Her eyes showed slow, but gratified, comprehension.

"And my dress--" she hurried on.

"A rather plain white one," I suggested fearfully, for I apprehended trouble there as with the candy-boxes. "You see, he'll not like to find you with a dress which has lace all twisted and _tortured_ across the front--doctors are such humane creatures."

"I'm just dying to see what he looks like!" she exclaimed, her eyes dancing. "And I'm so much obliged to you."

"I hope you'll have a pleasant time with him," I started, when she looked at me in dismay.

"Oh, surely I'll see you again before he comes! Can't you come over a little later on, or maybe after I'm dressed--to see if I am fixed all right, and if the parlor looks swell?" Her big dark eyes held a flattering appeal.

"Why, of course! I'll be glad to get mother to run over there with me--just before time for him to come," and she gave my arm a gratified little squeeze and went away filled with charming antic.i.p.ations.

As the mystic hour approached, mother and I threw crocheted things over our heads and started across the wide road which lay between the houses.

Drawing near the cottage we noticed a dim light bobbing about queerly just off the front porch, and mother clutched my arm in agony.

"Surely--_surely_ they're not hanging j.a.panese lanterns out in honor of his coming!"

"Oh, I hope not," I responded, feeling not at all certain as to the course which Neva's enthusiasm might take. But as we clicked the gate and pa.s.sed on into the yard we discerned the generous outlines of Mr.

Tim Sullivan rising from a rickety, three-legged chair, which he had placed directly in front of Mrs. Sullivan's nasturtium frame. This frame was but a poor skeleton affair, having been built in the yard early in the summer for the flowers to clamber up on, but the fall of the leaf was approaching, and the flowers had refused to clamber.

In one hand Mr. Sullivan held a small, smoky lamp, the flame of which was entirely a one-sided affair; and in the other he brandished a paint brush. We knew it was a paint brush because it out-smelt the lamp.

"Come in! Come right in," he invited us hospitably, and as he gallantly approached to light us on our way up the walk, we caught a whiff of his breath; and the paint brush and the lamp faded into insignificance in the smelling line.

"Why, what are you doing, Mr. Sullivan?" mother inquired as she strained her eyes toward the nasturtium frame and saw big splotches of green paint smeared about at intervals upon its wooden gauntness.

"I'm painting," he explained politely, as he held the lamp high above his head that it might cast its doubtful rays over the dark walk.

"Just painting."

"But why paint to-night?" she persisted, doubtless wondering if this was being done in honor of the "city beau."

"Why, there ain't no time like the present, as I've always been told, you know, Mrs. Fielding," he further elucidated, his voice growing louder and louder as the distance between us increased, and as we gained the freshly-scoured front steps he moved back toward his field of operation and resumed his work. The wild sweeps of his brush gave, in the dim light of the unsteady lamp, the impression of some weird acrobatic performance.

We went into the house and found the feminine portion of the family in a state of conflicting emotions. Mrs. Sullivan was perfectly limp with rage over the misfortune of having Tim even mildly drunk and disorderly on the night when Neva's destiny might be hanging in the balance. Neva herself was perturbed, but radiant, and was praying cheerfully that something might happen to check her father's artistic endeavors before the arrival of her beau. That Doctor Simmons was a suitor for her hand, impressed by her beauty in some mysterious and romantic manner, it had not entered into Neva's silly little head to doubt; and since one of her friends had seen the young gentleman at the hotel in the afternoon and had telephoned her that he was the swellest-est dressed man to enter that town since Heck was a pup, her expectations were soaring at dizzy heights.

I found that fortunately she had spent the force of her own swell longings upon the attire of her mother this time, inasmuch as I had so urgently recommended simplicity for herself. The glittering combs and bandeau were adorning Mrs. Sullivan's head, rising resplendent from divers unaccustomed puffs and braids and curls. Mrs. Sullivan's hair ordinarily wore a look of conventual severity, as did her hat, but there was never any congeniality between the two. In fact they were never on speaking terms.

"I done it to please Nevar," she confessed to me, smiling wanly at her reflection in the mirror, "but if I had a-had my way I wouldn't a-done it. I don't like it. If I had a tubful o' wet clo'es on my head it couldn't feel no heavier!"

We were so cordially invited to remain and view the stranger from a speechless distance that we finally consented to do so, occupying straight chairs that would not creak and betray our presence as we sat at the front window of the room opposite the parlor and breathlessly awaited his arrival.

Presently he came and we were repaid for waiting. When I had mentioned him in the afternoon as being a possible Beau Brummel I little realized what an inadequate term I had employed. Beau Brummel with all his diamond-studded snuff-boxes was never rigged up to compare with Doctor Simmons. In stature he was tall, in demeanor grave, in color red-headed. His trousers were very light and his shirt was very pink, while a large diamond stud gleamed from his glossy bosom. Two other great stones were set in rings. His shoes were tan, but his hosiery was not; and his broad straw hat had birds embroidered in the band.

Neva received him nervously, her voice high-pitched and unnatural.

Mrs. Sullivan bade us sit still while she tiptoed around through the back hall and up close to the parlor door, where she could overhear the announcement of his mission. Her maternal anxiety justified this.

We sat an interminable time, it seemed, listening to Miss Delia Badger's low-toned conversation, which she felt must for politeness'

sake be kept up; but there was no light in the room, and we were thus saved the pain of looking at her parti-colored hair, so it might have been worse.

After a long time Mrs. Sullivan came in. We could not see her face, but her voice had the most doleful droop I had ever detected in its depths, and she collapsed into the nearest chair.

"He's a fit doctor," she announced briefly, after a moment's strained silence.

"A _what_?"

"A fit doctor. He cures fits up at his hospital in the city. Somebody from here wrote him that Nevar had done had one. He'll give a gold-trimmed fountain pen for ever' name of a fitified person you'll send him."

"How unkind of the one who wrote him about Neva!" mother exclaimed in an indignant whisper, but I was unable to speak.

"'Twas some of them mean girls in the choir," Mrs. Sullivan p.r.o.nounced lifelessly. "They're always so jealous of Nevar having the most beaus and the prettiest dresses."

"Well, it's a shame!" mother repeated wrathfully.

"What I'm worrying about _now_ is how to git 'im off without Tim killing 'im," Neva's mother continued, still in an apathetic whisper.

"If he could catch the nine o'clock car out o' town to-night he would be safe, but it's mighty near that time now. If he was to leave this early and Tim out there painting he would stop 'im and ask 'im his business. Then there would be a killing on the spot."

It was not clear whether Tim would kill Doctor Simmons for curing fits or Doctor Simmons would kill Tim for painting the nasturtium frame.

But mother was all anxiety to avert either tragedy.

"Well, we'll run right on home this minute," she said, rising hurriedly, and her inspiration was so sudden and so happy that she forgot to whisper, "and ask Mr. Sullivan to go with us. Then Mr.

Fielding shall make him a mint julep--while you explain to the fit doctor that he would better make haste back to his hospital."

There were grateful whisperings from Mrs. Sullivan and her sister.

"And you'll have to use a lantern to wave the car down," mother turned back a moment to caution them, "for it's so dark they'll never see you if you don't."

But Mrs. Sullivan did not wait to tamper with the chimney of a lantern. The smoky little lamp had been placed, still lighted, upon the edge of the porch when mother had mentioned mint julep to Mr.

Sullivan. His wife caught it up and bore it along bravely after we had crossed the road and entered the thick shade of our walk. She was closely followed by a very homesick physician, whose one desire was to leave this quiet little town, and an outraged but still admiring Neva.

As we gained our front porch mother whispered a quick word into father's ear and he hospitably bade Mr. Sullivan follow him into the dining-room, while she and I quickly turned and fled back down the walk to the front gate.

Yes, they had him safely down at the car track, and in a very brief while the car came along. Mrs. Sullivan made spasmodic little signals with the lamp, which brought the car to a standstill, and also brought forth a thousand rainbow gleams from the jewels in her hair. Doctor Simmons stepped upon that running-board with all the alacrity of a newsboy with a bundle of "extras." He deposited his package of professional literature upon the seat in front of him, then turned and gravely lifted his hat to the ladies.

"Thank goodness!" mother said with a sigh of genuine relief as we watched the car pull out. Then she turned to me and for the first time that evening I could discern a smile in her voice.

"Ann," she said, trying to speak seriously, "when I see other women's daughters I know that I have much to be thankful for. You _are_ a star-gazer and a poor cook, but, oh dear--you don't have beaus from the city."

"Touch wood before you boast," but she stopped and caught me by the arm.

"What do you mean, honey?" she questioned. "Has Alfred--"

"No, indeed. I don't mean anything except that I am at the age of Eve and--very hopeful."

"Well, you _know_ what we all think of Alfred," she said, then stopped still at the lower step and broke off a dead twig from a rosebush near by. A shaft of light was shining from the hall and I could see that her face was very earnest. It was the first time in my life she had ever spoken to me of lovers.

"And I think everything of Alfred that you do--and more," I a.s.sured her, "but I am not in love with him. I might be--if--under other circ.u.mstances----I might be, but not now!"