The women lifted Margaret tenderly, and bore her to the end of the lawn.

Mr. Moore rose on his burned feet, and, leaning on the boy's shoulder, slowly made his way thither also; their forlorn little group, a.s.sembled near the piled-up furniture, was brightly illuminated by the flame.

Presently the front fell in. And now, as the roar was less fierce, they could hear the gallop of a horse, in another minute Evert Winthrop was among them. He saw only Margaret, he knelt by her side and called her name.

"De _pa.s.son_ done it," said Primus,--"de pa.s.son! He jess walk right straight inter de bu'nin', _roarin'_ flameses! En brung her out."

Mr. Moore had not seen Winthrop, he could see nothing now. He seemed besides, a little bewildered, confused. As Winthrop took his hand and spoke to him, he lifted his face with its scorched cheeks and closed eyes, and answered: "There was some furniture saved, I think. I think I saved a little. Six parlor chairs--if I am not mistaken; and a centre table--I was sorry about that bookcase."

"Hear de lamb!" said one of the negro women, bursting into fresh tears.

CHAPTER x.x.xI.

Margaret Harold was sitting on a bench at the East Angels landing. She was in walking dress; her large hat, with its drooping plumes, made her face look like that of a Gainsborough portrait. A bunch of ferns which she had gathered had slipped from her lap to her feet. Carlos Mateo, very stiff, stood near. It was sunset; a mocking-bird was pouring forth a flood of notes, rioting in melody, it was marvellous to realize that such a little creature could produce from his tiny throat matchless music like this.

Coming down the live-oak avenue appeared the figure of Celestine.

"If you please, Miss Margaret, Mrs. Rutherford has sent me to look for you."

"Yes, I know; I am late to-night, I will come in now."

"There's no occasion for haste," Celestine answered, bestowing a short glance of general inspection upon the lagoon, the tinted sky, and the stiff figure of the crane. "What a pagan bird that crane is!"

"You hear, Carlos?" said Margaret.

But Carlos was never conscious of the existence of Celestine, he kept his attentions exclusively for his southern friends; the only exception was Margaret, whose presence he was now beginning to tolerate.

"You don't call that mocking-bird a pagan, do you?" Margaret asked.

"I don't care much for mocking-birds _myself_," Celestine responded.

"Give me a bobolink, Miss Margaret! As for them leaves you've got there--all the sweet-smelling things in Florida--I'd trade the whole for one sniff of the laylocks that used to grow in our backyard when I was a girl."

"Why, Minerva, you're homesick."

"No, Miss Margaret, no; I've got my work to attend to here; no, I ain't homesick: you get home knocked out of you when you've traipsed about to such places as Nice, Rome, Egypt, and the dear knows where. But if anybody was really going to _live_ somewheres (I don't mean just _staying_, as we're doing now), talk about choosing between this and New England--my!"

Margaret rose.

"There's no occasion for haste if you don't want to go in just yet,"

said Celestine; "she isn't alone, I saw Dr. _Kirby_ ride up just as I came away. Well--she's got on that maroon silk wrapper."

"n.o.body has such taste as you have, Celestine," said Margaret, kindly.

"My aunt is always becomingly dressed."

There was a little movement of the New England woman's mouth, which was almost a grimace. In reality it expressed her pride and pleasure--though no one would have suspected it. It was the only acknowledgment she made.

Dr. Kirby was sitting with his esteemed friend when Margaret entered.

His esteemed friend's feeling for Margaret now seemed to be always a tender compa.s.sion.

"My dear child, I fear you have been out too long, you look pale," was the present manifestation of it.

"I have often thought what a variation it would make in the topics of my friends," said Margaret, as she drew off her gloves, "if I should take to painting my cheeks a little; think of it--a touch of rouge, now, and the whole conversation would be altered."

"I am sure that, for artistic purposes at least," said Dr. Kirby, gallantly, "rouge would be totally misapplied. We all know that Mrs.

Harold's complexion has always the purest, the most natural, the most salubrious tint; it is the whiteness of Diana."

"Pray give those--those green things to Looth," Aunt Katrina went on, languidly; "I hope they are not poison-ivy?" (Aunt Katrina lived under the impression that everything that came from the woods was poison-ivy.) "And do go to my room, dear child, and sit down there a while before the fire--there's a little fire--and let Looth change your shoes, and make you a nice cup of tea. Later--_later_," Aunt Katrina went on, more animatedly, "we'll have some whist." She spoke as though she were holding out something which Margaret would be sure to enjoy.

There were very few evenings now when Aunt Katrina did not expect her niece to make one at the whist-table drawn up at her couch's side, the other players being Dr. Kirby, Betty, or occasionally Madam Ruiz or Madam Giron. The game had come to be her greatest pleasure, she had therefore established and set going in her circle of friends the idea that it was an especial pleasure to Margaret also; Aunt Katrina was an adept in such tyrannies.

"How is Mr. Moore to-day?" Margaret inquired, not replying to the change of shoes.

"He improves every hour, it's wonderful! He is getting well in half the time that any one else would have taken. He will walk as lightly as ever before long--or almost as lightly. He is rather uncomfortably comfortable just now, however," the Doctor went on, laughing, "he doesn't know how to adapt himself to all his new luxuries; he took up an ivory-handled brush this morning almost as though it were an infernal machine."

"I should hardly think Mrs. Moore would approve of _useless_ luxuries,"

said Aunt Katrina, not with a sniff--Aunt Katrina never sniffed--but with a slight movement of the tip of her very well shaped nose; she followed the movement with a light stroke upon that tip with her embroidered handkerchief.

"Penelope nowadays approves of everything for her Middleton," said Dr.

Kirby, laughing again. "I believe she'll deck him out with pink silk curtains round his bed before she gets through."

"Yes--but ivory-handled _brushes_," said Aunt Katrina, confining herself, as usual, to the facts. "And his hair is so thin, too!"

"I must confess I roared--if you will permit the rather free expression.

But the brushes came with the other things that nephew of yours sent down; I believe he's trying to corrupt the dominie."

"I am glad, and very thankful to hear that Mr. Moore is going on so well," said Margaret, "there is nothing I care so much about." Carrying her plumed hat in her hand, she left the room.

"He is an excellent man, Mr. Moore--most excellent," observed Aunt Katrina, a little stiffly; "of course we can never forget our obligations to him."

"I should think not, indeed," answered Reginald Kirby, for the first time losing some of his gallantry of tone.

"I am sure we have shown that we do not forget them," Aunt Katrina went on, with dignity. "Margaret has shown it, and Evert; between them they have made Mr. Moore comfortable for life."

"There wouldn't have been much life left in any of you without him,"

said Kirby, still fierily.

"I beg your pardon, I am not so dependent upon my niece, dear as she is to me, as _that_; I think _such_ dependence wrong. You must remember, too, that I have already been through great sorrows--the greatest; my life has _not_ been an easy one." The gemmed hand was gently raised here; then dropped with resignation upon the maroon silk lap. "I esteem Mr. Moore highly--haven't I mentioned to you that I do? surely I have.

But I _cannot_ be deeply interested in him; Mr. Moore is not an interesting man, he is _not_ an exciting man. I am afraid that when I care for a friend," said Aunt Katrina, frankly, "when I find a friend _delightful_, I am afraid I am apt, yes, _very_ apt, to make comparisons." And she glanced at the Doctor with a gracious smile.

"Pardon my ill temper," murmured the Doctor, completely won again.

"After all," he said to himself, with conviction, "she's a deucedly fine woman still."

Three months had elapsed since the burning of the house on the river.

Mr. Moore had remained for four weeks in the neighboring hotel, his wife and Dr. Kirby constantly with him. They had then decided to take him on a litter to Gracias; they crossed the St. John's in safety, and came slowly over the pine barrens.