She turned around on the piano stool and held out her hand for them as he rose to take them to her.

"I forgot all about the possibility of there being any mail for me," she said, tearing open the first one. "This is from Betty. I know you want to hear that, so I'll read it aloud."

Crossing the room she seated herself under one of the silver sconces in the chimney corner, so that the candlelight fell on the paper. She had never relinquished the idea that came to her on her return from school that Rob was growing especially fond of Betty. It seemed to her such a desirable state of affairs that she longed to deepen his interest in her.

"I am not being carried to the skies on flowery beds of ease, by any manner of means," wrote Betty. "Life at Warwick Hall as a pupil is one thing. It is quite another to be a teacher. But I'm gaining experience and that's what I came for, and best of all I'm having some little successes that make me take heart and feel like attempting more. I have had two little sketches of school-girl life accepted and _paid for_ (mark the paid for) by the _Youth's Companion_, and a request for more.

'_True hope is swift and flies with swallows' wings. Kings it makes G.o.ds, and meaner creatures kings._' You can imagine how happy I am over it, and what castles in the air I am already building again."

It was a long newsy letter, telling of a reception she had attended at the White House, to which she took half a dozen girls in Madam Chartley's place, and describing a famous lecturer who had been at the Hall the day before.

"Betty's a girl in a thousand!" said Rob approvingly as she slipped the letter back in its envelope. "She's a dear little piece, with sense and pluck enough for a dozen."

His hearty tone confirmed Lloyd's suspicions, and she looked as pleased as if he had paid her a compliment instead of Betty. She led him on to express a still deeper appreciation, by telling of some of the things that Elise Walton had written home about Betty's kindness to the new girls and how they all adored her. Then she opened the next letter.

"From Phil Tremont," she said, glancing down the page. "He's back in New York and has just seen Eugenia, who is still delighted with housekeeping, and makes an ideal home for Stewart and the doctor. And he's seen Joyce," she added, turning the page, "and Joyce is as happy as a clam, struggling along with a lot of art-students in a flat, and really doing well with her book-cover designs and ill.u.s.trations."

She read a paragraph aloud here and there, then hastily looked over the last part in silence, laying it down with a little sigh. Rob glanced up inquiringly. "I wish he wouldn't make such a to-do about my writing moah regularly. It makes a task of a correspondence instead of a pleasuah, to know that every two weeks, rain or shine, I'm expected to send an answah. I like to write if I can choose my own time, and wait till the spirit moves me, but I despise to be nagged into doing it."

"You write to Betty every week," he suggested.

"Yes, sometimes twice or three times. But that's different. I haven't seen Phil for two yeahs and when you don't see people for a long time you can't keep in touch with them."

"The song says, 'Absence makes the heart grow fonder,'" quoted Rob mischievously.

"Maybe it does if you're old friends, and have lots to remembah togethah, but it seems to me that absence builds up a sawt of wall between people sometimes, especially if you've known each othah only a little while, and at a time when you're both growing up and changing all the time. Do you know," she added musingly, dropping the letter into her lap and leaning forward to gaze into the fire, "I believe if Phil and I had been togethah daily I'd have grown awfully fond of him. When we were out on the desert in Arizona, I was only fou'teen that spring, he was my ideal of all that was lovely and romantic, and I believe if it hadn't been for those talks Papa Jack and I used to have about Hildegarde and her weaving, I'd have done like foolish Hertha, cut my web for him then and there. I did imagine for awhile that he was a prince, and the one written for me in the sta'hs."

"And now?" asked Rob, in a low tone, as if afraid of interrupting the confession she was making more to the fire and herself than to him.

"Now," she answered, "when he came back to be best man at Eugenia's wedding I still liked him awfully well, but I could see that my ideals had changed and that they didn't fit him any moah 'as the falcon's feathahs fit the falcon.' Still I don't know, maybe if we had been thrown togethah a great deal from the time I first met him, it might have been different, but as I say, absence made a sawt of wall between us and we seem to be growing farthah and farthah apart."

"And now you're sure he's not the one the stars have destined for you?"

"Perfectly suah," she answered with a laugh, then leaning back in the chimney corner again, opened the third letter. The envelope slipped to the floor as she read, and stooping over to return it, he saw quite unintentionally that it bore a South American stamp. She was reading so intently that she did not notice when he laid it in her lap, but as soon as she finished she tossed it into the fire without a word. Her face flushed and her eyes had an angry light in them. As she caught his grave look, she shrugged her shoulders with a careless little laugh, to hide the awkward pause, and then said lightly:

"I think Mammy Eastah's fortune will come true. There won't be any prince in my tea-cup."

"Why?"

"Wait till I get the cawn-poppah and I'll tell you."

She was back in a moment with the popper and several ears of corn which she divided with Rob, and started to sh.e.l.l into the big dish which she placed on the floor between them. She sh.e.l.led in silence a moment or two.

"It's this wintah in society that's given me that opinion," she said finally. "The view I've had of it through my Hildegarde mirror. The knights have come riding, lots of them, and maybe among them I might have found my prince in disguise, but the shadows of the world blurred everything. Out heah in the country I'd grown up believing that it's a kind, honest old world. I'd seen only its good side. I took my conception of married life from mothah and Papa Jack, Doctah Shelby and Aunt Alicia, and yoah fathah and mothah. They made me think that marriage is a great strong sanctuary, built on a rock that no storm can hurt and no trouble move. But this wintah I found that that kind of marriage has grown out of fashion. It's something to jest about, and it's a mattah of scandal and divorce and unhappiness. Sometimes it made me heart-sick, the tales I heard and the things I saw. I came to little Mary Ware's conclusion, that it's safah to be an old maid."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "SHE POURED THE CORN INTO THE POPPER AND BEGAN TO SHAKE IT OVER THE RED COALS."]

Drawing a low stool nearer the fire, she poured the corn into the popper and began to shake it over the red coals.

"It's dreadful to be disillusioned," said Rob, smiling at her serious face. "That's one reason why I keep so 'far from the madding crowd.' My old friends have been good about remembering me with invitations and I've been sorely tempted to accept some of them just to see what kind of a show was going on. But I couldn't accept one and refuse another and I couldn't afford to go in wholesale; carriages and flowers and the b.u.mmed up feeling that follows make it too expensive for a poor man like me.

It's nearly over now, I suppose, anyway."

"Yes, the fancy dress ball on Valentine's night will be the last big thing befoah Lent."

"Who is to be your escort?"

"Mistah Whitlow, probably. He hasn't asked me yet, but he saw Aunt Jane this mawning and told her not to let me make any engagement, for he was coming to ask me as soon as I got back to town Monday."

"Bartrom Whitlow!" exclaimed Rob, shifting his easy lounging position to an upright one, and looking very stern. "Lloyd, you don't mean to say you're going with _that_ man! He isn't fit to be invited to decent people's houses, much less fit to shake hands with their daughters. Some of the others are bad enough, goodness knows, but he is the limit. You simply can't go with him."

"Well, you needn't ro'ah so," exclaimed Lloyd with a little pout, as if she resented his dictatorial, big-brother tone. Secretly it pleased her, for it had been a long time since she had heard it.

"Rather than let you go with him I'll accept my invitation and take you myself!"

"What a sweet martyr-like spirit!" laughed Lloyd, teasingly. "I certainly feel flattered at the way you put it, and I appreciate the great sacrifice you're willing to make for my sake. Of co'se I don't want to go with Mistah Whitlow if that's the kind of man he is, but it seems rathah late in the day to raise a row. He's called on me several times this wintah and sent me flowahs and danced with me, just as he does with all the othah girls. I know Aunt Jane believes he is all right, because she is very particulah about my company. I can't see any way to get out of going with him as long as she's given him to undahstand that I would, but for me to hold you to yoah offah and make you make a martyr of yoahself on the altah of friendship."

"You know very well, Lloyd Sherman, _no_ fellow would count it martyrdom to escort the most popular debutante of the season to the last great function."

She opened her eyes wide, astonished at such an unusual thing as a compliment from Rob.

"Oh, I'm just quoting," he added to tease her. "That's what I heard an enthusiastic admirer of yours call you on the car this evening. But I'm in dead earnest, too. My offer is a sincere one."

"Very well," responded Lloyd quickly, "I'll hold you to it. I suppose you've seriously considahed it. You'll have to go in fancy costume, you know."

His face showed plainly that he had not thought how much his offer involved, but after an instant's hesitation he made a wry grimace and laughed. "That's all right. I die game. I haven't been to anything for two years, but I'll see you through on this deal. 'I'll never desert Micawber.' Name the character I'm to represent and I'll get the costume."

"I think a Teddy beah would be most in keeping if you're going to glowah and growl the way you did a moment ago, or anything fierce and furious; Bluebeard for instance. That would be fine, and I'll carry a b.l.o.o.d.y key and you can drag me around by the hair as an object lesson to all thoughtless girls who weave their mantles to fit unworthy shouldahs instead of using their yah'd sticks to do it right."

"That old tale seems to worry you a lot, Lloyd."

"It does," she confessed. "I've thought about it every day this wintah.

Now this is all ready for the salt and b.u.t.tah," she added as the last grain in the wire cage burst into snowy bloom. "I'll take it ovah to the old gentlemen while it's hot. You can be popping the next lot while I'm gone."

Mrs. Sherman joined them presently, and the question of costumes was settled. "There's no use of yoah going to any expense for one," said Lloyd, with her usual delicate consideration. "There are trunkfuls of lovely things still in the attic. Come ovah next week and we'll look through them."

So it came to pa.s.s that the old intimacy was, in a measure, resumed, for several calls were necessary to complete the arrangements for Valentine night. That those arrangements were highly satisfactory might have been inferred from the account of the affair which appeared in the Society columns next day, in which Miss Sherman and Mr. Rob Moore were awarded the palm for the most unique and striking costumes. They had gone as Bluebeard and his beautiful Fatima. It was the crowning good time of the season, Lloyd declared, for Rob under cover of his disguise entered into the spirit of the occasion with all his old zest, and when Rob tried, n.o.body could be better company than he. After that he fell into the way of an occasional call at The Locusts. He was too busy to spare many evenings, but when Lloyd came back to the Valley, nearly every Sunday afternoon was spent in their old way, taking long tramps together through the quiet country lanes and winter woods.

CHAPTER XIII

THE MIRACLE OF BLOSSOMING

THE beginning of Lent was the end of all the social gaieties and most of the girls who had flittered through the season with Lloyd fluttered away like a bevy of scattered b.u.t.terflies to various resorts on the Florida coast. Kitty departed to make her long-talked-of visit to Gay in San Antonio, Katie Mallard went with an invalid aunt to Biloxi, and Lloyd came back to the country. She was almost as much alone as she had been that winter when she had not been allowed to return to Warwick Hall after the Christmas vacation.

True, Allison was at home after her interesting trip abroad, with the MacIntyres, and Lloyd spent many hours at The Beeches. But Raleigh Claiborne's sister from Washington was there on a visit part of the time, and Raleigh himself made several flying trips, and although Allison's engagement made her doubly interesting to the younger girls, it seemed to rise up as a sort of wall between them and their old intimacy. She had so many new interests now that she did not enter quite so heartily into the old ones.