"Open the flower box," suggested Ross, "and let's see who they're from."

It was a truly marvelous box of blue violets then disclosed to Arethusa's enraptured gaze. She almost forgot her unhappiness in sheer joy of the wonder of their beauty and fragrance. They were like waxen things in the absolute perfection of their tiny petals; and there seemed to be hundreds of them, each as perfect as a violet ever was, smiling at her with friendly blue faces.

No clue to the sender could be found at first, for no card was visible.

She and Ross hunted all through the box, and finally, way down in one corner under the paper, she discovered a damp white sc.r.a.p.

"_Mr. Gridley Warfield Bennet_," it read, in irreproachably correct Old English Script.

Into the fire immediately went flowers and box and card, and Arethusa flopped herself back into her chair and buried her head deep to weep such scalding tears as Niobe, synonym for those who really weep, could not have scorned to be seen weeping. Mingled with these tears was more than a trifle of regret that violets so supremely beautiful must be absolutely destroyed because the gift of such a Man!

Arethusa remained determined to go home, and as she really seemed to want to see Miss Asenath so much, Elinor made no attempt to dissuade her of her purpose beyond reminding her of the parties she was sure to miss by rushing off so suddenly. There were several during this very week that Arethusa had been looking forward to. But Parties had no real attraction for Arethusa now; their prospect failed to move her in the least. She only desired to get away as quickly as possible from all the scenes in any way connected with the late Wonderful Mr. Bennet; and to avoid encounters with any of those friends of hers who might be at all likely to guess what had happened. Arethusa felt as if she could not bear to meet Billy Watts again, or the still faithful Mr. Harrison; or any single, solitary one of the boys and girls she had come to know so well these last few weeks. They had all teased her for her adoration of Mr. Bennet, and as friendly as that teasing surely was, she could not trust herself to face it again.

And so, early the very next morning, she took the train for Home. She had so much more to put in her little trunk than she had had when she came that Elinor had sent down town and got her a brand new one to take with her instead, and she carried, as a successor to the ancient handbag with which she had come, a smart little traveling case all fitted out inside, that had been one of her gifts for Christmas. But some dim idea of not hurting Miss Let.i.tia's feelings made her don for this returning journey the quaint little blue suit her aunt had made her.

Everyone in that big house, from Ross and Elinor on down the scale of its inmates to even the outside man who cut the gra.s.s and hedges in the summer and cared for the furnace in the winter, was sorry to see her leave them. George forgot his immeasurable dignity as a butler long enough for an excited display of real feeling in begging her most earnestly "to come back again, real soon." Nettie was red-eyed as she packed, the trunk. She would miss Arethusa dreadfully. She was young, and she loved Parties as much as the debutante herself, and it was almost as good as going to them to help Miss Arethusa get ready for them, and then to hear such glowing and vivid descriptions of those Festivities as hers were when she returned home. Clay could hardly guide his car. He, also, was going to miss Arethusa dreadfully.

"You must come back, Arethusa," said Elinor, over and over again. "You must be sure to come back, and soon. For this is just as much your home as that, you know, dear."

And Arethusa promised that she would. She surely did mean to come back, some day. But right now she only wanted Miss Asenath.

The returning traveller was armed, as well as with her legitimate luggage, with a huge box of candy with a flamboyantly colored lady on its top, the shy gift of Clay; a bunch of violets identically like the ones which had to be destroyed yesterday, from Ross; and a most superior package of lunch that Rosalia, most marvelous of cooks, had prepared every bit with her own hands. This really had more significance than either of those other gifts, for it was considerable of a condescension for Rosalia.

Ross put her and all her belongings directly into the charge of the conductor and asked him to please see that she was comfortable every moment, and then the train pulled out. And it pulled out bearing such a different Arethusa from the one who had started to the city so happily and so confident of a Wonderful Time, barely three months ago. But it actually seemed much more like three years to Arethusa, when she considered all that happened to her in that short calendar s.p.a.ce.

But after all, as those wheels revolved, faster and faster, it was hard to remain wholly unhappy. She was going back to the Farm and to the warmest sort of welcome from all of them there, she knew; even if she had been guilty of that which would have Miss Eliza's heartiest condemnation should it ever come to her ears. And how glad she, Arethusa, was that she was so soon going to see the folks at the Farm!

She was really a little homesick now, for almost the first time since the twenty-fifth of October.

There was no Mrs. Cherry to entertain on this train, and as Arethusa was well worn out with excitement, the whole of the latter half of her journey she slept; and she only woke when the fatherly old conductor bent over her to tell her she had reached Vandalia.

CHAPTER XXIV

Arethusa stood on top of the stile a moment or two and surveyed the old House with eyes that saw none too clearly anything that was before them, before she climbed down; yet she had no real need to actually see it, she knew it all, in every well-loved detail, so well.

It stood there, facing the West, and hugging the earth with that curious appearance of having grown in its place like some sort of solid plant, the green blinds every one swung hospitably open. The January sun was far down in the afternoon sky, and its golden light was reflected in every small and shining square of the square-paned front windows, to make each twinkling pane seem to be smiling a welcome.

And it was all just as neat and precise as ever, although in winter garb instead of that of summer. For the clematis vine over the front porch was a matted heap of dead tendrils (they had died for the season in an orderly way, however) and the little garden at one end of the House was all covered over with straw for the cold weather, and queer little miniature straw stacks were bound around all the rose bushes.

Miss Eliza's roses were never known to die during the winter. Only the honeysuckle vine retained its greenness. All the dead leaves had been raked out of the yard, and although the trees stood as gaunt and bare as any other trees at this time of the year, they did not seem naked like other trees. They leaned protectingly towards the house, and they seemed to welcome Arethusa too.

Through the lower windows with their looped white curtains, Arethusa caught a glimpse of the flickering of the sitting-room fire, that fire which warmed Miss Asenath. After all, as dear as Ross and Elinor had proved to be, and as much as she truly loved them, this was Home, as Timothy and Miss Eliza had declared. And how good it was to see it all once more. She had never really known before just how much it meant to her!

Miss Eliza had met her at the station and had scolded her vigorously (scolding sometimes meant that Miss Eliza was trying to control her feelings) nearly all of the six miles from Vandalia, because Arethusa looked so badly, in Miss Eliza's opinion.

"I knew no earthly good would come of it," she said, with a satisfied, I-told-you-so air. "You've come back home sick, after gallivanting around in the city, for me to nurse. And my hands full as they are! I knew just exactly how it would be!"

But Arethusa did not mind this scolding. It was really so much a part of the Home atmosphere that she even rather welcomed it. And she needed a scolding, she felt, so she might as well have it for one thing as for another. This was a mere bagatelle to what Miss Eliza would say if she knew What had happened at the January Cotillion!

Arethusa received her tirade with such unusual meekness that Miss Eliza was alarmed immediately, and convinced that the girl _was_ actually sick.

While the returned wanderer stood on the stile, gazing at the House, the front door flew open and Miss Let.i.tia bustled out, arms outstretched. She almost ran to meet Arethusa. She could not move very fast with such a fat little figure as hers, but she moved faster than she had moved for some years past. And Arethusa dropped every single thing she held and flew down the walk and met Miss Let.i.tia before she was really fairly started.

"Oh, Aunt 't.i.tia, Aunt 't.i.tia!"

"There, there," crooned Miss Let.i.tia. "My! My! But we're all glad to get you back! Sister 'Senath's done absolutely nothing but watch the clock ever since we got your father's telegram you were coming. Why, Dearie!" For Arethusa was crying openly on Miss Let.i.tia's comfortable shoulder.

"Arethusa isn't well," remarked Miss Eliza, coming up behind them with most of the dropped belongings; "she must go to bed just as soon as she gets inside the house."

Arethusa lifted her head. "I don't want to go to bed, Aunt 'Liza. I'm not a bit sick."

"Well, do stop carrying on like such a ninny, then!"

But underneath all the sharpness of word and tone of this speech, her niece could somehow read that Miss Eliza was glad to have her back also.

And as for Miss Asenath....

She fairly trembled as she lay on the couch and waited for Arethusa to come to her. She wore the rose-colored birthday gift, but it was not the rose of the shawl that had reflected that faint pink flush to each frail cheek. And it was with all the rush of the old Arethusa across the floor that the girl greeted her dearest of the aunts, and her strong young arms clasped the tiny old lady close to her warm heart in the old loving way. But this Arethusa's eyes were dewy and her voice held a hint of tears; and they were tears which wise Miss Asenath knew almost immediately came not from the mere gladness at being home, after she bade Arethusa stand off so that she might look at her. Miss Asenath, however, said nothing to anybody about her knowledge.

It was good to be at home again, Arethusa felt; good to snuggle down in that old place of hers on the couch and hold Miss Asenath's hand just as she used to; good to watch Miss Let.i.tia's placidity throned in her straight-backed chair and to see her fingers flying as usual and the heap of work in her lap; good even to listen to Miss Eliza's scolding tongue; and good to see Mandy when she waddled in from the kitchen to see "Arethusie" and to state with positiveness that the city did not agree with her at all. But with all of this glow of feeling over getting Home, there was really something wrong, something lacking about it; something Arethusa dimly sensed, but could not exactly define.

After awhile Miss Eliza gave her the clue to it, when she imparted the news that Timothy had gone over to Hawesville to a dance.

"Timothy's getting mighty giddy," she added, with great disapproval in voice and manner. "He just gads from one dance to another, all over the county, and he's taken to calling on the town girls. That little visit he made to you in the city had a very bad effect on him, too."

And then with a very little thought, Arethusa knew just what was wrong with her home-coming. It was Timothy.

Timothy, who had always been a part of things for her ever since she could remember, was not there to greet her. Timothy had gone off to a dance and let her come home alone. Timothy, who had always said that he cared more about Arethusa than anyone else in the world, had not seemed to care about her coming back to the Farm. Not in the older, happier days would he have done such a thing as this. And it was well calculated to hurt when she was already so miserable. But then maybe he had not known she was to come; her decision had been so sudden. This might explain.

"Did Timothy know I was coming home to-day?" she asked after a bit, rather timidly.

Miss Eliza snorted. "He most certainly did. I telephoned him myself, this morning, to let him know. That's how I happen to know where he is!

You did something to Timothy, Arethusa, when he was in the City to see you. He hasn't been a bit the same since he came home. Gallivanting around with those flip hussies in town! His mother's real worried about him. And he just's running himself thin!"

She would have pursued the subject further, had not Miss Asenath, with gentle diplomacy, interrupted such pursuit. She did not feel as if she could listen to Miss Eliza and Arethusa wrangle over Timothy when the child had just barely got home, after being away so long.

But Arethusa would not have wrangled. She could not have wrangled with Miss Eliza over anything in the world, much less Timothy. She wondered who those girls in town were that he was going to see; Timothy had always declared very emphatically his dislike of the town girls. But she wondered to herself, without asking anybody any questions.

Miss Eliza's sharp eyes watched her niece. She noticed those unusual dark circles under Arethusa's eyes, circles which most certainly were not there when the girl went away; and this strange quietness with which she had come back to them Miss Eliza did not like a bit. The tongue of the Arethusa of three months ago would have gone like a bell clapper under circ.u.mstances such as these. And Miss Eliza, who for all her sharp manner and her scolding tongue, loved her niece in her own way as much as either Miss Asenath or Miss Let.i.tia, suddenly wished that she had not let Arethusa make her visit to Lewisburg. She left the sitting-room abruptly and bustled out to the back door to find Blish, whom she scolded most vigorously, much to his astonishment and consternation, for he could not remember a thing he had done or left undone within the last twenty-four hours, since the last scolding, to be scolded for.

Mandy had prepared such a supper for the Arethusa come back to them as not even that much vaunted feast of the prodigal son, for all its fatted calf, could equal. All of Arethusa's favorite dishes were on the table, and it had been set with the company china. Then Mandy and Blish and Nathan, also, came in a group to the door of the dining-room and peeped in with good-natured dark faces stretched wide in brilliant smiling, just to see her eat a few mouthfuls. They were so glad to have her back at the Farm.

Arethusa choked up several times with all the homely kindnesses she received. These dear people who loved her so, how much sweeter they were to her than she at all deserved!

Immediately after supper, Miss Eliza made her niece go to bed. And Arethusa went with such meekness and so altogether unprotesting, that Miss Eliza trotted along up to her room with her, and felt anxiously of her forehead for fever. She was quite positive now that the girl was sick! She bustled around and helped Arethusa undress. She tucked her tightly into the little wooden bed with its turned posts which had always been Arethusa's very own, covering her clear up to her chin with the blue and white squared "counterpin" Miss Let.i.tia had made as a surprise for Arethusa when she should come home. Then Miss Eliza blew out the lamp, efficiently with one blow as always, bade Arethusa peremptorily to go right straight to sleep, and left her. But very unexpectedly, she came back after shutting the door, and trotted briskly across the dark room to give Arethusa a quick little peck on one cheek, which was Miss Eliza's only way of kissing, and to tell her very gruffly that she was awfully glad Arethusa was at home again, and she certainly hoped that she'd have sense enough to stay. Then she once more bade her niece to go straight to sleep and once more departed.

But Arethusa could not go to sleep. She threw back the carefully tucked in covers and got up out of bed, draping the new "counterpin" around her shoulders, and paddled, bare-footed, over to that window of her room which looked in the direction of Timothy's house. It was velvety black over on that horizon, but Arethusa could find the place where the house ought to be. It was a very beautiful night, cold and clear and starry. Arethusa put her head down on the window-sill and gazed up at the stars. There were millions of them, and they all seemed to be winking straight down at her just as sympathetically as possible. She had always loved stars.