"Taught myself in odd hours; thought it might be useful some time, and it has been, many times. I can show you a lot of technical short cuts that will be of use to you, when you 're familiar with the regular method.'

"Oh, thank you--I'll be grateful. Come Polly--you 've cooled off--try a smooth little canter for a while."

At Grandfather Bell's Peter took Shirley down and sent her to roam about the great orchard, while he hunted up the old gentleman and had a talk with him. This consumed nearly an hour, and when they were off upon the road once more, Shirley discovered that the care-free look had vanished from her companion's face, and that his mouth had taken again the grave expression it had acquired after she went away to school.

She let him ride to the edge of the woods, four miles toward home, in the abstracted silence which had fallen upon him; but as they came under the first cool shadows, she brought Pretty Polly down to a walk, and began to talk lightly about Murray and Jane, and the successful way in which Jane had taken up the cares of managing the big house and its affairs. Peter obediently followed her lead, but after a short time she discovered that he gave her his attention only by an effort.

She longed to know what was the matter, for that something had gone wrong with him she was more than ever sure. Two years ago she would have demanded, with the familiarity of long acquaintance, an explanation of any cloud upon his brow, for she and Peter had been as good friends as seventeen and twenty-six may be, when the families of both are united by certain common interests. But somehow nineteen and twenty-eight had not yet recovered quite the old ground of mutual frankness, and Shirley's anxious questions halted upon her lips.

They had another gallop when they came to the smooth stretch, but this time, although Peter said, "That was a good one, was n't it?" his face did not clear.

Just before they reached home, however, he appeared to realise all at once that he must have been poor company, and said so, with a word of regret.

"I don't mind a bit," said Shirley. "One does n't always feel like talking. And I know in your position, you must have a good many cares."

"A few. I 'm afraid I 'm not good at carrying them, since I let myself keep them on my own shoulders, even on horseback. They fell off on the way out, but at the farm they climbed up Grayback's tail again. I 'm sorry, for you 've been jolly company, and I 've honestly enjoyed the ride more than anything that has happened in a year."

"We 'll go again, then, on another half-holiday, and next time we 'll leave Black Care behind altogether. Or, if you will take him along you shall introduce me. Will you?"

Her look was so girlishly sympathetic and inviting, Peter could hardly be blamed for finding a ray of comfort in it, although he only said stoutly:

"That would n't be fair."

"Indeed it would. What are one's friends for? And Black Care does n't like the society of two."

"That's true. But he's not a desirable acquaintance, and I don't mean to introduce him to you. Remember the pothooks--they 'll keep you busy."

He smiled as he said it, but Shirley persisted, more boldly, for she thought she detected the fact that it would be a relief to Peter to tell somebody his troubles, if his conscience would let him.

"I 've seen, ever since I came home, that something was worrying you.

It's made me feel badly. Perhaps just telling would make it easier."

"I should imagine it might. I 'll think about it. Meanwhile, thank you for two fine hours. We 're back just in time for your dinner--and my supper. Will you go to the house door, or dismount here at the stable?"

"Here, please. And next Sat.u.r.day we'll go again, if you really care to."

"I shall think about it through the week. Here you are--you don't half let me help you. Success to the pothooks! Good-bye!"

CHAPTER V

BLACK CARE

On the following Sat.u.r.day it rained all day, and no horseback-riding or excursions of any sort were possible. Before another half-holiday had come round, an unusual and severe pressure of work had overtaken Peter, which shut him off from any leisure whatever for many successive weeks.

Night after night, all through July and August, he came home late in the evening, too weary for anything but supper and bed. During all this time he saw little of the people in Worthington Square.

As for Shirley, although she thought often of Peter, and was sorry that no chance seemed to favour her getting at the secret of his burdens, whatever they might be, her own work absorbed her. She was proving a ready pupil, keen of intellect and quick of eye and hand. As she advanced in the mastery of stenography, she became more and more fascinated by its details, and spent more and more of her spare hours in practice. The typewriting she acquired in an unexpectedly short s.p.a.ce of time, but her chief ambition was to achieve the ability to take dictation rapidly and accurately, and to this end she laboured with much zeal.

Nancy Bell was taken into confidence, and became an active and interested partner. Many were the hours she spent with Shirley, reading aloud to her from all sorts of books and papers, with a view to accustoming her to any kind of composition.

"You certainly can do anything now," Nancy said, one day in late September, when she had given Shirley an unusually trying test at top speed, and the worker had typewritten it without an error worth mentioning.

"I 'm not so sure." Shirley studied her paper. "I 'm used to you, and you don't flurry me much. But if I should go to father and offer myself for a trial, I 'm afraid I should bungle it."

"But you can't get office practice without office practice. Nothing can take its place or give you confidence, I should think. Why don't you let Murray try you? If he dictates as fast as he talks when he 's discussing business with Peter, he must be hard enough for anybody."

That evening, as Murray and Jane, in the library, were discussing certain household matters, Shirley, sitting at the big table with her notebook, turned a leaf and began to take down the conversation.

"Did I say that?" Murray asked, toward the close of the conference. "I thought I put it quite differently."

"You said, dear," said Jane, "that it ought to cost that, not that it did."

"Are you sure?"

"Quite sure."

"I must have been wandering in my mind. I seem to hear myself saying in a tone of great a.s.surance that it actually did cost seventeen dollars.

I could n't have said anything else, knowing the facts."

Jane merely smiled, sure of her ground, but not liking to dispute it further. Murray took a turn up and down the room, whistling softly. He himself would not insist upon the thing he was sure he had said, but he was none the less confident. It seemed to bring the discussion to a standstill, as such small differences of statement sometimes will.

Shirley began to read aloud from her note-book a reproduction of the conversation which had just taken place. Listening incredulously, Murray heard himself quoted as saying precisely that which Jane had a.s.serted.

"Look here," said he, coming over to the table and seizing upon the note-book. "Are you sure you have that straight--that you 're not saying it from memory of what Jane said I said?"

"I did n't get every word you said, but I did get that sentence. You brought out the 'ought' so strenuously I put the exact sign down."

"I 'll give in, of course, but I 'll have to be careful of what I say in your hearing after this. You must be pretty good at it, if you caught all that off our tongues. We were talking fairly fast, if I remember."

"You were very nearly too fast for me--in spots. Conversation 's harder to take than anything else. Do you want to try me on a business letter?"

"With pleasure," and Murray promptly pulled a letter out of his pocket, glanced it over, and began to dictate a reply.

Before she had done two lines, Shirley realised that the actual receiving of dictation from a man of business, who was seriously putting her to a test, was quite different from any amount of practice with Nancy Bell. Murray's keen eyes were upon her, he was watching her fingers as they flew, he was using business terms with which she was not familiar. These technicalities she was forced to omit, but after a little she steadied under the consciousness that he was speaking not too rapidly, and that he paused now and then between sentences, as if studying the letter he was answering.

At the end she said, "I 'll make you a copy," and flew out of the room.

Murray smiled at Jane, who had been an interested witness of the scene.

"I can't get used to the idea that the child is serious in all this,"

said he. "I know she's been working at it all summer, but I 've seen so little of it, and she 's been so quiet about it, I forget that she means business. If mother and Olive had been at home all this time I should have heard of little else."

"There 's no doubt of her being in earnest. She and Nan have practised by the hour," answered Jane. "I think you'll find her copy pretty correct."

"I doubt it. She certainly caught the gist of our conversation, but that 's comparatively easy, for her memory would help out on the sort of thing we were saying. But when it comes to getting it word for word, as a business letter must, she 'll find that 's another thing."