CHAPTER X
NICHOLAS GAYNE CONFIDES
"Are you interested in the horse-mackerel, too?" asked Diana.
The two men sat down on the grass near the girls as Barney Kelly answered: "Moderately, Miss Wilbur. Moderately interested. Being allowed to witness anything from terra firma invests it with a certain charm. Barrison has been merciless, I assure you, simply merciless."
"The man came here to fish," said Philip, "and I've only tried to be hospitable."
"Deep-sea fishing," groaned his friend. "If you ever hear any tenderfoot express ambitions to go deep-sea fishing, tell him to see me if possible, otherwise write or wire me before he embarks."
"Did you find the motion disconcerting?" asked Diana.
Barney looked at Philip. "Don't you think I might admit as much as that?"
Philip laughed and bit the red clover he had pulled from a bunch near him.
"First," said Kelly, "you are waked at an hour when all men should sleep; then you are forced to eat at a time when your soul rebels at such outrage; after that, you go aboard beneath the stars, and you chug, chug, miles into the darkness; but the chug-chugging you soon find to be the best part of it for when you arrive midway between here and Liverpool, you anchor. The sky and the sea begin to get hopelessly mixed up. Why should I try to describe the writhings of all nature! They put a heavy rope into your hands, it slides through your fists and removes the skin before any one remembers that you have no gloves on. Oh, let Dante try! I can't!"
Philip laughed. "Then I took him out next day to the pound and let him help draw the net."
"The smell of that boat, Miss Wilbur!" Kelly's eyes rolled fiercely.
"I'm afraid you won't like the island," volunteered Veronica, who, when she laughed had forgotten her nose and dropped her hand.
"My dear Miss Trueman, how can I tell, when I am never allowed to stay on it? This man, when he couldn't think of anything else hydraulic to do, has made me go in bathing in water at a temperature which no humane person will credit when I tell them. To-day, I struck. I said to him, do for Heaven's sake do something to show that you are at least amphibious. So he consented to bring me up here to meet his friends, and I shall be pleasantly surprised if you young ladies don't turn into mermaids right before my eyes, as they do in the movies, and pop off that beach into the water."
Veronica giggled so joyously that the speaker turned away from Diana's serene smile and regarded her. "I assure you," he added slowly and solemnly, "that if you do, I shall not follow you. So if you wish the pleasure of my society you won't unfold any graceful, glittering tails."
Veronica giggled again, and, if she had only known it, her dimples were warranted at any time to divert attention from those afflicting little freckles.
"I can see that Kelly will be fruit for you, Veronica, on that croquet ground," said Philip.
The guest clasped his hands rapturously. "Do you guarantee, Miss Veronica, that croquet at this island is unfailingly played on land?"
"Hold on, Barney, don't go too fast; it's the kind of croquet you play with an alpenstock in one hand and a mallet in the other."
"It is not, Mr. Barrison," declared Veronica stoutly. "Bert has mowed it."
"That poor little chap? Did you work him in? Good for you. It's what he needs."
"When are you going to have Mr. Barrison sing for us, Mr. Kelly?" asked Diana.
Barney shrugged his shoulders. "A poor worm of an accompanist can't answer that, Miss Wilbur."
"But I suppose you will be practicing, or rehearsing at times, will you not?"
"Yes. I understand there is a piano in the little Casino that was pointed out to me. I understand – eh, Barrison?"
Philip nodded. "Yes, they have allowed me to engage an hour a day on that piano for a while, for some work we have to do."
Diana's face lighted beautifully. "And may one – may one sit on the piazza?" she asked beseechingly.
"I should advise one not to," said Philip, "unless one has been inoculated for strong language."
"I should not in the least mind what you said."
"But you would what Barney says, at times."
"The verdure about the hall is free," said Diana doubtfully.
"Yes, if you don't mind a baseball in the eye once in a while. That is where the boys do congregate."
"He's a most ungrateful ass – Barrison," said Barney warmly. "Of course you shall sit on the piazza if you care about it. I promise to restrain my penchant for calling him pet names in private. I have to do it, you see, to strike a balance. At performances, who so meek as the accompanist! Barrison stands there, dolled up in his dress-clothes, probably a white carnation in his buttonhole; the women down front gazing at him and ruining their best gloves. I gaze at him, too," – Kelly looked up with meek worship, – "like a flower at the sun, waiting for the sultan to throw the handkerchief, or, in other words, give me a careless nod, indicating that I may come to life. At last he does so, and I begin to play – subserviently, unostentatiously. Very few in the house know that I am there. He reaches his climax, he finishes with a pianissimo that curls around all the women's hearts, draws them out and strings them on a wire before him. Then the applause bursts forth. He bows over and over again, until he looks like a blond mandarin, and I rise, but nobody knows it, and when he has passed me on his way off the stage, I come to heel like a well-trained dog, and – there we are!"
As Kelly finished his harangue with a gesture of both hands, the girls were laughing and Diana was quite flushed.
"What a fool you are, Barney," said Philip calmly, still biting the honey out of the red clover. "He plays like a house afire," he added, turning to the girls. "You will be delighted."
"Oh, yes," said Kelly. "On the road I get a group. I play the Chopin and Grieg things that the girls practice at home, and they get out their vanity cases and prink and wait for Barrison to come on again."
"Oh, cut it out, you idiot!" exclaimed Philip, jumping up. "I don't believe they're going to get one of those mackerel. Let's amuse little Veronica and go up and have a game of croquet."
Meanwhile Mr. Gayne had again taken his nephew with him to the farm.
"In spite of all I say," he told the boy, "you will bother those ladies at the Inn. So if you come along with me, I'll know where you are." And the lad answered him not at all, but plodded up the road.
He did, however, think of some of the things Mrs. Lowell had said to him. Some of the love and courage that emanated from her gave him a novel certainty that he was not altogether friendless, and the wild roses that began to peep at him from the roadside suggested the idea that she would like it if he brought some home to her. In the idle hours of the afternoon he might gather some, and some of the myriad daisies and Indian paintbrush that decked the fields. But his heart sank at the prospect of what his uncle would say if he attempted to carry back a bouquet when they returned.
Gayne forbade the boy to enter the house when they reached their destination, just as he had done in the morning. So Bertie, his hands in his pockets, wandered about the surrounding fields and in the spruce groves, and picked up the shells the crows had dropped and emptied. Once he found a ridge of grass unusually long and green, and heard a whispering, and investigating found a narrow brook which murmured as it flowed. He followed along its bank until he came to the cove it had named, and watched the sparse stream cascade over the granite and fall thinly down its steep wall. The wet rock glistened in the sun, it seemed to the boy as if with tears. He threw himself down beside it and, leaning on his elbow, rested his head on his hand. Through the cut between this island and the next, boats were passing coming in from the foaming waves of the sea to the quiet waters of the sound. Life, beauty, peace. The boy closed his eyes. The longing to portray it all rose in him like an anguish. He felt his old torpidity to be better than this. Why should his new friend stir up a craving for the impossible? She meant to be kind. She seemed really to like him; and she had liked his drawing and had wanted him to do more. She would find that it was impossible, and he hoped that she would make no more effort. He squeezed his eyelids together to keep back stinging drops. He felt shame at his own weakness. Uncle Nick had said he had no more backbone than a jellyfish and he felt this was true. He had no physical strength to defend himself, none to take his fortunes into his own hands, as he felt most boys would do, run away and do something to keep himself from starvation.
For years he had been fed as an animal might have been fed: at any hour that suited Cora, and with anything she might happen to have in the house. He was undernourished, neglected, crushed, and spiritless. He despised his weakness as much as his uncle despised him, and he was conscious that it was a new estimate of himself that he was now making, an estimate due to the awakening of thought that had come to him through that lady who meant to be kind. He felt very bitterly toward her as he lay there, his eyes closed to the loveliness of sea and sky.
He had lain there half an hour when Matt Blake came across from the road and passed near him.
"Poor youngster," he thought. "I guess it's true he ain't all there." The feeling that the boy was not capable of responding kept him from calling out some sort of greeting as he passed, and he went on through the spruce grove to the farm-house. "Hello the house," he called.
"That you, Blake?" came from within. "Yes, I'm out here at the back. Come in."
The carpenter made his way through to the studio, and there Nicholas Gayne rose from an armchair to meet him, and swayed slightly as he stood.
"You sent for me," said Blake, regarding the other's red-rimmed eyes.
"Yes, and you'll be glad I did when you see this, eh, old man?"
Gayne lurched toward the screen and took a bottle from behind it, and held it out triumphantly. "Kind o' dizzy 'cause I been asleep and you waked me sudden. 'Twas the shock, you see, the shock." He lurched back toward the table where there was a glass. He filled this half-full and offered it to his caller. "It's the real thing, the real thing," he said.
"I smell that it is," returned Blake dryly. "That's too stiff for me. No, no, Gayne," he added as the latter started to raise it to his own lips, and he took the glass from him, "you've had too much now. If you want anything of me, tell me while you've got sense enough to talk."
"You insult me, Blake," said the other with dignity. "I'm a gentleman and I know when I've had enough, and I know when I've had too much. Some folks never know that, but I do."
The carpenter regarded him impassively, and set the bottle and glass out of his reach. "Now go ahead. Tell me what you want."
"Want you to shingle the kitchen so's I can – can cook there. Come and I'll show you." He opened a door in the studio which led into a damp room where the rain had fallen unmolested. "Want you to shingle this room."
"Nothing doing," said the carpenter.
"You won't say that when I show you what I've got here." Gayne's speech was thick and he took Blake's arm and led him across to a large covered stone crock sitting on a bench. "Home brew, Matt. Home brew. We can have many a cozy evening here when this gets into shape."
"Going to keep a horse?" asked the carpenter, lifting up what appeared to be a nosebag.
"No, no, that's strainer. You leave it to me, Matt. I'll give you something'll make your hair curl. All you got to do is shingle – "
"You ain't going to pay for having somebody else's property shingled?"
"'Tain't going to be somebody else's. Going to be mine. I'm going to buy the farm. There's a fortune on it." The speaker's legs were planted far apart to preserve his equilibrium, but even at that he swayed so far toward his visitor that Blake put up his hand to hold him off.
"Which have you found, gold or oil?" he asked, laughing.
His host assumed an impressive dignity. "Not gold, not oil. Spring."
"A spring? Of course you have. They're all over the lots. You'd better patronize 'em, too. You certainly need to put more water in it."
"I'm goin' tell you secret, Blake," said Gayne.
"Better not," said the carpenter good-naturedly.
"Goin' tell you. I've found mineral spring here."
"That so?" was the unperturbed reply.
"Great and won-wonderful water. Don't tell anybody."
"All right."
"Had chemist 'zamine it. Says it's got everything in it to cure you. Fortune in it. Fortune. You don't b'lieve me."
"Sounds a little fishy," remarked Blake.
"Lemme take your arm – I'll lead you to it."
The visitor supplied the arm and Gayne's heavy weight hung upon it. They went out of doors and Gayne stopped and looked around cautiously. "Where's that brat?" he demanded.
"Do you mean the boy? He's over there by the cove. Asleep, I think."
"Then come on. Can't trust him 'cause they're the kind that speak the truth. Fools, you know. Can trust you, Blake. Trust you anywhere."
"Thank you," returned the visitor dryly.
At some distance from the house, in a hollow overhung with rocks, the heavy weight on Matt's arm became heavier and Gayne pushed away some turf and stones with his foot, disclosing a puddle of dark-colored water. He stooped and, picking up a rusty tin cup, half-filled it, and presented it to his companion whose arm he released.
"There, if you don't b'lieve me!" he said triumphantly.
The carpenter accepted the cup doubtfully and smelled of it. "Phew!" he exclaimed with a grimace.
"'Course," said the other. "Sulphur. Won'ful sulphur spring. Cure you of ever'thing. Had it an'lyzed. Drink it."
Blake took a cautious sip.
"Tell you, Matt," said Gayne, speaking slowly and nodding with tipsy solemnity, "'twas m' guardian angel guided me to that spring."
The carpenter glanced at him with disfavor. "One sniff's enough to convince anybody o' that," he remarked. "At that, it's better for you than the stuff you've got in there on the table. Now, look here, Gayne, you're going to be sorry to-morrow you told me about this – "
"Wouldn't tell anybody else," vowed Gayne, solemnly, seizing his companion by the arm and pushing back the concealing turf and stones with his foot. "Nobody else on this earth. Fools own the farm put up the price if they knew."
"But what I was going to say is you needn't be sorry," went on Blake. "I'm not going to tell a soul. I don't want to be mixed up in your affairs, but do you think you can understand if I talk to you?"
"Un'stand! Well!" exclaimed Gayne. "I'm a man o' brains I'll have you know."
"Well, if you've got any, use 'em now," said Blake impatiently. "There ain't any money in a mineral spring unless you've got piles o' dough to put it on the market. Don't you know that?"
"I sh'd say so," nodded Gayne, triumphant again. "That's just what I'm goin' to have: piles o' dough. Bushels."
"Where are you goin' to get it?"
"Well, I'll tell you, Matt, 'cause you're a good friend and you know how to hold your tongue. That boy out there, that poor numskull is the heir to a big enough fortune to f'nance twenty springs."
"He is?" returned Blake, astonished. "What do you mean?"
"His grandfather is one of the richest men in Boston. Went to see him once. Took my proofs with me. Wouldn't look at 'em. Turned me out. He's sick as the devil. Always travelin' 'round tryin' to get well. I wouldn't – I would not give him one cup o' this water." Gayne gestured impressively as he made the ferocious declaration. "Just come home from Europe now. Saw it in the paper," he added.
"Then he'll leave his money where it won't do you any good," said Blake.
"I'll break the will. I've thought it all out. I'm a man o' brains. Bert'll get the money."
"Perhaps the boy won't want to spend it on springs."
A crafty change came over Gayne's face and he smiled. "He won't have any say. I'm his guardian, ain't I? And he's non compos, ain't he? He'll be put where he belongs, believe me."
"You'll shut him up, do you mean?" asked Blake, frowning.
"F'r his own good. You understand?"
"Your guardian angel suggested that to you, too, probably."
"Prob'bly did, Matt," was the pious reply. "If all his kind was shut up there'd be less crime in the papers. I put it off and put it off, but I ought to do it and do it soon."
The carpenter regarded the speaker in silence for some moments. Gayne's eyes were closing and opening sleepily.
"Now, see here, man. You go in the house and sleep this off. I'll take the boy down-along with me."
"I won't allow it," Gayne shook his head. "Women at the house pamperin' him. I won't have it. He'll stay where I am till I get him settled for life."
"I'm goin' to take the boy along with me," repeated Blake, speaking louder. "You're in no state for him to see you. Where'd you get your stuff, anyway?"
"Chemist p'esc'iption," said Gayne, as his companion drew him along at as swift a pace as possible.
"Well, next time, drink out o' your own mud puddle. I think it comes from the lower regions, anyway. You might as well be getting used to it."
Gayne laughed, but rather feebly. He was beginning to wonder just what he had said to his friend.
Matt got him into the house and into the lop-sided armchair where he had found him, and he fell asleep at once. Then the carpenter took the partly filled glass from the table and held it up to the light.
"I'd like it," he mused, "but, by thunder, that loafer's worse 'n a temperance lecture." And he threw the whiskey out of an open window.
The bottle he placed behind the screen; then, with one last disgusted look at his host, whose head was hanging sideways with the mouth open, he left the house.
CHAPTER XI
THE NEWPORT LETTER
Blake went back through the grove of firs to the cove bank and there he saw the boy again. He had sunk down on his back and, as Blake approached, appeared to be asleep. The man stooped over him.
"Hello, kid," he said.
As the boy did not move, Matt shook him gently by the shoulder. Bert jumped up with a start.
"I didn't – didn't hear you," he said. Then, looking up and seeing that it was a stranger, he got to his feet.
"Does – does Uncle Nick want me?" he asked.
Blake shook his head. "No, he's busy. You better go down the road with me."
"He told me – told me to wait for him," said the boy.
"Well, he doesn't want you now. He wants you to go along with me. I've just left him."
Upon this the boy followed obediently, and they walked together over the field to the road. Blake occasionally looked at the unsmiling young face as he cogitated on Gayne's plans for the lad.
"Like it pretty well here?" he asked.
"No – yes – I don't know," was the answer.
The delicacy and refinement of the boy's face, and the utter hopelessness of it, stirred his companion, as he considered the one he had left in the tattered armchair. They walked on in silence until they had nearly reached the little island cemetery. Then the boy's long lashes lifted. He seemed to be gazing at the shafts and headstones.
"Uncle Nick says the – the ghosts don't have far to walk," he remarked.
The carpenter put his hand on Bert's shoulder. "Stuff and nonsense," he said. "You're too big a boy to believe that foolishness."
The dark eyes regarded him. "That's what Mrs. Lowell says. She says God takes care of us."
The carpenter nodded. "That's right," he returned emphatically. "I hope He's got His eye on you right now and will see you through. You tie to Mrs. Lowell and you believe what she says."
"Uncle Nick doesn't want me to. He says I'm – I'm better off alone."
"You're the best judge of that, I should say," remarked Matt bluntly. "We're all entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I hope you'll get 'em, kid. Stand up for yourself. Do you like Mrs. Lowell?"
"I – I don't know. – It isn't any use for me to – to like her. Uncle Nick doesn't." They began to pass hedges of wild roses. "She likes – likes flowers," added the boy.
"Take her some, that's right, take her some," said Blake, stopping and going to the side of the road.
"You won't tell Uncle Nick?" said Bert anxiously.
"No, blast him, I won't tell him. Here, I've got a knife. They know how to defend themselves all right, don't they?"
Bert gathered some of the flowers, amazingly large and deep of color they were, and Matt cut more, and a charming bunch was in the boy's hand at last. Blake noted that the sight of it brought color into the pale face.
"This must be another secret," said Bert. "Mrs. Lowell and I have some already."
They plodded on again.
"That's right," said Blake. "Hold 'em tight. That Mrs. Lowell and Miss Wilbur are friends worth having, I'm thinking." The man frowned at his own thoughts. The creed of the island had, as its first article: Mind your own business. Matt wished he could go to Mrs. Lowell and pour out to her all he had learned this afternoon, but had his pledged word not prevented, his own habit and training would have made it difficult.
When they reached the field which divided the road from the Inn, Blake parted from the boy, who started off for home with his prize. He stumbled over the knolls while looking at the blossoms, and inhaling their delicious fragrance.
When he had nearly reached the house, he met the quartette of croquet players, the girls escorting the men to the road.
Veronica and Barney Kelly came first and Diana and Philip followed.
"Oh, how lovely, Bertie!" exclaimed Veronica, stopping and stooping the five sun-kisses to smell deep of the roses.
"They are not – they are not for you," said the boy hastily.
"You've no taste, then," said Kelly, while Veronica laughed. "Have you a better girl than this one?"
Bertie pushed on in nervous haste, and Diana's smile did not detain him.
"Not for you either, apparently," remarked Philip.
"No," said Veronica. "I'm good, Miss Wilbur is better, but his best girl is at home on the porch."
There the boy found her, and luckily alone. He advanced holding out his gift without a word. She colored with pleasure as she accepted it, holding it in one hand and caressing it with the other as from time to time she took the sweet breath of the roses.
"Thank you so much, Bertie!" she exclaimed. "It must have taken you a long time to gather so many."
"No – he had a knife."
"Who, your uncle?"
"No – Mr. Blake. Uncle Nick mustn't know. You won't tell him?"
"No, dear child, I won't tell him." She looked in the boy's face for a reflection of her own pleasure, but there was none. He remained standing.
"Sit down, Bertie, you have had a long walk."
He did so with some reluctance. "This is the last – last time I'll sit with you," he said.
"Are you going away?" she asked, much concerned.
"No, but – but Uncle Nick doesn't – doesn't want me to speak to you – and you make me sad."
"How do I make you sad, Bertie?"
"Talking about – about things," he said vaguely. "If I don't think and don't talk, then – then it's better. Uncle Nick says so and – and I – it is so."
"Very well, Bertie," returned Mrs. Lowell quietly. "All I want is what is best for you."
He looked at her sweet face with the affection in the eyes. She was wearing a white dress and the blossoms were a roseate glow against it. He struggled against all that he blindly felt she represented: all he had lost, all that would have kept the present and the future from being blank. His face suffused with color, his eyes with tears.
"I can't bear it!" he said suddenly, with more force than she had supposed was in him, and rising with an energy of movement that sent his chair over with a crash, he fled into the house.
Mrs. Lowell bent her head over the flowers for minutes, and, when she raised it, there was dew upon them. She looked off a moment in thought, then rose, went into the house and upstairs to the Gayne room. The door was ajar. She could hear the boy sobbing. Entering, she saw him stretched on his cot, and she approached, drawing a chair beside it.
Seating herself, she put a hand on his tightly doubled arm and looked at the averted, dark head, its face buried in the pillow.
She spoke to him quietly: "Bertie, I am going to do just as you plan and not ask you to go about with me any more, but I want you to remember all the time that I love you and am thinking of you, and knowing that better times are coming for you. No human being can have as much power over us as God has. He isn't going to forget His own children whom He has created. So the more you think about Him, knowing that He is all-powerful and all-loving, the sooner you will feel His help coming to you. We don't know just how or when, but be sure it will come if you won't listen to discouragement. Discouragement is like a cloud that hides the sun, and God is the sun of the whole universe. You are trying to hide away from Him when you weep and let thoughts of grief and despair come in."
Her voice carried through the nervous, dry sobs, and they lessened as she talked. When she finished, the dark head lay still on the pillow. She patted the thin arm.
"Now I will leave you, Bertie," she went on. "Try to think about the Shepherd. 'The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.' Say that over and over to yourself, and know that it is true. Some day all these things that seem barriers to everything that you feel makes life worth living, will melt away. Think about it, and be hopeful, dear child. Remember I am in the house when you want me, and remember that I love to help you. Good-bye, dear."
She stooped over the averted face and kissed the boy's temple. Then she passed out and down the stairs.
The answer to Diana's telegram came from her mother, and read as follows:
Your father away on the yacht. Be cautious socially. No Loring relatives or friends in this country. Letter follows.
The letter did follow with great promptness. It was the old story of the worried hen who had hatched a duck.
My dear child:
You say you are feeling very well again, sleeping soundly and eating with good appetite. Then do come home at once. I have submitted to your wild-goose chase because the doctor approved, and it was evidently working well, but I haven't really had an easy minute since you left. When you said that even taking a maid with you would make you nervous, and I allowed you to go off to a strange island quite alone, I put a great constraint upon myself. Your wire shows me that you are encountering some of the circumstances which I feared, and which will lead to future embarrassment. Some people are evidently trying to claim acquaintance or even relationship with our family. I wired you that there were no Lorings connected with us in this country. It was an odd coincidence that just after I sent the message to you, I picked up a newspaper and saw that Herbert Loring had returned from Paris and was staying at the Copley-Plaza. I am quite certain he has not emigrated to your island. So my message is true enough. He is a distant cousin of your father's and though not an old man is a very broken one, owing to family troubles. Seeing his name in the paper brought up sad memories and made me thankful for a good, conscientious daughter who will always remember what is due her family, and now, when you are thrown among ordinary people, such as you have never come in contact with, is a good time to speak of such a tragedy. Mr. Loring's only child was a daughter, a pretty, artistic girl of whom he was inordinately proud and fond. She became infatuated with a man whom her father forbade her even to see. She eloped with him. Oh, the agony she caused that father, who had lost his wife years before. Of course, he did the only thing possible in such a case – forbade her name to be mentioned. He became very ill, and, as soon as he was convalescent, gave up business and went abroad. He has spent all the years since – about fifteen, I think – in traveling about, trying to recover his health and divert his mind. Now the poor, weary man has come back again. I am wondering if he will open his house. He is wealthy, and, if his health is restored, he may do so and take up life again. I am sure your father will wish to communicate with Mr. Loring as soon as he returns from his cruise. Perhaps the lonely man will accept an invitation to visit us.
I think it a grave question whether the artistic temperament does not furnish more sorrow than joy to the world. I am proud and thankful that I have a daughter to whom an infatuation would be an impossibility. Come back, Diana, if you feel strong enough. I promise to preserve you from gayety if you wish me to do so. I do not feel at all easy about you. Please write and set a date for coming, explaining also all that lay behind your wire.
Your affectionateMother
By the time Diana finished reading this letter, her hands were trembling.
She hurried to Mrs. Lowell's room. A rather stifled voice bade her enter. Her friend was stooping over the washstand bathing her eyes. Her face, as she looked up through the splashing, showed an April smile.
"I knew it was you," she said. "I recognized the step, and I knew you wouldn't mind discovering that I cry once in a while."
"My dear Mrs. Lowell, I'm sorry for whatever distresses you."
"Oh, it is just that dear talented, wretched boy. I couldn't help weeping a few little weeps; but what happy thing has happened to you, my dear?" she added, catching the excitement in the girl's face. She dried her own finally, and came forward and Diana put the letter into her hands.
They both stood in silence until Mrs. Lowell had finished reading and looked up. Her cheeks were as flushed as Diana's, and they exchanged a radiant gaze and then sat down.
"One always weeps too soon," said Mrs. Lowell at last.
"I was thinking," said Diana, looking off, "that it might be a good plan for me to go to Mr. Loring myself."
"You good girl! Do you know him?"
"Not at all, but any one can go to the Copley-Plaza, and I can tell him I am his cousin."
"You're a precious child. When had you thought of going?"
"Immediately," said Diana, with recovered serenity.