Mrs. Ladue looked at her daughter sitting there so apathetically. She looked long and her eyes grew more anxious than ever. Sally did not seem to be aware of the scrutiny.

"Sally," she began hesitatingly.

Sally turned her head. "Well?"

"I have heard some rumors, Sally," Mrs. Ladue went on, hesitating more than ever, "about--about Everett. I didn't believe there was any truth in them and I have said so. I was right, wasn't I? There isn't anything, is there?"

"What sort of thing?" Sally did not seem to care. "What were the rumors, mother?"

"Why," said her mother, with a little laugh of embarra.s.sment, "they were most absurd; that Everett was paying you marked attention and that you were encouraging him."

"No, that is not so. I have not encouraged him."

Her answer seemed to excite Mrs. Ladue. "Well, is it true that he is--that he has been paying you attention for a long time?"

"I have seen him more or less, but it is nothing that I have been trying to conceal from you. What does it matter?"

"It matters very much, dear; oh, very much." Mrs. Ladue was silent for a moment. "Then I gather," she resumed in a low voice, "that you have not discouraged his attentions?"

"No," Sally replied listlessly, "I have not discouraged them. a.s.suming that they are anything more than accident, I--what do I care? It makes no difference to me."

"Oh, Sally!" Tears came into Mrs. Ladue's eyes. "You must know better than any one else whether he means anything or not; what his intentions are."

"He may not have any intentions," Sally answered. "I don't know what he means--but that is not true; not strictly. I know what he says, but not what he thinks. I don't believe there is anybody who knows what Everett thinks." And she gave a little laugh which was almost worse than one of her smiles. "His intentions, a.s.suming that he has any, are well enough."

The situation seemed to be worse than Mrs. Ladue had imagined in her most doubtful moments. "But, Sally," she said anxiously, "is there--oh, I hate to ask you, but I must. Is there any kind of an understanding between you and Everett?"

"Not on my part, mother," Sally replied rather wearily. "Now let's talk about something else."

"Be patient with my questions just a little longer," said her mother gently. "I can't drop the subject there. Has--do you think Everett has any right to understand anything that you don't? Have you let him understand anything?"

Sally did not answer for what seemed to her mother a long time. "I don't know," she answered at last, "what he thinks. To be perfectly plain, Everett has not asked me to marry him, but he may feel sure what my answer would be if he did decide to. I don't know. He is a very sure kind of a person, and he has reason to be. That is the extent of the understanding, as you call it."

"But, surely, you know what your answer would be," remonstrated Mrs.

Ladue in a low voice. "It isn't right, Sally, to let him think one thing when you mean to do the opposite. I hope," she added, struck by a fresh doubt--a most uncomfortable doubt, "that you do mean to do the opposite. There can be no question about that, can there?"

"I don't know," Sally replied slowly, "what I should do. I've thought about it and I don't know."

Mrs. Ladue's hand went up to her heart involuntarily, and she made no reply for some time. "Drifting?" she asked at last.

Sally looked toward her mother and smiled. "Drifting, I suppose. It's much the easiest."

Mrs. Ladue's hand was still at her heart, which was beating somewhat tumultuously.

"Don't, Sally! Don't, I beg of you. Your whole life's happiness depends upon it. Remember your father. Everett's principles are no better than his, I feel sure. You have been so--so st.u.r.dy, Sally.

Don't spoil your life now. You will find your happiness." She was on the verge of telling her, but she checked herself in time. That was Fox's business. He might be right, after all. "This mood of yours will pa.s.s, and then you would wear your life out in regrets. Say that you won't do anything rash, Sally."

"Don't worry, mother. It really doesn't matter, but I won't do anything rash. There!" She laughed and kissed her mother. "I hope that satisfies you. You were getting quite excited."

Mrs. Ladue had been rather excited, as Sally said. Now she was crying softly.

"You don't know what this means to me, Sally, and I can't tell you. I wish--oh, I wish that I had your chance! You may be sure that I wouldn't throw it away. You may be sure I wouldn't." She wiped her eyes and smiled up at Sally. "There! Now I am all right and very much ashamed of myself. Run along out, dear girl. You don't get enough of out-of-doors, Sally."

So Sally went out. She meant to make the most of what was left of the short winter afternoon. She hesitated for a moment at the foot of the steps. "It's Fisherman's Cove," she said then quite cheerfully. "And I don't care when it gets dark or anything."

CHAPTER XII

Fisherman's Cove was a long way from Mrs. Stump's boarding-house, but that fact gave Sally no concern. And Fisherman's Cove was much changed from the Cove that Uncle John used to tell her about, where he had been used to go to see the men haul the seines. Its waters had been fouled by the outpourings of a sewer, and the fish had deserted them years before; but that would not make the ice any the less attractive with a young moon shining upon it.

And the way to Fisherman's Cove was not the way that Uncle John had been in the habit of taking. His way, fifty years before, had led him out upon a quiet country road until he came to a little lane that led down, between high growths of bushes, to a little farmhouse. The farmhouse had overlooked the Cove. Sally could not go through the little lane to the little old farmhouse, because the farmhouse was not there now, and because there was a horrible fence of new boards right across the lane. They had been building mills on the sh.o.r.es of Fisherman's Cove for thirty years; and the ice ponds on which the boys and girls of thirty years before used to skate--Miss Patty had skated there, often--were no longer ice ponds, but thriving mill villages, with their long rows of brilliantly lighted windows and their neat tenements, the later ones of three stories, each story having its neat clothes-porch. If you don't know what a clothes-porch is, just go down there and see for yourself. And these neat tenements of three stories each sheltered I don't know how many families of Portuguese mill-workers, who may have been neat, but who probably were not.

Thriving! Ugh! as Miss Patty invariably said, turning her head away.

She did not have to go that way often, but when she did have to she preferred to shut her eyes until her horse had taken her past it all.

Besides, Mrs. Stump's was not on Apple Tree Street, but in a much less fashionable neighborhood; one which had been fashionable some seventy or eighty years before. As fashion left that street and moved upon the ridge, the fine old houses--for they were fine old houses, even there--gradually fell in their estate. The way from Mrs. Stump's to Fisherman's Cove did not lie by that thriving mill village which has been mentioned, but by other thriving mill villages, with their tenements which, being older, were presumably not so neat. There was little to choose between the ways. Either was disagreeable enough, especially at any time when the hands were in the street, and no girl would have chosen such a time to walk upon that road. Even Sally would have avoided it; but the mill-hands were now shut up in their mills and working merrily or otherwise, and she did not give the matter a thought.

As she started upon her road, a man who had been leaning negligently upon a post at the next corner, bestirred himself, unleaned, and came toward her. Sally glanced up at him and stopped. "Oh, dear!" she said, in a voice of comical dismay. "Oh, dear! And I promised mother that I wouldn't do anything rash."

The man continued to come toward her. He had a leisurely air of certainty which ordinarily would have antagonized Sally at once.

"Well, Sally?" he said questioningly, when he was near enough to be heard without raising his voice.

"Well, Everett," Sally returned, with some sharpness. "I should really like to know what you were doing on that corner."

"Doing?" he asked in surprise. "Why, nothing at all. I was only waiting for you."

"And why," she said, with more sharpness than before, "if you were waiting for me, didn't you come to the house and wait there?"

"I don't like to go to boarding-houses and wait," he replied, smiling.

"I have a prejudice against boarding-houses, although I have no doubt that Mrs. Stump's is an excellent house. And my going there might excite some comment."

"Is it your idea," Sally retorted quickly, "that your waiting on the next corner will not excite comment? There has been too much comment already."

"Well, Sally, what if there has been a certain amount of it? We don't care, do we?"

"I am not sure that we don't," she answered slowly, looking him in the face thoughtfully. "I am not sure. In fact, I think we do."

He flushed a little under her direct gaze. That subject was not to be pursued.

"Where are you going?" he asked.

"I am going for a walk," she replied; "for a long walk. And I--"

"Then you'd better ride," he said quickly, interrupting her. "I can get Sawny in five minutes. Where will you be?"