"Come up to my room, Amy," said Maggie, excitedly.

"No, no, Mother Eve, I shall go to my own room, and dress for company."

"Oh, I guess your secret!" cried Maggie. "Burt said something more than good-by to Miss Hargrove last evening."

Amy would not answer, and the sound of a mirthful s.n.a.t.c.h of song died musically away in the distance.

"Now, Mr. Webb," Maggie resumed, "what did _you_ mean by that ominous flash from your cavern-like eyes?"

"It meant that Amy has probably been satisfied with one lover in the family and its unexpected result. I don't wish our relations embarra.s.sed by the feeling that she must be on her guard against another."

"Oh, I see, you don't wish her to be on her guard."

"Dear Maggie, whatever you may see, appear blind. Heaven only knows what you women don't see."

"That's good policy, Webb. I'll be your ally now. I've suspected you for some time, but thought Burt and Amy were committed to each other."

"Amy does not suspect anything, and she must not. She is not ready for the knowledge, and may never be. All the help I ask is to keep her unconscious. I've been expecting you would find me out, for you married ladies have had an experience which doubles your insight, and I'm glad of the chance to caution you. Amy is happy in loving me as a brother. She shall never be unhappy in this home if I can prevent it."

Maggie entered heart and soul into Webb's cause, for he was a great favorite with her. He was kind to her children, and in a quiet way taught them almost as much as they learned at school. He went to his work with mind much relieved, for she and his mother were the only ones that he feared might surmise his feeling, and by manner or remark reveal it to Amy, thus destroying their unembarra.s.sed relations, and perhaps his chance to win the girl's heart.

CHAPTER LVII

OCTOBER HUES AND HARVESTS

Burt's interview with his parents, their mingled surprise, pleasure, and disappointment, and their deep sympathy, need not be dwelt upon. Mr.

Clifford was desirous of first seeing Amy, and satisfying himself that she did not in the slightest degree feel herself slighted or treated in bad faith, but his wife, with her low laugh, said: "Rest a.s.sured, father, Burt is right. He has won nothing more from Amy than sisterly love, though I had hoped that he might in time. After all, perhaps, it is best.

We shall keep Amy, and gain a new daughter that we have already learned to admire and love."

Burt's mind was too full of the one great theme to remember what Mr.

Hargrove had said about the Western land, and when at last Miss Hargrove came to say good-by, with a blushing consciousness quite unlike her usual self-possession, he was enchanted anew, and so were all the household.

The old people's reception seemed like a benediction; Amy banished the faintest trace of doubt by her mirthful ecstasies; and after their mountain experience there was no ice to break between Gertrude and Maggie.

The former was persuaded to defer her trip to New York until the morrow, and so Amy would have her nutting expedition after all. When Leonard came down to dinner, Burt took Gertrude's hand, and said, "Now, Len, this is your only chance to give your consent. You can't have any dinner till you do."

His swift, deprecating look at Amy's laughing face rea.s.sured him. "Well,"

he said, slowly, as if trying to comprehend it all, "I do believe I'm growing old. My eyesight must be failing sadly. When _did_ all this take place?"

"Your eyesight is not to blame, Leonard," said his wife, with much superiority. "It's because you are only a man."

"That's all I ever pretended to be." Then, with a dignity that almost surprised Gertrude, he, as eldest brother, welcomed her in simple, heartfelt words.

At the dinner-table Miss Hargrove referred to the Western land. Burt laid down his knife and fork, and exclaimed, "I declare, I forgot all about it!"

Miss Hargrove laughed heartily as she said, "A high tribute to me!" and then made known her father's statement that the Clifford tract in the West adjoined his own, that it would soon be very valuable, and that he was interested in the railroad approaching it. "I left him," she concluded, "poring over his maps, and he told me to say to you, sir" (to Mr. Clifford), "that he wished to see you soon."

"How about the four-leaved clover now?" cried Amy.

In the afternoon they started for the chestnut-trees. Webb carried a light ladder, and both he and Burt had dressed themselves in close-fitting flannel suits for climbing. The orchard, as they pa.s.sed through it, presented a beautiful autumn picture. Great heaps of yellow and red cheeked apples were upon the ground; other varieties were in barrels, some headed up and ready for market, while Mr. Clifford was giving the final cooperage to other barrels as fast as they were filled.

"Father can still head up a barrel better than any of us," Leonard remarked to Miss Hargrove.

"Well, my dear," said the old gentleman, "I've had over half a century's experience."

"It's time I obtained some idea of rural affairs," said Gertrude to Webb.

"There seem to be many different kinds of apples here. Can you easily tell them apart?"

"Yes, as easily as you know different dress fabrics at Arnold's. Those umbrella-shaped trees are Rhode Island greenings; those that are rather long and slender branching are yellow bell-flowers; and those with short and stubby branches and twigs are the old-fashioned dominies. Over there are Newtown pippins. Don't you see how green the fruit is? It will not be in perfection till next March. Not only a summer, but an autumn and a winter are required to perfect that superb apple, but then it becomes one of Nature's triumphs. Some of those heaps on the ground will furnish cider and vinegar. Nuts, cider, and a wood fire are among the privations of a farmer's life."

"Farming, as you carry it on, appears to me a fine art. How very full some of the trees are! and others look as if they had been half picked over."

"That is just what has been done. The largest and ripest apples are taken off first, and the rest of the fruit improves wonderfully in two or three weeks. By this course we greatly increase both the quality and the bulk of the crop."

"You are very happy in your calling, Webb. How strange it seems for me to be addressing you as Webb!"

"It does not seem so strange to me; nor does it seem strange that I am talking to you in this way. I soon recognized that you were one of those fortunate beings in whom city life had not quenched nature."

They had fallen a little behind the others, and were out of ear-shot.

"I think," she said, hesitatingly and shyly, "that I had an ally in you all along."

He laughed and replied, "At one time I was very dubious over my expedition to Fort Putnam."

"I imagine that in suggesting that expedition you put in two words for yourself."

"Call it even," he said.

"I wish you might be as happy as I am. I'm not blind either, and I wonder that Amy is so unconscious."

"I hope she will remain so until she awakens as naturally as from sleep.

She has never had a brother, and as such I try to act toward her. My one thought is her happiness, and, perhaps, I can secure it in no other way.

I feared long since that you had guessed my secret, and am grateful that you have not suggested it to Amy. Few would have shown so much delicacy and consideration."

"I'm not sure that you are right, Webb. If Amy knew of your feeling, it would influence her powerfully. She misjudges you now."

"Yes, it was necessary that she should misunderstand me, and think of me as absorbed in things remote from her life. The knowledge you suggest might make her very sad, for there never was a gentler-hearted girl. You have remarkable tact. Please use it to prevent the constraint which might arise between us."

Burt now joined them with much pretended jealousy, and they soon reached the trees, which, under the young men's vigorous blows, rained down the p.r.i.c.kly burrs, downy chestnuts, and golden leaves. Blue jays screamed indignantly from the mountain-side, and squirrels barked their protest at the inroads made upon their winter stores. As the night approached the air grew chilly, and Webb remarked that frost was coming at last. He hastened home before the others to cover up certain plants that might be sheltered through the first cold snap. The tenderer ones had long since been taken up and prepared for winter blooming.

To Amy's inquiry where Johnnie was, Maggie had replied that she had gone nutting by previous engagement with Mr. Alvord, and as the party returned in the glowing evening they met the oddly a.s.sorted friends with their baskets well filled. In the eyes of the recluse there was a gentler expression, proving that Johnnie's and Nature's ministry had not been wholly in vain. He glanced swiftly from Burt to Miss Hargrove, then at Amy, and a faint suggestion of a smile hovered about his mouth. He was about to leave them abruptly when Johnnie interposed, pleading: "Mr.

Alvord, don't go home till I pick you some of your favorite heart's-ease, as you call my pansies. They have grown to be as large and beautiful as they were last spring. Do you know, in the hot weather they were almost as small as johnny-jumpers? but I wouldn't let 'em be called by that name."

"They will ever be heart's-ease to me, Johnnie-doubly so when you give them," and he followed her to the garden.