Cheap and plain and simple as it was, its effect upon the wearer, even in its stages of incompleteness, was so striking that Persis sometimes forgot her official duty in the satisfaction of a long admiring stare.

And probably in her sixteen years of existence, Diantha had never so nearly approximated all the cardinal virtues as in that idyllic week.

She besieged Persis with offers of a.s.sistance, pleading for permission to pull basting threads or overcast seams. At home she was gentle, yielding, subdued. Her father, having learned through bitter experience how open to the attack of a million miseries love makes the heart, had resolved that fate should not again trick him. He had steeled himself against the appeal of Diantha's babyhood and had watched unmoved her precocious development. The mocking politeness which characterized his manner toward his wife was replaced in the case of the daughter by a distant formality. Yet now as Diantha went about the house with dreamy eyes and a half smile on her lips, there were times when the father looked at her almost wistfully and wondered of what she were thinking. With all due respect to the human will, we must acknowledge ourselves creatures of circ.u.mstance in no little degree, when two yards of lawn, retailing at twelve and a half cents, can prove so potent a factor in character and destiny.

Diantha's mother might have prescribed quinine had she noted anything unusual in the girl's demeanor. But Annabel had reached a crucial stage in her flirtation with Thad West. The boy was developing a gratifying jealousy of the tenor singer in the Unitarian church choir and must be treated with a nice commingling of indulgence and severity to prevent his a.s.serting himself in the crude masculine fashion, and either terminating the intimacy or else permanently getting the upper hand. Annabel was enjoying the crisis of the game and found it impossible to spare from her own absorbing interests a thought for such a minor consideration as Diantha's moods.

Diantha antic.i.p.ated the time when she was to call for her finished frock by more than an hour. "I know you're not ready yet," she apologized, as Persis looked at the clock. "But I thought I'd like to watch you work, if you don't mind."

"Of course I don't mind, child. Just put those fashion books on the table and take the easy chair." Persis bent over the finishings of the little frock with a vague satisfaction in the nearness of the motionless figure. She was growing fond of Diantha, a not unnatural result of the adoring attention Diantha had lavished upon her for a week past. But because Persis was a woman with a living to make, and Diantha was a girl with a dream to be dreamed, scarcely a word was spoken till the last st.i.tch was taken.

"There!" Persis removed a basting thread with a jerk, making an unsuccessful pretense that the finishing of this dress was like the completion of any other piece of work. "There! It's done at last. I suppose you'll want to try it on."

"Yes," said Diantha, "I'll try it on." And as the faded blue serge slipped from her shoulders to be replaced by the white lawn, the Diantha who had been, took her departure to that remote country from which the children never come back.

Persis was almost appalled by the result for which she was princ.i.p.ally responsible. The tall Diantha in a dress to her shoe-tops was disconcertingly unlike the little girl she had known. She looked older than her years, stately, self-contained and beautiful. It was not till Persis had fortified herself by the reflection that she might as well be hung for an old sheep as for a lamb, that she ventured another revolutionary suggestion.

"Diantha, I s'pose you'll make some change in the way you do your hair?"

"Yes, indeed." Diantha, scrutinizing herself in the mirror, frowned at the drooping curls with an air of restrained disgust. "This way is only suitable for children."

Persis' negligent gesture called attention to the open door of the bedroom. "There's a box of hairpins on the dresser. If you like, you can fix yourself up and surprise your mother."

Diantha vanished swiftly. She had no illusions regarding the nature of the coming surprise. Her mother would be very angry, but the sooner that storm had spent itself, the better. Relentlessly the golden curls were sacrificed to the impressive coiffure of the woman of fashion.

For a novice Diantha was remarkably deft, her skill suggesting periods of antic.i.p.atory practise with her door locked and no eyes but her own to admire the effect.

During the progress of this rite, Persis in the adjoining room, looked at the clock, glanced at the window and then paced the floor, for once in her well-disciplined life too nervous to utilize the flying moments.

Persis was in the dilemma of a stage manager whose curtain is ready to go up, and whose _prima donna_ is about to appear, while the audience has failed to materialize. To such mischances does one subject one's self in a.s.suming the responsibilities of a deputy-providence.

Then her brow cleared, even while her heart jumped into her throat.

The gate clicked, and a lithe figure swung up the path. Persis took her time in answering the peremptory knock.

"Good afternoon, Miss Persis. Mother said that you--"

"Walk in, Thad. Yes, I've a little package to send your mother. Sit down while I look for it."

Would the girl never come! The curtain was rung up, the audience waiting. But the stage was empty. How long a time in Heaven's name did Diantha expect to spend in combing her hair. "I should think she was waiting for it to grow," thought the hara.s.sed Persis. Very deliberately she opened and closed every drawer in the old-fashioned secretary, though she knew the upper contained only old letters and the second, garden seeds.

Thad was fidgeting. "If you can't put your hand on it, Miss Persis, don't bother to hunt. I'll drop in again in a day or two."

"Just a minute, Thad. It must be right around here. It can't--ah!"

Persis forgot the ending of the unnecessary sentence. For now Thad West was at liberty to leave whenever he pleased.

A tall slender figure advanced into the room. Diantha's grace had always made her an anomaly among tall children. Her hair was parted and drawn back simply, after the fashion doubtless designed by earth's beauties, since it is the despair of plain women. The yellow curls, sacrificing their individual distinction, had magnanimously contributed to the perfection of the exquisite golden coil at the back of her shapely head. No one would have looked twice at the plain little lawn, but it proved superior to some more pretentious gowns in that it set off the charms of the wearer, instead of distracting attention from them. The unlooked-for apparition brought Thad West to his feet, and so Youth and Beauty met as if hitherto they had been strangers.

For a long half minute they stood without speaking. "Oh, good afternoon," Diantha said at last, and veiled her eyes from his fascinated stare. Formerly she had treated him with the free-and-easy pertness of a precocious child. Now the exquisite shyness of maidenhood enveloped her. Instinct drew her back from the man's inevitable advance. "I didn't know it was so late," she said to Persis, oblivious to Thad's gasping greeting. "I must hurry."

Thad's sense of confusion was like a physical dizziness. This regal young beauty was the daughter of the woman whose hand he had held surrept.i.tiously the previous evening. With an effort he steadied himself, only to make the discovery that in that hazy moment the world had undergone a process of readjustment. He knew as well as he was ever to know it, that Annabel Sinclair belonged to another generation from his own.

"I suppose you want to take this along." Persis' gesture indicated the package containing the discarded serge which Diantha would have been glad to contribute to the wardrobe of the youthful Trotters. But with all her daring, her courage was hardly equal to such a step. She put out her hand for the package, but Thad had already pounced upon it.

"I--I'm going your way," he said, a trace of his recent disorder in his stammering speech. "I'll carry it for you."

Silently Diantha accepted the offer. She kissed Persis good-by in a fashion which the critical might have p.r.o.nounced needlessly provocative, though her dreamy eyes protested that nothing was further from her maiden thoughts than the presence of Thad West. Persis, who was intensely alive to every phase of the dramatic situation, had caught a glimpse of the young fellow's face during the affectionate leave-taking and was abundantly satisfied.

"Thad's no fool, though he's acted like the twin brother to an idiot.

He can't help seeing that the mother of a grown-up girl like Diantha hadn't ought to be flirting with a boy like him. If he doesn't see it now he will before he gets her home, or I miss my guess."

Mr. and Mrs. Stanley Sinclair were seated side by side on their front porch, presenting an agreeable picture of domesticity. The reason for Annabel's presence was that the tenor singer of the Unitarian choir was accustomed to pa.s.s the house at that hour. Sinclair stayed on simply because he suspected that his wife wished him indoors. He read aloud inane items of village news from the weekly paper, and only the veiled mockery of his eyes betrayed the fact that he was not the most devoted and the most complacent of husbands.

As the two young people came into view, Annabel's air of indifferent listlessness changed to rigid attention. She recognized the gallant figure of the young man considerably before she knew his graceful companion. Her husband's eyes were quicker. His paper dropped from his hand, and his emotions found vent in an explosive and needlessly profane monosyllable.

The two culprits came up the walk, Thad with a fine color, Diantha extraordinarily self-possessed. The girl's eyes rested on her mother's face, then went in swift appeal to her father's. Their consternation was too obvious to be ignored.

"I wore my new dress home," she remarked casually. Then with sudden recklessness: "Do you like it?"

"It's--it's absurd," p.r.o.nounced Annabel almost with a snarl. So a mother tigress might have corrected her offspring. Never had she seemed less prepossessing to her youthful adorer than at that moment.

Anger aged her indescribably. The young man looked at her and dropped his eyes ashamed.

"It's no longer than other girls of sixteen are wearing," said Diantha, and turned to Thad. "Thank you for carrying my bundle." She took the package and vanished. Nothing in her outward composure indicated that her heart was thumping, and girlhood's ready tears burning under her drooping lids.

Persis' device had been eminently successful, entailing consequences, indeed, she was far from antic.i.p.ating. For Stanley Sinclair had waked to the fact that he was the father of a beautiful girl on the verge of womanhood, and his sense of parental responsibility, long before drugged, manacled and locked into a dark cell, had roused at last and was clamoring to be free from its prison. Annabel, his wife, had recognized a possible rival in her own household. And lastly, Thad West was the prey of an uneasy suspicion that perhaps, after all, the mother of Diantha Sinclair had been making a fool of him.

CHAPTER VI

THE NEW ARRIVAL

Mindful of her promise to Mrs. Trotter, Persis had looked through her piece-bag apparently with excellent results. For the little garments symbolic of humanity's tenderest hopes, the garments that are to clothe the unborn child, were growing rapidly under her skilful fingers.

The first slip had been severely plain, and then Persis, yielding to a temptation most women will understand, began to fashion sc.r.a.ps of embroidery and odds and ends of lace and insertion into tiny yokes and bands. After many a long day's work she sat by the shaded lamp finishing the diminutive garments with st.i.tches worthy of a bridal outfit.

"Who is it that's expecting?" Joel demanded one evening, his s.e.x not proving an impregnable armor against the a.s.saults of curiosity.

The brevity of Persis' answer indicated reluctance to import the desired information. "Mis' Trotter."

"Bartholomew Trotter's wife? And of course she's going to pay you for all this fiddling and folderol."

Persis accepted the implied rebuke meekly. "I guess I'm paying myself in the satisfaction I get out of it. I started in to st.i.tch up some slips on the machine, but I just couldn't stand it. Machine sewing's all right for grown folks, but it does seem that when a little child's getting ready to come into the world, there'd ought to be a needle weaving back and forth, and tender thoughts and hopes weaving along with it. And specially if a baby's going to be born into a home like the Trotters', you can't grudge it a little bit of beauty to start out with."

"Well, I must say it's lucky that so far you women have been kept where you belong. Weaving hopes, indeed! As if 'twould make any difference to that young one of Trotter's whether it was rigged out like a millionaire baby or wrapped up in a horse blanket."

Persis sewed on unmoved. "I don't say the baby'd know the difference.

It's just my way of showing respect for the human race."

Her industry was not premature. One Sat.u.r.day night she carried to the Trotters' squalid home a daintily fashioned, freshly laundered outfit which took Mrs. Trotter's restrained and self-respecting grat.i.tude quite by storm. Forgetting for once the public obligation to provide for the needs of her family present and to come, she accepted the gift in a silence vastly more eloquent than her usual volubility. Then the muscles of her scrawny throat twitched, and a tear splashed down on the soft cambric. Nor did she, during the interview, recover her usual poise sufficiently to refer to the obligation under which Bartholomew and herself were placing the community; and Persis returned home in a mood of even more than her customary tolerance.

That was Sat.u.r.day night. Early Monday morning little Benny brought word that his mother was sick and wanted Miss Persis to come right away. Joel had not risen, and Persis scrawled a hasty note explaining her abrupt departure and set out for the Trotter establishment, stopping on the way to ask a favor of Susan Fitzgerald.