THE Towncrier, pa.s.sing along the street on an early morning trip to the bakery, stopped at the door of the antique shop, for a word with Mrs.

Yates, the lady who kept it. She wanted him to "cry" an especial bargain sale of old lamps later in the week. That is how he happened to be standing in the front door when the crash came in the rear of the shop, and it was because he was standing there that the crash came.

Because Mrs. Yates was talking to him she couldn't be at the back door when the fish-boy came with the fish, and n.o.body being there to take it the instant he knocked, the boy looked in and threw it down on the table nearest the door. And because the fish was left to lie there a moment while Mrs. Yates finished her conversation, the cat, stretched out on the high window ledge above the table, decided to have his breakfast without waiting to be called. He was an enormous cat by the name of "Grandpa," and because he was old and ponderous, and no longer light on his feet, when he leaped from the window-sill he came down clumsily in the middle of the very table full of the old lamps which were set aside for the bargain sale.

Of course, it was the biggest and fanciest lamp in the lot that was broken--a tall one with a frosted gla.s.s shade and a row of crystal prisms dangling around the bowl of it. It toppled over on to a pair of old bra.s.s andirons, smashing into a thousand pieces. Bits of gla.s.s flew in every direction, and "Grandpa," his fur electrified by his fright until he looked twice his natural size, shot through the door as if fired from a cannon, and was seen no more that morning.

Naturally, Mrs. Yates hurried to the back of the store to see what had happened, and Mr. Darcy, following, picked up from the wreck the only piece of the lamp not shattered to bits by the fall. It was one of the prisms, which in some miraculous way had survived the crash, a beautiful crystal pendant without a single nick or crack.

He picked it up and rubbed his coat sleeve down each of its three sides, and when he held it up to the light it sent a ripple of rainbows dancing across the shop. He watched them, pleased as a child; and when Mrs.

Yates, loud in her complaints of Grandpa, came with broom and dustpan to sweep up the litter, he bargained with her for the prism.

That is how he happened to have an offering for Georgina's birthday when he reached the house a couple of hours later, not knowing that it was her birthday. n.o.body had remembered it, Barby being gone.

It seemed to Georgina the forlornest day she had ever opened her eyes upon. The very fact that it was gloriously sunny with a delicious summer breeze ruffling the harbor and sending the white sails scudding along like wings, made her feel all the more desolate. She was trying her best to forget what day it was, but there wasn't much to keep her mind off the subject. Even opportunities for helping Tippy were taken away, for Belle had come to stay during Barby's absence, and she insisted on doing what Georgina otherwise would have done.

If Barby had been at home there would have been no piano practice on such a gala occasion as a tenth birthday. There would have been no time for it in the program of joyful happenings. But because time dragged, Georgina went to her scales and five-finger exercises as usual. With the hour-gla.s.s on the piano beside her, she practised not only her accustomed time, till the sand had run half through, but until all but a quarter of it had slipped down. Then she sauntered listlessly out into the dining-room and stood by one of the open windows, looking out through the wire screen into the garden.

On any other day she would have found entertainment in the kitchen listening to Belle and Mrs. Triplett. Belle seemed doubly interesting now that she had heard of the unused wedding dress and the sorrow that would "blight her whole life." But Georgina did not want anyone to see how bitterly she was disappointed.

Just outside, so close to the window that she could have reached out and touched it had it not been for the screen, stood the holiday tree. It had held out its laden arms to her on so many festal occasions that Georgina had grown to feel that it took a human interest in all her celebrations. To see it standing bare now, like any ordinary tree, made her feel that her last friend was indifferent. n.o.body cared. n.o.body was glad that she was in the world. In spite of all she could do to check them, two big tears welled up and rolled down her cheeks; then another and another. She lifted up the hem of her dress to wipe them away, and as she did so Uncle Darcy came around the house.

He looked in at the open window, then asked: "Weather a bit squally, hey? Better put into port and tie up till storm's over. Let your Uncle Darcy have a hand at the helm. Come out here, Barby, and let's talk it over on the door-step."

There was something so heartening in the cheery voice that Georgina made one more dab at her eyes with the hem of her dress skirt, then dropped it and went out through the screen door to join him on the steps which led down into the garden. At first she was loath to confess the cause of her tears. She felt ashamed of being caught crying simply because no one had remembered the date. It wasn't that she wanted presents, she sobbed. It was that she wanted someone to be glad that she'd been born and it was so lonesome without Barby----

In the midst of her reluctant confession Mr. Darcy bethought himself of the prism in his pocket.

"Here," he said, drawing it out. "Take this and put a rainbow around your troubles. It's a sort of magic gla.s.s. When you look through it, it shows you things you can't see with your ordinary eyes. Look what it does to the holiday tree."

There was a long-drawn breath of amazement from Georgina as she held the prism to her eyes and looked through it at the tree.

"Oh! Oh! It _does_ put a rainbow around every branch and every little tuft of green needles. It's even lovelier than the colored lanterns were. Isn't it wonderful? It puts a rainbow around the whole outdoors."

Her gaze went from the grape arbor to the back garden gate. Then she jumped up and started around the house, the old man following, and smiling over each enthusiastic "oh" she uttered, as the prism showed her new beauty at every step. He was pleased to have been the source of her new pleasure.

"It's like looking into a different world," she cried, as she reached the kitchen door, and eagerly turned the prism from one object to another. Mrs. Triplett was scowling intently over the task of trying to turn the lid of a gla.s.s jar which refused to budge.

"Oh, it even puts a rainbow around Tippy's frown," Georgina cried excitedly. Then she ran to hold the prism over Belle's eyes.

"Look, what Uncle Darcy brought me for my birthday. See how it puts a rainbow around every blessed thing, even the old black pots and pans!"

In showing it to Tippy she discovered a tiny hole in the end of the prism by which it had been hung from the lamp, and she ran upstairs to find a piece of ribbon to run through it. When she came down again, the prism hanging from her neck by a long pink ribbon, Uncle Darcy greeted her with a new version of the Banbury Cross song:

"_Rings on her fingers and ribbon of rose, She shall have rainbows wherever she goes._"

"That's even better than having music wherever you go," answered Georgina, whirling around on her toes. Then she stopped in a listening att.i.tude, hearing the postman.

When she came back from the front door with only a magazine her disappointment was keen, but she said bravely:

"Of course, I _knew_ there couldn't be a letter from Barby this soon.

She couldn't get there till last night--but just for a minute I couldn't help hoping--but I didn't mind it half so much, Uncle Darcy, when I looked at the postman through the prism. Even his whiskers were blue and red and yellow."

That afternoon a little boat went dipping up and down across the waves.

It was _The Betsey_, with Uncle Darcy pulling at the oars and Georgina as pa.s.senger. Lifting the prism which still hung from her neck by the pink ribbon, she looked out upon what seemed to be an enchanted harbor.

It was filled with a fleet of rainbows. Every sail was outlined with one, every mast edged with lines of red and gold and blue. Even the gray wharves were tinged with magical color, and the water itself, to her reverent thought, suggested the "sea of gla.s.s mingled with fire," which is pictured as one of the glories of the New Jerusalem.

"Isn't it _wonderful_, Uncle Darcy?" she asked in a hushed, awed tone.

"It's just like a miracle the way this bit of gla.s.s changes the whole world. Isn't it?"

Before he could answer, a shrill whistle sounded near at hand. They were pa.s.sing the boathouse on the beach below the Green Stairs. Looking up they saw Richard, hanging out of the open doors of the loft, waving to them. Georgina stood up in the boat and beckoned, but he shook his head, pointing backward with his thumb into the studio, and disconsolately shrugged his shoulders.

"He wants to go _so_ bad!" exclaimed Georgina. "Seems as if his father's a mighty slow painter. Maybe if you'd ask him the way you did before, Uncle Darcy, he'd let Richard off this one more time--being my birthday, you know."

She looked at him with the bewitching smile which he usually found impossible to resist, but this time he shook his head.

"No, I don't want him along to-day. I've brought you out here to show you something and have a little talk with you alone. Maybe I ought to wait till you're older before I say what I want to say, but at my time of life I'm liable to slip off without much warning, and I don't want to go till I've said it to you."

Georgina put down her prism to stare at him in eager-eyed wonder. She was curious to know what he could show her out here on the water, and what he wanted to tell her that was as important as his solemn words implied.

"Wait till we come to it," he said, answering the unspoken question in her eyes. And Georgina, who dearly loved dramatic effects in her own story-telling, waited for something--she knew not what--to burst upon her expectant sight.

They followed the line of the beach for some time, dodging in between motor boats and launches, under the high railroad wharf and around the smaller ones where the old fish-houses stood. Past groups of children, playing in the sand they went, past artists sketching under their white umbrellas, past gardens gay with bright ma.s.ses of color, past drying nets spread out on the sh.o.r.e.

Presently Uncle Darcy stopped rowing and pointed across a vacant strip of beach between two houses, to one on the opposite side of the street.

"There it is," he announced. "That's what I wanted to show you."

Georgina followed the direction of his pointing finger.

"Oh, that!" she said in a disappointed tone. "I've seen that all my life. It's nothing but the Figurehead House."

She was looking at a large white house with a portico over the front door, on the roof of which portico was perched half of the wooden figure of a woman. It was of heroic size, head thrown back as if looking off to sea, and with a green wreath in its hands. Weather-beaten and discolored, it was not an imposing object at first glance, and many a jibe and laugh it had called forth from pa.s.sing tourists.

Georgina's disappointment showed in her face.

"I know all about that," she remarked. "Mrs. Tupman told me herself. She calls it the Lady of Mystery. She said that years and years ago a schooner put out from this town on a whaling cruise, and was gone more than a year. When it was crossing the equator, headed for home, the look-out at the masthead saw a strange object in the water that looked like a woman afloat. The Captain gave orders to lower the boats, and when they did so they found this figurehead. She said it must have come from the prow of some great clipper in the East India trade. They were in the Indian Ocean, you know.

"There had been some frightful storms and afterwards they heard of many wrecks. This figurehead was so long they had to cut it in two to get it into the hold of the vessel. They brought it home and set it up there over the front door, and they call it the Lady of Mystery, because they said 'from whence that ship came, what was its fate and what was its destination will always be shrouded in mystery.' And Mrs. Tupman said that a famous artist looked at it once and said it was probably the work of a Spanish artist, and that from the pose of its head and the wreath in its hands he was sure it was intended to represent Hope. Was _that_ what you were going to tell me?"

The old man had rested on his oars while she hurried through this tale, with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes, as if she thought she was forestalling him. Now he picked them up again and began rowing out into the harbor.

"That was a part of it," he admitted, "but that's only the part that the whole town knows. That old figurehead has a meaning for me that n.o.body else that's living knows about. That's what I want to pa.s.s on to you."

He rowed several minutes more before he said slowly, with a wistful tenderness coming into his dim old eyes as he looked at her:

"Georgina, I don't suppose anybody's ever told you about the troubles I've had. They wouldn't talk about such things to a child like you.

Maybe I shouldn't, now; but when I saw how disappointed you were this morning, I said to myself, 'If she's old enough to feel trouble that way, she's old enough to understand and to be helped by hearing about mine.'"