. I don’t know what you’ve come for, but I might guess, maybe. Most of us have got a conscience somewheres on the premises, even if some of us have kept it packed away up-attic so long we’ve pretty nigh forgot it.”

The captain regarded her with what appeared to be sincere, if somewhat grudging, admiration. “You’re a smart woman, Reliance Clark,” he declared. “Yes, you are! If Freeling had had sense enough to pick you out instead of— Well, well! there’s no use wasting breath about that.... You say you’ve guessed what I’ve come here for. If you have perhaps Esther hasn’t. I’m going to make her a proposition. I don’t expect her to answer it, one way or the other, to-night. I want to make it; then I want her and you, Reliance, to think it over and talk it over between you. When you’ve done that you can say yes or no. Esther,” turning to the girl once more, “how would you like to come up to my house and live with me?”

The question, thus bluntly put, had a varied effect upon his listeners. Millard Clark’s eyes and mouth opened and he gasped audibly. His half-sister nodded two or three times, as if with satisfaction at finding her suspicions confirmed. Esther gazed at the speaker in mute bewilderment. Townsend looked from one to the other and smiled.

“So you had guessed right, had you, Reliance,” he observed. “Well, whether you had or not, there it is. I am lonesome in that big house of mine, lonesome as the devil. I don’t suppose I’m what you’d call a sentimental man; I try to use my common sense and face what can’t be helped in a sensible way, but since Mother died I’m lonesome. For the last week I’ve been making up my mind what to do. I might travel, I suppose, but when I went to sea I cruised a whole lot and there wouldn’t be much that was new to look at and no satisfaction in looking at it alone. And I’d rather stay at home, anyhow. This is my town. I helped to make it grow and I’m more interested in it, and the folks in and around it, than I am in anything else. I might move out of my house to a smaller one, but I won’t. Mother and I built that house together. She thought the world of it and so do I. She lived in it till she died and that’s what I want to do. But I’d rather not live in it by myself. I want somebody to talk to and to talk to me, and I’d rather have a Townsend than anybody else. So I thought of Esther. If she wants to, she can move up there and call it home. I’ll look out for her and be as decent as I can to her. She can have all the things she wants—things she can’t have now—and all the money she wants—all I think it good for her to have, anyhow. What I’m trying to say is,” he added, with deliberate emphasis, “that, if you, Esther, come to live with me you’ll be the same as my daughter. And when I’m dead you’ll have what I have.... That’s the proposition—or part of it.”

The last sentence of his long speech was delivered with the snap of finality. The speaker leaned back in the rocker, extended his legs in order to more easily get at his trousers pockets, thrust his hands into those pockets, and looked at his niece, then at Reliance and then back at Esther. He did not look at Mr. Clark; the latter might have been one of the pair of crockery lambs on the mantel as far as receiving attention was concerned.

Yet it was Millard who broke the silence.

“Well—I vow!” he exclaimed, fervently.

His sister put him back in place just as she might have replaced one of the lambs. “Hush, Millard!” she ordered. “Wait, Esther!... So that’s only part of your proposition, is it?” she asked, addressing Townsend. “And what’s the other part?”

The great man jingled the change in his pocket. “It’s just this,” he replied. “I realize, of course, that Esther has been here with you, Reliance, so long that you’re about the same as a mother to her. She would miss you—at first, anyhow—and, for the matter of that, I suppose she ought to have a woman to talk to. I never had a girl of my own to bring up, or a boy either, so far as that goes—I wish to God I had—and there are some things a woman can advise her about better than a man. If I didn’t know you had sense, Reliance—as well as the stubbornness of a balky horse—I shouldn’t think of saying what I am going to say. I want you to shut up this house here. It is mine and I can sell it, I guess; or rent it, anyhow. And if I can’t do either I can afford to let it stand empty. Shut it up and come along with Esther to my place. There’s room enough there, too much room. I’ll make a home for you and pay your bills. Yes, and I’ll guarantee you’ll be more comfortable there, and have less care, than you ever had in your life. That’s the other half of my offer. Think it over.”

During this blunt statement of an astonishing proposal the face of Millard Fillmore Clark might have been worth looking at, had any one dreamed of doing such a thing. At first it had expressed eagerness and overwhelming curiosity. Then, when Foster Townsend extended the invitation—or delivered the command, for it was quite as much an order as a request—to his half-sister, the curiosity was superseded by joyful excitement. And now, when the speech from the rocking-chair throne had ended without mention of his own name, or even acknowledgment of his connection with the household, all symptoms of the aforementioned emotions were superseded by those of anxiety and alarmed indignation.

“Here! hold on!” he protested, springing to his feet. “What’s that you’re sayin’, Cap’n Foster? You’re cal’latin’ to take Reliance and—and Esther to—to live along with you and—and—” Reliance lifted a hand. “Ssh!” she said.

“No, I won’t ssh neither! He—he says he wants to—to take you and her away and shut up this house and—and— What about me?” his voice rising to a falsetto. “Where am I goin’? Eh! Who’s goin’ to—”

Townsend, even then, did not take the trouble to turn and look at him, but he did speak over his shoulder. “All right, all right,” he broke in, with careless contempt. “You can come, too. There’ll be a room for you and Varunas can find something for you to do around the stables, I guess. You’ll be looked after, don’t worry. Have to take the tail with the hide, I realize that,” he added, philosophically. “... Well, Esther,” turning to his niece, “how does it sound to you, now you’ve heard the whole of it?”

The girl, thus addressed, looked at him in faltering hesitancy. She turned to her aunt as if seeking the latter’s help in a situation too hopelessly impossible to be met without it.

“Well?” repeated her uncle.

Esther looked at Reliance, but the latter was looking at the captain, not at her. The girl turned back, to meet the searching scrutiny of the eyes beneath the heavy brows. The look in those eyes was not unkindly, in fact, it was the opposite, but she was frightened. This was the man who had quarreled with her father, whose prideful arrogant self-will was responsible, so Eunice Townsend had always declared, for the poverty and privation of their lives since his death. This was the man she had been taught to hate. And now he was bidding her come to live with him! She couldn’t do such a thing—of course she couldn’t—and yet, if her aunt came also, she—even then she was beginning to realize a little of the marvelous possibilities of that invitation.

The look in her uncle’s eyes was still kindly, but insistent. He had asked a question and he was expecting an answer. She must say something. She caught her breath, almost with a sob.

“Oh, oh, I don’t know!” she cried, desperately. “I don’t know! It doesn’t seem as if—but—oh, please don’t ask me—not now! I don’t know what to say.”

Townsend nodded. “Of course you don’t,” he agreed. “I didn’t expect you to say yes or no now, to-night. I was wondering how the idea sounded to you, that’s all. You and Reliance think it over and talk it over together and when you’ve made up your mind let me know. To-morrow—yes, or the next day—will be time enough. There’s no particular hurry.”

He rose from the rocker and took his hat and coat from the side table where Millard had reverently laid them. Mr. Clark sprang to help with the ulster, but he and his proffered assistance were ignored, as usual.

“There’s just one thing more that maybe I ought to say,” the captain added, turning to Reliance, who had risen when he did. “And that is this: She,” with a jerk of the head in Esther’s direction, “doesn’t understand yet all this proposition is liable to mean. If she comes to be with me, and we get along all right and I like her, she’ll be what I said before, just the same as my daughter. If she wants to go away to boarding school she can go, I guess; I’ll decide that later on. She’s got a good voice, they tell me. Everybody says she sings pretty well and that she could sing better if she was learned how by somebody that knew. Well, I’ll see that she is learned. I’ve got a good piano up at the house. At least I suppose it’s good; it was the best I could buy and I paid enough for it. Mother used to pick at it a little, but she always said it was a pity it wasn’t used more. Esther can use it all she wants to. I don’t know anything about music. I never had much use for a man who fooled with pianos and fiddles; fact is, I never considered that kind of fellow a man at all. But I haven’t any objections to a woman’s fooling with ’em. There’s the piano and there’s the music teacher, or there can be one as well as not. Think of that, too, while you are thinking.... I guess that’s all. Good-night.”

He picked up his umbrella and strode to the door. Reliance spoke once more.

“Just a minute,” she said. “Maybe it isn’t quite all. I can see what you mean to do for Esther and perhaps I can see a little of what Millard will have to do. But where do I come in? What will I do up in that twenty-odd room house of yours, Foster Townsend? You don’t expect me to play your piano, do you?”

He laughed, laughed aloud, something which he seldom did.

“No,” he said, “I don’t expect that, Reliance. I don’t care what you do. You can do nothing, if you want to. Or you can be my housekeeper, if that suits you better. Mother kept house the way it ought to be kept and she has told me more than once that you were about the only other woman she ever ran across who was as particular as she was. You can boss Nabby and whatever hired help we have, and run things to please yourself—provided they please me, too. That is fair, isn’t it?”

Miss Clark nodded grimly. “Maybe so,” she observed. “We won’t argue about it to-night. There’s one other thing, though, that I guess you’ve forgot. I’m postmistress here in Harniss. I run a milliner shop, too, but that is my own, or two-thirds of it is, and I can do what I like with it. But the post office is different. Do you expect me to walk out of that office and leave a note for Uncle Sam sayin’ ‘You and the mail can go to Jericho. I’ve gone to Foster Townsend’s!’ Do you expect me to do that?”

Townsend laughed again. He seemed in far better spirits than when he entered that sitting-room.

“Not exactly—no,” he replied. “As for the post office,—well, who had you made postmistress in the first place?”

Miss Clark stared at him. “Who had me made postmistress?” she repeated. “Why, the U.S. government appointed me, if that’s what you mean. And that was nine years ago. What do you ask such a question as that for?”

“I’ll ask you another one. When Sylvanus Oaks died you sent in a petition asking for his job, didn’t you?... Oh, never mind! I know you did, and so did Frank Parker and Reuben Hatch and a couple more. Why do you suppose the government people picked you out instead of one of the others? Their petitions were as long as yours. Well, I’ll tell you. It was because I told them to.”

She was surprised now, there was no doubt of that. “You told ’em!” she repeated, sharply. “You did! Why, you didn’t even sign my petition. Not that I asked you to sign it. I didn’t.”

“No. I wondered if you were going to, but you were your own pig-headed self and didn’t bring it near me. But I didn’t sign any one else’s either; you know that.”

“I don’t know it. I never cared enough to find out.”

“No?” with a chuckle. “Well, you know it now. What you haven’t known all this time is that I wrote to a friend of mine who was in Congress from this district and told him you were the fittest candidate for the place and to see that you got it. He saw just that. I put you into that post office, Reliance, just as I’ve rented you this house of mine, and if I take you out of both I can’t see that anybody has any ground for complaint. I’ll hear from you in a day or two, of course. Good-night. Good-night, Esther.”

He did not include Mr. Clark in his good-night, but the latter ran out after him in the rain and caught his arm.

“It’ll be all right, Cap’n Foster,” whispered Millard, eagerly. “Don’t you fret a mite. It’ll come out all right. Reliance she always has to argue and fetch up objections to ’most anything, but she’ll come round. We’ll be up there along with you inside of a week, all hands of us. You leave it to me. I’ll ’tend to it.”

Foster Townsend made no reply. He shook off the clutch upon his coat sleeve and walked away into the rain-striped blackness beyond the light from the open door. Millard Fillmore hurried back to the sitting-room.

“Gosh!” he whooped ecstatically, “Oh, my gosh! Say, ain’t it wonderful! Ain’t it—”

He stopped, for his half-sister was speaking to their niece and he caught a word or two—unbelievable, horrifying words which caused his pæan of triumphant rejoicing to break off in the middle of the first strophe.

“I should say not!” declared Reliance. “Well, I should say not! Humph! the idea! I could have slapped his face for him for darin’ to think such a thing, let alone sayin’ it out loud—to me. When I get so worn out and good for nothin’ that I can’t earn my own livin’ I’ll find the cheapest way to die and do it, and I’ll take care to have enough put by to pay for my buryin’. I won’t go up to his palace and live on the leavin’s from his table. I’m no Lazarus. Saucy patronizin’ thing! The idea!”

Esther might have spoken, but Mr. Clark cut in ahead of her.

“What!” he shouted, in a frenzy. “What’s that you’re tellin’ her, Reliance Clark? Do you mean to say you ain’t goin’ to take up with a chance like that? My gosh, woman, you’re crazy!”

She whirled on him. “You keep still!” she commanded. “This isn’t any of your business at all. Don’t you say another word.”

“But it is my business. Why ain’t it my business? Didn’t he ask me same as he did the rest of you? Didn’t—”

She did not let him finish. “No, he did not,” she declared, with fierce contempt. “He said he supposed he would have to take the tail with the hide, that’s what he said, and if you like bein’ called a tail, I don’t.”

“Aw, come now, Reliance! He never meant—he asked me—”

“He didn’t ask you; he took you same as he might take a—the scales on a codfish, because he knew he couldn’t catch the critter without ’em. It is Esther he’s after and he was shrewd enough to think that maybe she might not go unless I did. Yes, and that I couldn’t leave a helpless thing like you to float around creation with nobody to steer you. Oh, don’t make me any madder than I am, Mil Clark!”

“Aw, Reliance, have some sense! Why—”

“Be still, Mil Clark!... Oh, when he had the impudence to tell me that he got me that post-office appointment, I—I— Oh, that was the last straw!”

She was sputtering sparks like a pinwheel. Esther tried to soothe her.

“There, there, Auntie,” she protested, “you mustn’t get into such a state. I don’t care at all, really. I’m glad. I don’t want to live with him. Of course I don’t. I want to stay with you, right here in this house, just as I always have. Don’t worry about it any more—please.”

The thunder cloud upon her aunt’s brow was thinning. Her comely face was still crimson, but the fire in her eyes was beginning to die. She walked over to the window, stood there for a moment, and, when she turned, there was a suspicion of a smile at the corners of her lips.

“My!” she exclaimed, with a sigh. “I don’t wonder Millard called me crazy. I haven’t been so upset for I don’t know when. It was findin’ out that he was responsible for my bein’ made postmistress that got me so. The rest of it I kind of expected—that is, I rather guessed he had come to ask for Esther. Yes, I did. Nabby Gifford told me how lonesome he was nowadays and before Arabella Townsend died—a fortni’t or two before she was taken sick—she came to see me about a hat I was makin’ for her, and somethin’ she said then set me thinkin’. She was pretty confidential—she was like that sometimes with me—and she told me that the greatest trial of hers and Foster’s lives was that the only child they had died when it was a baby and that they didn’t have any more. She asked a lot about you, Esther, about what sort of a girl you were and about your singin’ and all, and—well, it made me wonder. And I knew perfectly well that whatever she wanted her husband would let her have. She was the only person on earth who could get past that stubborn streak of his.... Humph! And he called me pig-headed! He did!”

Her half-brother had kept quiet as long as he could.

“Well, well, well!” he cried. “What if he did! He didn’t mean nothin’. You and Esther don’t seem to realize what else he said. He’s offerin’ us a home in the finest house in Ostable County. Horses and teams to ride around in, no bills to pay, nothin’ to worry about, no work—that is, nothin’ except—”

“Oh, do stop! I declare I believe you’d just as soon be a ‘tail’ as anything else. All a tail has to do is brush off flies and that would just suit you.”

“Look here! I don’t care to have you talk to me that way.”

“All right, I’m not talkin’ to you. I’m talkin’ to somebody else. So I wasn’t so surprised when he offered to adopt you, Esther, for adoption is what it amounts to. When he took me aboard too—yes, yes, and you, Millard—I was surprised, but of course I could see why he did it, anybody could. If he hadn’t crowed over me about that post-office appointment! I never once supposed he got it for me.... Oh, I don’t doubt he did! He runs everything in this part of the state. But it hurts my pride—and it makes me just as mad now when I think of it.”

Again Esther tried to calm her.

“Never mind whether he did or not, Auntie dear,” she urged. “You have kept it ever since and everybody says you are the best postmistress the town ever had. And, after all,” she added, “if he did get the appointment, he did it to help you, didn’t he? It seems to me that was—well, kind of him.”

Her aunt turned quickly. “Kind!” she repeated. “Of course it was kind, or he meant it to be. But I like to know about kindnesses when they’re done, not have ’em sprung on me as a good joke nine years afterwards. He has been chucklin’ to himself over that joke ever since. In a lot of ways,” she went on earnestly, “Foster Townsend is a kind man and a good man. The trouble is that he has got so used to bein’ told that he is the greatest man in the world that he has come to believe it.”

Esther was amazed. “Why, how can you call him good!” she exclaimed. “Mother always said he—”

Reliance interrupted. “I know,” she put in hastily. “Well, your mother may have been a little prejudiced, perhaps. She had reason to be.”

The girl’s lips tightened.

“At any rate,” she declared, “his adopting me is ridiculous. I don’t want to be adopted and I shan’t be. That is settled.”

Miss Clark shook her head. “No,” she said, firmly. “That part isn’t settled—yet. He isn’t goin’ to adopt me, or Millard either. Millard, do hush!... But for you, Esther, it isn’t settled at all. There is a whole lot to be said and thought over before that is settled. I’m goin’ to bed. Millard, put out the lamp.”

Mr. Clarke made one more desperate appeal.

“If I didn’t know,” he declared, with angry sarcasm, “I’d swear all hands in this house had been drinkin’—all hands but me, I mean. You give out that it’s settled and Esther gives out that it’s settled, but I haven’t settled nothin’ yet as I know of. Cap’n Foster Townsend asked me to come and live with him. Right here in this room he asked it and you two heard him. All right. Then I guess I’m the one to say yes or no—to my part of it, anyhow.”

Reliance looked at him. “Then if I was you I’d say it,” she agreed, sweetly. “You go right up to his house to-morrow and tell him that no matter what Esther and I do, you’ll move in before sunset. You tell him that and see what he says about it.... Come, Esther. Don’t you leave that lamp burnin’ all night, Millard.”

She and Esther left the room, and a few moments later, their footsteps were heard upon the stairs. Millard Fillmore Clark, left alone, threw himself into the rocker and relapsed into the pessimistic meditations of a hurt and insulted spirit. For an hour he sat there, scowling and biting his nails. Then he rose and went out into the dining room, where he opened the door of a dark closet and reached down into a corner behind a tall crockery cooky jar. Hidden in that corner was a black bottle. It contained home-made wild-cherry rum and his half-sister had cached it there, fondly believing that he could never find it. He removed the cork, took a long drink, and then another. Soon afterward he, too, went upstairs and to bed.

CHAPTER III

NABBY GIFFORD did not serve her employer’s breakfast next morning. Ellen Dooley, the red-cheeked Irish “second maid,” did that. Nabby cooked the breakfast, of course, and she made it a point to pass through the library after the meal was over. Foster Townsend was seated in the leather easy-chair reading the Item, a copy of which was included in the mail handed him by Millard Clark at the post office the previous evening. Mrs. Gifford lingered by the hall door and the captain looked up at her over his spectacles.

“Well, Nabby,” he inquired, “what is it?”

Nabby affected surprise at the question.

“Why, nothin’,” she said. “I was just goin’ upstairs a minute and I come this way ’cause ’twas the shortest. That’s all.”

“Yes, yes, I know. That’s all—but what is the rest?”

“Well—I was goin’ to tell you that the minister was here last night right after you left.”

“I know he was. I met him downtown and he told me he called. What else?”

“Nothin’ else—except— Well, I was wonderin’ if you’d thought over what I said to you last night about—” She finished the sentence with a wink and a jerk of the head in the direction of the dining room, where Ellen was clearing the table. At that moment the second maid departed to the kitchen with a double handful of dishes and Nabby seized the opportunity to come close to the easy-chair.

“She never got home from that Odd Fellers’ ball till one o’clock this mornin’,” Nabby announced, in an indignant whisper. “Quarter past one ’twas when she come up the back stairs. Any self-respectin’ Christian is sound asleep at that ungodly time of night, and thinks I—”

“Wait a minute. How did you know it was quarter past one?”

“Because I looked at my alarm clock and see ’twas, that’s how. And I woke up Varunas and he see it, too.”

“Humph! I always thought you were a Christian, Nabby.”

“Eh? Well, I am. Anyhow I hope I am. Who said I wasn’t?”

“You just told me that every self-respecting Christian was asleep at that hour.... Oh, never mind! Did Varunas behave like a Christian when you woke him up?”

Mrs. Gifford’s face expressed horrified consternation. “My soul!” she exclaimed. “Don’t tell me you could hear what he said away off in the front of the house, Cap’n Foster!”

“All right, Nabby. You leave Ellen to me. If I decide to take your advice and keep only one girl I’ll let you know. If I don’t we’ll go on as we are. And I may have a surprise for you pretty soon, anyway. Where’s Varunas now?”

“Out in the barn, I suppose. He’s there from mornin’ till night. Yes, and when it’s neither mornin’ nor night, too. That’s another thing, Cap’n Foster. That man of mine has been gettin’ up at four o’clock for the last two, three mornin’s, and he won’t tell me what he’s doin’ it for, neither. I asked him this very mornin’—five minutes of four by the clock, ’twas—and all he done was look foolish and laugh. ‘Early to rise makes you healthy and wealthy and wise,’ he says. ‘Ain’t you never heard that, Nabby?’ I told him, says I, ‘Humph!’ I says, ‘maybe I have heard it, but I never heard anybody call you wealthy; and as for bein’ wise!’”

Townsend lifted a hand. He rose from the chair.

“All right, Nabby,” he broke in. “I shouldn’t wonder if Varunas was wise for once in his life. At least I’m hoping he is wiser just now than some other folks who think they are.”

The great barn, towered and cupolaed in corresponding magnificence with the house, was situated at the rear of the yard, the vegetable garden at one side and the flower beds, beloved by the late Arabella Townsend, upon the other. Behind the barn were hen yards, pigsties, and, beyond these, the rolling acres of Townsend pastures, meadows and pine groves.

In the white painted stables beyond the carriage house the captain found Mr. Gifford seated upon an overturned bucket. Upon his shriveled little face was an expression of huge satisfaction. His puckered lips widened in a grin as Townsend came in.

“Been waitin’ for you, Cap’n Foster,” he announced. “Ain’t touched a thing. Left the whitewashin’ job just as ’twas for you to see. You stay right where you be and I’ll fetch him out.”

He moved down the row of stalls, where polished flanks and carefully brushed tails indicated the care bestowed upon each occupant, and from one led out a horse with a white forehead and a ring of white encircling one of its legs.

“There!” crowed Varunas. “There we be!... No, no! Don’t come no closer, Cap’n Foster. Just stand where you are and get a gen’ral view. Looks enough like Claribel to fool a nigh-sighted person on a dark mornin’, don’t he? He, he!”

Townsend smiled. “Good work, Varunas!” he grunted. “Well? How did it go?”

Mr. Gifford winked. “He went fine,” he declared. “Done that Circle in jig time, he did, and I was hangin’ back on him at that. I give you my word I never realized Hornet had it in him. Why, when I see—”

“Never mind. It is what Seth Emmons saw that interests me just now. Was Seth on hand at the Circle this morning?”

Varunas winked again. “I have a suspicion he was,” he chuckled. “’Twas dark and kind of foggy after the rain, and a body that wan’t up to snuff, or hadn’t been tipped off same as I was, would have swore there wan’t another soul within a half mile. But—well, you know that old fish shanty over at the fur side of the Circle, on the rise next the beach? Um-hum. Well, when Hornet and me went past that shanty the first time round it looked to me as if the door was open just a crack. When we went round the second time the crack was wider. It might have been the wind that blowed it open—only there wan’t any wind. He, he, he!”

He slapped his knee in gleeful triumph. Townsend’s smile became a grin.

“All right, Varunas,” he said. “How was the betting the last time you heard?”

“There ain’t much—or there wasn’t yesterday. There might be a little more to-day. Some of them Bayporters might drift over and begin to loosen up; ’specially if Sam and Seth spread the news that Claribel couldn’t do no better’n he done this mornin’.”

“If they do you might let me know.”

“You bet you I will! I’ll let myself know, too, about seven or eight dollars’ worth.... Say, Cap’n, don’t for mercy sakes tell Nabby I said that. She’s death on bettin’ anyhow; and—” with aggrieved indignation, “if I won she’d make me hand her over the heft of the money. The only way for me to keep my winnin’s is to spend ’em quick. I’ve learned that much.”

Foster Townsend left the house soon afterward and strolled, as was his morning custom, about the place, his hands in the pockets of his coat, the soft hat at the back of his head, and his after-breakfast cigar between his teeth. He lingered by the poultry yards, looked at the hogs in their pens, made mental notes of a section of fence which needed repair, decided that the strip of lawn on the left-hand side of the drive should be plowed and reseeded in the spring. His tour of inspection was leisurely, for he enjoyed it. He loved every inch of his domain. It was his. He had earned it. It represented success, the prize at the top of the ladder which he had climbed unaided. He had been a poor boy; now he was a rich man. In his youth the aristocrats of his native town scarcely deigned to notice him; now he was the aristocrat and his was the voice of authority. He had fought his way up from cabin boy to captain of a ship, from captain to owner, from that, through keen trading and daring speculation, to the day when he could afford to retire from active business. The break with his partner, Elisha Cook, and the lawsuit which followed the break, had threatened disaster time after time, but during the years of expensive and worrisome litigation he had never lost his nerve. If Cook won and was awarded even the greater part of the sum for which he was suing, it meant ruin to Townsend, but the risk but made the battle more enjoyable. And Cook had not won. True, the latter and his lawyers had not openly conceded the Townsend victory, but their talk of further fighting was but talk. Foster Townsend’s luck had held, as it had held before, and “luck”—as he saw it—was but the wage of foresight, good judgment, and the courage to back one’s convictions to the limit of safety—yes, and sometimes beyond that limit. He considered himself entitled to the rewards which were his and he enjoyed their possession, the money and the power—particularly the power.

His walk that morning was as satisfactory as usual for a time. It was only when he reached the lattice frame enclosing the flower garden that his complacency departed. The sight of the neat beds and the dead stalks in those beds brought with it a staggering shock. His wife had set out many of those plants with her own hands. She had superintended the setting out of all. Those flowers and that garden were her joy. From early summer until fall she had filled the rooms with blossoms. She would never do it again. She had left that garden and the mansion and him forever and all his money and authority were useless in the face of that irrevocable fact. His loneliness came over him once more, as it had come so often during the week since her funeral. He felt a savage resentment. He was accustomed to having his own way, to forcing his will against all obstacles. Now he—Foster Townsend—was as helpless against this stroke of Fate as the weakest-willed creature in the world.

He returned to the house, the easy-chair, and the paper in the library. He glanced at the clock. The time was nearly eleven. At the close of the interview in the Clark cottage the previous evening he had casually told Esther and Reliance that they might take their time in reaching a decision concerning his proposal. He had told them this, but he had meant it merely as a gracious gesture. He considered the matter settled and had expected an early call and the grateful announcement of acceptance. No one had called and no word had been sent him. He could not understand why and, in his present frame of mind, he resented the delay. What was the matter with those people? Was it possible they did not realize what his offer meant to them and their future? They had best realize it; it would not be repeated.

Dinner was a necessary nuisance to be endured and he got through with it as quickly as possible. Alone in the big dining room, waited upon by Ellen, with the chair at the other end of the table unoccupied, it was no wonder that appetite failed him. In the old days—and they were not so old—his dinner was an event. He was particular about the choice of dishes, insisted upon an abundance of everything, lingered over the dessert, smoked his cigar and listened while Mother chatted of the affairs of the household or repeated town gossip. Very often there were guests—leading politicians of the county; his lawyers down from Boston on business connected with the eternal suit; Judge Baxter and Mrs. Baxter from Ostable; other prominent—though of course less prominent—fellow townspeople like the Snows or the Taylors; on Sundays the minister and his wife. Pleasant company, in complete agreement with his opinions on all subjects, substantial people, people of consequence. They would come now if he asked them, but he had no mind to ask. With that vacant chair opposite his own, the filling of the others would be only an emphasis of his wretchedness.

Arabella had liked their niece, had more than once spoken of that liking, had even dared so far on rare occasions as to hint that a girl like Esther might be “kind of nice to have around; somebody outside of just us two old folks to take an interest in. Don’t you think so, dear?” He had refused to listen to the hints then. Freeling Townsend had chosen to follow his own road in open defiance of the brother who had lifted him out of the mire so often. Let those who were responsible for his taking that road tramp it to the end; that was his brusque ultimatum. Only since his wife’s death had he changed his mind. That conscience to which Reliance Clark had referred as having been “pushed away up-attic” had been shaken from its camphor. Perhaps he had been too hard. He had been right, of course, but even so he might have yielded, to please Mother. It would have pleased her then; if the talk which the minister and the rest so wearisomely offered him as consolation should be true it might please her now. He was a regular church-goer at the old First Meeting House on Sunday, but he was so more because it was the conservative, orthodox thing to do than from any deep-rooted religious convictions. Nevertheless—

And Esther was a Townsend. It was risky experiment, but for Mother’s sake he had decided to give it a trial. His own loneliness and the growing certainty that he could not continue to live in that house without companionship were the weights which tipped the balance.

Well; it had been tipped. He had gone as far as even Arabella could have wished. Farther, for he had offered a home to Reliance and that worthless half-brother of hers, not because he wanted to, but because he felt certain that Esther would not leave her aunt. He had gone far enough. As the afternoon passed and no answer came he began to think that he had gone too far. Confound their impudence!

By four he was pacing up and down the library in a state of mind divided between anger and alarm. He was tempted to sit down at his desk and write a curt note withdrawing his offer altogether. He did not do so because—well, because, in spite of his resentment and chagrin, he realized that such a withdrawal would leave him exactly where he was now, alone—and doomed to remain alone always. There was no one else, no one except a paid companion, and companionship of that kind would be worse than none. And, too, he had begun already to make plans for the girl, plans which were alluring as a means of occupying his own mind in their execution and had become more alluring since his meeting with their principal the previous evening. She was a pretty girl, modest and attractive; in spite of prejudice he had been forced to admit that. And she looked like a Townsend; there was scarcely a trace of Clark about her. Put a girl like that in the surroundings such as he could give her, with the opportunities and the money—why, there might be a new interest in life for him, just as Mother had suggested.

But where was she? Why hadn’t he heard from her? It was Reliance who was responsible for the delay, he was certain of that. He had known Reliance Clark ever since she was a schoolgirl and he a young sea captain. She was poor then as now, but pretty and popular, and as independent as a “hog on ice,” to use a Cape Cod simile. There was a time when she and he were very friendly indeed, but the friendship was a stormy one. Two such natures were bound to clash. She resented the slightest hint of patronizing and was as set in her way as he was in his, which is saying not a little. They had quarreled, made it up, quarreled again and drifted apart. Now he was the Harniss mogul and she was its postmistress, because he had made her so. Even in the midst of his irritation he chuckled as he remembered her astonishment when he told her that she owed her appointment to his influence. He had given her self-satisfaction one jolt, at all events.

It was quite natural that, in all his thinking and surmising, he gave not one thought to Millard Clark. Very few people who knew him did waste thought on Millard.

Nabby Gifford’s voice sounded behind the drawn portières.

“Cap’n Foster,” said Nabby. “Cap’n Foster, you in there? If you be there’s somebody come to see you.”

Townsend was standing by the desk. He turned.

“Who is it?” he demanded. “If it is the minister tell him I’m busy.”

“’Tain’t the minister. It’s Reliance Clark.”

“What!... Humph! How did she get here? I’ve been watching the front gate.”

“She never come in that gate. Come across lots, I cal’late. She’s at the side door. I told her I wan’t sure that you could talk to her now.”

“Who is with her?”

“Eh? Why, nobody’s with her. She’s all alone. Kind of funny, her comin’, ain’t it?”

Townsend frowned. Alone? What might that mean?

“Bring her in here,” he ordered. “Light that lamp on the table. It’s getting dark.”

Nabby lighted the student lamp and hurried out. A moment later she ushered Reliance into the library.

“Good afternoon, Foster,” said Reliance, pleasantly. Townsend nodded. Then he turned to the housekeeper.

“You needn’t wait, Nabby,” he said. “You better go out in the kitchen. Yes, and shut the door after you.”

Mrs. Gifford’s reception of this blunt dismissal was characteristic. She went, but she fired a parting shot.

“The kitchen was where I was bound, so fur as that goes,” she observed, with dignity. “And I don’t need to be reminded to shut the door, neither. It ain’t me that leaves doors open in this house.”

Foster Townsend waited until a vigorous slam proved that his order had been obeyed. Then he turned to his visitor.

“Sit down,” he said, motioning toward a chair. “Better take off your things, hadn’t you?”

Reliance shook her head.

“I’ll sit down a minute,” she replied, “but I’ll keep my things on. I can’t stop very long. I must get back to the shop. I left Abbie workin’ on Jane Snow’s hat and mercy knows what she’ll do with it unless I’m there to watch her. And if that isn’t enough to make me uneasy the post office is. Millard is supposed to be attendin’ to that; ‘supposed’ is what I said.”

Townsend smiled appreciation of the sarcasm. He lowered himself into the easy-chair.

“Where is the girl?” he asked. “Why didn’t you bring her with you?”

“She is at home, getting her things together. At least I suppose she is, that is what I told her she had better do. She’ll be here to-morrow—to stay.”

Townsend’s big body relaxed against the leather cushions. His expression, however, did not change. He took pains that it did not do so. No one—least of all the astute Miss Clark—should guess the relief the blunt announcement gave him.

“Oh!” he said, carelessly. “So you’ve decided to take up with my offer, have you. You made up your minds pretty promptly, seems to me. I told you to take all the time you wanted.”

“Yes, I know you did. And I imagine you thought we wouldn’t take much. Well, you were right in one way. My mind was made up before I went to bed last night.”

“Um-hum.... And you are coming to-morrow? That is quick business, but it suits me if it does you. You can’t give up the post office as soon as that, though. You’ll have to attend to that until I can pick out somebody to take your place. It won’t take long. Once let it be known that the job is vacant and there’ll be plenty of candidates.”

“I don’t doubt it, but it isn’t goin’ to be known. I’m postmistress here at Harniss and I’m goin’ to keep the place. That is,” she added, tartly, “I am unless you or some of the rest of the smart wire-pullers work your schemes to have me put out.”

He regarded her keenly. “Now what do you mean by that?” he demanded. “Look here, Reliance, you ought to understand that if you come to my house to live you come as—well, as part of the family. You are Esther’s aunt and when you and she come here I can’t have you running back and forth to that post office. I’m figuring to take care of you and pay your bills.”

She silenced him with an impatient movement of her hand.

“There, there!” she exclaimed. “Don’t talk that way, or I shall lose my temper and say things that might just as well not be said. I haven’t yet quite got over your tellin’ me how you had me appointed to that office. You won’t have to pay my bills—no, nor Millard’s either. We aren’t comin’ to live with you.”

He bent forward in the chair. “What’s that!” he exclaimed. “Didn’t you just tell me you were coming?”

“Of course I didn’t. I told you that Esther Townsend was comin’. She is; she will be here to-morrow. But Reliance Clark isn’t comin’. No, nor Millard—unless he does somethin’ for once on his own hook and even then he’d have to do it over my dead body. The Clarks will stay in the house they rent of you—provided you don’t order ’em out—and pay that rent and their own bills same as they always have.... Oh, don’t pretend to look so surprised!” she added, sharply. “I can’t think you ever really expected me to do anything else.”

He was surprised, however. For a moment he stared at her, his brows drawn together and his eyes fixed upon her face. He saw no wavering resolution or pretense there.

“Humph!” he grunted, leaning back slowly against the cushions. “So that’s it, eh?... I see.”

“I certainly hope you do see. I should hate to believe you ever really saw anything else. Honestly now, Foster Townsend, you never expected that I would drop my work and my self-respect and everything else of my own and move in here to live on your charity like—like a pauper goin’ to the poorhouse? You didn’t really expect me to do that? Come now!”

Whatever he expected, or had expected up to that time, he kept to himself. He thrust his hands into his trousers pockets and smiled.

“The same old Reliance, aren’t you,” he observed. “I told you last night that you hadn’t changed, and I was right. You’re just as contrary as ever.”

“Perhaps I am. I’m glad I’ve got spunk enough to be contrary when it is necessary. And it is necessary now.”

“Humph! Answer me this: Why do you suppose I asked you and your brother to come here if I didn’t expect you to come? If I hadn’t wanted you I shouldn’t have asked you. I usually know what I mean.”

“Yes, you do. So do I. That’s one thing we’ve got in common, anyhow. And—”

“Hold on! As for your coming here being like going to the poorhouse—well, I don’t know that I’d call this place a poorhouse, exactly. As for work, I told you I could find plenty of work for you to do, if you wanted it.”

“Yes, but you told me you’d have to find it. You didn’t say you needed me, because you know perfectly well you don’t. Foster, I used to know you pretty well and you haven’t changed any more than I have—except that you’ve grown rich, and mercy knows I am as poor as I ever was. When you used to come to see me and take me to ride and to parties and all the rest of it—a hundred years ago, or whenever it was—you always set out to have your own way. I must do the things you wanted done and not do the things you didn’t want.”

He was amused. “Maybe so,” he admitted, with a chuckle, “but I remember you generally did what you wanted to, in the end. And you’ve done it ever since, so far as I can make out.”

“Well, haven’t you?”

“Maybe. I’ve usually tried to have my own way—yes. But you bet I made certain that it was a good way before I started. I’ve done fairly well by having it, too, I guess.”

“I guess you have. And I have had my way and haven’t done much; that is what you’re thinkin’ and I may as well say it for you.”

“Now, now, Reliance, I wasn’t thinking any such thing. You’re wrong when you say I didn’t want you to come here along with Esther. I did.”

“Yes, you did in a way. That is, you were lonesome, and that up-attic conscience I reminded you of got to botherin’ you. You wanted somebody to keep you company and, after all, Esther was one of your own relations and you knew she was a nice girl. And Arabella always—” She paused, because of the expression upon his face. “Never mind that,” she added, hurriedly, and in a tone less sharp. “I know what Arabella was to you and I have been awfully sorry for you this past week, Foster; I truly have.... You wanted Esther and made up your mind to get her here with you; but when you got to thinkin’ of that ‘good way’ you mentioned—the surest way to have your own way about her—you thought of me. You realized a little of how much she and I were to each other and you were afraid you couldn’t coax her up to this house unless I came, too. And you couldn’t get me unless Millard was thrown into the bag. So you asked us all, hide and tail. That is the truth of it and you know it. What is the use of makin’ believe?”

He rubbed his beard and slowly shook his head.

“You are smart, Reliance,” he admitted, grudgingly. “Part of what you say is true. It isn’t all true, though. It would have been rather fun to have you around. The fights we would be bound to have would have given me something new to think about, and the way I feel just now I need it. And I can’t see any reason why you should fly up like a setting hen because I made the offer. There’s no charity about it. It is what I wanted and I can afford to have what I want.”

“You can’t afford to have me. Or, anyhow, I can’t afford to come. Oh, for mercy sakes, Foster! do you suppose you are the only soul on earth who has any pride? About everybody who has anything to do with you gets down on their knees and sings Psalms when you take notice of ’em. I don’t; I’m not much of a singer.... Well, well! we’ve talked enough about what was settled in the beginnin’. Esther is comin’ here to-morrow. We must talk about her in these few minutes I’ve got to spare.”

He nodded. “All right,” he agreed. “Talk about her.”

“I’m goin’ to. Her position isn’t a bit like mine; it’s just the opposite. I shouldn’t think of takin’ up with your offer. She shouldn’t think—or be let think—of anything else. She is young, and pretty, and she’s got a lot of sense for a girl of her age. With your money and your influence and the chance they will give her she can have a happy life—yes, a pretty wonderful life, and I’d be the last to say she shouldn’t have it. I’ve done my best to make her understand that and she has finally agreed to give you a trial.”

She had surprised him again and this time he showed his feeling.

“Humph!” he grunted, frowning. “So she’s going to give me a trial, is she? That’s kind of her. I had an idea it might be the other way around.”

“Yes, you would. Well, it isn’t all that way, not by a good deal. If you think that girl is goin’ to come here and wait for you to say ‘Boo’ and then say it back, like an echo off a stone wall, you don’t know her, that’s all. She’s sensitive and high strung and proud and she’s got a will of her own; she’s a Townsend, too, you mustn’t forget that. You’ve got to handle her the way you handle one of those trottin’ horses of yours, with judgment, not with a whip. You’ve got to be awfully careful, Foster Townsend.”

Not since his early days at sea had any one lectured him in this manner. Even his wife, in her few and rare moments of self-assertion, had never spoken her mind as bluntly or with so little regard for his importance. He resented it.

“Here, here!” he commanded, sharply. “We’ve had about enough of this, seems to me. I’m not begging for the girl. She doesn’t have to say yes, unless she wants to. Yes,” rising to his feet, “and you better tell her I said so. If she’s fool enough not to appreciate what I planned to do for her I don’t want her here. Call the whole thing off. I’m satisfied.”

Miss Clark did not rise. Instead she remained in her chair.

“Oh, dear!” she said, with a sigh of resignation. “It must be a dreadful thing to be bowed down to and worshiped so long that you come to believe you are the Lord of Creation. Foster, stop actin’ like a child. Esther is comin’ here to live; I’ve told you so a dozen times. It is settled that she is. What I’m tryin’ to do is to make you understand how and why she is doin’ it. She’s comin’ because I practically forced her into it; that’s the plain truth. She didn’t want to come.”

“Then she can stay where she is. You’ve said enough. It’s off, so far as I’m concerned.”

“No, it’s only begun. Use your common sense, Foster. Of course she didn’t want to come here. Perhaps in one way she did; she’s wise enough to see what a wonderful chance it was for her to have all the nice things in the world, go on with her music and all that. But so far as you are concerned—why, she hardly knows you. And what she does know, or thinks she knows, isn’t to your credit. Her mother—”

He interrupted. “That’s the meat in the nut, is it,” he growled. “I might have known it. That woman was responsible for Freeling’s going to the devil. I told him, before he married her, that she would be, and that if he did marry her he could go just there; I’d never lift my hand again to stop him. And she lied to her daughter, of course. Told her—”

“Oh, never mind what she told her. She was my half-sister and nobody knows her faults, if you can call them that, any better than I do. But so far as your brother is concerned, he was on his way to the Old Harry long before he married Eunice. She helped him up more than she pushed him down. And while we’re on the subject I might as well say the whole of it: If you hadn’t been so high and mighty and pig-headed and had lifted that hand of yours once in a while towards the last of his life he might not have failed in that little business of his. It wasn’t drink that killed him; he hadn’t touched a drop since he married Eunice. It was fightin’ to keep that business goin’ that broke him down. If he could have come to you—”

“Well, why didn’t he come to me?”

“Oh, you—you man! He didn’t come because, as you just said, you had told him never to come. You didn’t speak to him, nor his wife. And he was a Townsend, too, and as proud as the rest of ’em. And that means Esther. She is proud.”

“Well, if that mother of hers—”

“Oh, I know how you always felt about her mother.... But there, Foster, all this rakin’ up of old squabbles isn’t gettin’ us anywhere. What I set out to tell you was that Esther didn’t want to come to an uncle who had hardly noticed her all her life and who she probably believes—yes, of course she does, in spite of all I’ve been able to say—was responsible for her father and mother’s troubles, and leave me who have taken care of her for years. If I had come she wouldn’t have hesitated—much—I guess. To come alone was different. I’ve been all the forenoon arguin’ and advisin’ and it wasn’t until an hour or so ago she said yes. I left her packin’ her trunk and cryin’ into it. She doesn’t know I’m here now. I came to show you, if I could, the kind of girl she is and what a ticklish position we are all in. You’ve got to be gentle and forebearin’ with her, Foster, or you’ll have another smash in the Townsend family; that’s the plain truth.”

He was leaning against the table, his hands in his pockets. For some few minutes he had been looking at the carpet, not at her. Now he stirred impatiently.

“Well, all right,” he said, “I’ll be as decent as I can—with my limitations.”

“Now don’t get mad. You see what I mean. You’ll have to overlook some things. She’ll be homesick at first. She’ll want to run down and see me and I guess you’ll have to let her.”

“Why shouldn’t I let her? I don’t care how much she goes to see you.”

“You think you don’t, but perhaps you will. I know you pretty well. You like to have folks jump when you give an order and to stay where they are when you don’t. Be patient with her, won’t you?”

“I said I would.”

“Well, there’s another thing. She may expect me to come up here and see her, sometimes, along in the beginnin’.”

“Come ahead! I don’t care how often you come.”

“I’ll try not to be a nuisance. And she’ll forget me in a little while, of course. It will be better for her if she does. Her way of livin’ and the people she’ll have for friends won’t be my kind and she’ll be ashamed of us by and by.”

He turned and looked down at her.

“No, no, she won’t,” he protested, with a change of tone. “If she does I won’t own her. Don’t worry, Reliance. You’ll see her about as often as you always have.... It’s pretty hard for you to give her up, isn’t it? Eh?”

She rose. “Yes,” she said, “it is.”

“You needn’t do it, if you don’t want to. I won’t force either of you into it. I’m not sure,” he added, with a shrug, “that, since you’ve hammered the facts into me with a sledge hammer, I’m not taking the biggest chance of the lot.”

“I guess not. It ought to be a wonderful thing for her. And as for you—well, if you play your cards right you will have a lot of fun in the game. Esther will be here to-morrow forenoon, she and her trunk. You can send a wagon later on for any other of her things she may want to keep. Good-night.”

He walked with her as far as the front door. The early dark of a cloudy fall evening was already shrouding the yard and its surroundings. A chill, damp breeze was whining through the bare branches of the elms and silver-leaf poplars. Puddles of steely gray water, left after the rain, gleamed coldly here and there. The Winslows, his neighbors across the road, were away in Boston, so there was not even the cheer of their lighted windows to brighten the desolation. It was the most depressing hour of a gloomy day in the dreariest season of the year. And he was the loneliest man on earth, just then he was sure of it. People respected him, or pretended to; they, as Miss Clark had said, bowed down to him; they all envied him; but was there a single soul of them all who really cared for him, who would shed an honest tear if he dropped dead that moment? He did not believe there was one. And, because of his own wretchedness he felt a twinge of pity for the woman who, because she knew it was best for Esther, was giving up the companionship which meant so much to her. She was going to be as lonesome, almost, as he was now.

“Say, Reliance!” he hailed.

She turned. “What is it?” she asked.

“Oh, nothing in particular.” His tone was as gruff as usual, but it lacked a little of its customary sharp decision. “I just wanted to say that—er—well, you needn’t worry about that post-office job. You can have it as long as you want it. I’ll see that you do.”

“You won’t have to do any seein’, I guess. I haven’t heard of anybody’s plannin’ to put me out.”

“You never can tell.... Oh, and say, if you should change your mind, if you should feel, between now and to-morrow, that you—well, that you didn’t want to have Esther leave you—if you should decide you might as well come along with her, after all—why—”

“Don’t be silly. Good-night.”

CHAPTER IV

THE next morning he sent Varunas to the Clark cottage with a note. The answer, when it came, was to the effect that Esther would be ready just after dinner. At one-thirty Mr. Gifford, wondering what on earth it all meant and not in the least enlightened by his employer, drove one of the Townsend horses, attached to the Townsend “democrat wagon” into the Clark yard and, under the officious superintendence of Millard, loaded a small trunk and a canvas valise—Varunas would have called it a “shut-over bag”—into the carriage. Millard loftily refused to satisfy the Gifford curiosity.

“You’ll know pretty soon,” declared Mr. Clark. “And so will the rest of Harniss. There’ll be some talk goin’ around for the next day or so or I miss my guess. No, no, I shan’t say a word. You ain’t the first one that’s asked me what’s up—no, sir, you ain’t! Tobias Eldridge got after me last night at the post office afore mail time, and he says: ‘Say, Mil,’ he says, ‘what in the world ails you? You’re goin’ around all puffed up like a toad fish, too grand to open your mouth. What’s the matter? Somebody left you a million? If they have you might pay me that two dollars.’ I didn’t waste any attention on his gabble. I don’t owe him any two dollars. He says I do, but I say I don’t, and my word is as good as his, I shouldn’t wonder. I set him to guessin’, though. ‘Never you mind what ails me,’ I told him. ‘I know what ’tis and so does Cap’n Foster Townsend. When I and he get ready to tell we’ll tell.’”

Varunas laughed aloud. “You and Cap’n Foster gone into partnerships, have you, Mil?” he inquired. “Tut, tut! He’s a lucky man, if that’s so. Don’t let anybody cheat him, will you?”

Before Mr. Clark could reply to this sarcastic counsel his sister and Esther were out of the cottage. The girl’s eyes were wet and even Reliance appeared to be struggling to repress emotion. The pair came down the walk to the gate. There Esther turned, threw her arms about her aunt’s plump neck and burst into sobs, open and unrestrained.

“Oh, won’t you please come, Auntie!” she begged. “I—oh, how can I go without you!”

Reliance patted her shoulder.

“There, there, dearie,” she said, soothingly. “It’s goin’ to be all right, you’ll see. I can’t leave the office now, it’s almost time for the noon mail, but I’ll run up to-morrow mornin’ and see how you are gettin’ along.” Then, catching sight of the Gifford face upon which was written eager and consuming curiosity, her own expression changed. “Come, come, you two!” she snapped, addressing her brother and Varunas. “What are you standin’ there for, with your mouths open? Help her into the carriage, why don’t you. Varunas, you take her up to Cap’n Foster’s; and mind you drive carefully.”

During the short journey to the Townsend mansion Mr. Gifford, whose curiosity was by this time seasoned with a faint suspicion of the astonishing truth, tried more than once to engage his passenger in conversation, but with no satisfactory results. Esther’s replies were brief and monosyllabic. She sat crouched on the rear seat of the democrat, avoided his eye when he turned to look at her, and, as he told Nabby afterward, she hardly as much as said ay, yes or no the whole way.

They turned in on the broad drive and stopped at the portico shading the side door. Foster Townsend opened that door himself and came out.

“Well, well, here you are!” he said, heartily. “Come right in. Varunas, take that trunk and the bag upstairs. Nabby will show you where to put them.”

He helped his niece to alight and conducted her into the house. Mr. Gifford shouldered the trunk, it was not a big one, and marched through the little hall, across the dining room and up the back stairs. His wife was awaiting him on the landing.

“Put it in the pink room,” she ordered. “And fetch up whatever else there is and put that there, too.”

Varunas deposited the trunk in the pink room as directed. Then he turned to his wife.

“What in time—?” he demanded, in a whisper. Nabby nodded impressively.

“I guess you may well say more’n that when you know. She’s comin’ here to live.”

Varunas stared. Then he slapped his knee. “I guessed pretty nigh as much,” he declared. “The minute I see her and Reliance come out of that house, I— But you don’t really mean it, do you, Nabby? You don’t mean she’s comin’ here to stay—right along?”

Nabby nodded again. “That’s just what I mean,” she replied. “Cap’n Foster told me so a minute or so after you left to go get her. Yes, she’s comin’ to stay right along—or wrong along—the good Lord only knows which it’ll turn out to be.... Well!” fervently, “I thought I’d expected ’most everything, but I never expected this. Freeling’s girl! And Eunice Clark’s girl, which is sayin’ a lot more! In this house!... There, there! go get the rest of her dunnage and hurry up about it. I’ve got somethin’ else to do besides listen to your ‘by times.’ You can say them later on. You won’t be the only one sayin’ ’em. How folks will talk!”

She was right, of course. All Harniss “talked,” as soon as the news reached its ears. Its most distinguished citizen had a habit of surprising his fellow townsfolks, but he had seldom surprised them more completely.

While the Giffords, first of the “talkers,” were holding their whispered conversation above stairs, down in the library Foster Townsend and the new member of his household were talking also, but with far less freedom from constraint. At his invitation she removed her coat and hat and sat in the rocker by the table. He, of course, took the easy-chair. She said not a word. He crossed his knees, cleared his throat, and tried to appear at ease; it was a poor pretense, for he had never felt less so.

“Well,” he began. “Varunas got you here safe and sound, didn’t he?”

She looked up at him and then down.

“Yes, sir,” she said.

“That’s good, that’s good.... Hum.... Well, I hope—I hope you’re going to like it, now you are here.”

She did not look up this time. “I hope—I mean I guess I shall,” she faltered.

“Oh, you will! We’ll try to make you comfortable. Yes, indeed!”

“Yes, sir.”

“Oh, we will! Now—er—let’s see: Is there anything particular you would like to do this afternoon? Like to go for a ride, perhaps?”

She was afraid to say no, but she could not force herself to say yes. If there was one thing more than another she wished to do, just then, it was to be alone, away from him and every one else, to be somewhere where she could cry as much as she liked. She had an inspiration.

“If you wouldn’t mind,” she said, hesitatingly, “I think I should like to go to my room—the one I am going to have, just for a little while, I mean. If it will be all right?”

He accepted the suggestion heartily. He was thankful for it. It promised, for the time at least, relief from a situation as embarrassing to him as it evidently was to her.

“Why, yes, yes! of course!” he agreed. “You got your unpacking to do, haven’t you.... Nabby!... No, never mind. I’ll go up with you myself.”

She followed him through the stiff and stately front hall and up the long flight of stairs. In a wall niche at the landing near the top stood a huge vase containing a cluster of pampas grass, some of its plumes dyed a brilliant blue and the others red. The vase itself was thickly covered with colored pictures, figures of men and women in Chinese costume, of birds and flowers, of goodness knows what. The vase had been painted a glistening black and the pictures glued to its surface, in hit or miss fashion.

He saw her look at it as they passed.

“Mother—er—your Aunt Bella—did that,” he said. “Took her a long time to stick all those things on. She was a great hand for making the house look pretty.”

The pink room, when they entered it, seemed, to Esther’s unaccustomed eyes, almost as big as the Harniss Town Hall. A mammoth black walnut bedstead, its carved headboard reaching nearly to the ceiling; a correspondingly large marble-topped black walnut bureau; a marble-topped washstand with a pink and gold bowl, pitcher and soap dish upon it; a stiff little walnut desk; at least a half dozen walnut chairs, one of them a patent rocker. It was easy to see why it was called the “pink” room. The gorgeous flowers of the carpet had a pink background; the bedspread was pink; so were the heavy lambrequins above each of the four tall windows. The paper on the walls was of the prevailing color. Everything looked brand-new, every piece of furniture glistened with varnish. To the girl, at that first view, it seemed as if the only item in the room not new and grandly becoming, were her own shabby little trunk and the dingy canvas extension case awaiting her on the floor by the closet door. They looked pathetically out of place and not at home.

Townsend gave the apartment a comprehensive glance. The inspection appeared to satisfy him.

“Seems to be all right,” he observed. “Nabby and Ellen haven’t had much time to get things ready. I only told them an hour or so ago that you were coming. You can trust Nabby, though. Things are generally kept shipshape where she is.... There!” he added. “This is going to be your room, Esther. Like it, do you?”

Esther nodded, bravely. “Yes, sir,” she said. “It is—is nice and—and big, isn’t it?”

He chuckled. “Bigger than what you’ve been used to, I don’t doubt,” he agreed. “Well, it is yours from now on, so make yourself at home in it. There’s water in the pitcher over there, but if you had rather use the bathroom it is right at the end of the hall out here.”

She thanked him. She had heard of that bathroom; so had every one else in Harniss. At the time of its installation it had been the only honest-to-goodness bathroom in the town.

“I’ll leave you to your unpacking,” he said. “If you need any help or any thing just call Ellen. If you pull that tassel arrangement by the bed she’ll come; that’s part of her job. Well, good-by. I’ll be down in the library. Come down when you are ready.”

She did not come down until almost supper time. He was sitting in the easy-chair when she entered. She had changed her dress and rearranged her hair and done her best to eradicate or at least conceal the tear stains about her eyes. He looked up from his paper, gave her an appraising glance which, or so she imagined, took her in from head to heel, and waved his big hand toward the rocker.

“Sit down, sit down,” he said. “Well, you look as trim as a new tops’l. Get your things to rights upstairs? Find plenty of stowage room in the closet?”

The closet was as big, almost, as her bedroom in the Clark cottage.

“Oh, yes, indeed,” she said, smiling a little.

He smiled also. “Mother was bound to have plenty of closet-room,” he observed. “Women like ’em big. When you’ve had a sea training, same as I had in my young days, you get used to putting up with snugger quarters. Now—er—let me see. Supper will be ready pretty soon, but just now— Humph! Like to read, do you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Women do, I know. There are lots of books in those cases, lots of ’em. I haven’t read ’em all, but I guess they’re all right. Mother—your Aunt Bella—picked them out and she generally knew what was what. Help yourself—now or any time. What I should like to have you feel,” he went on, obviously embarrassed but very earnest, “is that anything or everything in this house is yours from now on. You are going to live here and—er—you must try to feel that it’s—well, that it is home. You understand what I mean?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“That’s right, that’s right. Well, there are the books. Help yourself.”

She wandered over to the bookcases. The sumptuously bound volumes posed disdainfully behind the glass panes and seemed to dare her to lay plebeian hands upon them. Their titles, Macaulay’s “History of England,” Greeley’s “American Conflict,” Shakespeare’s “Complete Works,” “Poems of Alexander Pope”—they were not particularly alluring. One majestic, gilt-edge tome was labeled, “Ostable County and Its Leading Citizens.” She rather timidly lifted this from the shelf, opened it, and almost immediately found herself facing a steel engraved portrait of her uncle. On the next page but one was another engraving portraying the “Residence of Captain Foster Townsend at Harniss.” The article descriptive of that residence and its owner filled five pages of large print. It began:

“Among the names of prominent men of this thriving and beautiful township that of Captain Foster Bailey Townsend stands at the head. His position in civic and county affairs, his strong and unswerving influence for the highest in political matters, his numerous benefactions—”

She had read this far when Ellen drew the portières and announced that supper was ready.

Of all the vivid impressions of those first days and weeks in her new home, the memory of that first meal still remains clearest in Esther’s mind. It was so different, so strange, so altogether foreign to any previous experience. She sat at one end of the table and he at the other, the prismed hanging lamp above them casting its yellow glow upon the shining silver, the ornately ornamented china—she did not then considerate it ornate, of course, but beautiful—the water glasses, not one nicked and all of the same pattern, the expensive cloth and napkins. Ellen, neatly dressed and silent of step and movement, brought in the food from the kitchen, placed each dish before the captain, who heaped his niece’s plate and handed it to the maid who placed it before her. There was none of the helter-skelter confusion and bustle of the suppers to which she had been accustomed; no jumping up and running to the kitchen; no passing from hand to hand; no hurry in order to get through because it was almost mail time. And, of course, there would be, for her, no clearing away and dishwashing after it was over.

Esther had read a great deal; she was a regular and frequent patron of the public library; she knew that this was the way rich people lived and ate. That she should be doing it—not in imagination; she had imagined herself doing it often enough—but in reality; that she, Esther Townsend, was destined to sit at this table and be thus deferentially waited upon every day, and three times a day, for years and years; that was the amazing, incredible thought. It was like a story; she was like Bella Filfur in “Our Mutual Friend” when her husband, John Harmon, after all their trials and tribulations were ended, brought her to that beautiful house and she discovered that it was to be hers, that she was very, very wealthy and could have anything she wanted—always. Almost like that it was. Why, she herself was rich now, or what amounted to the same thing! She could have anything she wanted, her uncle had said so. For the first time she really began to believe it.

She ate little, so little that Foster Townsend noticed and commented.

“Where’s your appetite?” he asked. “These things are to eat, not to look at. Don’t you feel well?”

She blushed in guilty confusion. “Oh, yes!” she replied, quickly. “It—it isn’t that. I was thinking and—and I guess I forgot. I’m sorry.”

“Thinking, eh? What were you thinking?”

She hesitated. Then she spoke the exact truth.

“I was thinking that—that it couldn’t be real—my being here. It doesn’t seem as if it could.”

He understood; he had been thinking almost the same thing.

“I guess it is,” he said, with a smile. “You are here, and we’ll hope you’re going to stay. A little bit homesick, are you?”

She started in surprise. She had tried so hard to keep him from surmising how utterly wretched she had been.

“I—I don’t know,” she faltered. “Perhaps I am—I mean I was—a little.”

He nodded. “Natural enough you should be,” he said. “Homesickness is a mean disease. I’ve been homesick myself for the past fortnight or so.”

She could not, at the moment, understand what he meant.

“Why, Captain Townsend!” she protested. He interrupted.

“Might as well call me ‘Uncle Foster,’ hadn’t you?” he suggested. “Sounds a little less like town meeting.”

Again she blushed. “I—I forgot again,” she confessed. Then, catching the twinkle in his eye, she laughed.

“But, Uncle Foster—”

“That’s better. What?”

“I don’t see why you should be homesick. This is your home.”

“It’s my house. It was my home, but— Oh, well! we’ll see if we can’t make it ‘home’ again, you and I between us. Homesickness is mean, though. I remember the first voyage I ever made. Little thirteen-year-old shaver I was, and—”

He went on to tell of that voyage. It was a long one and the story was long, but he told it well. Supper was ended before he finished. They returned to the library. Instead of sitting in the easy-chair he remained standing.

“Er—Esther,” he said.

“Yes, sir.... Yes, Uncle Foster?”

He rubbed his beard. “I was just going to say,” he went on, awkwardly, “that—er—humph! well, the piano is in the other room—in the parlor. Perhaps you’d like to play on it. I guess it is in tune; the tuner comes every two or three months or so; I hope he earns his money.”

She did not feel like playing.

“Why, if you want me to—” she hesitated.

“I shouldn’t mind. It would be interesting to see how the thing sounds. About all Mother or I ever did was look at it. Of course, if you don’t want to—”

“Yes. Yes, I will. But I can’t play very well.”

“And I shouldn’t know if you did, if that’s any comfort to you. Ellen has lit up the parlor, I guess; I told her to.”

The parlor—even the wife of the great Foster Townsend had never dared refer to it as a “drawing-room” within the limits of Harniss township—was by far the most majestic apartment in the mansion. And, of course, the least livable. The huge rosewood square piano was of corresponding majesty. Esther seated herself upon the brocaded cushion of the music stool and her uncle, after trying one of the bolt-upright chairs, shifted to the equally bolt-upright sofa—in the bill it had been a “divan”—and sat uncomfortably upon that.

“What shall I play?” she asked. There were some sheets of music upon the rack, but they were unfamiliar and looked uninviting.

Townsend grunted. “Don’t ask me,” he replied. “Anything you want to. If you played ‘Old Hundred,’ and told me it was ‘The Jerusalem Hornpipe’ I couldn’t contradict you.”

She played two or three simple airs which her music teacher—he was also assistant to Mr. Wixon, the undertaker—had taught her. Her uncle did not speak during the playing. When she glanced at him he was sitting upon the sofa, his hands in his pockets and his legs stretched out in front of him. He appeared to be lost in thought and the thought not of the pleasantest. Once she heard him sigh.

When, at the end of her third selection, she paused and he seemed not to be aware of it, she ventured to address him.

“I’m afraid that is about all I can play now—without my music,” she said. He looked up with a start.

“Eh?” he queried. “Oh, all right, all right! I’m much obliged. Maybe that will do, for now. Suppose we go back into the other room; shall we?”

He rose from the sofa and she from the stool. She was disappointed and a little hurt. He had not offered a word of praise. When they had entered the library he turned and closed the door behind them.

“That is the first time I have been in that room since—since the funeral,” he muttered. “Just now I feel as if I never wanted to go into it again.... Well, there! that’s foolishness,” he added, squaring his shoulders. “I shall go into it, of course. We’ll go in there to-morrow and then I want you to sing for me. I have heard a lot about that voice of yours.”

She did not know how to answer and he did not wait for her to do so.

“You play first rate, I should say,” he went on. “You mustn’t think I didn’t like it; I did. It was only that—well, that blasted room and—and the music together were— Humph! Well, there! Sit down and tell me about your singing. Who has been teaching you?”

She told him. Mr. Cornelius Gott, the undertaker’s assistant, sang in the choir, taught singing school in the winter, and a few pupils in private. His voice was a high tenor and his charges low. Townsend grunted when his name was mentioned.

“I wouldn’t hire that fellow to learn my dog to howl,” he declared. “We’ll find somebody better than that for you, if we have to send to Boston. Who picked him out?”

Esther resented this contemptuous dismissal of the teacher whom she had considered rather wonderful. He was young and very polite and sported a most becoming mustache.

“Aunt Reliance got him to teach me,” she said. “He didn’t want to do it at first, for she couldn’t pay his regular prices. If it hadn’t been for her I shouldn’t have had any one. He taught me to play, too. We think he is splendid.”

Her uncle ignored the defiance in her tone. He pulled his beard.

“Reliance Clark is an able woman,” he observed, reflectively. “It must have meant considerable scrimping on her part to pay even what that numskull charged. She’s done well by you, I’ll say that for her.”

It needed only this reference to her beloved aunt to bring the tears to the girl’s eyes.

“I love her better than any one else in the world,” she announced, impulsively. “And I always shall.”

He looked at her. Then he smiled.

“That’s right,” he agreed. “You ought to. Well, make yourself at home now. There are the books; somebody ought to use ’em. Do anything you want to. As I said before, this is home and you must treat it as if it was.”

He lighted a cigar, picked up the paper and began to read. She wandered once more to the bookcase, but “Ostable County and Its Leading Citizens” was not very interesting, nor was she in a mood to appreciate it if it had been. The temporary excitement of the wonderful supper table and its grandeur had passed and her homesickness had returned, worse than ever. She wondered what they were doing at home—her real home, not this make-believe. It was after nine, so the post office was closed and Aunt Reliance was in the house, in the sitting-room. Was she as lonesome as she, Esther, was at that minute? Oh, if she could only go to her, could run away from this horrid place where she did not belong to that where she did! If she had not promised faithfully! Oh, dear! Why had she!

She turned in desperation.

“If you don’t mind,” she said, chokingly. “I think I will go to bed now. I—I am pretty tired.”

He looked up from the paper. “Eh?” he said. “Tired? Oh, yes, I guess you are. This has been a sort of trying day for you, I shouldn’t wonder. Well, to-morrow we’ll see if we can’t find something to keep you interested. Ellen has fixed your room. If she hasn’t done things as you want ’em done, call her and see that she does. I shall turn in, myself, before long. Hope you sleep first rate. Good-night, Esther.”

“Good-night, sir.”

“Eh?... You’ve forgot again, haven’t you?”

“I’m sorry. Good-night, Uncle Foster.”

The pink room was alight, the bed had been opened, her nightdress was lying upon it. She went to the window, but she did not dare raise the shade. From that window one might see the light in the window of the Clark cottage, at the foot of the long hill. She could not trust herself to look in that direction. She undressed, blew out the lamp and got into a bed far softer than any she had ever before slept in. It was a long, long time before she did sleep, however. Homesickness is a mean disease; Foster Townsend was right when he said that.

The next morning was bright and sunshiny and when she awoke she was in better spirits. Being merely called to breakfast, instead of having to go to the kitchen and help prepare it, was of itself a gratifying novelty. After breakfast she accompanied her uncle on his morning round of inspection. In the stables Varunas was awaiting them. His eager politeness, in contrast to the casual everyday manner in which he had greeted her the previous afternoon, was also gratifying. At Captain Townsend’s suggestion he led out and exhibited Claribel and Hornet and others of the Townsend stables.

“She is all gingered up and ready to go,” he declared, patting Claribel’s glistening shoulder. “She’ll make that Rattler look like a porgy boat tryin’ to keep up with one of them high-toned yachts. I understand,” he added, addressing his employer in the confidential whisper he invariably used on such occasions, “that Baker’s gang are offerin’ ten to seven over there in Bayport. I’m just waitin’ for ’em to show up around here and start their hollerin’. There’s a five dollar bill in my pants pocket that’s goin’ up on Claribel lock, stock and barrel. He, he! Your uncle told you about the game we’ve played on Sam Baker and Seth Emmons and them?” he asked, turning to Esther. “That was a slick trick, if I did handle it myself. He, he!”

Townsend’s eyes twinkled. “You wouldn’t guess Varunas was so clever to look at him, would you,” he observed solemnly. “He can think up more smart tricks—second-hand—than any one you ever saw.”

Mr. Gifford’s wizened face lengthened a trifle. “What was there second-hand about it?” he demanded. “Oh, yes, yes! I recollect now you said you’d heard of its bein’ played afore. Well, anyhow,” triumphantly, “I was the first one to play it in these latitudes. You’ll have to give me credit for that, Cap’n Foster.”

Townsend did not enlighten his niece concerning the nature of the “trick.” He did, however, tell her of the proposed trotting match at the Circle. She had heard rumors of it before; Millard had talked of it during one entire meal at the cottage. As they were leaving the stables Varunas patted her shoulder reassuringly.

“Don’t you worry about it, Esther,” he cautioned. “Don’t worry a mite. We’ve got ’em licked afore they start. It takes more’n Sam Baker to come in ahead of us Townsends, don’t it, eh? I guess you know that.”

So he considered her one of the family already, entitled to the family confidence and sharing the family pride. That was pleasing, too. Just as it was pleasant to have her uncle speak about planting the flower garden, when the time for spring planting came.

“Mother used to attend to all that,” he said. “Now it will be your job.”

And when she met Nabby Gifford, there also was the same polite acceptance of her authority as one of the Townsends. Not that Nabby’s politeness was obsequious, she bent the knee to no one. But she greeted the girl cordially and, far from appearing to resent her presence in the house, seemed to welcome it.

“I’m real glad you’ve come here, Esther,” she whispered, in the only moment when they were alone together. “You can help your uncle a lot. He needs somebody of his own for company in this great ark of a place and I’ve told him so. You’ll be a whole lot of comfort to him.”

Somehow these meetings with the Giffords cheered Esther greatly. It seemed evident that she was not regarded wholly as an object of charity. Almost as if a part of the favor was conferred by her. Her uncle needed her—yes, and he had invited her there because of that need. And she was a Townsend; why, in a way she did belong there, after all. Her homesickness was not so distressing this morning.

She suffered a temporary relapse later on, when her aunt, in fulfilment of her promise, came up to the mansion for a short call. Reliance, however, was bright and cheerful, never showed, nor permitted her to show, the least trace of tears or loneliness, exclaimed at the size and beauty of the pink room, chatted of matters at the post office and millinery shop, promised to come again just as soon as she could, and hurried away in a bustle of good-humored energy. She had gone before Esther could realize that their meeting was but temporary, not the resumption of the old close, everyday companionship.

The girl accompanied her to the door, but Foster Townsend was waiting at the gate.

“Well, how has it gone?” asked Reliance.

“All right enough, so far,” was the curt answer. “I guess we’ll get along, after we get used to it.”

Miss Clark nodded. “She’ll get along, I know,” she said. “She’s young and young folks forget the old and take up with the new pretty easy—especially such a ‘new’ as this will be to her. She’ll get along; you are the one who will have to take time to get used to it. Let her have her own way once in a while, Foster. It will be good judgment in the end and save lots of trouble.”

He sniffed. “Seems to me we thrashed this all out yesterday,” he retorted. “I can handle a skittish colt as well as the next one, maybe.... Don’t you worry about our getting along.... How are you getting along—without her?”

She turned away.

“Don’t talk about it,” she said. “Sometime, when I’m not so busy, I’m goin’ up to the cemetery. That will be a bright, lively place compared to my sittin’ room just now. But I’ll get used to it, too. I’ve spent about half my life gettin’ used to things.”

That afternoon Esther had another new and overwhelming experience. She and her uncle went for a drive behind the span. Foster Townsend himself drove and his niece sat beside him upon the seat of the high wheeled dog-cart. The black horses stepped proudly, their curved necks glistening and the silver mounted harness a-jingle. People stopped to look at them as they passed, just as she, herself, had done so often. Then she had merely looked and envied—yes, and resented—the triumphal progress of this man, her father’s own brother, who had everything while she and her parents had had nothing. Now she was a part of that progress and, in spite of an occasional twinge of conscience, she found herself enjoying it. The reality of this marvelous change in her life was more and more forced upon her.

Now, as always, hats were lifted in acknowledgment of the royal presence, but now they were lifted to the princess as well as to the king. Proof of this was furnished by no less a personage than Captain Benjamin Snow, who hurried from his front gate and came out into the road. Townsend pulled the horses to a standstill and greeted the man whose influence in Harniss affairs was second only to his own.

“Hello, Ben!” he said. “Well, what is it?”

Captain Ben, short-breathed always and pompous usually, was urbanely deferential.

“Just heard from Mooney,” he panted, with an asthmatic chuckle. “He was down to see me last night. Talked about nothing but that cranberry bill. I judge he has had a change of heart. Says he was up to see you a day or two ago. You must have put the fear of the Lord into him, Foster.”

Townsend smiled. “I didn’t mince matters much,” he admitted. “He’ll trot in harness now, I shouldn’t wonder.”

“He’d better. Going to the rally, I suppose?”

“Probably.”

“I hope you do. The sight of you will do more to keep him humble than anything else in the world.... Well,” turning to Esther, “so you are going to be your uncle’s girl from now on, I hear. That’s good, that’s first rate. My wife and I are coming up to call on you some of these evenings. And you must run in on us any time. Don’t stand on ceremony. We’ll always be glad to see you. Any of your Uncle Foster’s relations are just the same as ours, you know.”

This from Captain Ben Snow who, up to that moment, had scarcely so much as spoken to her. And he and the even more consequential Mrs. Snow were coming to call—not upon her uncle, but upon her. She managed to thank him, but that was all.

The only other individual who had the temerity to arrest the progress was Mr. Clark. Millard Fillmore was one of a small group of loungers who were supporting the wooden pillars in front of Kent’s General Store, by leaning against them. His sister had sent him to the store on an errand. He heard the proud “clop, clop” of the horses’ hoofs upon the road and awoke to life and energy.

“Hi!” he shouted, rushing out. “Well, well! Here you are, ain’t you! Good afternoon, Cap’n Foster; good afternoon, sir. Well, Esther, you look fine as a fiddle, settin’ up there as if you’d done it all your days. Pretty fine girl, ain’t she, Cap’n Foster? Eh? She’ll be a credit to you, you mark my words.”

Foster Townsend grunted, but made no comment.

“I presume likely you and she think it’s kind of funny I ain’t been up to see her yet, Cap’n” continued Clark. “Well, I’ve meant to, but I’ve been so busy at the post office I ain’t had time to go anywheres. I’m comin’ pretty soon, though, you can bet on that. I’ll—I’ll be up to-morrow—yes, sir, to-morrow.”

Townsend lifted the reins. “Anything else?” he asked, impatiently.

“No, I don’t know as there is—nothin’ special. Oh, yes, while I think of it,” lowering his voice, “I’m collectin’ a good-sized bunch to go to the rally and holler for the cranberry bill. I’ll have ’em there. You can count on me for that, Cap’n Foster.”

“Get up!” commanded Townsend, addressing the horses.

“I’ll be over to-morrow,” Millard shouted after them. Then he returned, swollen with importance, to the much-impressed group by the pillars.

Townsend frowned. “Jackass!” he snorted. Then, after a moment, he added. “That fellow is likely to be a nuisance, I’m afraid. I won’t have him hanging around the place. I don’t want him there. If he comes to-morrow you tell Nabby or Ellen you can’t see him.”

Esther looked at him. She had never cherished deep affection for, nor a high opinion of, her Uncle Millard, but the sight of him had been a sharp reminder of the home she had just left and all its associations. And the contempt in the captain’s tone stung.

“I want to see him,” she declared. “Yes, I do.”

“What! You want to see—him! For heaven’s sake, why?”

“Because—because I do. I’ve lived with him ever since I can remember. He is my uncle, too.”

Townsend rubbed his beard. His frown deepened.

“Humph!” he grunted. The remainder of the drive was less pleasant than that preceding. The captain said very little and his niece was close to tears. In one way she was sorry she had spoken as she had, in another she was not. For some illogical reason the sneer at Mr. Clark, she felt, included her; it had hurt her pride, and the brusque order that she refuse to see him when he called was disturbing. Her Aunt Reliance had assured her, over and over again, that her moving to the big house did not mean the slightest change in their relationship; they would all see each other every day at least, and perhaps several times a day. She had relied on that assurance. Now her faith was shaken. If she could not see Millard might not the next order be that she could not see her aunt? That she would not obey—no, she would not.

Townsend, himself, was not entirely easy in his mind. It was early—or so it seemed to him—for symptoms of rebellion in this new relationship. And open rebellion of any sort was an unaccustomed insult to his imperial will. He was ruffled, but it was not long before his strong common sense took command. He even chuckled inwardly at the thought of the girl’s defiance. She was no soft-soaper, at any rate. She had a will of her own, too, and pluck to back it. She was a Townsend. Well, he had boasted to Reliance that very morning of his ability to handle a skittish colt. He would handle this one, and if tact, rather than the whip, was needed he would use that. When they drove up to the side door of the mansion and he helped her to alight from the dog-cart he was good-natured, even jolly, and ignored her very evident agitation, seemed not to notice it.

During supper and all that evening he was chatty and affable. Esther’s wounded feelings were salved by the change in his manner. This was a new Uncle Foster, not the grand, dogmatic, overbearing autocrat she had been taught to dread and dislike, but a good-humored, joking, sympathizing comrade, who took her into his confidence, treated her as if she really was an equal, not a dependent. He told stories, and interesting ones, of his early life and struggles. She began to feel a new understanding and respect for him. He must be a wonderful man to have fought his way from nothing to the everything he now was. And he talked concerning household affairs, even asked her advice as to Ellen, the second maid, suggested that she keep an eye on the latter and see if her share of the housework was done as it should be. All this was pleasantly grateful and encouraging. It emphasized the impression left by him in their talk about planting the flower garden and strengthened that given by the cordial welcome to the family which Varunas and Nabby had accorded her that morning.

Later on, they went again into the parlor and this time, at his urgent request, she sang. He listened intently and insisted upon repetitions. When the little recital was over he put his arm about her shoulder.

“Your voice is as good as they said it was,” he declared, with emphasis. “I don’t know much about such things, of course, but I know enough to be able to swear you ought to go on with your music. We’ll find the best teacher in the county and if he isn’t good enough we’ll send you where there is a better one. We’ll have you singing in a big Boston concert yet and your Aunt Reliance and I will be down in the front seats clapping our hands. Oh, it’s nothing to laugh at; we’ll be there.”

The mention of her aunt as a member of that audience was the one thing needed to make his praise sweeter. Her apprehensions of the afternoon must have been groundless. It was plain that he had no idea of separating her from her beloved relative. It was only Millard who had irritated him and Uncle Millard was—well, even Reliance, his own half-sister, had more than once confessed, under stress of especial provocation, that he was “not much account.”

Esther’s bed-time thoughts that night were by no means as dismal and hopeless as those of the night before. Pictures of herself as a great singer mingled with her dreams as she fell asleep. Her last conscious conviction was that she did not hate her Uncle Foster; perhaps, as she came to know him better and better, she might even like him. It was perfectly wonderful, the future he was planning for her.

Down in the library Foster Townsend was lounging in the leather chair and thinking over his new plan of campaign as so far carried out. He was very well satisfied. He was quite well aware that he had made a favorable impression. Figuratively he patted himself on the back for the happy astuteness which had given Reliance Clark a seat at that concert. That was the cleverest stroke of the evening. Not that he intended sharing his niece’s future with Reliance or any one else. She was his, and little by little he would make her altogether so. She was a good-looking girl, a clever girl, and he was beginning to believe he had made no mistake in bringing her to his home. With his money and under his guidance she might be, not only the new interest he had sought, but a daughter to be proud of. The little flashes of temper and independence she had shown made the prospect only more alluring. He would make her trot in harness, give him time. His training of the skittish colt so far was not so bad—not so bad.

CHAPTER V

THE first step in that training was, of course, to inspire the colt with trust and liking for her new master. When that trust and liking were established the next move must be to make her so satisfied and happy in her new surroundings that the last lingering regret at leaving the old should fade away. She must be driven with a light hand on the reins, a touch so gentle that she would not realize it was there. Confidence first, then contentment, next the gradual awakening of new aspirations and ambitions—after these the rein might tighten and she could be guided into and along the road he intended she should travel. That was the program. Foster Townsend proceeding to carry it out.

The trust and liking first. That little disagreement following the meeting with Millard was the last between the uncle and niece for many a day. Townsend had learned his lesson. The next day, when they rode behind the span, he stopped before the Clark cottage and suggested that they run in and say “Hello” to Reliance. The latter was busy in the millinery shop and was surprised to see them there. The call lasted nearly an hour. Esther enjoyed it greatly, so, too, apparently, did Miss Clark. Abbie Makepeace, the middle-aged partner in the business, was at first in a state of nervous embarrassment, but their distinguished visitor was so gracious, so chattily affable and easy, so interested in the bits of local gossip she offered as contributions to the conversation, that she ended in complete surrender.

“Well, I declare, Reliance!” she exclaimed, when the shop door had closed. “I don’t see where the time has gone, I swear I don’t! Seems as if he—I mean they—hadn’t been here five minutes. I don’t see how folks can say Cap’n Townsend is—well, high and mighty and—and all like that.”

Miss Clark put in a word.

“Seems to me I remember hearin’ you say what amounted to that, Abbie,” she observed, dryly.

Abbie was momentarily taken aback.

“Well—well, if I did I ought to be ashamed of myself,” she protested. “Anyhow, he was sociable and everyday enough this time. Why, I felt as if I’d known him all my life. Did you hear him ask me to drop in and see him and Esther any time I felt like it? I—I believe I’ll do it some Sunday afternoon. Of course I’ve been up to the mansion two or three times, when Arabella had a church committee tea or somethin’, but I’ve never been there to call.”

Reliance smiled. “He can be nice enough, if he wants to be,” she said; “but it has to be when he wants. Esther seemed to be happy, I thought, didn’t you?”

Abbie Makepeace gasped. “Happy!” she repeated. “I should think she might be! My soul to man! Wouldn’t you be happy if you’d been just the same as adopted by a man with a million o’ dollars? Of course she’s happy; she’s goin’ to have everything on earth she wants from now on.... You mustn’t be jealous, Reliance. Think of her.”

Reliance picked up the bonnet she had been at work upon when their visitors came. She shook her head.

“Who do you think I’ve been thinkin’ about, for goodness sakes?” she demanded. “There, there! get me that ribbon on the shelf behind you. What is that verse I hear the boys sayin’?

“‘The rich they ride in chaises.

The poor they—’”

Miss Makepeace interrupted. “My soul!” she exclaimed, aghast. “That’s a swearin’ piece! I never expected to hear you swear, Reliance Clark.”

“Well, you haven’t heard me yet, have you? I was goin’ to say that the poor had to make bonnets. Let’s make ’em. We’ve lost more than an hour already.”

“I don’t call it losin’.... Humph! I believe you are jealous. I don’t see why you need to be. You are goin’ up there to have dinner next Sunday. I heard him ask you. There’d be plenty of people in Harniss who’ll be jealous of you when they hear that. And it pleased Esther almost to death, his invitin’ you. I could see that it did.”

It had, of course, and the certainty that it would was the reason why Foster Townsend had extended the invitation. Esther had a happy day. That evening she sang and played and her uncle’s praise was even more whole-hearted than on the previous occasion. It was nice of him to say such things. He had been very nice to her all that day. And his calling on her aunt, of his own accord, and asking the latter and Uncle Millard to dinner on Sunday was the nicest of all. It seemed almost as if her mother must have been mistaken in thinking him such a dreadful man. Either that, or he was sorry he had been so proud and unreasonable and stubborn, and was determined to make amends to his brother’s daughter. If he kept on behaving as he had this day she knew she would like him—she could not help it.

Sunday morning he took her to church and, for the first time, she sat, not in the Clark pew away back under the organ gallery, but down in front in the Townsend pew, where the cushions were covered with green plush and the hymn books bore the Townsend name in gold letters on their cover. Asaph Boadley, the sexton, did not greet her with a perfunctory “Hello.” His whispered “Good mornin’” was almost as reverential as his salute of her uncle. The march up the aisle was very trying—they were a trifle late and every eye in the meeting-house was, she knew, fixed upon her. But Captain Benjamin Snow himself leaned over the pew-back to point out to her the hymn they were about to sing.

The dinner at the mansion was the best meal she had ever eaten and it was delightful—and wonderful—to have Miss Clark and Millard Fillmore there to eat it with her. Millard did not talk as much as usual, even he was a little awed by the occasion. He smoked a Townsend cigar after dinner and accepted another to smoke later on. And when he and his half-sister walked back to the cottage he strutted every step of the way.

Esther accompanied her uncle to the “rally” on Tuesday evening. The Town Hall was packed, and again there was the same stir and whispering when they passed up the aisle between the lines of crowded settees. Men were in the majority, of course, but there were many women there also, and some girls. The men looked at Foster Townsend, but the feminine element centered its interest upon his niece, and Esther wondered if they noticed the new brooch which she was wearing. It was a present from her Uncle Foster, who had bought it from the local jeweler and watchmaker that afternoon. That brooch had been on display in the shop window almost a year—since before the previous Christmas, in fact—and the price upon the card above it was twenty dollars. She had seen it often and her admiration of its beauty was coupled with a vague resentment at the extravagance of its cost. Now it was hers—her very own.

The Honorable Mooney’s speech was, it seemed to her, a noble effort. She had never before heard quite as many big words said so loudly or with such accompaniment of gesture. And she noticed that the orator appeared to be looking in their direction almost constantly as he said them. When it was over he hurried from the platform and pushed his way to their side.

“Well, Cap’n Townsend,” he panted, eagerly, “I guess you’ll have to own that I kept my word. Came out strong enough for the cranberry bill this time, didn’t I?... How did it sound to you?”

The crowd about them had stopped to listen. There was a hush. Mr. Mooney’s hand was extended, but Townsend did not remove his from his trousers’ pockets.

“Sounded a good deal as if you had decided to be a bad influence,” he observed. “Yes, you came out—to-night. How you come out on election day is—well, I guess that depends on how sure you can make us that you’ll stay out—after you get in again.”

There was a roar of delighted laughter from the group surrounding them. Mr. Mooney did not laugh. He looked troubled.

The horse trot at the Circle was to take place on Thursday afternoon. All masculine Harniss knew of it by this time. Backers of the Baker horse had visited Harniss during the past few days, had expressed unbounded confidence in the fast-traveling Rattler, and had been quite willing to support their confidence financially. There were perhaps a hundred men and boys gathered about the starting-point when Foster Townsend and Esther drove up in the dog-cart. Esther, looking out over the crowd, felt troubled and out of place. So far as she could see she was the only member of the gentler sex present. Horse racing, although patronized by Harniss’s leading citizen, was not approved by the majority of its best people, particularly the church-going element. At the Ostable County Fair and Cattle Show they hung over the fence and cheered or groaned, their wives and daughters with them, but that was different—all set standards relaxed on Cattle Show days. An affair of this kind was a trifle too much of a sporting proposition, it savored too closely of card playing and gambling; so, although some—including Captain Benjamin Snow—attended, they did not bring their families. If it was any one but Cap’n Foster, people said, he would not be allowed to do such things.

The racers, harnessed to the light sulkies—“gigs” they were called in that locality—were trotting easily about the track. Mr. Gifford was driving Claribel, of course, and Seth Emmons held the reins for the Baker horse. Varunas saw the Townsend span make its showy approach along the road and he alighted from the sulky and came to meet its owner and his companion. Varunas was dressed for the occasion, not in the yellow and black satin which he donned for the ceremonious Cattle Show races, but he was wearing the little satin cap pulled down to his ears and his trousers were fastened tightly about his bowed legs with leather straps. He was swollen with importance and grinning with prospective triumph.

“She’s fine, Cap’n Foster,” he whispered. “Never handled her when she was in better shape. If she don’t peel more’n one extry ten-dollar bill off’n Sam Baker’s roll to-day then I’ll eat her, and I won’t ask for no pepper sass and gravy, neither. Oh, say,” he added; “Cap’n Ben Snow’s goin’ to be judge—says you asked him to—and he wants to talk to you a minute. He’s right over yonder. Shall I go fetch him?”

Townsend climbed down from the seat of the dog-cart. “I’ll go to him,” he said. “Esther, suppose you stay where you are. You can see better up there than you can anywhere else. I’ll be back pretty soon. Here, Josiah,” turning to one of the youthful bystanders, “keep an eye on the team, will you?”

Josiah, evidently flattered by the opportunity to serve royalty, stepped to the heads of the span. Esther, left alone, tried her best to appear unaware that she was the center of interest for all in the vicinity. Varunas hastened back to the track and clambered aboard the sulky.

The interview between Townsend and Captain Snow was apparently a lengthy one. The former did not return “pretty soon” as he had promised. Esther, looking out over the crowd, saw a number of acquaintances, boys of her own age. Some of them nodded, one or two hailed her. There was Tom Doane, who clerked in Kent’s General Store and drove the delivery wagon. The wagon was standing not far away, its horse hitched to a post. Evidently Mr. Kent’s customers would be obliged to wait for their purchases until the race was over. Frank Cahoon was with young Doane. Frank, having finished school, was about to leave Harniss for Boston, where he had a position with a firm of shipping merchants. With them was a third young fellow whom she did not know. The trio were looking at her and apparently considering coming over to speak. Just then, however, her Uncle Millard came bustling up to the dog-cart and she turned her attention to him.

Mr. Clark was ablaze with excitement and importance. He leaned an elbow upon the side of the dog-cart and chatted, quite conscious that people were watching him, and glorying in his place in the sun.

“Well, Esther,” he proclaimed, “this is a great day for us, ain’t it? We’re goin’ to come out all right, you wait and see. Cap’n Foster knows what he’s about and I tell folks so. Some of ’em try to let me think Claribel hasn’t got more than an outside chance, but I laugh at ’em. ‘You leave it to us,’ I tell ’em. ‘We know a thing or two.’ That’s so, too; isn’t it, eh?”

Esther regarded him rather coldly. All of the bystanders were listening, she knew, and some were nudging each other and grinning. She did wish that he would not speak so loudly.

“That’s so, ain’t it?” repeated Mr. Clark.

Esther’s reply was non-committal.

“Perhaps so,” she answered. “I don’t know what you know, Uncle Millard. Has Uncle Foster told you about it? He hasn’t told me anything.”

Some of the grins became laughs. Before Millard could frame a satisfactory reply a voice from the track saved him the trouble by furnishing an excuse for departure.

“They’re gettin’ ready to start,” he announced, hastily. “I must be goin’. I’ll see you and Cap’n Foster after we’ve won. So long.”

He hurried away. Esther heard her name spoken and turned to find that young Doane and Frank Cahoon and their unknown companion had approached from the rear and were standing by the carriage.

“Hello, Esther,” hailed Cahoon. “You’ve got a grandstand seat, haven’t you? How does it seem to be up in the world? Speak to common folks nowadays, do you?”

She colored. This was the sort of thing she had expected from her school friends, but she did not like it any better on that account.

“Don’t be silly, Frank,” she said. “What are you doing down here in Harniss? I thought you were in Boston.”

“Not yet. Start to-morrow. I wasn’t going to miss this horse trot for anybody’s old ships. Bangs and Company will have to wait for me, that’s all.”

She shook her head. “They must be dreadfully disappointed,” she said, solemnly.

Doane burst into a laugh. “I guess that will do you for to-day, Frank,” he crowed. “Oh, Esther, here is a fellow you ought to know—Bob Griffin, from Denboro.”

Bob and Esther shook hands. He was a pleasant-faced young chap, tall, dark-haired and with a pair of brown eyes with a twinkle in them.

“Bob’s come over to see what a real horse looks like,” explained Doane. “They don’t use much of anything but oxen in Denboro. That’s so, isn’t it, Bob?”

Griffin smiled.

“It is all we have had to use so far to beat any of your trotters, Tom,” he retorted. “Perhaps I shall see something different to-day, though. Is your horse going to win?” he asked, addressing the girl.

“It isn’t my horse,” she replied. “It is my uncle’s.”

“I know. I’ve heard a lot about your uncle. Perhaps you’ve heard as much about my grandfather,” he added, with a laugh.

She did not understand. “I don’t know who your grandfather is,” she said. “What do you mean?”

Cahoon’s laugh was loud. “I told you she wouldn’t know, Bob,” he declared. “You’ve heard about the Cook and Townsend lawsuit, haven’t you, Esther? I shouldn’t be surprised if you had. Well, Elisha Cook is Bob’s grandfather. There! Now aren’t you sorry you shook hands with him? Oh, ho! Now she’s scared. Look at her look around for her uncle, Frank.”

Esther had looked, involuntarily, but it ruffled her to know that the look had been noticed. She had heard many times of the great lawsuit, of course—every one had—but she knew almost no particulars concerning it. That Elisha Cook and Foster Townsend had once been partners in business, that they had quarreled, separated and that the suit was the result—so much she knew. And she remembered Millard’s description of a meeting he had witnessed between the litigants. “You ought to have seen the glower old Cook give him,” said Millard. “Looked as if he’d like to stick a knife into him, I declare if he didn’t. And Cap’n Foster never paid any more attention to it than he would to a stick of wood glowerin’. Just brushed past him as if he was wood. Foster was all dressed up and prosperous, same as he always is, but old ’Lisha looked pretty shabby. Don’t blame him much for glowerin’. He knows as well as anybody else that Foster’s got the courts in his pocket.”

Esther remembered this now although she had paid little attention to it at the time. And, at the mention of the Cook name her first thought had been of her uncle and what he might think if he saw her in company with the grandson of his deadly enemy. Before she could answer Bob Griffin spoke.

“I don’t see why we shouldn’t shake hands, Esther,” he said. “We aren’t running any lawsuits of our own, and if you’re as sick of hearing about courts and decisions and lawyers as I am you never will run one. Grandfather doesn’t talk about anything else.... Come on, let’s forget it, I say. Tell me who is going to win this race.”

Just then the preliminary whistle sounded from the track below them. Frank Cahoon shouted in excitement.

“They’re going to start,” he cried. “We can’t see a thing from here. I say, Esther, let us climb up there with you, will you? Cap’n Townsend won’t mind and he isn’t here, anyway. Come on, boys!”

He started to mount to the seat, but Griffin was nearest and blocked the way.

“Wait till you are invited,” he protested. “How about it, Esther? May we?”

She hesitated. “Why—why, yes—I guess so,” she faltered. He did not wait for more, but scrambled to the seat beside her. Frank Cahoon and Tom Doane stood upon the hubs of the wheels and clung to the rail of the dog-cart.

The two trotters—or their drivers—were jockeying for position at the start. Varunas was crouched in the sulky seat, his short legs looking more like barrel hoops than ever as each half-circled one of Claribel’s glistening flanks. His face was puckered until it looked like, so Bob Griffin whispered in Esther’s ear, a last year’s seed potato. Seth Emmons, behind the Baker entry, looked far less anxious. His cap was jauntily askew and he was confidently smiling.

There was no judges’ stand at the Circle and, of course, no bell to signal starts and finishes. A whistle took its place and now it sounded once more. The racers shot by. They were off to a good start at the very first trial—almost a miracle in a trotting race. The crowd set up a shout. Every one pushed and jostled to see better. Esther leaned forward breathlessly. Prior to her arrival at the Circle she had not been greatly interested in the race. Foster Townsend’s penchant for fast horses had been one of the points in his disfavor which her mother had so often stressed. “He will spend a thousand dollars any time on a horse,” Eunice used to say, bitterly, “but he could let his own brother die a pauper.” Reliance, also, had never approved of what she called “horse jockeyin’.” Esther had accompanied her uncle that afternoon because he seemed to wish her to do so, but she had been secretly ashamed of the whole affair. It seemed so “cheap,” so undignified—so, yes, almost immoral. Since their arrival, stared at by every one, the only non-masculine in the whole assemblage, this feeling had deepened. She devoutly wished she had not come. As to who won the match, that was a matter of complete indifference to her—she did not care at all.

Now, all at once, she found herself caring a great deal. She wanted Claribel to win. Her eyes shone, her hands clasped and unclasped, she bent forward to watch the flying sulkies. She was as excited and partisan as the rest.

It was a mile trot, four times around the track. The first round was practically a dead heat. The second almost the same. She grew anxious. So, evidently, did Tom Doane.

“Thunder!” he exclaimed, disgustedly. “That Rattler is doing as well as our horse. Yes, a little better, if anything. What’s the matter with Gifford? Why don’t he whip her up? He’s going to lose the inside place in a minute. Go on, Claribel! Shake her up, Varunas! Give it to her!”

Frank Cahoon was yelling similar advice. Bob Griffin turned impatiently. “Keep your hair on, Tom,” he ordered. “Gifford knows what he’s doing. Watch him. He’s been holding her in every foot of the way so far. Don’t worry,” he whispered in Esther’s ear. “He’ll let her out when the time comes. We’ll beat ’em at the finish.”

Esther was close to tears. “Oh, we must! We must!” she gasped.

“We will.... Hi! there she goes! That’s the stuff! Good girl! Look at her leave him!”

She was leaving him. Varunas had suddenly loosened his grip on the reins. Bending forward until his nose was close to Claribel’s flying tail he was urging her on. His shrill yells could be heard even above the shouts of the crowd.

“Go it, you, Claribel!” he was shrieking. “Lay down to it now! Now they begin to know they’re licked! Hi! hi! hi! Lay down to it, girl!”

The Townsend mare was well to the fore as they shot by at the end of the third turn and swung into the last lap. Rattler’s nose was scarce abreast the wheel of his rival’s sulky. Varunas never stopped yelling for an instant, but as every one else was doing the same thing it was harder to understand what he said. Esther was, although she did not know it, standing up in the dog-cart. Bob Griffin was standing beside her. Josiah Smalley, the youth entrusted with the care of the Townsend span, had forgotten his trust and was jumping up and down in the rear of the crowd.

The trotters passed the other end of the Circle and were swinging into the stretch. The finish was a matter of seconds. And then something happened. What it was Esther did not then know, but that it was serious there was no doubt, for the whole aspect of affairs changed in a flash.

From Claribel’s flank a black strip seemed to burst loose, to shoot into the air, to flap up and down. Her even trot faltered, changed to a jerky gallop. The yells of triumph from the Harniss contingent changed also—to groans, howls of warning, profane exclamations. Rattler was no longer a length behind; he was almost on even terms with the mare.

And then Varunas Gifford proved the stuff of which he was made. By main strength he pulled the frightened animal back into stride again. His whoops of triumph became soothing commands of encouragement. Claribel steadied, crept ahead once more, passed the line a winner—by not much, but a winner, nevertheless.

Esther screamed, clapped her hands and danced in the dog-cart. She was dimly conscious that Bob Griffin was dancing also and patting her on the back. Tom Doane and Frank Cahoon were performing one-legged jigs on the hubs of the wheels. The crowd was wild. And then the Townsend span, who, quite unnoticed had been dancing with the rest, started to run.

Doane and Cahoon fell to the ground, of course. Esther was thrown back to the seat; so was Bob Griffin. The crowd, those of its members standing nearest, scrambled headlong to avoid being hit or run over. The dog-cart bounced and rocked along the road.

It did not travel far. Young Griffin, beyond a startled grunt of surprise when the jerk threw him upon the seat, did not utter a word. He recovered his balance, leaned over the rocking dashboard, seized the trailing reins and, after a short struggle, pulled the horses to a walk and then to a standstill. Another moment and a dozen pair of hands were clutching at the bridles and voices were demanding to know if any one was hurt.

Doane and Cahoon were among the first to reach the carriage. When they learned that no harm had been done their elation at Claribel’s victory overcame all other feelings.

“We licked ’em, didn’t we, Esther,” crowed the exultant Thomas. “By thunder! I thought we were gone when that breeching broke. But we weren’t! Ho, ho! Pretty fair horses we have over here in Harniss; eh, Bob? And pretty good drivers, too!”

Griffin was out of breath, but laughing.

“Good enough!” he admitted. “Of course, I didn’t care who won. If it had been a Denboro horse now—”

Frank Cahoon’s derisive howl cut him short.

“Oh, no!” he shouted. “You didn’t care! Did you see him jumping up and down, Esther? Ho, ho! Say, Bob! What do you suppose your grandfather ’Lisha would have said if he’d seen you rooting for a Foster Townsend horse? Oh, ho! Why—”

He did not finish the sentence. The crowd behind him had parted. Foster Townsend himself was standing at his elbow. The great man was not as calmly dignified as usual. He was out of breath and his expression was one of alarm and anxiety. He pushed young Cahoon aside—as a matter of fact, Frank was only too eager to escape—and came to the side of the dog-cart.

“Are you all right, Esther?” he demanded, sharply. “Not hurt or anything?”

Esther was a little pale, but as much from the excitement of the race as from the short-lived runaway.

“Oh, not a bit, Uncle Foster,” she declared. “Not a bit, truly. I am all right.”

“Sure you are? That’s good. Where is that Smalley boy? I told him to look out for these horses. Where is he?”

Josiah was on his way home and not lingering by the way.

“Who stopped them after they started?” demanded Townsend. Hands and tongues indicated Griffin.

“Humph! I’m much obliged to you. You kept your head, I judge, and that is a lot.... Humph! You aren’t a Harniss boy, are you? What is your name?”

Bob hesitated. Esther supplied the information.

“He is Bob Griffin, Uncle Foster,” she said. “He lives in Denboro.”

There was a stir in the crowd, then a hush. Many of those present knew that Bob Griffin was Elisha Cook’s grandson. This meeting, under such circumstances, was momentous, it was epoch-making—something to be talked about at home, at the post office, everywhere. What would Foster Townsend say when he heard that name?

He said very little. “Griffin?” he repeated. “Oh!... Humph! Yes, yes. Well, my niece and I are much obliged to you.”

Bob, embarrassed, muttered that it was all right, he had not done anything.

“Well, you did it pretty well, from what I hear.... Now, Esther, we’ll go home. You needn’t worry. They won’t run away again, not when I’m at the wheel.... Young man, if you will get down from there, I’ll get up.”

Bob hastily climbed down from the dog-cart. Townsend took his place and the reins. Just then some one shouted his name and he turned. The shouter was Mr. Gifford. His gaudy cap was missing, the perspiration was dripping from his forehead and he was almost incoherent.

“Cap’n Foster!” he panted. “Cap’n Foster! I—I—I declare I don’t know how that britchin’ come to bust that way! It was a brand-new britchin’, too. I never expected nothin’ like that. I swear I was—I was—”

“Never mind. You can tell me about it later. You were lucky it didn’t lose the race.”

“I know it. I know it. But how can you foretell a thing like that? I never—well, when that bust—I—I—thinks I— Now I leave it to anybody—I leave it to you, Esther—you can’t foretell a brand-new britchin’ is goin’ to up and bust on ye, now can ye?”

The rest of his expostulations and excuses were unheard by the pair in the dog-cart. Foster Townsend had chirruped to the span and they were on their way to the mansion.

Esther was prepared for cross-examination by her uncle concerning her meeting with Bob Griffin. He would ask how the latter came to be sitting beside her in the dog-cart, how long she had known him, all sorts of things. He might even forbid her speaking to him when they met again. Her conscience was dear; the meeting had been quite unpremeditated, and, even if it were not—if she and Bob were friends—she saw no reason for behaving other than she had. She meant to say just that. Just because Bob’s grandfather and her uncle had quarreled was no reason why she should refuse to be decently polite to a person with whom she had no disagreement. She was neither a child nor a slave. She had consented to give her uncle a trial, to live with him, but he had not bought her, body and soul. If he did say—

But he did not. He asked questions, of course, but they were about the horses and the whereabouts of Josiah Smalley when they started to run. He seemed to blame himself more than any one else for the accident. His talk with Captain Ben Snow had delayed him, he said, then came the start of the race and he had forgotten everything else—including her.

“I’m glad some one with a cool head was on hand to pick up those reins,” he declared. “It might have been a nasty mess if the team had really got under way. I’m thankful it was no worse. And we, both of us, ought to be grateful to that boy.”

That was his sole reference to the Cook grandson. Esther’s apprehensions were not realized and her ruffled feathers relaxed. The remainder of the conversation was a mutual glorification over the result of the trotting match.

“After all,” he chuckled, as they drove up at the side door, “Varunas had it right when he said they can’t beat us Townsends. Eh, Esther?”

Esther nodded gleefully. “Indeed they can’t, Uncle Foster!” she agreed. She was proud of the name. It was splendid to be a Townsend.

That evening, after she had gone up to bed, the chieftain of the Townsend clan spent several hours in the leather easy-chair thinking and planning. Here was a new and unforeseen complication, one which, he now realized, was certain to be followed by more of the same variety. He should have foreseen it, of course. It was as natural as life, it was what made life. Esther was a pretty, attractive girl. She was bound to attract masculine admiration. As she grew older there would be more of them and the consequent complications were serious. He could not prevent that, therefore he must see to it that her associates were of the right kind. She must have friends—yes; but if he undertook to select some and forbid others there would be trouble. In Harniss the social circle was limited and its boundaries not very clearly defined. If she could be taken away from there, put under careful supervision somewhere else, kept interested in other things, until she was old enough and sufficiently accustomed to the privileges of wealth and station, to judge more clearly—then—humph! But where—and how?

The clock struck twelve and he had reached no satisfactory solution. Whatever was done must be done with diplomacy. The light hand on the rein must continue light for a long time to come. The colt was still a colt—and skittish.

It was the singing teacher who, quite unconsciously, gave him a clue. Mr. Gott came next day, at Townsend’s command, to talk over the matter of Esther’s musical education. He was surprisingly self-abnegating and honestly outspoken.

“I can teach her about so much, Cap’n Townsend,” he said, “but she can go a whole lot farther than that if she has the chance. I’m about as good in my line as anybody in Harniss—yes, or Ostable County—if I do say so, but I don’t claim to be as good as the folks up to Boston. They are paid bigger rates than I am and they can afford to spend more time keeping abreast of their job. If I didn’t have to quit music teaching every little while to help run somebody’s funeral I might get ahead faster. If nobody died—but there! if they didn’t die I would. I’d starve to death if I had to live on what I make learning folks to play piano and sing in this town.”

This frank statement gave Foster Townsend the idea he had been seeking. He wrote to an acquaintance who lived in Boston. This acquaintance was the widow of a former clerk in the office of Cook and Townsend, occupied a small house in the Roxbury district and occasionally “let rooms” or even took a boarder, provided the latter’s credentials were of the best. And this widow was under heavy obligations for financial favors extended by her late husband’s employer. The reply he received was satisfactory. Yes, indeed, the lady would be only too delighted to provide food and shelter for her benefactor’s niece. “If she comes to me I shall look out for her as if she was my own daughter. You may be sure of that.” Townsend’s answer was brief. “I shall expect you to be sure of it,” he wrote.

Then he wrote to the head of the New England Conservatory of Music. When all these preliminaries were settled he took the matter up, not with Esther herself, but with her aunt.

Reliance listened to the plan with evident interest but in silence.

“So there it is,” concluded Townsend. “The girl has got a good voice, so everybody says. So good that it would be a shame not to give it every chance to be better. You can’t do that down here. She can study at the Conservatory and stay with this Carter woman from Monday till Friday. Jane Carter is a good woman, strict and church-going and all that; she comes of a first-class Boston family who stick by her even if she is a poor relation. Humph!” he added, with an amazed grunt, “you’d think Cap’n John Hancock and Commodore Winthrop and the rest of ’em were her brothers and sisters to hear her talk sometimes. She puts up with my fo’castle manners because she has to, but I always feel as if I was King Solomon’s bos’n calling on the Queen of Sheba when I go into that house. Funny, isn’t it?... Well, Esther will be kept in the straight and narrow path while she is there—and there will be nobody but bluebloods allowed in the path with her. And Saturdays and Sundays, of course—and vacations—she will be down here with me—with us. What do you think of the scheme, Reliance?”

Reliance said she thought well of it. “It will be a wonderful thing for Esther,” she declared. “But it will be a little hard for you, I should think. You got her up to your house because you were lonesome. Now you are goin’ to send her somewhere else. What is the matter? Isn’t your first notion workin’ out as well as you expected?”

He jingled the change in his pocket.

“No trouble so far as I’m concerned,” he said. “She’s a good girl and a clever girl and I want her to have every chance that belongs to her. I am thinking of her, not of myself.... Now what are you shaking your head about? Don’t you believe me?”

Reliance smiled.

“It is a little bit hard for me to believe you aren’t thinkin’ of yourself some, Foster,” she said.

“What do you mean by that?” indignantly. “Where do I come in on the deal? Do you suppose I want to get rid of her? She’s mine now and I want her to stay mine. Don’t talk like a fool, woman.”

Miss Clark was still smiling. “The surest way to get anything out of you, Foster,” she observed, “is to stir you up. I learned that long ago.”

“Is that so? Well, what do you think you’ve got out of me now? I’ve told you the truth and nothing else.”

“There, there! I don’t doubt a word you’ve told me. Of course you want Esther to be yours and stay yours. I don’t blame you for that. And the surest and quickest way to bring that around is to put her where there won’t be so many reminders of the times when she was somebody else’s. I should probably do the same thing, if I were you.”

“Look here, Reliance!... Oh, well! what’s the use? I thought you had more sense. You’re jealous, that’s what ails you.”

“Am I? Well, I guess I am, a little.”

“I guess you are, too. If you feel that way why did you tell her to come with me in the first place?”

“I told her to come because I knew she ought to, for her own sake.”

“Yes, and I’m sending her to Boston to study music for the same reason. If you think I’m sending her off, making myself a darned sight lonesomer than I was before, because I want to get her out of your way you’re flattering yourself.”

“Then whose way are you getting her out of?... Well, well, never mind! I think it’s a fine opportunity for Esther. She ought to go, and I shall tell her she must. That is what you came here to ask me to do, of course.”

He was having his own way once more and his good humor returned.

“That is settled then,” he said. “I’m much obliged to you, Reliance. You can generally be counted on to see a light—after you’ve had the fun of arguing that there isn’t any to see. You and I will have to keep each other company while the girl’s away. When I get too lonesome I shall be dropping in here to pick a fight with you. There will always be one waiting to be picked, I can see that. You and Millard better come up to dinner again next Sunday. Esther likes to have you.”

That evening he told his niece of the great plan. He was prepared for objections but there were none worth mentioning. Esther was too dazzled by the brilliant picture and its possibilities to remember that it meant leaving her new home and Harniss and her Aunt Reliance. Her uncle dwelt upon the future and its marvelous promise of a career.

“If what all hands say about your voice is true,” he declared, “you can climb high, Esther. We’ll start you there at the Conservatory and, when you’ve learned all they can teach you, we’ll go somewhere else where you can learn more. I understand that Paris is the place where they teach the top-notchers. All right; I’ve never been to Paris. I’ve been to Havre and Marseilles and those ports, of course, but Paris was a little too expensive a side trip for a second mate. We’ll go there together, two or three years from now—oh, yes, we will! And maybe some other places before then—on your summer vacations, you know. I haven’t been to San Francisco since I was twenty-two. We’ll go out there—maybe next summer—just to get me used to cruising again. What do you say to that?”

She was too overcome to say much. And during the remainder of the week he took pains to keep new pictures constantly before her eyes. On Sunday, when, after dinner, she bade farewell to her aunt, there was a temporary let down in her high spirits, but Reliance refused to consider the parting in the least a serious matter.

“Why, you’ll be here every Saturday and Sunday, dearie,” she said. “And all summer. You and I will see each other almost as often as we do now. Don’t let your Uncle Foster see you cryin’. Goodness knows there is nothin’ to cry about!”

Monday morning she and Townsend took the early train for Boston. He went with her to the Carter house and Esther liked its white-haired, soft-voiced proprietor at first sight. The next “port of call”—as her uncle termed it—was the Conservatory. She was thrilled by that. Then followed a marvelous shopping tour, piloted by Mrs. Carter, with purchases of gowns and hats and shoes—all sorts of necessities and luxuries. Townsend returned to Harniss on the evening train. His good-by was brief and gruffly spoken, but Esther had a feeling that he was as loath to leave her as she was, just then, to be left. He cleared his throat, started to speak, cleared his throat again and then laid his big hand on her shoulder.

“Be a good girl,” he said. “Work hard and make us proud of you. I’ll be at the depot Saturday noon to meet you.... Humph! Well, I guess that’s all. Good-by.”

He strode off down the street. She turned back into the house, feeling like a marooned sailor upon a desert island, with the ship which had left her there disappearing below the horizon. All her resolution was needed to prevent her running after him and begging to be taken home again. If she had it is by no means certain that he would not have done it. The library, which had begun to seem almost a pleasant place again, would now be lonelier than ever. Saturday looked a long way off.

All that winter she studied hard, making progress, earning praise from her teachers and learning to use her really pleasing voice to better advantage. She soon grew accustomed to the new life and to enjoy it. She made new friends, young friends, and Jane Carter was careful that they should be, as Foster Townsend had especially directed, “of the right kind.” Each week-end she spent at home in the big house at Harniss. Usually, although not always, Miss Clark and Millard took Sunday dinner there. When, in June, the term ended she came back to be greeted with the news that she and her uncle were really going to California. The tickets had been purchased and they were to start in a few days.

That was a glorious summer, spent amid scenes which turned to realities the pictures in the geographies and books of travel. Foster Townsend was a very satisfactory traveling companion. She had but to mention a wish to visit some new locality and her wish was granted. She had learned to like him long before, now she loved him. As for him, he was happier than he had been for years. He never would have admitted it, but this charming, talented niece of his was now his sincerest, his chief interest. Even the great lawsuit, dragging its eternal length along between one set of lawyers who prodded it on to the Supreme Court and another set who held it back, was secondary. When in his native town he was, of course, still active in politics and local affairs, but Varunas complained that the beloved trotters were neglected more than they ought to be.

“About all the old man lives for nowadays,” vowed Mr. Gifford, “is Saturdays and Sundays. He’s either talkin’ about what happened last Sunday or what’s goin’ to happen next Sunday. I told him—last Tuesday, ’twas—that Claribel acted to me as if she’d strained her off foreleg. What do you cal’late he said? ‘Hum!’ says he, ‘did I tell you what the head of the Conservatory said last time I was up there? Said she had as promisin’ a suppranner as he’d heard since he commenced teachin’.’ What do you think of that for Foster Townsend to say when he had a lame mare on his hands? A year ago and he’d have cussed me from keel to main truck for lettin’ the mare get that way. Now if she’d broke her neck he wouldn’t have cared so long as Esther’s suppranner wan’t cracked. Well, she is a smart girl, but she can’t do 2.18 around a mile track. Bah!”

The second winter in Boston was more wonderful than the first. Esther was becoming accustomed to being a rich young woman and the perquisites of such a position. The city friends were agreeable, occasional evenings at concerts, the theater and even the opera less of a marvelous novelty than at first, although not less enjoyable. She enjoyed the week-ends at Harniss also, but she no longer looked forward to them as oases in a desert of homesickness. She saw her Aunt Reliance and Millard less frequently, not from design, but because her Uncle Foster had always so many plans for those week-ends that she had scarce time to run down to the cottage or the millinery shop. She was less eager to hear the village gossip, less interested in the doings of the townspeople. She heard scraps of it occasionally, of course. Frank Cahoon was at home again, the Boston firm of shipping merchants having decided to risk continuing in business without his valuable aid. Once Millard happened to mention the incident of the runaway and it reminded him of young Griffin.

“He’s gone to New York to study paintin’, I understand,” said Mr. Clark. “Not house paintin’—no, no, he could learn that just as well or better in Denboro. He’s set on paintin’ pictures, so a Denboro feller told me. Old ’Lisha Cook, his grand-dad, was down on the notion, says he never saw a picture yet that was worth the nail to hang it on, nor a picture painter that was fit for much but hangin’. He wanted Bob to stick to college—he was up to Yale, or some such place. However, the boy had some money of his own—left him by his father’s folks, they say—so ’Lisha didn’t feel he could stand in the way of his spendin’ it even on craziness. ‘Let him daub till he daubs away his last dollar,’ says the old man. ‘Then maybe he’ll be willin’ to go to work at somethin’ sensible.’”

The mention of her rescuer’s name caused Esther a momentary thrill of interest. For a month or two after the eventful afternoon of the horse trot she had thought of Bob Griffin a good deal. He was a good-looking youth and he had—well, perhaps not saved her life, exactly, like the hero of a story—but his handling of the runaway span had been almost, if not quite, heroic. At any rate it was the nearest thing to heroism she had known. There was a romantic tinge to the whole affair which was pleasing to remember and she had remembered it for a time. Of late, however, there had been other near romances. There was a young fellow at the Conservatory who was nice—very nice; and still another who would have called if Mrs. Carter had permitted masculine callers. Bob’s romance was a thing of the distant past. It happened when she was a girl in the country. Now she was a city young lady with, or so every one prophesied, a career before her. It interested her to know that Bob Griffin was also seeking a career, but the interest was vague and casual.

Foster Townsend was, by this time, entirely satisfied with his handling of the skittish colt. She was well on the way to becoming the stylish and properly paced animal he had set out to make her. It gratified him to notice that she now turned to him for advice and guidance more than to Reliance Clark. He had announced his intention of making her his entirely. He had done it. Life was worth while, after all. If Arabella did know what was going on in this mortal world he was sure she must approve. The inevitable male was always in the offing, of course. Some day the right man would appear. The certainty no longer worried him. Now, he felt sure, Esther would not presume to choose that man without his help. She was high-spirited still and required careful handling, but she was “trotting in harness” and he held the reins.

CHAPTER VI

ESTHER’S second term at the Conservatory ended in June and she came to Harniss for her long vacation. There was to be no traveling this summer. The visit to Paris concerning which she and her uncle had talked so often and which he still declared they should have some day was postponed.

“When we go over there,” Foster Townsend said, “I don’t want to be bothered with time. You are going to study your singing, you know, and you may have to stay a year—yes, or longer. If we went just now those lawyers of mine might be sending for me and I should have to come back and bring you with me. Couldn’t leave you alone over there among all those jabbering Frenchmen, could I? I guess not! Let me get this everlasting lawsuit off my hands and we’ll go in comfort. Confound the thing! I’m getting sick of it. I wish I had bought off Cook in the beginning. I could have done it then, I guess, and saved money.”

She laughed at him. “You know you wouldn’t have bought him off for worlds,” she declared.

“Eh? Well no, maybe I wouldn’t. The Supreme Court will step on his toes, if the case ever gets before it. Now it looks as if it might get there, but when the Lord only knows. Maybe in six months, maybe not for two years. They are in no hurry down in Washington; everybody on that Court is a hundred years old, more or less. What is a year or so to a gang like that? Well, possess your soul in patience, girlie. You and I will make Paris yet, if we don’t die of old age first.”

She was, by this time, fairly well acquainted with the basic details of the famous suit, although there was a great deal which she—and most others except the lawyers—did not understand. Elisha Cook and Foster Townsend had once been partners in the shipping and ship-outfitting business, with offices in Boston and in a Connecticut city. The firm was prosperous. Cook, she gathered, was conservative—a fussy old woman, her uncle had called him. He it was who conducted the Connecticut office; he was, at the time, a legal resident of that state.

Foster Townsend was his exact opposite in character and temperament. He was keen, sharp and inclined to plunge, when, in his opinion, the opportunities for plunging presented themselves. Again and again, so he told his niece, Cook refused to profit by these opportunities and the partners lost thousands which they might easily have gained. In consequence there were increasing disagreements. The “square-rigged” shipping business was falling off. The Civil War hit it a hard blow and, although it recovered in a measure from that blow, there were new obstacles in its path—steam and foreign competition—which, so Townsend believed, would kill it eventually. He advocated other ventures—real estate, for example. Fortunes were being made in Boston land, land in immediate proximity to the city. Townsend, on his own initiative, secured options on a large quantity of that land. Cook, the senior partner, flatly refused his consent to the firm’s taking up those options. The long series of slighter disagreements culminated in this important one. After more wrangling and dispute it was decided to dissolve the partnership, although the terms of dissolution were not actually agreed upon.

Then Cook was taken ill, an illness which lasted for months. During that illness Townsend went ahead, borrowed money, secured the land and held it. He obtained more capital and plunged still deeper. When Cook recovered sufficiently to attend in the least to business matters, the firm of Cook and Townsend ceased to exist. Elisha Cook took over the Connecticut branch, which was the “outfitting” end of the business and was allotted sufficient money and securities to give him a comfortable, if not large, independence. Foster Townsend was left with options, mortgages, debts—and the chance of a fortune.

He won the fortune. He became a rich man and, after a time, retired and came to Harniss to settle down as its leading citizen. Cook, who also had retired, returned to Denboro, Massachusetts, his native village, to spend the remainder of his life.

But before this the legal complications had begun. They were far too involved and technical for Esther’s complete comprehension. Cook claimed his share of the profits from the land deals. There were many questions to be decided. Whose money secured the first options? Was it Townsend alone or Cook and Townsend, who carried on the immensely profitable deals which followed the first one? The determination of the date of dissolution of partnership entered into the affair. Mr. Cook had done something which was called “obtaining service” upon his former partner in a Connecticut court. Townsend, in explaining to his niece, talked of a “bill of equity,” whatever that might be. Townsend contested this “service” and then, when his motion was denied, appealed to a higher court. This appeal also was denied. Then Cook sued, on the Connecticut judgment, in a Massachusetts court. After that Esther lost count. The Massachusetts court did something or other which favored her uncle. Then Mr. Cook went at it again and in a new way. There were appeals and denials and things called “writs of error.” For year after year, the historic Cook-Townsend suit crawled along, until at last it was to receive a final decision by the highest tribunal in the land, when that tribunal should give it place upon its crowded calendar. Its cost so far had been enormous. How Elisha Cook could afford to carry it on had always been a question. The inference was that his attorneys were gambling with him. If he won they would win. Foster Townsend could afford to pay his lawyers—yes. But he, nor few others, could afford to lose the huge sum claimed and fought for by his opponents.

No one in Harniss believed Cook would win. Their faith in the Townsend star never faltered. He always had his own way in everything; he would have it here. And his own serene confidence bolstered theirs. He laughed at the idea of failure. He had laughed always when he referred to the case on the few occasions when he and his niece discussed it. Of late, however, it had seemed to her, that his laugh was not quite as genuine and carefree. She gathered that the granting to the Cook forces of the appeal to the Supreme Court had been most unexpected. He was still serenely confident, or professed to be, but she knew he was disappointed. When he declared himself sick of the whole thing and expressed the wish that he had settled with his former partner in the beginning, she laughed and refused to take the statement seriously; but she was surprised to hear him say it.

She forgot the whole affair very quickly, having, for her, much more interesting matters to occupy her mind. She soon forgot her own disappointment at the postponement of the Paris trip. The summer season in Harniss was beginning and, although it was far from the gay activity of a summer season in that village nowadays, it was lively and interesting. The sojourners from the cities were filling Mrs. Cooper’s fashionable boarding house and the few cottages were opening. It was the Reverend Mr. Colton’s harvest time. His congregations were larger with each succeeding Sunday and the collections larger also. He consulted with his summer parishioners as to the means of raising additional funds for the First Church and it was decided to give an “Old Folks’ Concert.” He came to see Foster Townsend about it, of course. The great man was not too enthusiastic at first.

“Foolishness,” he declared, gruffly. “If I ran my business affairs the way you church people run yours you’d be for having me shut up in an asylum, and I ought to be. You had a fair last winter—just as you have every winter. What did it amount to? All the women worked like blazes making things, or spent money buying things somewhere else, to be sold at that fair. Then every husband came and bought the things the other fellows’ wives had made or donated. That’s all there was to that.”

The minister ventured to protest.

“But, Captain Townsend,” he pleaded, “we made over a hundred dollars at that fair. You have forgotten that.”

“I’ve forgotten nothing. You didn’t really make a cent. All you did was to swap that hundred dollars from one hand to the other.”

The interview took place in the Townsend stables and Mr. Gifford was an interested listener. As a free-born citizen of a democracy he spoke his mind.

“You’re dead right, Cap’n Foster,” he declared. “That’s just what I tell Nabby. Afore that fair last winter she set up night after night makin’ a crazy quilt. Spent four or five dollars for this, that and t’other to make it out of, to say nothin’ of usin’ up my best Sunday necktie and bustin’ a three-dollar pair of spectacles and gettin’ so cranky I didn’t hardly dast to come into the house mealtimes. And when the fair came off ’Rastus Doane bought that quilt for five dollars—not ’cause he needed it; they’ve got more quilts than they have beds twice over—but because he knew he’d be expected to buy somethin’. And I paid two dollars for a doll his wife had worked herself sick dressin’ and that Nabby give me the divil for buyin’. ‘What do you want of a doll?’ says she. ‘You ain’t got any children. What did you waste your money like that for?’ ‘I had to waste it somehow, didn’t I?’ I told her. ‘That’s what a church fair’s for,’ says I, ‘to waste money. I laid out two dollars to waste and I wasted it quick as I could. After that I could say no to all the rest of the gang and have a pretty good time.’”

Townsend chuckled. “There’s your answer, Colton,” he said. “Let your Old Folks’ singing school, or whatever it is, slide. Go around amongst the congregation and the summer crowd and collect two dollars apiece. You’ll have just as much money in the end and no worry or work or hard feelings. Here! here’s my two dollars to begin with.”

Mr. Colton was not satisfied with this lesson in common-sense finance. He smiled deprecatingly, and shook his head.

“Every one isn’t as generous—or practical—as you are, Captain Townsend,” he said. “Of course if you are against having the concert it won’t be given, but the other people, those I have talked with, are very enthusiastic about it. Particularly the summer visitors, the younger element. They will enjoy taking part. Your niece, Esther, is as eager as the others. We had intended to ask her to be our principal soloist. Every one knows of her charming voice, but very few have had the privilege of hearing her sing. I have mentioned the idea to her and she—”

Townsend interrupted. “Oh, Esther is for it, is she?” he observed. “Humph! Well, if that is so I don’t know as I shall stand in the way. It is all foolishness, of course, but— So they want to hear her sing, do they?”

“Indeed they do. The summer people—the very best people—particularly. Your niece has made a great hit with them, Captain Townsend. They have already taken her to their hearts, as the saying goes.”

“Oh, they have, have they? Well, she won’t give ’em heart disease, I guess. I haven’t seen one of their girls yet who is fit to tread the same deck with her.”

There was a hint of tartness in the speech which the reverend gentleman noticed, but thought it best to ignore.

“They like her—and admire her—very much indeed,” he insisted, eagerly. “Why, Mrs. Wheeler—you know the Wheelers, Captain; New Haven people, Professor Wheeler is at Yale—Mrs. Wheeler herself told me only yesterday that she and her daughter had become so fond of Esther. They felt already as if she was one of their own.”

“She did, eh? Well, she isn’t theirs, she is mine.... All right, all right! Have your concert, if you want to. As for Esther’s singing in it, that is for her to settle.”

Varunas furnished the last word.

“If she does sing she’ll make the rest of ’em sound like crows a-hollerin’,” he announced. “Every time Esther starts singin’ in that front parlor of ours even Nabby stops talkin’ to listen. And it takes some singin’ to fetch that around, now, I tell ye.”

So the preparations for the concert went on. The rehearsals were few and Esther enjoyed them. At the meeting, when the question of costumes was brought up for discussion, she was not present, having driven with her uncle to Ostable. But the following day—Sunday—when she stopped in at the cottage for a chat with her Aunt Reliance, she learned an item of news which surprised her.

She had not seen Reliance at all during the week just past. As a matter of fact they did not see each other as frequently nowadays. There was no apparent reason for this—at least Esther could have given none. She would have fiercely resented the insinuation that her love for her aunt was not as deep and sincere as it had always been. Nevertheless—and Reliance was quite aware of it—during her second winter away from Harniss, when she returned for her week-end stays, she no longer hurried down to the Clark house the moment Saturday’s dinner was over. She came Sunday, provided the Clarks were not dining at the mansion, but her calls were shorter and she had always so many other things to do, so many new interests to occupy her time and her thoughts, that the conversation was likely to be confined to these topics. The heart-to-heart talks and intimate confidences and confessions were much rarer.

Reliance noticed the change, of course, but she did not refer to it, nor hint at the heartache which, at times, she could not help feeling. It was what she had foreseen, had known must be the inevitable result of the complete change in the girl’s life. Esther had learned to love and trust her uncle, had become accustomed to wealth and what it gave her, had made new, and quite different friends, was now well on her way to the brilliant future Foster Townsend had planned for her. It was a natural development, that was all. Reliance fully realized this, had recognized it when they parted two years before. And not for worlds would she drop a word which might cause her niece unhappiness or a twinge of conscience. It was only when she was alone—or with Millard, which amounted to the same thing—that she occasionally permitted her thoughts to dwell upon the certainty that the widening gap between Esther and herself would widen more and more as the years passed.

So when the young lady breezed into the little sitting-room that Sunday afternoon, expensively and becomingly gowned, her cheeks aglow and her eyes shining with excitement in prospect of her part in the concert and the praise which—to quote the Reverend Colton—“the best people” had already accorded her singing at the rehearsals, Reliance met her with the usual sunny smile and cheerful every day greeting. They talked of the gratifying sale of tickets—almost everybody in town was going, so Miss Clark said—and then the question of a suitable costume came up.

“What do you think I had better wear, Auntie?” asked Esther. “Would you hire a costume in the city, if you were I? Mrs. Carter would pick one out for me, I know, if I wrote her. Or would it be better to use some of Grandmother Townsend’s things—those she wore when she was a girl? There is a lovely old figured silk in one of the chests in the garret. It doesn’t fit me very well, but it could be made to fit with a little alteration. I thought perhaps you and Abbie would help me make it over, if I decided to wear it. Will you?”

Reliance nodded. “Of course,” she agreed. “I must say I like the idea of usin’ real old things that belonged to real old-time folks better than I do hirin’ new make-believes. I’ve been in Old Folks’ Concerts myself. Oh, yes, I have! There was a time when I used to like to dress up and show off as well as the next one. Dear, dear! Why, I remember one Old Folks’ Concert when I wore my own grandmother’s gown, one she had made as a part of her weddin’ outfit. It was a pretty thing, too, and I looked well in it, at least, so they all said. Your uncle took me up to the hall that night in a buggy he hired at the old livery stable that Elkanah Hammond kept. He wore buff knee breeches and white silk stockings and—”

Esther broke in. “Who did?” she cried, incredulously. “Not—not Uncle Foster?”

“Yes. And his coat was blue, with brass buttons. He— Now what are you laughin’ at?”

Esther had burst into a peal of delighted laughter.

“Oh, it sounds too funny to be true!” she exclaimed. “Imagine Uncle Foster wearing things like that!”

“He looked well in ’em.... But there! that was—oh, twenty-four years ago. You ask him if he remembers it and see what he says. Now about what you shall wear next week. Why don’t you ask Mr. Griffin’s advice? I understand he is goin’ to have charge of that part—the costumes, I mean.”

Esther stared in surprise.

“Who?” she cried. “Mr. Griffin? Who is Mr. Griffin, for goodness’ sake?”

“Why, young Bob Griffin, from Denboro. Elisha Cook’s grandson. You know who he is. You ought to. He stopped you from bein’ run away with at that horse trot two years ago. Didn’t you know they had given him charge of all the dressin’ up?”

Esther did not know it and she demanded particulars. Her aunt supplied them.

“It was decided at the committee meetin’ they had yesterday afternoon,” she said. “You were over in Ostable, weren’t you; I forgot that. It seems there was a great pow wow, some wanted to wear one kind of thing and some another and then Mrs. Wheeler, the one that has the summer place on the Shore Road, she came marchin’ in with Bob Griffin under one arm, as you might say, and a great idea under the other. She knew Bob—I guess her daughter met him in New York or New Haven or somewhere—and she—or the daughter—had remembered that he was an artist and would know all about what she called ‘period dress.’ Accordin’ to what I heard he wasn’t so sure about his wisdom as she was, by a good deal, but he agreed to help if they wanted him to. The older folks hadn’t much objection and all the girls were crazy about it, so he was made superintendent of what to wear. He is to be at the next rehearsal, whenever that is.”

She paused and Esther nodded.

“To-morrow evening,” she said, “in the church vestry.”

“Well, wherever it is he’ll be there and you can ask him what he thinks of Tabitha Townsend’s dress. Yes, Tabby was the name she had to answer to, poor soul; my own grandmother used to tell me a lot about her.”

Esther left the Clark cottage with the same old little thrill of interest she had felt when Millard had mentioned Bob’s name months before. Now the thrill was a trifle keener, for she was to meet him again. She was not greatly stirred by the prospect; nevertheless it was rather attractive. She found herself thinking about him a good deal in the interval before the rehearsal, wondering if he had changed as greatly as she had, in—oh, so many ways, and if he was succeeding as well with his painting as she with her music. Also she wondered if he had forgotten her. Not that it made any difference, of course, whether he had or not.

Her speculations on that score were quickly settled. She was already in the vestry when he entered, chaperoned by Mrs. Wheeler and favored with the giggling confidences of Marjorie, the Wheeler daughter. Mrs. Wheeler beamed upon the assembly.

“Well, here we are,” she announced. “Mr. Griffin informs me that he has given a great deal of thought to the dresses and—er—all that sort of thing, you know, and he has brought over several books of costumes for us to look at. I only hope he realizes how very kind we consider it of him. You have all met him, haven’t you? You know every one here, don’t you, Mr. Griffin?”

Bob smiled assent.

“I think I have that pleasure,” he replied. “I—” Then he paused. Esther, herself a trifle late at the rehearsal, had taken a seat upon one of the rear settees. His eye had caught hers and remained fixed.

Mrs. Wheeler noticed the look.

“Oh!” she cried. “I did forget, after all, didn’t I? There is one you haven’t met. You weren’t here Saturday, were you, Esther? Bob—”

But Bob had not waited for the formal presentation. He was on his way to that rear settee. He held out his hand and Esther took it.

“It is all right, Mrs. Wheeler,” she explained. “Mr. Griffin and I have met before.” To Bob she said: “I wondered if you would remember me.”

She was a trifle confused, for she was quite conscious that every one was looking at them. Griffin, if he was aware of the look, did not appear to mind it in the least. His evident delight at the meeting was plain for all to see.

“Remember?” he repeated. “I should think I did! I was hoping you might be here to-day. Mrs. Wheeler told me you were going to sing at the Concert. I have heard a lot about you, you know. They tell me you are the Patti of the affair.”

She laughed and blushed. She wished he would not look at her so intently. The unconcealed surprise and admiration in his look might be flattering, perhaps, but were undoubtedly embarrassing. She withdrew her hand from his and tried to appear unconcerned and dignified.

“Oh, hardly that,” she said, lightly. “I am going to take part, just as the others are. You are to select our costumes, for us, aren’t you?”

“They have dragged me into it. They will be sorry by and by, and I tell them so.... Yes, Mrs. Wheeler, I’m coming. I was just telling Miss Townsend that every one speaks of her as the star of the show. She doesn’t seem to believe it, but it is so, isn’t it?”

Mrs. Wheeler had bustled after him and was standing at his elbow. Her reply was a trifle curt, so Esther thought.

“Oh, yes, yes! Quite so,” she said. “Miss Townsend is our brightest luminary, of course. Now, Bob, if you are ready to discuss the costumes, we are.... Mr. Griffin is almost like one of the family,” she explained to the girl in an audible aside. “We have seen so much of him at New Haven and in New York. Marjorie and he are great friends.”

Marjorie was the Wheeler daughter. Esther did not like her too well. She had a way of saying mean little things in the sweetest possible manner.

The discussion concerning the costumes was very informal. Griffin exhibited his books of colored plates and offered suggestions.

“As a matter of fact,” he said, in conclusion, “I think the more genuine old things you can wear the better. Unless this town is different from Denboro there must be a lot of tip top old gowns and swallow-tails hidden away in camphor. So long as we don’t exhibit Henry the Eighth on the same platform with General Scott we should make a presentable showing, I should say. Stick to the period between the Declaration of Independence and the Mexican War, that would be my idea.”

The rehearsal followed the discussion. Esther sang her two solos and received her usual dole of compliments, whole-hearted or perfunctory according to the measure of envy in the make-up of the complimenters. When the gathering broke up she rather expected, and to a certain extent dreaded, that Bob Griffin would seek her out and continue their conversation. She would have enjoyed talking with him, but their talk would certainly provoke so much more talk throughout the length and breadth of Harniss that she shrank from the prospect. She was relieved, when she emerged from the vestry, to find him nowhere in sight. Marjorie Wheeler had exercised peremptory claim upon his company, she imagined.

Varunas, driving the span, had brought her to the rehearsal, but she had insisted that she be allowed to walk home. It bade fair to be a beautiful afternoon and early evening, she needed the exercise and would prefer it. Now, however, as she came down the church steps, she was aware that the sky was rapidly being obscured by dark clouds and she could hear the rumble of thunder in the west. She looked about, hoping that her uncle might have noticed the approaching storm and sent Mr. Gifford and the carriage, after all. Apparently he had not, so she started to walk briskly along the sidewalk. She had walked but a little way when a splash of rain fell upon the crown of her new and expensive hat. She fancied that hat, also the new gown she was wearing. Again she paused and looked impatiently up the road for Varunas and the span. They were not visible.

Then she heard her name called and, turning back, saw a masculine form with an umbrella running in her direction. When this person came nearer she recognized him as Bob Griffin. He was out of breath, but cheerful.

“Just caught you in time, didn’t I?” he panted. “I looked around for you when that chatter-mill shut down—the rehearsal, I mean—but Sister Wheeler had me under her wing and I couldn’t get away in a hurry. When I did you had gone. I found this umbrella in the entry. I don’t know whose it is, but it is ours now. Hope the real owner doesn’t get too wet.”

He grinned broadly and lifted the commandeered umbrella over the new hat.

“Now we must move,” he went on. “It is going to rain like blazes. This is what my grand-dad would call a ‘tempest.’”

She took his arm and, partially sheltered by the umbrella, they hurried along the sidewalk. She imagined that eager eyes were watching them from each window they passed, but it was no time for finicky objections. The rain was pouring now and continued to increasingly pour. Her feet were growing damp, so were her skirts. Suddenly her escort stopped.

“Wait!” he ordered. “Great Scott! this isn’t a shower, it’s a flood. We must get under cover somewhere and wait till it lets up. You mustn’t drown—not until after that concert, anyhow. They would hang me if you did. Here! this will do. I don’t know who lives here, but they won’t put us out, I guess. Come!”

He led her in through a gate in a picket fence and they hurried up a weed-grown walk to a rickety front porch. Bob folded the umbrella and turned to the door. There was a glass-knobbed bell-pull at the side of the door and, before she could stop him, he had given it a tug.

“What are you doing that for?” she asked. “This house is empty. No one has lived in it for ever so long.”

He whistled. “You don’t mean it!” he exclaimed. “Why didn’t you tell me? Well, we’ll go on to the next one then.”

A vivid flash of lightning, almost instantly followed by a thunder peal which caused the windows in the old house to rattle, prevented her reply. The rain seemed to drop from the sky in sheets. It roared upon the shingled roof of the porch. She caught his arm.

“We can’t go out in this,” she said, nervously. “We must stay where we are—and wait.”

He nodded. “I guess you are right,” he agreed. “Heavens! what a deluge. It will ease up in a minute. Then we can go on.”

It did not ease up, however. Instead, it rained harder than ever. The porch roof began to leak and he raised the umbrella once more. She was obliged to stand close beside him to avoid the drip. It grew dark and the lightning flashes seemed more vivid in consequence. He felt her shiver.

“Not frightened, are you?” he asked.

“No-o, I guess not. But I don’t like it very well. Talk, please. Just— Oh, just say something to keep me from thinking about it.”

He laughed. “Good idea,” he declared. “What shall we talk about? Tell me what you have been doing up there in Boston.”

She told him about her studies at the Conservatory, about Mrs. Carter, about the California trip, of the wonderful happenings of the past two years. He asked questions and she answered them. The lightning and thunder punctuated her narrative and the rain on the roof furnished a steady roar of accompaniment.

“There!” she exclaimed, after a time. “I have said every word I can think of. Now tell me about your painting. You have been studying too. Some one—Uncle Millard, I think—told me you had.”

He shook his head. “I’ve been studying—yes,” he admitted. “I haven’t been climbing ahead the way you have, though. And I haven’t had your encouragement at home. When I told grandfather I had made up my mind to paint pictures for a living I thought he was going to have a fit. He has a relapse every once in a while even yet. I should have done it, though—or tried to do it—if he had ordered me out of the house. It was paint or nothing for me. I had rather do it than eat—and I like to eat pretty well,” he added, with another laugh.

His laugh was infectious. Esther laughed, too. “I must say I think your grandfather is very unreasonable,” she declared, with a return to seriousness. “Why shouldn’t you paint, if you want to—and can? It is a wonderful thing to be an artist.”

“So they say. I am far from being one yet, so I can’t speak from experience. Oh, well! I don’t blame the old gentleman for making a row. He doesn’t know. About the only painter he ever had any experience with was the chap who did grandmother’s portrait. That portrait is enough to sour anybody on the whole profession. Grandfather is a good fellow. I’m strong for him.”

She glanced at him in surprise. The few references she had heard made to Elisha Cook—Foster Townsend had made them—were far from classifying him as a “good fellow.”

“Is he!” she exclaimed, involuntarily. “Why, I thought—”

She paused. He nodded.

“You bet he is!” he vowed. “He has been mighty good to me and to lots of others. He doesn’t understand, that’s all. You are lucky, Esther. Your uncle does understand, or seems to. He was willing for you to go on with your singing.”

Her agreement was but partial. “Ye-s,” she said. “Yes, he does understand, in a way. He likes to hear me sing and he helps me to study because it pleases me to do it, you know. Why, the other day I said something about how marvelous it must be to sing in opera. I wish you could have heard him. The things he said about opera and those who sing in it were—well, they were what Nabby Gifford would have called ‘blasphemious.’”

Bob laughed at the word, but he was too much in earnest to laugh long.

“There you are!” he exclaimed. “That’s it. They don’t understand, either of them. They are like all old people, they belong back in another generation.” He spoke as if Elisha Cook and Foster Townsend were nonogenarians. “Granddad—yes, and your uncle, too, I suppose,” he went on, “were brought up to think that nothing counted but business, buying and selling and getting ahead of the other fellow in a trade, all that sort of stuff. Art and music and—and the rest of it they don’t see at all. Well, I do. I don’t want to be a business man. I want to paint. And I am going to paint. I’ll never be a Rembrandt maybe, but I am making a little progress, so my teachers say, and I’m going to stick at it. Some of these days I shall go to Paris, where the big fellows are. That’s the place—Paris!”

She gasped with excitement.

“Oh!” she cried. “Are you going to Paris? I am going there, myself, sometime, to study.”

“You are! Bully! We can see each other over there, can’t we?”

She seemed doubtful. “I don’t know about that,” she said. “My uncle is going to take me there and he—well, I don’t imagine he would be delighted to have you coming to call. You and I belong to—well, to opposite camps, I guess.... I suppose,” she added, thoughtfully, “if he knew you and I were here together now, this minute, he wouldn’t like it a bit. Probably your grandfather wouldn’t be any better pleased.”

Bob snorted. “Foolishness!” he declared. “That confounded lawsuit is a nuisance. I’m not going to let it chain me, hand and foot. Why should it? Or you, either? If we want to see each other and talk to each other like—well, like this—I say let’s do it. We aren’t old fossils and we aren’t kids either. I told grand-dad so. He isn’t going to send me to Paris, though,” he added, with a chuckle. “Perhaps he might if I had kept at him—he will do almost anything for me when it comes to the pinch—but he doesn’t have to. I have a little money of my own, it comes to me from my mother’s people. I can spend that as I please and I am spending it on my art studies. If you and I should be in Paris at the same time, we will meet over there. I’ll see that we do. Come now, Esther! Say that you’ll see to it, too. Come! let’s promise.”

She did not promise. She was still thinking of the feud between the families. Her conscience was troubling her a little.

“Your grandfather—Mr. Cook—wouldn’t like to have you know me, would he?” she insisted. “Honestly, now?”

“Well—well, perhaps he wouldn’t. But—”

“And my uncle wouldn’t like it at all. Uncle Foster has been so kind to me that—why, I can’t begin to tell you how kind he has been. He is the best man in the world.”

“Oh, say! Look here! He isn’t any better than my grandfather.”

“Bob Griffin! How can you say that?”

“But it is so. They are both good men, I guess. But they had a fight and now they have been fighting so long they think all the rest of creation must fight on one side or the other. We don’t have to fight, you and I, just because they do.”

“But Mr. Cook shouldn’t have brought that suit. He was all wrong and it was wicked of him, Uncle Foster says—”

“Now just a minute. You ought to hear what Grandfather says.... Humph! I guess there are two sides to that suit, just as there are to most fights. You haven’t heard but one side, have you?”

It was true, she had not, and she was obliged to admit it.

“No-o,” she confessed, “I suppose I haven’t. But you haven’t, either.”

His laugh was so unaffected and good-humored that, once more, hers joined it.

“I guess you are right there,” he agreed. “Well, let’s do this: Sometime you tell me your side—your uncle’s side, I mean—and then I’ll tell Grandfather’s. We can have a real court argument. And until then we’ll forget the darned thing. And we’re going to see each other in Paris; American lawsuits don’t hold over there. Yes, and we’ll see each other a whole lot before then.”

She shook her head. “I don’t think we had better,” she said. “Besides—how could we?”

“Why, at the rehearsal and the concert. Yes, and afterwards. I haven’t half told you about my painting. I have two or three sketches and things I want to show you. They aren’t so bad—not so awfully bad—honest, they aren’t. And say, I want to try a portrait sketch of you some day. In your costume, perhaps. That would be fun, wouldn’t it?”

Before she could answer a rattle of wheels sounded from the road. They had been so engrossed in their conversation that neither had noticed the slackening of the storm. Now it was almost light again, the thunder peals sounded far away, and the rain was but an intermittent patter. Around the corner beyond the church came the Townsend span and covered carriage. Mr. Gifford was on the driver’s seat and peering anxiously about.

“It’s Varunas,” cried Esther. “He is looking for me. Thank you ever so much for the umbrella, Bob.... Here I am, Varunas!”

She ran down the walk. Bob started to run after her and then changed his mind.

“See you at the next rehearsal,” he called. “Don’t forget about Paris—or the sketch.”

Esther did not reply. She climbed into the carriage. Varunas drew a breath of relief.

“Where on earth have you been?” he demanded. “I’ve been huntin’ all over for you. Me and Cap’n Foster, was over to Bayport and that tempest hit on top of us afore we knew ’twas bound down this way. Soon’s we fetched home he sent me out for you. Been standin’ there on that Nickerson piazza all the time, have ye? You don’t look very wet. Who was that along with you?”

Esther did not tell him. What was the use? He would only ask more questions.

“Oh, just some one from the rehearsal,” she said. “We were waiting there until the storm was over. I am not wet at all. Drive home as fast as you can. Uncle Foster will be worried.”

She did not tell her uncle of the meeting and long talk with Bob Griffin. There was no reason why she should not, of course—but perhaps there was less reason why she should.

CHAPTER VII

SHE and Bob met thereafter at the rehearsals. There were few opportunities for confidential chats like that on the Nickerson porch during the storm, but occasionally he saw a chance to sit beside her on a settee when the others were busy and whenever he did he seized it. On one occasion he brought a few of his sketches to the vestry and showed them to her. They were clever—even to a critical eye they would have shown promise—and to her they seemed wonderful. He told her that he had hired an empty shed belonging to Tobias Eldridge on the beach near the latter’s property at South Harniss and was to use it as a studio during the summer months.

“It’s a ripping place,” he declared, with enthusiasm. “Cheap, and off by itself, you know, and looking right out to sea. I can draw and paint there, and have a gorgeous time. It is far enough from home so that I won’t be bothered with a lot of people I know dropping in and interrupting and I can have a model once in a while, if I need one. Two or three of the fishermen have posed for me already. They are good fellows. I like to hear them talk. I want you to come down and let me make that sketch of you in your costume some afternoon pretty soon. Will you? The place smells a little of fish, but you won’t mind that.”

She would not have minded the fish, but she would not promise to visit the beach studio. At the next rehearsal he confided another bit of news.

“I’ve begun that portrait of you,” he said. “Just roughed it in—from memory, you know—but it is going to be good, I can see that already. Oh, you needn’t laugh! I sound pretty cocky, perhaps, but—well, I am cocky about that sketch. It looks like you; honest it does!”

She laughed again. “You haven’t seen me more than a half dozen times altogether,” she said. “If your portrait looks like me you must have a pretty good memory, I should say.”

He nodded contentedly. “I have—for some people,” he declared. His tone was so emphatic, that, although she still laughed, the color rose to her cheeks. She changed the subject.

The evening of the Old Folks’ Concert was clear and balmy and the town hall was packed to the doors. Esther, sitting on the platform, with the other singers and looking out over the audience, after the curtain rose, saw many strange faces—faces which did not belong to Harniss—as well as the familiar ones. In a front seat she saw her uncle, big, commanding, much stared at and quite careless of the stares, the flower she had put in the button-hole of his blue serge coat still in place, his gold-headed cane, presented to him by the committee of cranberry growers after the passage of the much-discussed “cranberry bill,” between his knees. Nearby were Reliance Clark and Millard, also Mr. and Mrs. Varunas Gifford, Captain Ben Snow and wife, Abbie Makepeace, and many others whom she knew almost as well.

Mr. Cornelius Gott, the undertaker’s assistant and local music teacher, conducted. Nabby, whispering across her husband’s shoulder to Miss Makepeace, commented upon his appearance. “Looks just as much like a tombstone as he always does, don’t he?” she said. “Them old-fashioned clothes ain’t took that out of him a mite, have they? You’d think he was standin’ up there ready to show folks to their seats at George Washin’ton’s funeral, or somethin’.”

The opening chorus was received with loud applause. So was Marjorie Wheeler’s first solo. Marjorie’s voice lacked only depth, height, purity and strength to be very fine indeed, but her play of eye and brow was animated and her self-confidence supreme. She was handed a large bouquet over the tin reflectors of the footlights when she finished.

Esther Townsend’s confidence was by no means so assured. She was suffering from stage fright when she stepped forward for her first number. She had sung often before gatherings at the Conservatory and in Mrs. Carter’s parlor, but this was different. It was the first time she had appeared in public in her native town since she was a little girl singing in Sunday School concerts. For just an instant her voice trembled, then it rose clear and sweet and liquidly pure, in an old-fashioned Scottish folk song. There was nothing merely polite or perfunctory in the plaudits at its end. The audience clapped and pounded and demanded an encore. Reliance’s round, wholesome face shone, although her eyes were damp. Millard stood up when he applauded. It was a great evening for Millard. The fierce light which beats upon thrones was casting a ray or two in his direction and if strangers were whispering: “Who, did you say? Oh, her uncle! I see.” If they were saying that—and some were—Mr. Clark had no objections.

Foster Townsend did not applaud—with hands, feet or the gold-headed cane. His expression was calm. Nevertheless, he was the proudest person in that hall.

Yes, it was Esther Townsend’s evening, every unprejudiced witness of her triumph said so. Mrs. Wheeler was a trifle condescending in her congratulations and Marjorie did not offer any, but Esther did not mind. Quite conscious that she made a charming picture in Grandmother Townsend’s gown and aware that she had sung her best, she was happy. People wished to shake hands with her—the “best people” and many of them—and her lifelong acquaintances and friends crowded about to say pleasant things. Reliance did not say much. “I can’t, dearie,” she whispered. “My, but I’m proud of you, though!” Millard would have said much, and said it stentoriously, if his half-sister had not dragged him away. Nabby Gifford cackled like a hen. Varunas’s praise was characteristic.

“You done well, Esther,” he declared. “I knew you would. They can’t lick us Townsends, trottin’, nor pacin’, nor singin’, nor nothin’ else, by Judas! You had ’em all beat afore the end of the first lap, and you didn’t have to bust any britchin’ to do it neither.”

Not until after the final curtain fell did she see Bob Griffin and then but for a moment. He pushed through the group of perspiring performers—wigs and padded coats and flounces and furbelows are warm wearing in summer at the rear of a row of blazing kerosene lamps—and caught her hand. His eyes were shining.

“You were great!” he whispered. “By George, you were great! Wait till you see what I can do with that portrait after this! You are coming down to see it. Oh, yes! you are. I’ll just make you.”

The carriage was fragrant with flowers when she and Foster Townsend entered it. He put his arm about her shoulder.

“Good girl!” he said with, for him, unusual emphasis. “Good girl, Esther! This settles it so far as that Paris cruise of ours is concerned. It would be a crime to keep you from getting the best teaching there is after you’ve shown us what you can do with what you’ve had. Hang on to your patience till that blasted lawsuit is out of the way, and then we’ll heave anchor.”

The flowers were brought into the library and examined there. Each cluster had a card attached except one. The biggest and finest was from Foster Townsend himself. Esther gave him a hug and kiss.

“They’re dear, Uncle Foster,” she declared. “Thank you ever so much.”

As usual he turned the thanks into a joke.

“‘Dear’ is the right word,” he observed, with a twinkle. “I had ’em sent down from Boston. Must fertilize those greenhouses with dollar bills, I guess. Never mind. Considering what you gave us for ’em they were cheap at the price.”

The floral tribute which bore no card was a bunch of pink rosebuds. Townsend turned them over, searching for the name of the donor.

“Humph!” he grunted. “Wonder who these came from. They don’t seem to be labeled. Do you know who gave you these, Esther?”

Esther said she did not know. The statement was true as far as it went. If he had asked her to guess it might have been harder to answer. She did not know who had sent the rosebuds, but she remembered a conversation with Bob Griffin, during which she had expressed a love for the old-fashioned “tea” rose. And these were tea roses. She was glad that her uncle’s question was framed as it was and that his curiosity was not persistent.

She and Bob did not meet again during the following week. Then, one morning, she found amid the Townsend mail which Varunas had brought up from the post office and left, as was his custom, upon the library table, an envelope bearing her name in an unfamiliar hand. Letters and notes were by no means novelties for her now. She had become a very popular young lady and invitations to all sorts of social affairs, not only in Harniss but in Bayport and Orham and Denboro, were frequent. Wondering what this particular note might be she tore open the envelope. The enclosure was brief.

“Dear Esther,” she read. “The portrait sketch is done, all but the finishing touches. I am waiting for you before I tackle those. Can’t you come down to the shanty some afternoon soon? I shall be there all this week. I won’t keep you long, but you just must see the thing. It is pretty darned good, if I do say so. Now do come. I shall expect you.

“R. G.”

She tucked the note into the bosom of her dress, thankful that neither her uncle nor Nabby was there to ask troublesome questions. Of course she should not go to the “shanty,” as Griffin irreverently named his ’longshore studio. Uncle Foster would not like it if she did—that is, she was almost sure he would not. Other than that there was, of course, no reason why she should not go. She did wish she might see the drawing, or sketch, or painting, or whatever it was. It was a portrait of her and, naturally, she would like just a glimpse of it. Any girl would. And Bob was so certain that it was good. If her uncle were any one else—if it was not for that lawsuit and his quarrel with old Mr. Cook— But, after all, and as Bob had said that afternoon of the storm, the lawsuit hadn’t anything to do with them; they were not responsible for it. Bob Griffin was a nice boy, every one said so. She had half a mind—

By the next day the half a mind had become a whole one. After dinner—Foster Townsend was again away, at Ostable on business connected with the suit—she told Nabby she was going for a walk and left the house. Half an hour later she knocked at the door of the rickety building on the beach near—but fortunately out of sight from—the Tobias Eldridge house. Bob himself opened the door. He greeted her with a whoop of delight.

“So you did come, didn’t you!” he crowed. “I thought you would. I knew you had sense and a mind of your own. Come in! Come in! It is all ready for you to look at.”

The portrait was on an easel in the middle of the dusty, littered floor. It was an oil sketch in full color and she could not repress an exclamation of delighted surprise when she saw it. There she was, in Grandmother Townsend’s gown, smiling from the canvas, and very, very good to look upon, a fact of which she was quite as conscious as the artist.

“Oh!” she cried. And then again. “Oh!”

He laughed, triumphantly. “Told you it wasn’t so bad, didn’t I?” he demanded. “It isn’t finished. There are some points about the face which don’t exactly suit me yet, but we can fix that in a hurry, now that you are here. Come now, what do you think of it?”

She thought it marvelous and said so.

“I don’t see how you ever remembered about the dress and the funny little bonnet,” she said. “Even the lace and the trimming are just right. How could you remember?”

He laughed again. “It wasn’t memory altogether,” he told her. “I got a copy of the photograph of the crowd which was taken the afternoon of the dress rehearsal and I worked from that. Then, besides, I made no less than three quick sketches of you in that costume. Once when you put it on for the committee to see; once when you were singing at the dress rehearsal; and the last and best the night of the concert. I was behind the scenes, no one was watching me and I had a great chance.”

The mention of the event reminded her. She turned to look at him.

“You sent me those tea roses, didn’t you?” she asked.

He nodded. “They should have been orchids,” he declared. “Would have been if I could have afforded the price. But you told me once that you liked those old-fashioned roses. Hope you did like ’em.”

“They were darlings. But you shouldn’t have given them to me.”

“Why not? I didn’t put my name on them, but I hoped you would guess. Nobody else guessed, did they?” he added, a trifle anxiously.

“No-o. No.... Well,” with a sudden turn of the subject. “I must go now. I think the portrait is splendid and I am glad I have seen it. Good afternoon.”

His change of expression was funny.

“Go!” he repeated, in alarm. “Of course you’re not going yet! Why, what I really wanted you to come here for was to pose for me just a little. The mouth—and the eyes—why, you can see for yourself they’re not right. Now, can’t you?”

She hesitated. “Well,” she admitted, “of course they are not just like mine, but—”

He interrupted. “But we’ll make ’em like yours,” he vowed. “Now you sit down over there—on that chair, where I can get the light as it is in the photograph. The chair is a good deal of a wreck, like about everything else in this ruin, but I guess it will hold you. You see, I want to get—”

And now she interrupted. “Oh, no, I mustn’t!” she protested, hurriedly. “I mustn’t stay, really. Please don’t ask me to.”

“But I do ask you. I’ve got to ask you. This is by miles the best thing I’ve ever done and I want to make it as near perfect as I can. Oh, say, Esther; you’ll give me my chance, won’t you? I don’t believe it will take very long.”

She hesitated. It seemed cruel to refuse.

“We-ll,” she yielded, “if you are sure it won’t? Just a few minutes—”

So the posing began. She sat in the wobbly chair, the afternoon sunshine streaming in through the cobwebbed window, while he painted at top speed, chatting all the time. He told of his struggles with his beloved studies, of his hopes and ambitions, and gradually drew her into talking of her own. At last she sprang to her feet.

“There!” she cried. “I must not stay another second. It is—oh, good gracious! It is after four now. Where has the time gone?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know,” he replied. “Well, there! it isn’t right yet—we must have some more sittings—but it is better. Don’t you think so?”

It was better, but even she could see that it was by no means perfect.

“Can’t you come to-morrow?” he begged.

“No. I don’t see how I can. You see—”

“Then the next day. We’ve got to get it right, haven’t we.... If I am going to give you this thing I want it to be as good as I can make it.”

She clasped her hands. “You are going to give it to me?” she repeated.

“Of course I am. I’ll probably want to show it a little first. One of my teachers—oh, he is a corker!—I wish you could see his stuff—has a summer studio in Wapatomac and he must have a look at it, sure. But, after that, it is going to be yours—if you want it.”

“Want it! I should love it! But—but I don’t see how it can ever be mine. I live with Uncle Foster and—well, you know.”

He frowned. “That’s so,” he admitted. “I suppose there would be the deuce to pay if he knew I painted it for you. Don’t suppose he would want it himself, do you? I needn’t give it to him, but you could.”

Her eyes flashed. “Why—why, that would be—it might be just the thing!” she exclaimed. “His birthday is the third of next month and—and I could give it to him as a birthday present, couldn’t I? He says he wants a new photograph of me, and this is ever so much better than a photograph. Of course, as you painted it, and you are a Cook, he might not—”

Bob broke in. “It might help to show him that the Cooks are good for something, after all,” he suggested, laughing but eager. “It might—why, by George!—Esther, if we can get it just right, it might help to soften down this family row of ours a little bit. If it did—well, it looks to me as if it were worth trying.”

She was by no means confident, but inclination conquered judgment.

“Perhaps it might help a little,” she agreed. “But can you finish it in time for Uncle Foster’s birthday?”

“Of course I can, and time enough to show to my Wapatomac man, too. But I must have those sittings. You’ll come day after to-morrow, won’t you?”

Again she hesitated, but in the end she promised. She came that day and on other days. And with each session in the shanty she grew to know Bob Griffin better and to like him better. And, now fortified by the reasonable excuse that the presentation of the portrait was to be his birthday surprise, she said no word to her uncle nor to any one of her growing intimacy with Elisha Cook’s grandson. And the secret might have been kept until the birthday had not Fate, disguised as Millard Fillmore Clark, interfered.

Mr. Clark, as a usual thing, kept away from the Townsend mansion and its environs. He had never been known to refuse an invitation to dine there and might have made his niece’s presence an excuse for spending much time on the premises had not several pointed hints from Captain Foster, backed by peremptory orders from Reliance, made him aware of the possibility that frequent visits might not be welcome.

“I’d like to know why I can’t stop in once in a while, just to pass the time of day if nothin’ more,” he protested, indignantly, on one occasion. “Esther’s my relation, just as much as she is Foster Townsend’s, as far as that goes. I feel about as much responsibility for her as I ever did. No sense in it, I know, but I can’t get over it. Maybe I don’t forget as easy as some folks seem to.”

Reliance, who was preparing the outgoing mail, kept on with her work.

“I’m glad of that,” she observed, calmly. “Then of course you haven’t forgotten what Varunas Gifford called you the last time you were hangin’ around the stable in his way. I should think that ought to stick in your memory. It would in mine.”

Millard drew himself up. “Varunas Gifford is nothin’ but a—a no-account horse jockey,” he declared. “And maybe you didn’t hear what I called him back.”

“Maybe he didn’t, either. Or perhaps he did; I recollect you looked as if you’d come home in a hurry that day. There, there! Don’t you let me hear again of your trottin’ at Foster Townsend’s heels, tryin’ to curry favor. When he wants us at his house he invites us to come there. Yes, and sometimes when he doesn’t want us, I shouldn’t wonder. Behave yourself, Millard. If you don’t know what self-respect is, look it up in the dictionary.”

So Millard, although he boasted much, at the store and about town, of his intimacy with the great man, dared not presume upon it. Therefore Foster Townsend was surprised to be accosted by him outside the post office one afternoon and to learn that Mr. Clark had something important to tell him.

“Well, what is it?” he asked, impatiently. “Heave ahead with it. I’m in a hurry.”

Millard looked cautiously over his shoulder.

“Don’t speak so loud, Cap’n Foster,” he whispered. “Reliance is inside there and she’s got the door open. I haven’t told her what ’tis. I haven’t told anybody.”

“All right. Then I wouldn’t bother to tell me. Keep it to yourself.”

“No, I ain’t goin’ to keep it to myself. It’s somethin’ you ought to know and—and bein’ as I’m one of the family, as you might say, I think it’s my—er—well, duty, to tell you. It’s about Esther.”

Townsend jerked his sleeve from the Clark grasp. He frowned.

“Esther?” he repeated, sharply. “What business have you got with Esther’s affairs?”

“Why—why, I don’t know’s I’ve got any, maybe—except that she’s one of my relations and I think a sight of her.... Now, hold on! Listen, Cap’n Foster! She’s seein’ that Griffin feller, old Cook’s grandson, from Denboro, about every day or so. He’s got that fish shanty of Tobe Eldridge’s—hires it to paint his fool pictures in, so Tobe says—and he’s been paintin’ a picture of Esther and she goes there about every afternoon. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t—”

Foster Townsend interrupted. “Here!” he ordered. “Wait! Come over here!”

He seized Millard by the arm and led him down the sidewalk to the shelter of a clump of lilacs at the end of the Clark picket fence.

“Now tell me what you are talking about,” he commanded.

Millard told him. Mrs. Tobias Eldridge had seen Esther pass the house one afternoon and had wondered where the girl was going. Two days later she saw her pass again and this time her curiosity had prompted her to go out by the back door and to the knoll behind the henhouse from which she could look up the beach. She had seen Esther knock at the door of the shanty and had heard Bob Griffin’s greeting. She told her husband and he, a few days later, mentioned it to Clark.

“Naturally I was consider’bly interested,” went on Millard. “Tobias he couldn’t make out what she was doin’ there and neither could I. ‘Looks to me,’ says I, ‘as if—me bein’ her uncle—I ought to know the ins and outs of this. You’ve got a spare key to that shanty, ain’t you, Tobias? Can’t we make out to get in there to-morrow mornin’ before Bob shows up?’ Well, we did and I saw that picture of Esther. Pretty good, ’tis, too, considerin’ who made it. I own up I was surprised. ’Bout as big as life, you know, and all colored up, and—”

“Ssh!... Humph!... How many people have you told about this?”

“Not a soul! Honest, Cap’n Foster, I swear I haven’t told a livin’ soul. And Tobias hasn’t told neither. ‘The way I look at it,’ he says to me, ‘it ain’t any of my business, nor my wife’s. I’m not runnin’ across Foster Townsend’s bows,’ he says, ‘not much. I’ve told you, Mil, because you’re one of the family. You can do what you want to about it. If I was you, though, I guess I’d keep still.’ ‘You bet I will!’ I told him. But, of course, I knew you ought to know about it, Cap’n Foster. I judged likely you didn’t know, and for Esther Townsend to be in that fish shanty along with one of that Cook tribe seemed to me—”

“Shut up!” The order was savagely given. “Humph! Here! you don’t think others know this, do you?”

“Not a livin’ soul except Tobias and his wife—and me, of course. I haven’t even told Reliance.”

“You keep this to yourself; do you hear? Don’t you mention it again.”

“Oh, I shan’t—I shan’t. But—”

“You had better not.... There, that’ll do. Clear out! I’ve wasted time enough.”

Mr. Clark was disappointed. He had expected thanks, at least, possibly more substantial reward. Nevertheless, it was some comfort to know that he and the Harniss magnate shared a secret in common. His self-respect, to which Reliance had so slightingly referred, was bolstered by that knowledge.

CHAPTER VIII

ESTHER was late in returning home that afternoon. The portrait at last was finished. Even Bob was reluctantly obliged to admit that it was as nearly perfect as he could make it, and his Wapatomac friend had seen it and approved. The final sitting was a long one, however, and it was nearly supper time when she hurried up the path to the side door of the mansion. Her uncle was in the library and, although he looked up from his paper and nodded when she entered, it seemed to her that his greeting was not as hearty as usual. And during supper he spoke scarcely a word. Her by no means easy conscience made her apprehensive and when, after the meal was over, he bade her come into the parlor, she followed him fearfully. Something was going to happen, she did not dare guess what.

He closed the door behind him. “Sit down, Esther,” he ordered. She did so. He remained standing. He took a turn or two up and down the room and then swung about and faced her, his hands in his trouser pockets.

“Where did you go this afternoon?” he asked, bluntly, his eyes fixed upon her face.

She started, colored, and caught her breath with a gasp.

“This afternoon?” she faltered. “Why—why, I don’t know. I—”

“Come, come!” impatiently. “That’s foolishness. Of course you know. Where did you go when you left here, after dinner?”

She did not answer. His shaggy brows drew together.