"One could almost pretend to be frozen to please her," returned the Philosopher, in a much lower tone than Rhodora's. "She is the most beautiful old lady I ever saw."

"Goodness, I don't see how you can see anything beautiful about old persons," said the girl. "They give me the creeps."

The Philosopher opened his mouth--and closed it again, quite as I had done in the morning. He looked curiously at Rhodora. By his expression I should judge he was thinking: "After all--what's the use?"

The next afternoon Grandmother and Rhodora went home. When Grandmother was in the carriage the Skeptic tucked her in and put cushions behind her back and a footstool under her feet. Then the Philosopher laid a great nosegay of garden flowers in her lap. She was so pleased she coloured like a girl, and put out her delicate little old hand in its black silk mitt, and he took it in both his and held it close for a minute, looking at her with his blue eyes full of such a boyish expression of affection as his own mother might have seen now and then, years before. I think she would have liked to kiss him, and I am sure he wanted to kiss her, but we were all looking on, and they had known each other but a few hours. Nevertheless, there was something about the little scene which touched us all--except Rhodora, who exclaimed:

"Gracious, Grandmother--I suppose that brings back the days when you had lots of beaux! What a gorgeous jumble of old-fashioned flowers that is, anyhow. I didn't know there were so many kinds in the world!"

The Skeptic hustled her into the carriage, rather as if she were a bag of meal, handed her belongings in after her, shook hands with Grandmother in his most courtly fashion, and stood aside. We waved our hands and handkerchiefs, and Grandmother's fat old horses walked away with her down the driveway.

"It's a pity," said the Skeptic to me impatiently, when they were out of sight around the corner, and we had turned to go back to the house, "that a girl like that can't see herself."

"Rhodora is very young yet," said I. "Perhaps by the time she is even as old as the Gay Lady----"

"You don't think it," declared the Skeptic, looking ahead at the Gay Lady as she walked by the Philosopher over the lawn toward the house.

"The two are no more the same sort--than----" he looked toward the garden for inspiration and found it, as many a man before him has found it, when searching after similes for the women he knows--"than those yellow tiger-lilies of yours are like--a clump of hepaticas that you find in the woods in spring."

That evening the Gay Lady had left us, as she sometimes does, and gone in to play soft, old-time melodies on my piano, while the rest of us sat silently listening. The men know well enough that it is useless to follow her in when she goes to play in the twilight--if they did she would send them back again, or stop playing. And as it is worth much to hear her play when she has a certain mood upon her, n.o.body does anything to break the spell. Sometimes the listening grows almost painful, but before we are quite overwrought she comes back and makes us gay again.

"When I was a boy," said the Skeptic, very softly to me, after the music stopped, "I used to pick out men to admire and follow about, and consume myself with wishing that some day I could be like them. How could a girl like that one we've had here to-day look at our Gay Lady and not want to copy her to the last hair on her head?"

"There are some things which can't be copied," I returned. "She is one of them."

The Skeptic gave me a grateful glance. "You never said a truer thing than that," said he.

Perceiving that he was in a sentimental mood, and that the Gay Lady had stopped playing and was coming out again upon the porch, I turned my attention to the Philosopher. In spite of the music he seemed not in a sentimental mood.

"You have a lot of girl company, first and last, don't you?" he queried, when he and I had agreed upon the beauty of the night.

"It happens so, for some reason," I admitted.

He shook his head regretfully. "If I thought you were going to have anything more like that to-day soon, I should take to the woods,"

said he.

V

AZALEA

It all depends upon a consciousness of values, a sense of proportion.

--_Arthur Christopher Benson._

"The heavens have fallen!" I announced in the doorway of the Gay Lady's room. "Cook is ill--I had the doctor for her in the night. And my little waitress went home just yesterday to her sister's wedding."

"And breakfast to get," responded the Gay Lady, arriving instantly at the point, as she always does. She had been dressing leisurely. Now she made all speed and instead of white linen she slipped into a blue-and-white-checked gingham. "Don't worry--I'll be down in three minutes," she a.s.sured me cheerily.

I found Lad building the kitchen fire--in the country we do not have gas ranges. "I'll have her roaring in a jiff," he cried. "I learned a dandy way camping last year."

Breakfast came off nearly on schedule time. The Gay Lady's omelet was a feathery success, her coffee perfect, my m.u.f.fins above reproach. Lad had helped set the table, he had looked over the fruit, he had skimmed the cream.

Azalea came in a little late. She had been my guest for a week, and a delightful guest, too. She has a glorious voice for singing, and she is very clever and entertaining--everybody likes her.

Of course, when I arose to take away the fruit-plates and bring on the breakfast, the fact that I was servantless came out. To the Philosopher and the Skeptic, who were immediately solicitous, I explained that we should get on very well.

"We'll see that you do," promised the Skeptic. "There are a few things I flatter myself I can do as well as the next man--or woman. Consider me at your service."

"The same here," declared the Philosopher. "And--I say--don't fuss too much. Have a cold lunch--bread and milk, you know, or something like that."

I smiled, and said that would not be necessary. Nor was it. For five years after my marriage I had been my own maid-servant--and those were happy days. My right hand had by no means forgotten her cunning. As for both the Gay Lady's pretty hands--they were very accomplished in household arts. And she had put on the blue-and-white gingham.

"I can wipe dishes," offered the Philosopher, as we rose from the table.

"It's a useful art," said the Gay Lady. "In ten minutes we'll be ready for you."

The Skeptic looked about him. Then he hurried away without saying anything. Two minutes later I found him making his bed.

"Go away," he commanded me. "It'll be ship-shape, never fear. You remember I was sent to a military school when I was a youngster."

From below, as I made Azalea's bed, the strains of one of the Liszt Hungarian Rhapsodies floated up to me. Azalea was playing. We had fallen into the habit of drifting into the living-room, where the piano stood, every morning immediately after breakfast, to hear Azalea play. In the evenings she sang to us; but one does not sing directly after breakfast, and only second in delight to hearing Azalea's superb voice was listening to her matchless touch upon the keyboard. I said to myself, as I went about the "upstairs work"--work that the Skeptic, with all his good will, could not do, not being allowed to cross certain thresholds--that we should sorely miss Azalea's music when she should go away next week.

The Gay Lady and I managed luncheon with very little exertion, we had so much a.s.sistance. Dinner cost us rather more trouble, for Cook's dinners are always delicious, and we could not have a falling off under our regime. But it was a great success, and our men praised us until we felt our labours fully repaid. Still, we were a trifle fatigued at the end of the day. Cook had needed a good deal of waiting upon, and though the Gay Lady had insisted on sharing this service with me it had required many steps and the exercise of some tact--Cook having been fully persuaded all day that her end was near.

"I have told her six times that people don't die of lumbago," said the Gay Lady, "but her tears flow just as copiously as ever. I've written three letters to her friends for her. To-morrow I suppose I shall have to write her last will and testament."

But on the morrow Cook was enough better to be able to indite her own doc.u.ments, though as yet unable to come downstairs. It was well that she did not require much of our time, however, for just before noon a party of touring motorists drove up to our door and precipitated themselves upon us with warm greetings--and hungry looks toward our dining-room.

"Smoke and ashes!" cried the Skeptic, under his breath, appearing in the kitchen, whither the Gay Lady and I had betaken ourselves as soon as we had furnished our guests with soap and water and clothes-brushes, and left them to remove as much of the dust of the road from their persons as could be done without a full bath--"why didn't you send them on to the village inn? Of all the nerve!--and you don't know any of them intimately, do you?"

I shook my head. "One of them was my dearest enemy in school-days," I admitted, "and I never saw but one of the others. Never mind. Do you suppose you could saddle Skylark and post over to town for some beefsteak? I've sent Lad to the neighbours for other things. Beefsteak is what they must have--porterhouse--since I've not enough broilers in the ice-box to go around that hungry company."

"Sure thing," and the Skeptic was off. But he came back to say in my ear: "See here, why doesn't Miss Azalea come out and help? She's just sitting on the porch, looking pretty."

"Somebody ought to play hostess, since I must be here," I responded, without meeting his inquiring eye. I did urgently need some one to beat the oil into the salad dressing I was making, for there were other things I must do. The Gay Lady was already accomplishing separate things with each hand, and directing Lad at the same time. The Skeptic looked at her appreciatively.

"She mourns because she can't sing!" said he, and laughed quietly to himself as he swung away. Yet he had seemed much impressed with Azalea's singing all the week, and had turned her music for her devotedly.