Suddenly his manner changed, and in a tone as grave and serious as if he were full partner in the enterprise and responsible for its success, the major laid his hand, this time confidingly, on Sanford's shirt-sleeve, and said, "How are we getting on at the Ledge, suh? Last time we talked it over, we were solving the problem of a colossal ma.s.s of-of-some stuff or other that"-

"Concrete," suggested Sanford, with an air as serious as that of the major. He loved to humor him.

"That's it,-concrete; the name had for the moment escaped me,-concrete, suh, that was to form the foundation of the lighthouse."

Sanford a.s.sured the major that the concrete was being properly amalgamated, and discussed the laying of the ma.s.s in the same technical terms he would have used to a brother engineer, smiling meanwhile as the stream of the Pocomokian's questions ran on. He liked the major's glow and sparkle. He enjoyed most of all the never ending enthusiasm of the man,-that spontaneous outpouring which, like a bubbling spring, flows unceasingly, and always with the coolest and freshest water of the heart.

"And how is Miss Shirley?" asked the young engineer, throwing the inquiry into the shallows of the talk as a slight temporary dam.

"Like a moss rosebud, suh, with the dew on it. She and Jack have gone out for a drive in Jack's cyart. He left me at the club, and I went over to his apartments to dress. I am staying with Jack, you know.

Helen is with a school friend. I know, of co'se, that yo'r dinner is not until eight o'clock, but I could not wait longer to grasp yo'r hand. Do you know, Sanford," with sudden animation and in a rising voice, "that the more I see of you, the more I"-

"And so you are coming to New York to live, major," said Sanford, dropping another pebble at the right moment into the very middle of the current.

The major recovered, filled, and broke through in a fresh place. The new questions of his host only varied the outlet of his eloquence.

"Coming, suh? I have _come_. I have leased a po'tion of my estate to some capitalists from Philadelphia who are about embarking in a strawberry enterprise of very great magnitude. I want to talk to you about it later." (He had rented one half of it-the dry half, the half a little higher than the salt-marsh-to a huckster from Philadelphia, who was trying to raise early vegetables, and whose cash advances upon the rent had paid the overdue interest on the mortgage, leaving a margin hardly more than sufficient to pay for the suit of clothes he stood in, and his traveling expenses.)

By this time the constantly increasing pressure of his caller's enthusiasm had seriously endangered the possibility of Sanford's dressing for dinner. He glanced several times uneasily at his watch, lying open on the bureau before him, and at last, with a hurried "Excuse me, major," disappeared into his bathroom, and closed its flood-gate of a door, thus effectually shutting off the major's overflow, now perilously near the danger-line.

The Pocomokian paused for a moment, looked wistfully at the blank door, and, recognizing the impossible, called to Sam and suggested a c.o.c.ktail as a surprise for his master when he appeared again. Sam brought the ingredients on a tray, and stood by admiringly (Sam always regarded him as a superior being) while the major mixed two comforting concoctions,-the one already mentioned for Sanford, and the other designed for the especial sustenance and delectation of the distinguished Pocomokian himself.

This done he took his leave, having infused into the apartment, in ten short minutes, more sparkle, freshness, and life than it had known since his last visit.

Sanford saw the c.o.c.ktail on his bureau when he entered the room again, but forgot it in his search for the letter he had laid aside on the major's entrance. Sam found the invigorating compound when dinner was over, and immediately emptied it into his own person.

"Please don't be cross, Henry, if you can't find all your things," the letter read. "Jack Hardy wanted me to come over and help him arrange the rooms as a surprise for the Maryland girl. He says there's nothing between them, but I don't believe him. The blossoms came from Newport.

I hope you had time to go to Medford and find out about my dining-room, and that everything is going on well at the Ledge. I will see you to-night at eight. -K. P. L."

Sanford, with a smile of pleasure, shut the letter in his bureau drawer, and entering the dining-room, picked up the basket of roses and began those little final touches about the room and table which he never neglected. He lighted the tapers in the antique lamps that hung from the ceiling, readjusting the ruby gla.s.s holders; he kindled the wicks in some quaint brackets over the sideboard; he moved the Venetian flagons and decanters nearer the centrepiece of flowers,-those he had himself ordered for his guests and their chaperon,-and cutting the stems from the rose-water roses sprinkled them over the snowy linen.

With the soft glow of the candles the room took on a mellow, subdued tone; the pink roses on the cloth, the rosebuds on the candle-shades, and the ma.s.s of Mermets in the centre being the distinctive features, and giving the key-note of color to the feast. To Sanford a dinner-table with its encircling guests was always a palette. He knew just where the stronger tones of black coats and white shirt-fronts placed beside the softer tints of fair shoulders and bright faces must be relieved by blossoms in perfect harmony, and he understood to a nicety the exact values of the minor shades in linen, gla.s.s, and silver, in the making of the picture.

The guests arrived within a few minutes of one another. Mrs. Leroy, in yellow satin with big black bows caught up on her shoulder, a string of pearls about her throat, came first: she generally did when dining at Sanford's; it gave her an opportunity to have a chance word with him before the arrival of the other guests, and to give a supervising glance over the appointments of his table. And then Sanford always deferred to her in questions of taste. It was one of the nights when she looked barely twenty-five, and seemed the fresh, joyous girl Sanford had known before her marriage. The ever present sadness which her friends often read in her face had gone. To-night she was all gayety and happiness, and her eyes, under their long lashes, were purple as the violets which she wore. Helen Shirley was arrayed in white muslin,-not a jewel,-her fair cheeks rosy with excitement.

Jack was immaculate in white tie and high collar, while the self-installed, presiding genial of the feast, the major, appeared in a costume that by its ill-fitting wrinkles betrayed its pedigree,-a velvet-collared swallow-tail coat that had lost its onetime freshness in the former service of some friend, a skin-tight pair of trousers, and a shoestring cravat that looked as if it had belonged to Major Talbot himself (his dead wife's first husband), and that was now so loosely tied it had all it could do to keep its place.

"No one would have thought of all this but you, Kate," said Sanford, lifting Mrs. Leroy's cloak from her shoulders.

"Don't thank me, Henry. All I did," she answered, laughing, "was to put a few flowers about, and to have my maid poke a lot of man-things under the sofas and behind the chairs, and take away those horrid old covers and curtains. I know you'll never forgive me when you want something to-morrow you can't find, but Jack begged so hard I couldn't help it. How did you like the candle-shades? I made them myself," she added, tipping her head on one side like a wren.

"I knew you did, and I recognized your handiwork somewhere else,"

Sanford answered, with a significant shrug of his shoulders towards the dining-room, where the initial wreath was hung.

"It is a bower of beauty, my dear madam!" exclaimed the major, bowing like a French dancing-master of the old school when Sanford presented him, one hand on his waistcoat b.u.t.tons, the right foot turned slightly out. "I did not know when I walked through these rooms this afternoon whose fair hands had wrought the wondrous change. Madam, I salute you," and he raised her hand to his lips.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Helen ... in white muslin-not a jewel"]

Mrs. Leroy looked first in astonishment as she drew back her fingers.

Then as she saw his evident sincerity, she made him an equally old-fashioned curtsy, and broke into a peal of laughter.

While this bit of comedy was being enacted, Jack, eager to show Helen some of Sanford's choicest bits, led her to the mantelpiece, over which hung a sketch by Smearly,-the original of his Academy picture; pointed out the famous wedding-chest and some of the accoutrements over the door; and led her into the private office, now lighted by half a dozen candles, one illuminating the copper diving-helmet with its face-plate of flowers. Helen, who had never been in a bachelor's apartment before, thought it another and an enchanted world.

Everything suggested a surprise and a mystery.

But it was when she entered the dining-room on Sanford's arm that she gave way completely. "I never saw anything so charming!" she exclaimed. "And H. S. all in a lovely wreath-why, these are _your_ initials, Mr. Sanford," looking up innocently into his eyes.

Sanford smiled quizzically, and a shade of cruel disappointment crossed Jack's face. Mrs. Leroy broke into another happy, contagious laugh, and her eyes, often so impenetrable in their sadness, danced with merriment.

The major watched them all with ill-disguised delight, and, beginning to understand the varying expressions flitting over his niece's face, said, with genuine emotion, emphasizing his outburst by kissing her rapturously on the cheek, "You dear little girl, you, don't you know your own name? H. S. stands for Helen Shirley, not Henry Sanford."

Helen gave a little start, avoiding Jack's gaze, and blushed scarlet.

She might have known, she said to herself, that Jack would do something lovely, just to surprise her. Why did she betray herself so easily?

When, a moment later, in removing her glove, she brushed Jack's hand, lying on the table-cloth beside her own, the slightest possible pressure of her little finger against his own conveyed her thanks.

Everybody was brimful of happiness: Helen radiant with the inspiration of new surroundings so unlike those of the simple home she had left the day before; Jack riding in a chariot of soap-bubbles, with b.u.t.terflies for leaders, and drinking in every word that fell from Helen's lips; the major suave and unctuous, with an old-time gallantry that delighted his admirers, boasting now of his ancestry, now of his horses, now of his rare old wines at home; Sanford leading the distinguished Pocomokian into still more airy flights, or engaging him in a.s.sumed serious conversation whenever that obtuse gentleman insisted on dragging Jack down from his b.u.t.terfly heights with Helen, to discuss with him some prosaic features of the club-house at Crab Island; while Mrs. Leroy, happier than she had been in weeks, watched Helen and Jack with undisguised pleasure, or laughed at the major's good-natured egotism, his wonderful reminiscences and harmless pretensions, listening between pauses to the young engineer by her side, whose heart was to her an open book.

Coffee was served on the balcony, the guests seating themselves in the easy-chairs. Mrs. Leroy selected a low camp-stool, resting her back against the railing, where the warm tones of the lamp fell upon her dainty figure. She was at her best to-night. Her prematurely gray hair, piled in fluffy waves upon her head and held in place by a long jewel-tipped pin, gave an indescribable softness and charm to the rosy tints of her skin. Her blue-gray eyes, now deep violet, flashed and dimmed under the moving shutters of the lids, as the light of her varying emotions stirred their depths. About her every movement was that air of distinction, and repose, and a certain exquisite grace which never left her, and which never ceased to have its fascination for her friends. Added to this were a sprightliness and a vivacity which, although often used as a mask to hide a heavy heart, were to-night inspired by her sincere enjoyment of the pleasure she and the others had given to the young Maryland girl and her lover.

When Sam brought the coffee-tray she insisted on filling the cups herself, dropping in the sugar with a dainty movement of her fingers that was bewitching, laughing as merrily as if there had never been a sorrow in her life. At no time was she more fascinating to her admirers than when at a task like this. The very cup she handled was instantly invested with a certain preciousness, and became a thing to be touched as delicately and as lightly as the fingers that had prepared it.

The only one who for the time was outside the spell of her influence was Jack Hardy. He had taken a seat on the floor of the balcony, next the wall-and Helen.

"Jack, you lazy fellow," said Mrs. Leroy, with mock indignation, as she rose to her feet, "get out of my way, or I'll spill the coffee.

Miss Shirley, why don't you make him go inside? He's awfully in the way here."

One of Jack's favorite positions, when Helen was near, was at her feet. He had learned this one the summer before at her house on Crab Island, when they would sit for hours on the beach.

"I'm not in anybody's way, my dear Mrs. Leroy. My feet are tied in a Chinese knot under me, and my back has grown fast to the rain-spout.

Major, will you please say something nice to Mrs. Leroy and coax her inside?"

Sam had rolled a small table, holding a flagon of cognac and some crushed ice, beside the major, who sat half buried in the cushions of one of Sanford's divans. The Pocomokian struggled to his feet.

"You mustn't move, major," Mrs. Leroy called. "I'm not coming in. I'm going to stay out here in this lovely moonlight, if one of these very polite young gentlemen will bring me an armchair." With a look of pretended dignity at Jack and Sanford.

"Take _my_ seat," said Jack, with a laugh, springing to his feet, suddenly realizing Mrs. Leroy's delicate but pointed rebuke. "Come, Miss Helen," a better and more retired corner having at this moment suggested itself to him, "we won't stay where we are abused. Let us join the major." And with an arm to Miss Shirley and a sweeping bow to Mrs. Leroy, Jack walked straight to the divan nearest the curtains.

When Helen and Jack were out of hearing, Mrs. Leroy looked toward the major, and, rea.s.sured of his entire absorption in his own personal comfort, turned to Sanford, and said in low, earnest tones, in which there was not a trace of the gayety of a moment before, "Can the new sloop lay the stones, Henry? You haven't told me a word yet of what you have been doing for the last few days at the Ledge."

"I think so, Kate," replied Sanford in an equally serious voice. "We laid one yesterday before the easterly gale caught us. You got my telegram, didn't you?"

"Of course! but I was anxious for all that. Ever since I had that talk with General Barton I've felt nervous over the laying of those stones.

He frightened me when he said no one of the Board at Washington believed you could do it. It would be so awful if your plan should fail."

"But it's not going to fail, Kate. I can do it, and will." There was a decided tone in his voice, and his eyebrows were knitted in the way she loved: she read his determination in every word and look. "All I wanted was a proper boat, and I've got that. I watched her day before yesterday. I was a little nervous until I saw her lower the first stone. Her captain is a plucky fellow,-Captain Joe likes him immensely. I wish you could have been there to see how cool he was,-not a bit fl.u.s.tered when he saw the rocks under the bow of his sloop."

Kate handed him her empty coffee-cup, and going to the edge of the balcony rested her elbows on the railing, a favorite gesture of hers, and looked down on the treetops of the square.

"Caleb West, of course, went down with the first stone, didn't he?"