Cary changed his coat and locked his desk. "Well?" as the caller was watching him earnestly.

"Adams, do you mean--do you expect to marry your cousin?" Hawthorne asked abruptly.

"My cousin? Betty or Doris?"

"Doris."

"Why--no, I never thought of it. And I have a sight of work to do before I marry."

"Then--I suppose you never suspected such a thing--but I am in love with her."

"In love with Doris! Why, she's just a child."

"I dare say I shall have to serve seven years before I can get your father's consent. She will be older then. I was listening to a romantic story about an old house where a handsome girl leaned out of a window and her beauty attracted an English officer passing by, who said to himself that was the one woman for him, and long afterward he went back, found her, and married her."

"A handsome Miss Sheafe. Yes." Cary smiled.

"See here, Cary Adams." Hawthorne took a small leather case out of his pocket. Between two cards was a pressed rose. "When I took your packet to Miss Doris Adams almost four years ago, I gave it into the hands of the sweetest little girl I ever saw. If I had been less of a gentleman I must have kissed her. I espied one rose in the garden and asked her for it. This is the rose she gave me. I meant to come North and find her, and when I asked for leave of absence to visit Boston this business was put in my charge. Then I said, 'I will look up the little girl, who must be a large girl now, and woo her with the sincerest regard.' It shall go hard indeed with me if I cannot win her. But I have fancied of late that you----"

"She is very dear to me and to my father. But I had not thought----"

"Then I take my chances. As I said, I will wait for her. She is still very young, and I should feel conscience-smitten to rob your father.

Sometime you may want to bring the woman you love to the old home, and then it will not be so hard. I could keep true to her the whole world over; and if she promises, she will keep true to me."

Cary Adams was deeply moved. Such devotion ought to win a reward. How blind he and his father had been, thinking of Betty Leverett.

Oh, how could they let Doris go! Yet a lover like this was not to be curtly refused.

"I shall not stand in your way," quietly.

"Thank you a thousand times. But if she had been for you, as I feared, I should have proved man enough to keep silent and go my way. It has been a happy summer, and in two weeks more it will end. Still, I may be able to get an appointment here. I shall try for it and return."

"Come," said Cary Adams, and he went out feeling there had been a great change in the world, and he was wrapped about with some mysterious influence.

Doris had thought of Captain Hawthorne on the day of his, Cary's, return. How many times besides had she thought of him? And she had recalled giving him the rose.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE COST OF WOMANHOOD

A happy fortnight. It was worth all the after-pain to have it to remember. When Boston was a great city half a century later, and there had been another war, and Captain Hawthorne had risen in the ranks and been put on the retired list, he came a grizzled old man to find the place that had always lived in his remembrance. But the old house had been swept away by the march of improvement, the rounding corner straightened and given over to business, and the Common was magnificent in beauty. The tall, thin, scholarly man had gone to the wife of his youth. Doris, little Doris, was very happy. So what did it matter?

There was a succession of lovely days. One morning, early, Captain Hawthorne joined Doris and her uncle in a long ride over on Boston Neck.

They found an odd old tavern kept by a sailor who had been round the world and taken a hand in the "scrimmage," as he called it, and with his small prize money bought out the place. There was some delightful bread and cold chicken, wine and bottled cider equal to champagne. There was another long lovely day when with Betty they went up to Salem and drove around the quaint streets and watched the signs of awakening business.

There was Fort Pickering, the lighthouse out on the island, the pretty Common, the East India Marine Society's hall with its curiosities (quite wonderful even then), and the clean streets with their tidy shops, the children coming from school, the housewives going about on errands.

Foster Manning drove his grandmother down to join them; and he was almost a young man now. He told Doris they all missed Elizabeth so much, but he was glad she had had that nice visit to Boston.

So the days drifted on; Doris unconsciously sweet in her simplicity, yet so innocent that the lover began to fear while he hoped.

Uncle Winthrop had gone to a meeting of the Historical Society. Miss Recompense had a neighbor in great trouble that she was trying to console out in the supper room, where they could talk unreservedly. Cary was in the study, and the two were sauntering around the fragrant walks where the grassy beds had recently been cut. There was no moon, and the whole world seemed soft and still, as if it was listening to the story Captain Hawthorne had to tell, as if it was in love with itself.

"Oh," interrupted Doris with a sharp, pained cry, "do not, please do not! I never dreamed--I--shall never go away from Uncle Winthrop. I do not want any other love. I thought it was--Betty. Oh, forgive me for the pain and disappointment. I seem even to myself such a little girl----"

"But I can wait years. I wanted you to know. Oh, Doris, as the years go on can you not learn to love me? I will be patient and live in the sweet, grand hope that some day----"

"No, no; do not hope. I cannot promise. Oh, you are so noble and upright, can you not accept this truth from me? For it would only be pain and disappointment in the end."

No, she did not love him. Her sweet soul was still asleep within her fair body. He was too really honorable to persist.

"Doris," he said,--what a sweet girl's name it was!--"five years from this time I shall come back. You will be a woman then, you are still a child. And if no other lover has won you, I shall ask again."

He pressed her hand to his lips. Then he led her around to the porch, and bade her a tender good-night. He would not embarrass her by any longer stay.

She ran up the steps. Cary intercepted her in the hall.

"Has he gone? Doris----"

"Oh, _did_ you know? How could you let him!" she cried in anguish. "How could you!"

"Doris--my dear little sister, he loved you so. But I wish it had been Betty. Oh, don't cry. You have done nothing. I am sorry, but he would not have been satisfied if he had not spoken. He wanted to ask father first, but I hated to have _him_ pained if it was not necessary----"

"Thank you for that, Cary. Do not tell him. You will not?" she pleaded, thinking of the other first.

"No, dear. We must shield him all we can."

Yes, they would try always. There was a little rift in the cloud of pain.

The next evening Captain Hawthorne came over to bid them a formal good-by. Helen Chapman and her lover and Eudora were there, so it was an unembarrassing affair with many good wishes on both sides.

Doris thought she would like to run away and hide. It seemed as if the whole story was written in her face. Betty suspected, but she loved her too well to tease. And almost immediately Helen announced her arrangements. She was to be married in October. Doris and Cary must stand with her, and one of the Chapman cousins with Eudora. Another warm girl friend and her lover would complete the party. Grandmamma had stipulated that Mr. Harrison Gray should cast in his lot with them for a year. Mr. Sargent had been attached to the embassy at London and they would remain two years longer at least. Madam Royall could not bear to have the family shrink so rapidly.

Betty was to go away again. Mr. and Mrs. Matthias King came together this time to see old friends and Boston, that Mr. King found wonderfully changed. He was to go to France on business for the firm of which he was a member, and be absent a year at least. It would be such a splendid chance for Betty. They were to take their own little Bessy and leave the three younger children with a friend who had a school for small people and who would give them a mother's care.

There was a little grandson in Sudbury Street, and Mercy had proved a very agreeable daughter-in-law. Warren had begun to prosper again, and was full of hope. The children at Hollis Leverett's were growing rapidly. They no longer said "little Sam." He was almost a young man. He had taken the Franklin prize at the Latin School and was now apprenticed to an architect and builder, and would set up for himself when he came of age, as Boston had begun to build up rapidly. But he couldn't help envying Cousin Cary Adams his prize money and wondering what he meant to do with it.

An invitation to go to Paris was not to be lightly declined then, any more than it would be now. Mrs. Manning did not see "how Betty could leave mother for so long," but Mrs. Leverett was in good health, and though she hated to have her go so far away, there really could be no objection, when Matthias King was so generous.

"I am going to have some of my good times while we are together and able to enjoy them," he said to Mrs. Leverett. "I shall have to leave Electa alone every now and then while I am about business, and it will be such a comfort to her to have Betty. No doubt, we shall marry her to a French count."

"Oh, no, bring her back to me," said Betty's mother.

There was quite a stir among Betty's compeers. She was congratulated and envied, and they begged her to write everything she could about French fashions. How lucky that she had been studying French!

Aunt Priscilla had a hard struggle with conscience about a matter that she felt to be quite a duty. Giving away finery that you would never wear was one thing, but your money was quite another.