"Belle," she said slowly, "does what you said mean that you're really willing I should tell Barby? Right away?"

Belle waited an instant before replying, then taking a deep breath as if about to make a desperate plunge into a chasm on whose brink she had long been poised, said:

"Yes. Uncle Dan'l would rather have her know than anybody else. He sets such store by her good opinion. But oh, _do_ make it plain it mustn't be talked about outside, so's it'll get back to Father Potter."

The next instant Georgina's arms were around her in a silent but joyful squeeze, and she ran upstairs to write to Barby before the sun should go down or Tippy get back from the Bazaar.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER XXIV

A CONTRAST IN FATHERS

GEORGINA was having a beautiful day. It was the first time she had ever taken part in a Bazaar, and so important was the role a.s.signed her that she was in a booth all by herself. Moreover, the little mahogany chair in which she sat was on a high platform inside the booth, so that all might behold her. Dressed in a quaint old costume borrowed from the chests in the Figurehead House, she represented "A Little Girl of Long Ago."

On a table beside her stood other borrowed treasures from the Figurehead House--a doll bedstead made by an old sea captain on one of his voyages.

Each of its high posts was tipped with a white point, carved from the bone of a whale. Wonderful little patchwork quilts, a feather bed and tiny pillows made especially for the bed, were objects of interest to everyone who crowded around the booth. So were the toys and dishes brought home from other long cruises by the same old sea captain, who evidently was an indulgent father and thought often of the little daughter left behind in the home port. A row of dolls dressed in fashions half a century old were also on exhibition.

With unfailing politeness Georgina explained to the curious summer people who thronged around her, that they all belonged in the house where the figurehead of Hope sat on the portico roof, and were not for sale at any price.

Until to-day Georgina had been unconscious that she possessed any unusual personal charms, except her curls. Her attention had been called to them from the time she was old enough to understand remarks people made about them as she pa.s.sed along the street. Their beauty would have been a great pleasure to her if Tippy had not impressed upon her the fact that looking in the mirror makes one vain, and it's wicked to be vain. One way in which Tippy guarded her against the sin of vanity was to mention some of her bad points, such as her mouth being a trifle too large, or her nose not quite so shapely as her mother's, each time anyone unwisely called attention to her "glorious hair."

Another way was to repeat a poem from a book called "Songs for the Little Ones at Home," the same book which had furnished the "Landing of the Pilgrims" and "Try, Try Again." It began:

"_What! Looking in the gla.s.s again?

Why's my silly child so vain?_"

The disgust, the surprise, the scorn of Tippy's voice when she repeated that was enough to make one hurry past a mirror in shame-faced embarra.s.sment.

"_Beauty soon will fade away.

Your rosy cheeks must soon decay.

There's nothing lasting you will find, But the treasures of the mind._"

Rosy cheeks might not be lasting, but it was certainly pleasant to Georgina to hear them complimented so continually by pa.s.sers-by.

Sometimes the remarks were addressed directly to her.

"My _dear_," said one enthusiastic admirer, "if I could only buy _you_ and put you in a gold frame, I'd have a prettier picture than any artist in town can paint." Then she turned to a companion to add:

"Isn't she a love in that little poke bonnet with the row of rose-buds inside the rim? I never saw such exquisite coloring or such gorgeous eyes."

Georgina blushed and looked confused as she smoothed the long lace mitts over her arms. But by the time the day was over she had heard the sentiment repeated so many times that she began to expect it and to feel vaguely disappointed if it were not forthcoming from each new group which approached her.

Another thing gave her a new sense of pleasure and enriched her day. On the table beside her, under a gla.s.s case, to protect it from careless handling, was a little blank book which contained the records of the first sewing circle in Provincetown. The book lay open, displaying a page of the minutes, and a column of names of members, written in an exquisitely fine and beautiful hand. The name of Georgina's great-great grandmother was in that column. It gave her a feeling of being well born and distinguished to be able to point it out.

The little book seemed to reinforce and emphasize the claims of the monument and the silver porringer. She felt it was so nice to be beautiful and _to belong_; to have belonged from the beginning both to a first family and a first sewing circle.

Still another thing added to her contentment whenever the recollection of it came to her. There was no longer any secret looming up between her and Barby like a dreadful wall. The letter telling all about the wonderful and exciting things which had happened in her absence was already on its way to Kentucky. It was not a letter to be proud of. It was scrawled as fast as she could write it with a pencil, and she knew perfectly well that a dozen or more words were misspelled, but she couldn't take time to correct them, or to think of easy words to put in their places. But Barby wouldn't care. She would be so happy for Uncle Darcy's sake and so interested in knowing that her own little daughter had had an important part in finding the good news that she wouldn't notice the spelling or the scraggly writing.

As the day wore on, Georgina, growing more and more satisfied with herself and her lot, felt that there was no one in the whole world with whom she would change places. Towards the last of the afternoon a group of people came in whom Georgina recognized as a family from the Gray Inn. They had been at the Inn several days, and she had noticed them each time she pa.s.sed them, because the children seemed on such surprisingly intimate terms with their father. That he was a naval officer she knew from the way he dressed, and that he was on a long furlough she knew from some remark which she overheard.

He had a grave, stern face, and when he came into the room he gave a searching glance from left to right as if to take notice of every object in it. His manner made Georgina think of "Casabianca," another poem of Tippy's teaching:

"_He stood As born to rule the storm.

A creature of heroic blood, A brave though ... form._"

"Childlike" was the word she left out because it did not fit in this case. "A brave and manlike form" would be better. She repeated the verse to herself with this alteration.

When he spoke to his little daughter or she spoke to him his expression changed so wonderfully that Georgina watched him with deep interest. The oldest boy was with them. He was about fourteen and as tall as his mother. He was walking beside her but every few steps he turned to say something to the others, and they seemed to be enjoying some joke together. Somebody who knew them came up as they reached the booth of "The Little Girl of Long Ago," and introduced them to Georgina, so she found out their names. It was Burrell. He was a Captain, and the children were Peggy and Bailey.

As Georgina looked down at Peggy from the little platform where she sat in the old mahogany chair, she thought with a throb of satisfaction that she was glad she didn't have to change places with that homely little thing. Evidently, Peggy was just up from a severe illness. Her hair had been cut so short one could scarcely tell the color of it. She was so thin and white that her eyes looked too large for her face and her neck too slender for her head, and the freckles which would scarcely have shown had she been her usual rosy self, stood out like big brown splotches on her pallid little face. She limped a trifle too, as she walked.

With a satisfied consciousness of her own rose-leaf complexion, Georgina was almost patronizing as she bent over the table to say graciously once more after countless number of times, "no, that is not for sale."

The next instant Peggy was swinging on her father's arm exclaiming, "Oh, Dad-o'-my-heart! See that cunning doll bathing suit. Please get it for me." Almost in the same breath Bailey, jogging the Captain's elbow on the other side, exclaimed, "Look, Partner, _that's_ a relic worth having."

Georgina listened, fascinated. To think of calling one's father "Dad-o'-my-heart" or "Partner!" And they looked up at him as if they adored him, even that big boy, nearly grown. And a sort of laugh come into the Captain's eyes each time they spoke to him, as if he thought everything they said and did was perfect.

A wave of loneliness swept over Georgina as she listened. There was an empty spot in her heart that ached with longing--not for Barby, but for the father whom she had never known in this sweet intimate way. She knew now how it felt to be an orphan. What satisfaction was there in having beautiful curls if no big, kind hand ever pa.s.sed over them in a fatherly caress such as was pa.s.sing over Peggy Burrell's closely-clipped head?

What pleasure was there in having people praise you if they said behind your back:

"Oh, that's Justin Huntingdon's daughter. Don't you think a man would want to come home once or twice in a lifetime to such a lovely child as that?"

Georgina had heard that very remark earlier in the day, also the answer given with a significant shrug of the shoulders:

"Oh, he has other fish to fry."

The remarks had not annoyed her especially at the time, but they rankled now as she recalled them. They hurt until they took all the pleasure and satisfaction out of her beautiful day, just as the sun, going under a cloud, leaves the world bereft of all its shine and sparkle. She looked around, wishing it were time to go home.

Presently, Captain Burrell, having made the rounds of the room, came back to Georgina. He smiled at her so warmly that she wondered that she could have thought his face was stern.

"They tell me that you are Doctor Huntingdon's little girl," he said with a smile that went straight to her heart. "So I've come back to ask you all about him. Where is he now and how is he? You see I have an especial interest in your distinguished father. He pulled me through a fever in the Philippines that all but ended me. I have reason to remember him for his many, many kindnesses to me at that time."

The flush that rose to Georgina's face might naturally have been taken for one of pride or pleasure, but it was only miserable embarra.s.sment at not being able to answer the Captain's questions. She could not bear to confess that she knew nothing of her father's whereabouts except the vague fact that he was somewhere in the interior of China, and that there had been no letter from him for months and that she had not seen him for nearly four years.

"He--he was well the last time we heard from him," she managed to stammer. "But I haven't heard anything lately. You know my mother isn't home now. She went to Kentucky because my grandfather Shirley was hurt in an accident."

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that," was the answer in a cordial, sympathetic voice. "I hoped to have the pleasure of meeting her and I wanted Mrs.

Burrell to know her, too. But I hope you'll come over to the Inn and play with Peggy sometimes. We'll be here another week."

Georgina thanked him in her prettiest manner, but she was relieved when he pa.s.sed on, and she was freed from the fear of any more embarra.s.sing questions about her father. Yet her hand still tingled with the friendliness of his good-bye clasp, and she wished that she could know him better. As she watched him pa.s.s out of the door with Peggy holding his hand and swinging it as they walked, she thought hungrily:

"How good it must seem to have a father like _that_."

Mrs. Triplett came up to her soon after. It was time to close the Bazaar. The last probable customer had gone, and the ladies in charge of the booths were beginning to dismantle them. Someone's chauffeur was waiting to take Georgina's costume back to the Figurehead House.