"Then I outgrew that ideal. Others took its place, but when a woman grown, I held up the one that was the best my woman's heart could fashion, I found that my prince measured just to the stature of an honest man, simple and earnest and true. That was all – no Greek god, no dashing knight, but a strong, manly man, whose love was my life's crown of happiness."
She glanced up at the portrait over the mantel, and there was an impressive pause. Lloyd broke the silence presently, speaking very fast in an embarrassed sort of way.
"But, Mrs. Walton, don't you think there was some excuse for Ida besides her being blinded to Mistah Bannon's faults? He made her believe she had such a good influence ovah him that she thought it was her duty to disobey her aunt, because it was moah important that he should be reformed than that she should be obeyed in a mattah that seemed unreasonable to Ida."
"Yes," was the hesitating answer. "But Ida was largely influenced to take that stand by the books she had been reading. That's another matter I want to speak about, since my little girls have confessed to the reading of 'Daisy Dale' and the 'Heiress of Dorn.' While there is nothing particularly objectionable in such books in one way, in another their influence is of the very worst. The characters are either unreal or overdrawn, or they are so interestingly coloured that they are like the figures of the shepherd lad and the long-haired page in the mirrors of Hertha and Huberta. In watching them a girl is apt to weave her web 'to fit their unworthy shoulders, and forget how high is the stature of a perfect prince.' Such books are poor yardsticks, and give one false ideas of value and measurement.
"Ned's plea is what nearly every wild young fellow makes, and nine times out of ten it appeals to a girl more than any other argument he could use. 'Give me the mantle, Hildegarde. It will help me to live right.' So she takes him in hand to reform him. Nothing could be purer and higher than the motives which prompt her to sacrifice everything to what she considers her duty. I had a schoolmate once who married a bright young fellow because he came to her with Ned's plea. Her father said, 'Let him reform first. What he will not do for a sweetheart, he will never do for a wife.' But she would not listen, and to-day she is living in abject poverty and cruel unhappiness. He is rarely sober.
"In olden times a man didn't come whining to a maiden and say, 'I long to be a knight, but I am too weak to do battle unaided. Be my ladye fair and help me win my spurs.' No, she would have laughed him to scorn. He won his spurs first, and only after he had proved himself worthy and received his accolade, did she give him her hand.
"Oh, my dear girls, if you would only do as Hildegarde did, ask first if all be well before you clip the golden web from the loom and give it to the one who begs for it! He is not the one written for you in the stars – he does not measure to the stature of a true prince if he comes with such a selfish demand as Ned did."
"That is a story I'll nevah forget," said Lloyd, soberly. "I think it ought to be printed and put in the seminary library for all the othah girls to read."
"And some of the fathers and mothers, too," added Betty. "Ida's aunt ought to have a copy."
"No, it is too late," remarked Katie. "It's a case of what grandpa would call 'locking the stable after the horse is stolen.'"
There was a knock at the door. "Supper is served," announced Barbry's voice in the hall.
CHAPTER XV
THANKSGIVING DAY
One might have thought, watching the pillow-fight which went on that night at bedtime, that the fairy-tale had been told too soon. The five girls, romping and shrieking through halls and bedrooms as the sport went on, fast and furious, seemed too young for its grave lessons. But "the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts," even when its actions are most childish and careless, and the little tale made a deeper impression than the teller of it realized.
For one thing, Betty laid aside the book she was writing, although she had secretly cherished the hope of having the story of Gladys and Eugene published sometime during the coming year.
"I might be ashamed of it when I am grown," she explained, quoting old Hildgardmar: "''Tis but a little mantle thou couldst weave this year, at best, fit but to clothe the shoulders of yon curly shepherd lad.' If I am to outgrow my ideals as I do my dresses, I ought to wait. I want the critics to say of me 'Thou waitedst till thy woman's fingers wrought the best that lay within thy woman's heart.' So I'll lay the book aside for a few years, till I've learned more about people. But I'll write it some day."
It was that same night, while they were getting ready for bed, that the Shadow Club was disbanded.
"I nevah want to heah that name again," exclaimed Lloyd, shaking out her hair and beginning to brush it. "It was so disgraced by being dragged into the newspapahs with such a lie, that it almost makes me ill whenevah I think of it."
"Oh, you don't want to give up the work for the mountain people, do you?" asked Allison, in dismay.
"No, but I'd like to stop until aftah the holidays. We have so much to do getting ready for Christmas. Besides, I'd like to be able to tell the girls that there wasn't such a club any moah. The next term we could make a fresh start with a new name, just the five of us."
"Oh, let's call it 'The Order of Hildegarde!'" cried Betty, enthusiastically. "And all the time we are doing 'broidery and fair needlework' to sell for the mountain people, we can be trying to weave our ideals as Hildegarde did, so that we may not miss the happiness that is written for us in the stars."
"I'd like that," exclaimed Allison, entering into the new plan eagerly. "We could have club colours this time, gold and rose, the colour of the warp and woof, you know."
"Yes, yes! That's it!" assented Kitty, with equal enthusiasm. "Streamers of narrow gold and rose ribbon, pinned by a tiny gilt star, to remind us of what is written in the stars. Don't you think that would be lovely, Katie?"
"Yes," answered Katie, "but I think if we want to keep the order a secret we oughtn't to wear such a badge in public. It would be safer to keep them in our 'inner rooms.' But we could use them in all sorts of ways, the ribbons crossed on our pincushions, or streamers of them to tie back our curtains, or broad bands on our work-baskets and embroidery-bags."
Lloyd gave ready assent. "That would suit me, for my room at home is already furnished in rose colah. All I would have to do is to add the gold and the sta'hs."
"And mine is a white and gold room," said Betty. "I'll only have to give it a few touches of rose colour."
A few more words settled the matter, as the girls hovered around the fire in their night-dresses, and then the establishment of the new Order of Hildegarde was celebrated by a pillow fight, the like of which for noise and vigour had never before been known at The Beeches.
In the hard work that followed after their return to school, time slipped by so fast that Thanksgiving Day came surprisingly soon. Nearly all the pupils and teachers went home for the short vacation, or visited friends in Louisville. Even the president and his wife went away. Only six girls besides Lloyd and Betty were left to follow the matron to church on Thanksgiving morning.
It was a lonesome walk. A Sabbath-like stillness pervaded the quiet Valley, and the ringing of the bell in the ivy-grown belfry of the little stone church, and the closed doors at the post-office, gave the girls the feeling that Sunday had somehow come in the middle of the week. As they crossed the road toward the iron gate leading into the churchyard, Lloyd looked up past the manse toward The Beeches, hoping for a glimpse of the Walton girls. Then she remembered that Allison had told her that they were all going to town to celebrate the day with her Aunt Elise, and the feeling of being left out of everybody's good times began to weigh heavily upon her.
No smoke was coming out of any of the chimneys, either at The Beeches or Edgewood. When she thought of Locust, also cold and empty, with no fire on its hospitable hearths, no feast on its ample table, no cheer anywhere within its walls, and her family far away, a wave of homesickness swept over her that brought a mist over her eyes. She could scarcely see as they went up the steps.
Mrs. Bond, with her usual dread of being late, had hurried them away from the seminary much too soon. Not more than half a dozen carriages had driven into the grove around the little country church when they reached the door, and only a few people were waiting inside. As Lloyd sat in the solemn silence that was broken only now and then by a stifled cough or the rustle of a turning leaf, she had hard work to battle back the tears. But with a sudden determination to overcome such a feeling, she sat up very straight in the end of the pew, and pressed her lips together hard.
"It's almost wicked of me," she thought, "to feel so bad about the one thing I can't have when there are a thousand other things that ought to make me happy. It's only a pah't of my bo'ding-school experiences, and will be ovah in a little while. I don't suppose anybody in church has moah to be thankful for than I have."
She glanced furtively across the aisle. "I'm thankful that I'm not that old Mistah Saxon with his wooden leg, or that poah little Mrs. Crisp in the cawnah, with five children to suppo't, and one of them a baby that has fits."
Her gaze wandered down the opposite aisle. "And I'm suah it's something to be thankful for not to have a nose like Libbie Simms, or such a fussy old fathah as Sue Bell Wade has to put up with. And I'm glad I haven't such poah taste as to make a rainbow out of myself, wearing so many different colahs at once as Miss McGill does. Five different shades of red on the same hat are enough to set one's teeth on edge. I believe I could go on all day, counting the things I'm glad I haven't got; and as for the things I have – " She began checking them off on her finger-tips. There was a handful before she had fairly begun to count; home, family, perfect health, the love of many friends, the opportunities that filled every day to the brim.
The organist pulled out the stops and began playing an old familiar chant as a voluntary. As the full, sweet chords filled the church Lloyd could almost hear the words rising with the music:
"My cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
All the days of my life."
As the music swelled louder, her counting was interrupted by the opening of the door and the entrance of several generations of the Moore family, who had come back to Oaklea for a Thanksgiving reunion. It seemed good to Lloyd to see the old judge's white head gleaming like silver in its accustomed pew. His benign face fairly radiated cheerfulness and good-will as he took his place once more among his old neighbours.
Rob walked just behind him, so tall and erect, it seemed to Lloyd that he must have grown several inches in the three short months since they had cut the last notches in the measuring-tree. As he turned to throw his overcoat across the back of the seat, his quick glance spied Lloyd and Betty several pews in the rear, and he flashed them a smile of greeting. At the same time, so quickly and deftly that Mrs. Bond did not see the motion, he held up a package that he had carried in under his overcoat, and instantly dropped it out of sight again on the seat. Then he straightened himself up beside his grandfather, as if he were a model of decorum.
Lloyd and Betty exchanged a meaning glance which seemed to say, "That five-pound box of Huyler's best he promised us;" and Lloyd found herself wondering several times during the long service how he would manage to present it. That problem did not worry Rob, however. As the congregation slowly moved down the aisles and out into the vestibule, he elbowed his way to Mrs. Bond, standing beside her eight charges like a motherly old hen.
"Good morning, Mrs. Bond," he exclaimed, in his straightforward, boyish way. "You're going to take me under your wing and let me walk to the gate with Betty and Lloyd, aren't you! I'll be as good as grandfather if you will, and I'll even take him along if it's necessary to have anybody to vouch for me."
His mischievous smile was so irresistible that she gave him a motherly pat on the shoulder. "Run along," she exclaimed, laughingly. "I'll follow presently. There are several people I want to speak to first."
"Oh, Rob," exclaimed Lloyd, as he started down the avenue beside her and Betty. "It's like a bit of home to see you again. Talk fast and tell us everything. Do you think you'll pass in Latin? Is it decided whethah you're to go East to school aftah Christmas? Did you see that awful piece in the papah about our club?"
She poured out her questions so rapidly that they were half-way to the seminary before he could answer all her catechism, and then he had so many to ask her that she almost forgot to tell him about the box they had received from Locust that morning.
"A suah enough Thanksgiving-box!" she exclaimed gleefully. "Just as if we'd really been away off from home at school, with all the good things that Mom Beck could think of or Aunt Cindy could cook, from a turkey to a monstrous big fruit-cake. Mothah planned the surprise before she went away. Think of the gay midnight suppahs we could have if we hadn't turned ovah a new leaf and refawmed."
"So you've reformed!" he repeated. "Then boarding-school life can't seem as funny to you as you thought last September it was going to be."
"Yes, it does," protested Betty. "I'll be glad when the next four weeks are over so that we can go back to Locust, but excepting only two or three things that happened, I've enjoyed every minute that we've been at the seminary. I'll always be glad that we had this experience."
"And it wasn't at all like you said it would be," added Lloyd, laughingly, "'scorched oatmeal and dried apples and old cats watching at every keyhole.' There was some eavesdropping, but it wasn't the teachahs who did it, and we had moah fun getting even with the girl who did than I could tell in a week. I'll tell you about our playing ghost, and all the rest, when you come out Christmas."
"Then I'll have to hand over the candy," he said. "You've earned it, if you've stood the strain this long and kept as hale and hearty as you look."
They had reached the high green picket gate by this time, and, delivering the box to the girls, with a few more words he left them. Dinner was to be early at Oaklea, he said, as they were all going home on the five o'clock train.
"Oh, it was just like having a piece of home to see him again," exclaimed Lloyd, looking after him wistfully as he lifted his cap and walked rapidly away. "I can hardly wait to get back now. Wouldn't you like to walk up to Locust aftah dinnah, Betty?"
"No, I believe not," was the hesitating reply. "It would make me feel more homesick than if I stayed away altogether. Mom Beck will be off keeping holiday somewhere, and everything will be shut up and desolate-looking. Probably all we'd see would be Lad and Tarbaby out in the pasture. Let's walk over to Rollington instead, after dinner, and take a lot of things to that poor little Mrs. Crisp out of our box from home."
"How funny for you to think of the same thing that I did this mawning in church!" exclaimed Lloyd. "The text made me think of it, and when I looked across at her in that pitiful old wispy crape veil, and thought of the washing she has to do, and the baby with the fits, I was so thankful that I was not in her place that I felt as if I ought to give her every penny I possess."
It was a very quiet day. A better dinner than usual, and the long walk over to Rollington late in the afternoon was all that made it differ from the Sundays that they had spent at the seminary. But as the two little Good Samaritans trudged homeward over the frozen pike, swinging their empty basket between them, Lloyd exclaimed, "I've had a good time to-day, aftah all, and I would have been perfectly misah'ble if I'd gone on the way I stah'ted out to do – thinking about the one thing I wanted and couldn't have. I just made myself stop, and go to thinking of the things I did have, and then I forgot to feel homesick. Counting yoah blessings and carrying turkey to poah folks doesn't sound like a very exciting way to spend yoah holidays, but it makes you feel mighty good inside, doesn't it! Especially when you think how pleased Mrs. Crisp was."
"Yes," answered Betty. "I don't know how to express the way the day has made me feel. Not happy, exactly, for when I'm that way I always want to sing." She held her muff against her cold face. "It's more like a big, soft, furry kind of contentment. If I were a cat I'd be purring."
CHAPTER XVI
CHRISTMAS GREENS AND WATCH-NIGHT EMBERS
There is a chapter in Betty's Good Times book which tells all about that last day at the seminary, before the Christmas vacation; of the hurried packing and leave-taking; of her trip to town with Lloyd to meet Papa Jack and come out home with him on the five o'clock train, laden with Christmas packages like all the other suburban passengers; of the carriage waiting for them at the depot, just as if they had been away at some school a long distance from the Valley, and then the crowning joy of seeing her godmother on the platform, waving her handkerchief as the train stopped in front of the depot.
They had not expected her back from Hot Springs until the next day, and all the way out on the train had been discussing the reception they intended to give her. There had been a twinkle in Mr. Sherman's eyes as he listened, for he knew of this surprise in store for them, and had had a hand in planning it.
It is all in Betty's Good Times book, even to the way they rolled down the steps and fell over each other in their haste to reach her, and the welcome that made it seem more than ever as if they were coming home from a long journey to spend their Christmas vacation, just as thousands of other schoolgirls were doing all over the country. Then the drive homeward in the frosty, starlit dusk to find Locust all a-twinkle, a light in every window and a fire on every hearth; the great front door swinging wide on its hospitable hinges to send a stream of light down the avenue to meet them, and the spirit of Christmas cheer and expectancy falling warm upon them as they crossed the threshold.
The memory of it would be something to be glad for always, Betty thought, as she danced into the long drawing-room after Lloyd, and saw the old Colonel start up from his chair before the fire and come forward to meet them, the candle-light falling softly on his silver hair and smiling face.
Although Betty had laid aside her unfinished romance of Gladys and Eugene, she could no more help writing than a fish can keep from swimming, and that is why her Good Times book held so many interesting pages. All the energy and time that would have been put into the silly little novel went instead to the description of real scenes and real people, which in after years made the little white books the most precious volumes in all her library. As fast as one was filled she began another. The one now on her desk had the number IV. stamped in gold on the white kid cover, under her initials.
There were few pages in this fourth volume more interesting than the ones she found time to write on Christmas Eve. She had gone with Lloyd and Allison and Kitty that afternoon in search for Christmas greens with which to decorate the house.
Malcolm and Keith Maclntyre, Rob Moore, and Ranald Walton had met them in Tanglewood, their guns over their shoulders, and had joined them in their quest. The mistletoe they wanted grew too high to be climbed for or to be dislodged by throwing at, but Ranald, an expert marksman, volunteered to shoot down all they could carry. He was just home from military school on his vacation, and Rob Moore had been out for two days hunting with him. Malcolm and Keith had been at their grandmother's several days, tramping long distances over the frosty fields, and coming in well satisfied each evening with the contents of their game-bags.
Malcolm and Rob were to leave for the same college-preparatory school after the holidays, and as they were going back to town on the five o'clock train they had but a short time left to spend in the Valley. So the party, after some discussion, divided into three groups, agreeing to meet at the depot.
Ranald strode away across the woods as fast as his long legs would carry him to the trees where the mistletoe hung. Kitty and Katie kept close in his wake, swinging the baskets between them that he was to fill. Keith and Betty hurried on to the place where the bittersweet grew thickest, while Rob and Allison, Malcolm and Lloyd strolled along, filling their baskets from the occasional trees of hemlock, spruce, and cedar they found on their way among the bare oaks and beeches. Now and then they found a pine with the brown cones clinging to the spicy boughs.
Only Betty's part of that quest is in the little white record; how they ran along through Tanglewood that afternoon, she and Keith, in the late December sunshine, breathing in the woodsy odour of the fallen leaves and the crisp frostiness of the air, until the blood tingled in their finger-tips and their cheeks grew red as rosy apples.
It was a pretty picture she left on the page, of the winter woods, of the old stile leading into the adjoining churchyard, where in almost a thicket of bare dogwood-trees and lilac-bushes stood the little Episcopal church, built like the one next the manse, of picturesque gray stone. The walls were aglow with the brilliant red and orange berries of the bittersweet, which hung even from the eaves and cornices, and from every place where the graceful vines could trail and twist and clamber.
Lloyd kept no record of that afternoon, but she never forgot it. She walked along, her eyes shining like stars, her cheeks glowing. Her dark blue cap and jacket made her hair seem all the fairer by contrast, and there was a glint of gold in it, wherever the sun touched it through the trees.
Rob and Malcolm were full of their plans for the coming term, and talked of little else all the way through the woods, but as they reached the stile, over which Keith and Betty had passed some time before, Rob exclaimed:
"I forgot to tell you, Lloyd! When we were out hunting yesterday we stopped at a cabin ever so far from here, to rest and warm. And what do you suppose we saw on the pendulum of an old clock, swinging away on the mantel as big as life? Your picture! The one of the Princess, you know, with the dove. I couldn't believe my eyes at first. The old man told us it had been given to his daughter, and when he found out who Ranald was he sent a message to Mrs. Walton about her. She's in a hospital and will soon be well enough to come home. Mrs. Walton told us all about it last night, how the girl imagined every time the clock ticked that you were saying, 'For love will find the way.' It made quite a pretty story, but you can't imagine how queer it was to stumble across your picture in such an out-of-the-way place, and fixed up in such odd shape, on a pendulum, of all things!"
"It helped Corono ever so much, mother said," remarked Allison. "That's one good thing our Shadow Club led to, if nothing else." She climbed up on the stile and stood looking over, exclaiming at the beauty of the old gray walls, draped in the masses of brilliant bittersweet; then, springing down, ran across the churchyard to join Betty and Keith on the other side and make her own selection of vines.
Rob leaned his gun against the fence and took out his watch. "Only half an hour longer," he announced. Then, opening the back of his watch-case, he held it out toward Lloyd.
"Do you remember that?" he asked, nodding toward a little four-leaf clover which lay flat and green inside. "Your good-luck charm worked wonders, Lloyd. It helped me through my Latin in such fine shape that I intend to carry it through college with me all the way. It's like the picture on the pendulum, isn't it? only this says, 'For luck will find the way.'"
As Lloyd began some laughing reply about his being superstitious, Betty's voice called from the vestry door, "Oh, Rob! Come around here a minute, please! Here's the loveliest bunch of berries you ever saw, and it's too high for any one but you to reach!"
With one leap Rob was over the stile hurrying to Betty's assistance. Lloyd had filled both pockets of her jacket with hickory-nuts on her way through Tanglewood, and, seating herself on the top step of the stile, she began cracking them with a round stone which she had picked up near the fence. Malcolm, leaning on his gun, stood watching her.
"You never gave me any four-leaf clover, Lloyd," he said, in a low tone, as Rob strode away.
"You nevah happened to be around when I found any," answered Lloyd, carelessly. "Have a nut instead." She nodded toward the pile on the step beside her.
Malcolm flushed a trifle. He was nearly sixteen, tall and broad-shouldered, but the colour came as easily to his handsome face now as when a little fellow of ten he had begged her to keep his silver arrow "to remember him by."
"No, thanks," he answered, stiffly. There was a jealous note in his voice as he added, "And you wouldn't let me keep the little heart of gold that night after the play."
"Of co'se not! Papa Jack gave me that. I think everything of it."
"You wouldn't even lend it to me," he continued.
"Because we'd come to the end of the play. You were not Sir Feal any longah, and you didn't have any shield to bind it on, so what good would it have done?"
"But we haven't come to the end of the play," he insisted. "I've thought of you ever since as my Princess Winsome, and it has been more than a year since that night. Yesterday, when I saw your picture on the pendulum, and heard how it had influenced that girl in the cabin, I wished that I could make you understand how much more your influence means to me; and I made up my mind to ask you for something. Will you give it to me, Lloyd? It's just the tip of that little curl behind your ear. It shines like gold, and I want to put it in the back of my watch as a talisman, like they used to carry in old times, you know – a token that I am your knight, and that I may do as it says in the song, come back to you 'on some glad morrow.' I want to carry it with me always, as I shall always carry your shadow-self wherever I go."
Lloyd bent her head so far over the nuts as she chose one with great deliberation that her hair fell across the cheek nearest him, and he could not see how red her face grew. How handsome he was, she thought. How deep and clear his eyes looked as they smiled into hers. If she had never known of Ida's mistake – if she had never heard the Hildegarde story – there might have crept into her girlish fancy, young though she was, the thought that this was the love written for her in the stars. But like a flash came the recollection of old Hildgardmar's warning:
"And many youths will come to thee, each begging, 'Give me the royal mantle, Hildegarde. I am the prince the stars have destined for thee!'"
And then his words of blessing:
"Because even in childhood days thou ever kept in view the sterling yardstick as I bade thee, because no single strand of all the golden warp that Clotho gave thee was squandered on another, because thou waitedst till thy woman's fingers wrought the best that lay within thy woman's heart, all happiness shall now be thine."
"Please, Lloyd," he asked again, in a low, earnest tone.
"I – I can't, Malcolm," she stammered, giving the nut she had chosen a sudden blow that completely smashed it.
"Why not? You gave Rob the clover to carry in his watch."
"That was different. Rob doesn't care for the clovah on my account. He carries it for the good luck it brings; not because I gave it to him."
"But he'll get to caring after awhile," said Malcolm, moodily. "He couldn't help it. Nobody could who knew you, and I don't want him to." Then, after a long pause in which Lloyd attended so strictly to her nut-cracking that she did not even glance in his direction, he asked, jealously: "Would you give him the curl if he asked for it?"
Something in his tone made Lloyd look up with a provoking little smile. "No," she answered, "not even the snippiest little snip of a hair, if he asked for it the way you are doing, and wanted it to mean what you do – that he was my – my chosen knight, you know."
"Is there anybody you would give it to, Lloyd?"
His persistence only made her shake her head the more obstinately. It did not take much teasing to arouse what Mom Beck called "the Lloyd stubbo'ness."
"No! I tell you! And if you keep on talking that way I'm going home!"
"Why won't you let me talk that way? This is the last time I'll see you until next summer, and I'm dreadfully in earnest, Lloyd. You don't know how much it means to me. Don't you care for me at all?"
A dozen things came crowding up to her lips in answer. She wanted to tell him the story of Hildegarde's weaving and old Hildgardmar's warning. She wanted to say that she could not trifle with the happiness that was written for her in the stars by giving away even a strand of Clotho's golden thread before she was old enough to choose wisely the one on whom to bestow such a favour. But she knew that he would not understand these allusions to a story of which he had never heard.
She did not know how to put into words the vague, undefined feeling that she had, that he must not come to her with such speeches until he had won his spurs and received his accolade. It was her helplessness to answer as she wished that made her spring up impatiently and say in her most imperious, Little Colonel-like way, "Didn't you heah me tell you to stop talking that way, Malcolm Maclntyre? Of co'se I care for you. I've always liked you, and I think you're one of the nicest boys I know, but I won't if you keep on that way when I tell you to stop. You might at least wait till you come back from college and let me see what sawt of a man you've turned out to be!"