"William is always doing friendly things," said Dr. Lavendar, sitting down on the door-step and helping himself to a gooseberry from Martha's bowl. "You are going to make some fool for the supper, of course?" He took off his hat, and wiped his forehead with his big red handkerchief.

"Oh, of course. I'm very tired, and I have my housekeeping to attend to; but I can make gooseberry fool. That's what I'm for."

"When is this party?" said Dr. Lavendar. "I declare, I've been so worried about Sam's Sam, I've forgotten."

"It's next week; Thursday. Yes; she can send that boy to his death, maybe; but we must have parties to cheer her up."

"Oh, come now," Dr. Lavendar remonstrated; "I don't believe a glimpse of the world will kill him. And n.o.body can blame Mrs. Richie for his foolishness. I suppose we are all going?"

"Everybody," Martha King said scornfully; "even Samuel Wright. He told his wife that he wouldn't have any nonsense about Sam, and she'd got to go. I think it's positively cruel; because of course everybody knows that the boy was in love with this housekeeper that doesn't know how to make soap!" Martha shook her bowl sharply, and the toppling green pyramid crumbled. Dr. Lavendar looked at her over his spectacles; instantly her face reddened, and she tossed her head. "Of course, you understand that I haven't the slightest personal feeling about it. That's one thing about me, Dr. Lavendar, I may not be perfect, but n.o.body despises anything like--that, more than I do. I merely regret William's judgment."

"Regret William's judgment! Why, think of the judgment he displayed in choosing a wife," said Dr. Lavendar. But when he climbed into his old buggy he had the grace to be ashamed of himself; he admitted as much to Danny. "For she's a sensible woman, Daniel, and, at bottom, kind."

Danny yawned, and Dr. Lavendar added, "Poor w.i.l.l.y!"

Mrs. Richie's first hint of Dr. King's proposed festivity came a week later from David, who happened to be at home to dinner, and who saw fit to mention that Lydia Wright wasn't to be allowed to come up with her father and mother.

"Come up where?" Mrs. Richie said, idly. She was leaning forward, her elbows on the table, watching the child eat. When he said, "To your party to-night," she sat up in astonished dismay.

"My _what?_ David! Tell me--exactly. Who is coming? Oh, dear!"

she ended, tears of distress standing in her eyes.

David continued to eat his rice pudding. "Can I sit up till nine?"

Mrs. Richie pushed her chair back from the table, and caught her lower lip between her teeth. What should she do? But even as she asked herself the question, Dr. King stood, smiling, in the French window that opened on to the lawn.

"May I come in?" he said.

The fact was, a misgiving had risen in William's mind; perhaps a complete surprise would not be pleasant. Perhaps she would rather have an idea of what was going to happen. Perhaps she might want to dress up, or something. And so he dropped in to give a hint: "Half a dozen of us are coming in tonight to say how-do-you-do," he confessed, ("Whew! she doesn't need to dress up," he commented inwardly.) The red rose in her hair and her white cross-barred muslin with elbow sleeves seemed very elegant to William. He was so lost in admiration of her toilet, that her start of angry astonishment escaped him.

"Dr. King," said David, sc.r.a.ping up the sugar from his saucer, "is G.o.d good because He likes to be, or because He has to be?"

"David," said William King, "you will be the death of me!"

"Because, if He likes to be," David murmured, "I don't see why He gets praised; and if He has to be, why--"

"Dr. King," said Helena breathlessly, "I'm afraid--really, I'm not prepared for company; and--"

"Oh," said William, cheerfully, "don't bother about that. Mrs. King is going to bring up one or two little things, and I believe Mrs. Barkley has some ideas on the subject. Well, I must be going along. I hope you won't be sorry to see us? The fact is, you are too lonely up here with only David to keep you busy, though I must say, if he fires off questions like this one, I should think you would be pretty well occupied!"

When he had gone, Helena Richie sat looking blankly at David. "What on earth shall I do!" she said aloud.

"Did G.o.d make Sarah?" David demanded.

"Yes, dear, yes!"

"Did He make me, and the Queen, and my rabbits?"

"Why, of course. Oh, David, you do ask so many questions!"

"Everything has to be made," he ruminated.

She agreed, absently. David put his spoon down, deeply interested.

"Who made G.o.d?--another G.o.d, higher up?"

"I think," she said, "that I'll send word I have a headache!"

David sighed, and gave up theological research, "Dr. King didn't look at my scar, but I made Theophilus Bell pay me a penny to show it to him. Mrs. Richie, when I am a man, I'm _never_ going to wash behind my ears. I tell Sarah so every morning, I'm going to see my rabbits, now.

Good-by."

He slipped down from his chair and left her to her perplexity--as if she had not perplexity enough without this! For the last few days she had been worried almost to death about Mr. Benjamin Wright. She had not written to Lloyd yet of that terrible interview in the garden which would drive her from Old Chester; she had been afraid to. She felt instinctively that his mood was not hospitable to any plan that would bring her to live in the East. He would be less hospitable if she came because she had been found out in Old Chester. But her timidity about writing to him was a curious alarm to her; it was a confession of something she would not admit even long enough to deny it. Nevertheless, she did not write. "I will to-morrow," she a.s.sured herself each day, But now, on top of her worry of indecision and unacknowledged fear, came this new dismay--a party! How furious Lloyd would be if he heard of it; well, he must not hear of it. But what could she do? If she put it off with a flimsy excuse, it would only defer the descent upon her. How helpless she was! They would come, these people, they would be friendly; she could not escape them.

"Oh, I must stop this kind of thing," she said to herself, desperately.

CHAPTER XX

With the exception of Benjamin Wright, all Old Chester lent itself to William King's project with very good grace. Mr. Wright said, gruffly, that a man with one foot in the grave couldn't dance a jig, so he preferred to stay at home. But the rest of Old Chester said that although she was so quiet and kept herself to herself so much, Mrs.

Richie was a ladylike person; a little shy, perhaps--or perhaps only properly hesitant to push her way into society; at any rate it was but kind to show her some attention.

"Her modesty does her credit," Mrs. Barkley said, "but it will be gratifying to her to be noticed. I'll come, William, and bring a cake.

And Maria Welwood shall tell Ezra to take three bottles of Catawba."

A little before eight, the company began to a.s.semble, full of such cordial courtesy that Mrs. Richie's shrinking and awkward coldness only incited them to heartier friendliness. Dr. King, master of ceremonies, was ably a.s.sisted by his Martha. Mrs. King may have been, as she told all the guests, very tired, but she could be depended upon to be efficient. It was she who had engaged Uncle Davy and his fiddle; she who put the cakes and wine and fruit upon the dining-room table, already somewhat meagerly arranged by Helena's reluctant hands; she who bustled about to find card-tables, and induced Tom Dilworth to sing;

"_Thou--Thou reignest in this bosom!--_"

and got Mr. Ezra Barkley to ask statistical conundrums.

"It's well there is somebody to attend to things," she said in a dry aside to William. "Mrs. Richie just walks around as if she didn't belong here. And she lets that child sit up until this hour! I can't understand how a sensible woman can deliberately spoil a child.--I'd like to know what that perfume is that she uses," she ended frowning.

It was after supper, while the husband and wife, still oppressed with their responsibilities, were standing in the doorway looking in upon the cheerful party now in full enjoyment of its own hospitality, that Eddy Minns came up behind them and touched William King's arm.

"Dr. King," he said breathlessly, "a telegram, sir. For Mrs. Richie.

And mother said it was bad news!"

"Oh, William!" said Martha; "bad news! Do you know what it is, Eddy?"

"Somebody is dead," the boy said, important and solemn.

"Her brother?" William King asked in dismay.

"Well, not the brother that comes here; his name is Lloyd, mother said. This is somebody whose name begins with 'F.' Perhaps another brother. Mother showed the despatch to me; it just said: 'F. died suddenly yesterday in Paris.' It was signed 'S. R.'"

"It isn't from Pryor, then," William commented.