"I would do more if you would allow me," replied Quincy.

"The fact is," said Alice, "'Zekiel does not wish to borrow any money, nor would he accept the gift of the Putnam homestead unless he, in turn, deeded this house and farm to me. He is going to run this farm and pay me what he gets from the sale of products. If you will have Squire Rundlett draw up both deeds and the agreement, the whole matter can be fixed before I go away."

Quincy promised to give his attention to the matter that afternoon. He drove up to his boarding house and hitched his horse at the front door.

Mrs. Hawkins saw him enter and take his seat at the dinner table.

"There's that Mr. Sawyer; he's slept in this house just one night and eaten just one meal up to this noon for nigh on a week. Them city folks must have Injun rubber stummicks and cast iron backs or they couldn't eat in so many different places and sleep in so many different beds.

Why, if I go away and stay over night, when I git home I'm allus sicker'n a horse and tired enough to drop."

Quincy went to Montrose that afternoon and saw Squire Rundlett. The latter promised to make the papers out the next day, and said he would bring them over for signing the following morning. Quincy drove down to Deacon Mason's and told 'Zekiel when to be on hand, and after leaving the team in the Pettengill barn, saw Alice and informed her of the Squire's proposed visit. He told her that he would come down that morning to act as a witness, if his services were required.

He spent the next day at the grocery store, going over the stock with Strout and Abbott Smith, and had a list made of articles that they thought it would be advisable to carry in the future. He told Strout that he would visit some wholesale grocery houses in Boston and have samples sent down.

"Mr. Sawyer is improvin'," said Mrs. Hawkins to Betsy the next morning after breakfast. "He's slept in his bed two nights runnin', and he's eat four square meals, and seemed to enjoy them, too. I guess he didn't git much when he was jumpin' 'round so from one place to another."

Squire Rundlett kept his word, and the legal doc.u.ments were duly signed and executed. Alice told the Squire that she was going away for several months, and that she would undoubtedly send to him from time to time.

"My dear Miss Pettengill," replied the gallant Squire, "you shall have all you ask for if I have to sell my best horse and mortgage my house.

But I don't think it will be necessary," he added. "Some more dividends and interest have come in and I have more than a thousand dollars to your credit now."

After the Squire had left, Alice told Quincy that her preparations were all made, and that she would be ready to go to Boston the next day. The mid-day train was fixed upon. After dinner that day, Quincy informed Mrs. Hawkins that he wished to pay his bill in full, as he should leave for good the next day.

Holding the money in her hand, Mrs. Hawkins entered the kitchen and addressed Betsy.

"Just what I expected," said she; "jest as that Mr. Sawyer got to stayin' home nights and eating his meals like a Christian, he ups an'

gits. I guess it'll be a dry summer. I kinder thought them two boys over to the grocery would come here, but I understand they're goin' down to Pettengill's, and somebody told me that Strout goes over to Eastborough Centre every Sunday now. I s'pose he's tryin' to shine up again to that Bessie Chisholm, that he used to be sweet on. When he goes to keepin'

house there'll be another boarder gone;" and the poor woman, having borrowed enough trouble, sat down and wiped a supposed tear out of each eye with her greasy ap.r.o.n.

Quincy reached Aunt Ella's residence with the young ladies about noon.

Aunt Ella gave the three travellers a hearty welcome, and the young ladies were shown at once to their rooms, which were on the third floor at the front of the house. They were connected, so that Rosa could be close at hand in case Alice should need a.s.sistance.

While the footman and b.u.t.tons were taking the trunks upstairs, Quincy asked his aunt if he could leave his trunk there for a short time. "I do not wish to take it home," he said, "until after I have the ladies settled at Nantucket. The carriage is waiting outside and I am going to get the one o'clock train."

"I will take good care of your trunk," said Aunt Ella, "and you, too, if you will come and live with me. But can't you stop to lunch with us?"

she asked. But Quincy declined, and requesting his aunt to say good-by to the young ladies for him, he entered the carriage and was driven off.

After luncheon, which was served in the dining-room, General Chessman and Aides-de-Camp Pettengill and Very held a counsel of war in the General's private tent. It was decided that the mornings should be devoted, for a while, at least, to shopping and visiting modistes and milliners. Miss Very was also to give some of her time to visits to the libraries and the second-hand bookstores looking for books that would be of value to Alice in her work. The afternoons were to be pa.s.sed in conversation and in listening to Miss Very's reading from the books that she had purchased or taken from the libraries. The evenings were to be filled up with music, and the first one disclosed the pleasing fact that Miss Very had a rich, full contralto voice that had been well cultivated and that she could play Beethoven or the songs of the day with equal facility.

While the feminine trio were thus enjoying themselves in Boston with an admixture of work and play, Quincy was busily engaged at Nantucket in building a nest for them, as he called it.

He had found a large, old-fashioned house on the bluff at the north sh.o.r.e, overlooking the harbor, owned by Mrs. Gibson. She was a widow with two children, one a boy of about nineteen, named Thomas, and the other a girl of twelve, named Dorothy, but generally designated as Tommy and Dolly.

Mrs. Gibson consented to let her second floor for a period of four months, and to supply them with meals. The price was fixed upon, and Quincy knew he had been unusually lucky in securing so desirable a location at such a reasonable price.

There were three rooms, one a large front room, with a view of the harbor, and back of it two sleeping rooms, looking out upon a large garden at the rear of the house. Quincy mentally surveyed the large room and marked the places with a piece of chalk upon the carpet where the piano and the bookcase were to go. Then he decided that the room needed a lounge and a desk with all necessary fixtures and stationery for Rosa to work at. There were some stiff-backed chairs in the room, but he concluded that a low easy-chair, like the one Alice had at home, and a couple of wicker rocking chairs, which would be cool and comfortable during the hot summer days, were absolutely essential.

He then returned to Boston, hired an upright piano and purchased the other articles, including a comfortable office-chair to go with the desk. He was so afraid that he would forget some article of stationery that he made a list and checked it off. But this did not satisfy him.

He spent a whole morning in different stationery stores looking over their stocks to make sure that he had omitted nothing. The goods were packed and shipped by express to Mrs. Thomas Gibson, Nantucket, Ma.s.s.

Then, and not till then, did Quincy seek his aunt's residence with the intelligence that the nest was builded and ready for the birds. When he informed the ladies that everything was ready for their reception at their summer home, Aunt Ella said that their departure would have to be delayed for a few days, as the delinquent dressmakers had failed to deliver certain articles of wearing apparel. This argument was, of course, unanswerable, and Quincy devoted the time to visiting the wholesale grocers, as he had promised Strout that he would do, and to buying and shipping a long list of books that Miss Very informed him Miss Pettengill needed for her work. He learned that during his absence the proofs of The Man Without a Tongue had been brought over by Mr.

Ernst and read and corrected, Aunt Ella taking Quincy's place as reader.

At last all was ready, and on the tenth of May a party of three ladies and one gentleman was driven to the station in time for the one o'clock train. They had lunched early and the whole party was healthy, happy, and in the best of spirits. Then came the leave-takings. The two young ladies and the gentleman sped away upon the train, while the middle-aged lady started for home in her carriage, telling herself a dozen times on the way that she knew she would be lonesomer than ever when she got there.

The trip by train and boat was uneventful. Alice sat quietly and enjoyed the salt sea breeze, while both Quincy and Rosa entertained her with descriptions of the bits of land and various kinds of sailing craft that came in sight. It was nearly seven o'clock when the steamer rounded Brant Point. In a short time it was moored to the wharf, and the party, with their baggage, were conveyed swiftly to Mrs. Gibson's, that lady having been notified by Quincy to expect them at any moment. He did not enter the house. He told Miss Very to address him care of his aunt if they needed anything, and that Mr. Ernst and himself would come down when Miss Pettengill had completed two or three chapters of her book.

Quincy then bade them good-by and was driven to a modest hotel close to the steamboat wharf. He took the morning boat to Boston, and that afternoon informed Aunt Ella of the safe arrival of his fair charges.

"What are you going to do now?" asked Aunt Ella.

"I'm going to find my father," replied Quincy, "and through him secure introductions to the other members of my family."

"Good-by," said Aunt Ella; "if they don't treat you well come and stay with me and we will go to Old Orchard together about the first of June.

I never skip out the last of April, because I always enjoy having a talk with the a.s.sessor when he comes around in May."

When Rosa took her seat at the new desk next morning, she exclaimed with delight, "What a nice husband Mr. Sawyer would make!"

"What makes you think so?" inquired Alice gravely.

"Because he'd be such a good hand to go shopping," Rosa answered. "I've been all over this desk twice and I don't believe he has forgotten a single thing that we are likely to need."

"Good work requires good tools," remarked Alice.

"And a good workman," interposed Rosa.

"Then we have every adjunct for success," said Alice, "and we will commence just where we left off at Mrs. Chessman's."

The work on the book progressed famously. Alice was in fine mental condition and Rosa seemingly took as much interest in its progress as did her employer. In three weeks the three opening chapters had been written. "I wonder what Mr. Sawyer and Mr. Ernst will think of that?"

said Alice, as Rosa wrote the last line of the third chapter.

"I am going to write to Mr. Sawyer to-day. We must have those books before we can go much farther. Would it not be well to tell him that we are ready for our audience?"

Alice a.s.sented, and the letter reached Quincy one Friday evening, it being his last call on his aunt before her departure for Old Orchard.

"Give my love to both of them," said Aunt Ella, "and tell Alice I send her a kiss. I won't tell you how to deliver it; you will probably find some way before you come back."

Quincy protested that he could not undertake to deliver it, but his aunt only laughed, kissed him, bade him good-by, and told him to be sure and come down to Maine to see her.

Quincy and Leopold took the Sat.u.r.day afternoon boat and arrived, as usual, about seven o'clock. They both repaired to the hotel previously patronized by Quincy, having decided to defer their call upon the young ladies until Sunday morning. It was a bright, beautiful day, not a cloud was to be seen in the broad, blue expanse above them. A cool breeze was blowing steadily from the southwest, and as the young men walked down Centre Street towards the Cliff, Leopold remarked that he did not wonder that the Nantucketers loved their "tight little isle" and were sorry to leave it. "One seems to be nearer Heaven here than he does in a crowded city, don't he, Quincy?" Quincy thought to himself that his Heaven was in Nantucket, and that he was very near to it, but he did not choose to utter these feelings to his friend, so he merely remarked that the sky did seem much nearer.

They soon reached Mrs. Gibson's and were shown directly to the young ladies' parlor and library, for it answered both purposes. They were attired in two creations of Mrs. Chessman's dressmaker, Aunt Ella having selected the materials and designed the costumes, for which art she had a great talent. Rosa's dress was of a dark rose tint, with revers and a V-shaped neck, filled in with tulle of a dark green hue. The only other tr.i.m.m.i.n.g on the dress was a green silk cord that bordered the edges of the revers and the bottom of the waist. As Quincy looked at her, for she sat nearest to the door, she reminded him of a beautiful red rose, and the green leaves which enhanced its beauty. Then his eyes turned quickly to Alice, who sat in her easy-chair, near the window. Her dress was of light blue, with square-cut neck, filled in with creamy white lace. In her hair nestled a flower, light pink in color, and as Quincy looked at her he thought of the little blue flower called forget-me-not, and recalled the fact that wandering one day in the country, during his last year at college, he had come upon a little brook, both sides of which, for hundreds of feet, were lined with ma.s.ses of this modest little flower. Ah! but this one forget-me-not was more to him than all the world beside.

The greetings were soon over, and Quincy was a.s.sured by both young ladies that they were happy and contented, and that every requisite for their comfort had been supplied by Mrs. Gibson.

The reading then began. Rosa possessed a full, flexible, dramatic voice, and the strong pa.s.sages were delivered with great fervor, while the sad or sentimental ones were tinged with a tone of deep pathos.

At the conclusion Alice said, "I wish Miss Very could read my book to the publishers."

"You forget," remarked Leopold, with a laugh, "that reading it to me will probably amount to the same thing."

A merry party gathered about Mrs. Gibson's table at dinner, after which they went for a drive through the streets of the quaint old town. Quincy had, as the phrenologists say, a great b.u.mp for locality. Besides, he had studied a map of the town while coming down, and, as he remarked, they couldn't get lost for any great length of time, as Nantucket was an island, and the water supplied a natural boundary to prevent their getting too far out of their way.

While Dolly Gibson was helping her mother by wiping the dinner dishes, she said, with that air of judicial conviction that is shown by some children, that she guessed that the lady in the red dress was Mr.