Gay smiled knowingly. It was not a boxing-glove she meant, but for reasons of her own she did not enlighten Lucy as to the kind of weapon she had in reserve. It was after eight when they rose from the table, and they made such a frolic of carrying out the dishes, that the grandfather clock on the stairs chimed the half-hour as they finished.

Before Ca'line Allison left she had started a cheerful blaze in the fireplace of the huge living room, for the night was chilly as well as damp. But Lucy partly covered it with ashes, and proposed spending the evening up-stairs.

"Somehow one feels so much safer up-stairs when there are no men in the house," she explained. "We'll light two big lamps, and that will make it as warm and cosy as if we had a fire."

So in a body they made the rounds of the down-stairs rooms, bolting windows and locking doors. Then satisfied that every entrance was securely fastened, they went up-stairs to resume the reading. This time there was no attempt to do any needlework. With folded hands they waited in expectant silence, while Betty found her place. But just as she raised the sheet of paper, the great door of the mahogany wardrobe swung slowly and stealthily open. Not a sound did it make, and there was something so ghostly in its silent undoing that Lucy gave a little shriek and hid her face in her hands. Each one of them acknowledged to a queer chilly sensation just for an instant, even Gay, who explained that it was only a little habit that the wardrobe had. "I don't mind it in the day-time," she added, "but it _is_ spooky at night when everything is still to have it unexpectedly pop open, and swing out with that slow gliding motion."

"It's because the latch is worn and the catch works loose," said matter-of-fact Kitty, who had crossed the room to examine it. She turned the key. "Now it will not interrupt us for awhile. Go on with the story, Betty."

Again the ma.n.u.script was raised and again Lucy stopped her with the wail, "Oh, Gay! We've forgotten to bring up the silver pitcher and Jameson's ladle. I put them on the dining-room table after I'd washed them, and then marched off and forgot them."

"Well, I'll go down for them," volunteered Gay. "There's no use in your doing it and getting another fit of shivers."

The other three sprang up, but Gay waved Betty back.

"Save your breath for the reading. Kitty and Lloyd will be enough. I don't mind acknowledging that I'll be glad to have both a rear and a vanguard going through that dark hall."

Lighting a candle and holding it high above her head, Lloyd led the way down-stairs. Gay was inwardly quaking, for she was almost as timid as her sister, but the fearlessness of her two companions made her keep up a pretence of bravery. As the three pairs of little heels clattered down the dark polished steps, Lloyd and Kitty kept time in a singsong chant:

"There was a man and he had naught And robbers came to rob him.

He got up on the chimney top And then they thought they had him.

But he got down on the other side And then they couldn't find him He went _fourteen miles in fifteen days_ And never looked behind him."

It was almost cruel of Kitty to seize that opportunity to tell the scariest burglar tale that she had ever heard, but a fine appreciation of dramatic situations urged her to it.

"Ugh! Don't!" begged Gay, as they filed into the dining-room and began looking around for the silver heirlooms. Lucy was mistaken. It was the kitchen table on which she had left them.

"The goose-flesh is standing out all over me! That's the most gruesome tale I ever heard."

"But I'm in the most interesting part," insisted Kitty. "When she saw the black face leering over the transom--"

"Hush!" chattered Gay. "I won't listen to another word. It's so creepy I can feel things grabbing at my ankles. Let me have the candle a minute, please, Lloyd, I want to get something out of the hat-rack drawer."

There was a faint glow on the hearth from the few embers Lucy had left uncovered, and the two stood within it as they waited for Gay to come back with the candle. Kitty went on with her tale, for Lloyd was as fearless as herself. She did not get further than a sentence or two, however, before Gay came hurrying back. To their astonishment she blew out the candle as she reached them, and in the brief glimpse they had of her face they saw that it was ghastly white. In the dim glow of the embers they were scarcely visible to each other. She clutched them with trembling fingers.

"There's some one prowling around the house!" she whispered. "Some one was creeping around under the windows, and then up on the porch. I heard them plain as day. I blew out the light so they couldn't see in!"

"Pooh!" began Lloyd, but enough of Gay's excitement had been communicated to both her listeners to make their hearts thump a little faster, when they, too, heard a noise at the window. There certainly were steps on the porch. Then the knocker on the front door was lifted and a hollow clang echoed through the hall.

"Burglars don't knock," said Lloyd with a sigh of relief. "Let's all go to the doah togethah and ask who's there. We needn't open it."

"No, don't!" begged Gay, almost in tears. "It's just like that awful story Kitty started to tell--the knock at the door, the lone woman's voice answering, and the burglar forcing his way over the transom! Our only safety is in keeping perfectly still. If worst comes to worst, _then_ I'll make them think there's a man in the house, but I won't do it till I'm driven to it."

"If it's one of the neighbours he'll knock again," said Kitty.

For a moment they waited, their hearts in their mouths, as they remembered what a lonely place was this dark beech woods, and how near it was to Stumptown, with its many drunken negroes. The knock was not repeated, but the steps sounded as if the intruder were prowling back and forth on the porch. Then the slats of the window-shutters turned stealthily.

"Thank heaven the shades are down!" chattered Gay hysterically. "Oh, girls, I'm growing gray-headed. I can't stand this suspense another second." Then as the steps once more crossed the porch, "Cut up-stairs!

Quick! Both of you! I'll follow."

She darted out of the dim circle of light on the hearth, and they could not see what happened, but almost instantly a pistol shot rang out. Up till that moment neither Kitty nor Lloyd had been much alarmed. Now they clutched each other wildly.

"It's some crazy man escaped from the Lakeland asylum," began Kitty, but her words were cut short by another shot, then another and another and another, in such rapid succession that they lost count. A series of piercing screams from Lucy, up-stairs, made their blood run cold, but the shrieks were not half as terrifying as the sight of Gay staggering back out of the hall. As they sprang towards her she leaned against them limply.

"Is she shot?" gasped Kitty in a horrified whisper. "Oh, _where's_ the light?"

With shaking hands Lloyd caught up the daily paper, left lying on the settle, and threw it on the coals. It blazed up instantly, and by its light she found the candle.

The shrieks were still going on up-stairs and Betty was calling out frantically to know what was the matter. She could not come down to see for herself, for Lucy had caught her in a hysterical grasp and was holding her like a vise. As the candle flared up something fell from Gay's nerveless hand to the floor. The girls looked at each other in blank astonishment. It was a revolver. Gay herself had fired the shots.

Now in the midst of their bewilderment they became conscious of shouts outside. Some one was calling: "Mrs. Harcourt! Miss Melville! Don't be alarmed! It's only Alex Shelby!"

Recognizing the voice, Lloyd flew to open the door, candle in hand.

"Oh, you gave us such a scare!" she began in a tone of relief. "We thought it was a burglar doing the shooting. We nevah dreamed that _Gay_ had a revolvah."

"It was mine," explained Alex, laughing so that he could hardly close his umbrella. "I loaded it for her and loaned it to her yesterday, but I had no idea it would come back at me in that boomerang fashion. She popped loose and shot at me bang through the front door. The first shot whistled just over my head, and if I hadn't dodged behind a post I surely would have stopped them all. Hottest welcome I ever had."

Then as he came on in, he continued, apologetically, "I'm mighty sorry I gave you all such a fright. I ought to have gone away without knocking when I saw there was no light down-stairs, but I knew you were all here, and it was so early, I never dreamed of being taken for a burglar."

He kept on with his apologies after he came into the hall, but Gay was not there to hear. Mortified that she had been so rash, and horrified by the thought of how serious the consequences of her wild shooting might have been, she could not face him. At the first sound of his voice she ran for the stairs, her wild dash almost upsetting Lucy and Betty on their way down. When repeated callings failed to bring her back, Kitty went up to look for her and found her in a woebegone heap on the foot of her bed.

"Oh, you mustn't take it to heart that way," she said soothingly, in response to Gay's tearful protests that she could never look him in the face again, never, _never_! That he'd always think what a fool she was and how near she came to killing him.

"Nonsense!" was Kitty's brisk answer. "He insists that it is all his own fault, that he ought to have known what to expect when he called on a native Texan. He says he's always heard that they punctuate their remarks with bullets and will shoot at the drop of a hat. Hereafter he will herald his approach by telephone or else come in a coat of mail warranted to turn even the fire of a Gatling gun. He's making a joke of it, and it's silly of you not to do the same. Get up this minute and come down-stairs, and make him have such a good time that he'll gladly risk another shooting to come again."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "HE WAS BENDING ANXIOUSLY OVER A BUBBLING SAUCEPAN."]

It was a long time before Gay could screw her courage to the point of following Kitty meekly down-stairs, and in the meantime Lucy took an effective way to make him forget his inhospitable reception. Her chafing dish was her panacea for many ills. She had tried it at the Post too many times with the different boys who flocked there, not to know its full value. So when Gay came into the room she found Alex already being initiated into the mysteries of candy-making. With a white ap.r.o.n tied around his waist, and a big spoon in his hand, he was bending anxiously over a bubbling sauce-pan.

Heretofore his calls at the Cabin had been of the most formal kind; but this little escapade was doing more to further their acquaintance and put him on the same privileged footing that the boys at the Post enjoyed, than dozens of casual meetings could have done. It was a novel experience to Alex, and he made the most of it, exerting himself to be entertaining, in hopes of having the occasion repeated.

After the first painful moment of greeting and apology, Gay subsided into a corner of the old settle, but she did not stay there long. It was impossible to resist the infection of Alex's high spirits. When the reaction began it swung her to the farthest extreme, into an irresistible gale of merriment.

Betty's thoughts turned regretfully to the ma.n.u.script up-stairs. She was sorry that the reading had been interrupted. She knew the girls would have gained a better impression of the book if they could have heard it without this interruption. There was no telling when there would be an opportunity to finish it as good as this would have been. Once she had a hope that Alex would not stay long and that there would still be time to finish the reading after his departure. But while the candy cooled Gay started Lloyd and Alex to singing duets, she and Kitty accompanying them with violin and piano, and she knew that it was useless to hope any longer. So she settled down to enjoy the sweets and the music as heartily as the rest of them.

In one of the pauses, while they were searching through a pile of songs for some duet they wanted, Lloyd crossed over to the settle where Lucy was sitting beside the candy, and helped herself to a piece.

"I'm sorry Leland is missing this," said Lucy. "It was a time like this that gave him his nickname of 'Brer Tarrypin.' He used to be devoted to candy-pulls, and came up to the Post every time he thought we were going to have one; and he always was like Brer Tarrypin, you know, in the Uncle Remus stories."

"How is that?" inquired Lloyd, keenly interested. She knew the Uncle Remus stories by heart and wondered in what way this one had been applied to the elegant and fastidious Mr. Harcourt.

"Why, you know, Brer B'ar he helped Miss Meadows bring the wood, Brer Fox he mend the fire, Brer Wolf he kept the dogs off, Brer Rabbit he greased the bottoms of the plates to keep the candy from sticking, but 'Brer Tarrypin he klum up in a cheer an' say he watch an' see dat de 'la.s.ses didn't bile over.' The boys always used to say that the only part in the game Leland would take was _watching the la.s.ses_. He'd talk to their girls while they did the work."

Gay, over at the piano, drew her brows together in a little frown. She wished that Lucy would be more discreet in her reminiscences, for she felt that Lloyd was already prejudiced against Leland more than was desirable. She called out suddenly, "Sister, can't you find that duet for us? You had it last."

Lucy rose obediently, but lingered a moment to add, as Lloyd laughed, "Leland doesn't mind it a bit. The boys all got to hailing him in Uncle Remus fashion, 'Heyo, Brer Tarrypin, wha'r you bin dis long-come-short?'

and he'd answer as a matter of course, 'Lounjun roun', Brer Fox, lounjun roun'."