"Nonsense!" said the captain. "Olive now--"

"Oh! Olive is Olive!" said d.i.c.k. And he did not mind in the least that the captain was present.

It was on the next afternoon that the Broadstone carriage stopped at the toll-gate. Mrs. Easterfield sprang out of it, asking for n.o.body, for she had spied Olive in the arbor.

"It seems to me," she said, as she burst into tears and took the girl into her arms, "it does seem to me as if I were your own mother!"

"The only one I have," said Olive, "and very dear!"

It was some time after this that Mrs. Easterfield was calm enough to stop the flow of exciting conversation and to say to Olive, taking both her hands tenderly within her own: "My dear, we have been talking a great deal of sentiment, and now I want seriously to speak to you on a matter of business."

"Business!" asked Olive in surprise.

"Yes, it is really business from your point of view; and I have come round to that point of view myself. Olive, I want you to marry!"

"Oh," said Olive, "that is it, is it? That is what you call business?"

"Yes, dear; I am now looking at your future, and at marriage in the very sensible way you regarded those matters when you were staying with me."

"But," said Olive, who could scarcely help laughing, "there was a good reason then for my being so sensible, and that reason no longer exists.

I can now afford single-blessedness."

"No, Olive, dear, you can not. Circ.u.mstances are all against that consummation. You are not made for that sort of thing. And your uncle is an old man, and even with him you need a young protector. I want you to marry Richard Lancaster. You know my heart has been set on it for some time, and now I urge it. You could never bring forth a single objection to him."

"Except that I did not love him."

"Neither did you love the young men you were considering as eligible.

Now, do try to be a sensible girl."

"Mrs. Easterfield, are you laughing at me?" asked Olive.

"Far from it, my dear. I am desperately in earnest. You see, recent events--"

"d.i.c.k Lancaster and I are engaged to be married," said Olive demurely, not waiting for the end of that sentence. "And," she added, laughing at Mrs. Easterfield's astonished countenance, "I have not yet considered whether or not it is sensible."

After Mrs. Easterfield had given a half dozen kisses to partly express her pleasure, she said: "And where is he now? I must see him!"

"He went back to his college late last night; it was impossible for him to stay here any longer at present."

As Mrs. Easterfield was going away--she had waited and waited for the captain who had not come--Olive detained her.

"You are so dear," she said, "that I must tell you a great thing." And then she told the story of the two men in the barouche.

Mrs. Easterfield turned pale, and sat down again. She had actually lost her self-possession. She made Olive tell her the story over and over again. "It is too much," she said, "for one day. I am glad the captain is not here, I would not know what to say to him. I may tell Tom?" she said. "I must tell him; he will be silent as a rock."

Olive smiled. "Yes, you may tell Tom," she said.

"I have told d.i.c.k, but on no account must Harry ever know anything about it."

Mrs. Easterfield looked at her in amazement. That the girl could joke at such a moment!

When the captain came home Olive told him how she had entrusted the great secret to Mrs. Easterfield and her husband.

"Well," said he, "I intended to tell you, but haven't had a chance yet, that I spoke of the matter to Mrs. Faulkner. So I have told two persons and you have told three, and I suppose that is about the proportion in which men and women keep secrets."

_CHAPTER x.x.xVII_

_In which Some Great Changes are Recorded._

A few days after his return to his college Prof. Richard Lancaster found among his letters one signed "Your backer, Claude Locker."

The letter began:

"You owe her to me. You should never forget that. If I had done better no one can say what might have been the result. This proposition can not be gainsaid, for as no one ever saw me do better, how should anybody know? I knew I was leaving her to you.

She might not have known it, but I did. I did not suppose it would come so soon, but I was sure it would ultimately come to pa.s.s. It has come to pa.s.s, and I feel triumphant. In the great race in which I had the honor to run, you made a most admirable second. The best second is he who comes in first. In order for a second to take first place it is necessary that the leader in the race, be that leader horse, man, or boat, should experience a change in conditions. I experienced such a change, voluntary or involuntary it is unnecessary to say. You came in first, and I congratulate you as no living being can congratulate you who has not felt for a moment or two that it was barely possible that he might, in some period of existence, occupy the position which you now hold.

"Do not be surprised if you hear of my early marriage. Some woman no better-looking than I am may seek me out. If this should happen, and you know of it, please think of me with grat.i.tude, and remember that I was once

"Your backer,

"CLAUDE LOCKER."

Olive also received a letter from Mr. Locker, which ran thus:

"Mrs. Easterfield told me. She wrote me a letter about it, and I think her purpose was to make me thoroughly understand that I was not in this matter at all. She did not say anything of the kind, but I think she thought it would be a dreadful thing, if by any act of mine, I should cause you to reconsider your arrangement with Professor Lancaster. I have written to the said professor, and have told him that it is not improbable that I shall soon marry. I don't know yet to what lady I shall be united, but I believe in the truth of the adage, 'that all things come to those who can not wait.'

They are in such a hurry that they take what they can get.

"If you do not think that this is a good letter, please send it back and I will write another. What I am trying to say is, that I would sacrifice my future wife, no matter who she may be, to see you happy. And now believe me always

"Your most devoted acquaintance,

"CLAUDE LOCKER.

"P.S.--Wouldn't it be a glorious thing if you were to be married in church with all the rejected suitors as groomsmen and Lancaster as an old Roman conqueror with the captive princess tied behind!"

Now that all the turmoil of her life was over, and Olive at peace with herself, her thoughts dwelt with some persistency upon two of her rejected suitors. Until now she had had but little comprehension of the love a man may feel for a woman--perhaps because she herself never loved--but now she looked back upon that period of her life at Broadstone with a good deal of compunction. At that time it had seemed to her that it really made very little difference to her three lovers which one she accepted, or if she rejected them all. But now she asked herself if it could be possible that Du Brant and Hemphill had for her anything of the feeling she now had for d.i.c.k Lancaster. (Locker did not trouble her mind at all.) If so, she had treated them with a cruel and shameful carelessness. She had really intended to marry one of them, but not from any good and kind feeling; she was actuated solely by pique and self-interest; and she had, perhaps, sacrificed honest love to her selfishness; and, what was worse, had treated it with what certainly appeared like contempt, although she certainly had not intended that.

She felt truly sorry, and cast about in her mind for some means of reparation. She could think of but one way: to find for each of them a very nice girl--a great deal nicer than herself--and to marry them all with her blessing. But, unfortunately for this scheme, Olive had no girl friends. She had acquaintances "picked up here and there," as she said, but she knew very little about any of them, and not one of them had ever struck her as being at all angelic or superior in any way.

Neither of the young men who were lying so heavily on her mind had written to any one, either at the toll-gate or at Broadstone, since the very public affair in which she had played a conspicuous part; and her consolation was that as each one had read that account he had said to himself: "I am thankful that girl did not accept me! What a fortunate escape!" But still she wished that she had behaved differently at Broadstone.

She said nothing to any one of these musings, but she ventured one day to ask Mr. Easterfield how Mr. Hemphill was faring. His reply was only half satisfactory. He reported the young man as doing very well, and being well; he was growing fat, and that did not improve his looks; and he was getting more and more taciturn and self-absorbed. "Why was he taciturn?" Olive asked herself. "Was he brooding and melancholy?" She did not know anything about the fat, and what might be its primal cause; but her mind was not set at ease about him.

Things went on quietly and pleasantly at the toll-gate, and at Broadstone. d.i.c.k came down as often as he could and spent a day or two (usually including a Sunday) with Olive and her uncle. It was now October, and colleges were in full tide. It was also the hunting season, and that meant that Mr. Tom would be at Broadstone for a couple of weeks, and Mrs. Easterfield said she must have Olive at that time. And, in order to make the house lively, she invited Lieutenant Asher and his wife at the same time, as Olive and her young stepmother were now very good friends. Then the captain invited his old friend Captain Lancaster, d.i.c.k's father, to visit him at the toll-gate.