"Look for yourself, then." Persis turned to the secretary where she had placed the letter she had received that morning. She felt more like herself than at any time since she had perused the contents of that final astonishing communication. In combatting Joel's incredulity, she was able to set at rest certain disquieting doubts of her own as to her sanity.

Joel's jaw dropped as he read. "Mrs. Persis Ann Crawford. Why, that must mean Aunt Persis."

"Sure. The one I was named for. And I guess it's a good twenty-five years since we've had a line from her." She laughed a little hysterically, dabbing her eyes with her handkerchief. "I don't s'pose I'm crying because she's dead, seeing I took it for granted that she'd pa.s.sed away years ago. And yet all the time to leave me her money.

Ain't life the funniest mix-up. Yesterday I couldn't have afforded so much as a sick-headache. And now if I want a run of typhoid fever or my appendix cut out, it's n.o.body's business."

Joel laid down the letter with a gulp. The impression uppermost in his mind was the singular blindness of fortune in selecting the recipients of its bounty.

"It's a good deal of a responsibility for a woman," he said ruefully.

"Seeing I'm the oldest, it's rather odd Aunt Persis Ann didn't realize that I was the proper one to inherit. But I guess she thought it was all in the family, and you'd be guided by my advice."

Persis' answer was irrelevant. "Joel, seems to me that so far my life's been for all the world like a checked gingham, if you know what I mean."

But Joel did not know. "Checked gingham! I never heard such crazy talk."

"Made up of the same little things, all just alike," Persis explained patiently. "And nothing especially bright or cheerful about any of 'em. I've a feeling as if I'd like a splash of color now, velvet as green as gra.s.s and fire-red satin."

"Sounds as if you had the Scarlet Woman in mind," Joel said disapprovingly, and before Persis had time to explain, young Mrs.

Thompson had knocked. She was a sorry figure for a wife of less than a year's standing, a drooping little woman, pale, listless and heavy-eyed.

"Mr. Dale said something about your having a piece of my goods," she explained with such an effect of indifference that Persis wondered she had taken the trouble to call. Then her gaze went to the table and the untouched meal. "I'm afraid I've interrupted you."

"Not a mite, Mis' Thompson. Walk right in! Joel!" Persis'

authoritative glance in her brother's direction indicated the propriety of his withdrawal. Joel rose reluctantly. It was not a fitting that was in prospect nor even a discussion of styles where questions might arise which could not suitably be debated before one of the opposite s.e.x. But since Persis only wished to return the young woman a piece of goods that had been overlooked when her dress was sent home, Joel felt not unreasonably that he might have witnessed the transaction without offending the most rigid notions of what was seemly.

Persis searched in her piece-bag and produced an infinitesimal sc.r.a.p of green voile. Young Mrs. Thompson accepted the offering with evident surprise.

"Yes, that's my goods," she acknowledged. "But it's so little, I don't see how I can use it."

"You never can tell when a sc.r.a.p like that will come in useful," Persis declared convincingly. "And by the way, Mis' Thompson, I wonder if your husband happens to have handy that ridiculous letter that was meant for another Thompson."

The worthless sc.r.a.p of green dropped from the young wife's shaking hands. "Why, what makes you think--"

"That letter," Persis explained steadily, "was written to a Mr.

Washington Thompson. I don't wonder he shortens it to a W., do you?

To have Washington for your first name must be a good deal like having the Washington monument in your front yard, sort of overpowering. Of course, as Enid says--Enid's the girl, you know--a love-letter as old as that ain't of no real use. Love-letters and eggs are a good deal alike. You can keep 'em in cold storage month in and month out, but while they don't exactly spoil, they ain't the same as fresh ones."

Persis was talking to give the little woman time. From the pigeonholes of her secretary she produced the letters she needed, and meanwhile kept a wary eye upon the camphor bottle, always within reach for the benefit of sensitive patrons likely to succ.u.mb to the ordeal of fitting. To judge from young Mrs. Thompson's colorless face, she might need it at any moment.

"I own I kind of interfered with what was none of my business," Persis acknowledged with as pleasing a frankness as if such interferences were not in line with her normal activities. "But I kind of worried over having a love-letter wandering around that way and not getting where it belonged. That might make lots of trouble."

"But who was 'Her'?" demanded young Mrs. Thompson wildly. And Persis, whose sense of responsibility for her kind extended even to her unknown correspondents, looked grave as she answered.

"Dearie, I don't know. But I'm sure of one thing, that it wasn't you.

Here's his letter to me, madder'n a wet hen, he was, too. And here's hers. You see it's the same writing as the one your husband has; I'm glad she wrote her name right out plain, because I said particular that the 'Enid' would be enough."

Then Persis dropped both letters and caught Mrs. Thompson in her arms.

The younger woman was small and slender, and under the stress of excitement Persis lifted her to the couch as easily as if she had been a child. Then she sprinkled the white face with water from the pitcher on the table and brought the camphor bottle into play, all the time murmuring words of endearment and sympathy whose restorative effect was possibly not second to that of her other remedies. Young Mrs. Thompson returned to consciousness to hear herself called a "lamb" and a "poor dear." She opened her heavy eyes and gave back a rapturous smile to the other woman's comprehending gaze.

"I--I don't believe I ever was so happy," murmured young Mrs. Thompson.

"Then he did leave it in his pocket just for a joke. And, oh, dear Miss Dale, if it's a girl I'm going to call her Persis."

CHAPTER XIV

AN ACQUISITION

The Dale homestead was undergoing repairs. For years Persis had patched up the roof when it leaked and papered with her own hands such rooms as had become too dingy to be longer tolerated. Now she was giving free rein to her exuberant fancy in the matter of improvements.

A telephone had been installed in the house the day following the communication from the legal advisers of the late Persis Ann Crawford and this in spite of Joel's pa.s.sionate protests.

"May be a hoax for all you know. Better wait till the money's in your hand before you run into extravagance piling up debts for us to work off later. I guess it's a true saying that if you put a beggar on horseback, he'll ride to the devil."

Within a week the innovations had reduced him to a condition of disapproving dumbness. Paperhangers and plasterers had taken possession of the old house. The roof was being reshingled. The new electric lights gave to each successive evening an air of festive brilliancy. The sagging porch was in process of reconstruction. It was the dull season from the builder's standpoint, and Persis had no difficulty in securing workmen in sufficient numbers to hurry the work with what seemed to herself, as well as to Joel, almost magical despatch. A generous check deposited to her credit in the Clematis Savings Bank had relieved Joel's earlier apprehensions. The bequest was no hoax. But his const.i.tutional parsimony rebelled against the outlay as if each expenditure had meant want in the future. While his dignity demanded that he should cease the protests that were disregarded, his air of patient martyrdom expressed his sentiments with all the plainness of speech.

The feminine half of the population of Clematis was in despair. For Persis Dale had announced with every indication of finality that after she had finished the gowns in hand, her career as dressmaker would immediately terminate. Mrs. Robert Hornblower, bitter because Persis'

fortune had materialized before her own, commented freely on the fact that Persis Dale hadn't the strength of mind to come into money without beginning to put on airs. Mrs. Richards, who was so far convalescent that she had been able to attend divine worship the previous Sabbath, rolled her eyes Heavenward and deplored the effects of pomps and vanities on certain const.i.tutions. Even so true and tried a friend as Mrs. West was driven to remonstrate.

"I don't say that you ought to work the way you've done all your life, Persis, rushing from one dress to another, fit to break your neck. But it does seem as if after always being busy you couldn't be real happy to settle down to idleness."

Persis smiled.

"I guess I wasn't cut out for a b.u.t.terfly, Mis' West, even if I'd got started in time. I'm not afraid but what I can find plenty to do. As far as the sewing goes, I feel like a man I read of who laid a wager he'd eat a quail a day for thirty days. Well, he got along fine.

Didn't seem to mind it a bit. When it came the twenty-fifth day and everybody was congratulating him on making his money so easy, he up and quit. 'No use, boys,' he said, when they began to tell him what a fool he was. 'I've just naturally got to the stopping-point.' And it's the same with me. I've done my sewing and haven't fretted over it, though when I think of the millions and millions of st.i.tches I've taken in twenty years, I wonder I haven't turned into a sewing-machine. But I've got to the stopping-point now. It's more'n likely I'll buy my own clothes ready-made, after this."

In a month's time the old house was transformed beyond recognition, the fresh paint of the exterior holding its own bravely against the pretensions of the fresh paper and new carpets within. Thomas Hardin had sent to Boston for those carpets, the patterns in stock not satisfying Persis' exacting ideas. The transaction had been conducted with businesslike despatch on both sides, though on one occasion Thomas relaxed his dignity sufficiently to say, "Guess you're going to look pretty fine up there."

Persis dryly admitted the prospective improvement. "Some folks can't bear to part with what's old, but I own I've got a liking for new things. When I can afford a change, I'm glad to have it."

"Friends the same as carpets," Thomas thought with a little bitterness for which he at once reproached himself. For, after all, Persis'

friendship had been stanch and steadfast till his own confession had disclosed his unworthiness. He atoned for his momentary lapse by making her a substantial discount on the linoleum she wanted for the kitchen.

The seal of silence Joel had placed upon his lips was broken when the question of engaging a servant girl came to the fore. "Ain't you going to leave yourself nothing to do?" he demanded wildly. Then with a cunning for which few would have given him credit. "You'll get as fat as Etta West sitting around all day and being waited on."

Persis listened unmoved, her rather enigmatic smile suggesting that she clearly foresaw a way out of that difficulty.

"I'm not afraid but what I can find enough to keep me busy. Besides, I need a servant girl to look after things when I'm away."

"Away? Are you going away?"

"I'm going whenever I happen to feel like it. And the first time'll be next week, Monday."

"Persis, where are you going?"

"To the city for a week or so."

Joel deliberated. He rose and paced the room, halting at length in a dramatic posture, face to face with his sister.