"It's mighty interesting to know the history of a nickname," observed Lloyd, with an amused smile, which Gay interpreted as meaning that this bit of history was being tucked away for future use.

It was late when Alex went home, taking his revolver with him. He would be staying all night near by, with a friend of his, he told them, and if anything else frightened them they were to telephone. He'd come post-haste to their rescue. Then he made the rounds of all the down-stairs windows and doors, seeing that each was properly fastened, and started Lucy on her way up-stairs with the silver pitcher and ladle safe in her hands. He seemed to leave the sense of his strong protecting presence behind him. As they bolted the door and heard him go whistling cheerily down the road, Lucy declared enthusiastically: "He's a nice boy and he's made us have such a jolly evening that I'm all wound up and don't feel a bit sleepy. Let's make a night of it and hear the rest of Betty's story. It doesn't make any difference if it is nearly midnight.

We can sleep as late as we please in the morning, for Jameson isn't here, and we won't have to consider his convenience."

For once they were of the same mind, all loath to go to bed. So Betty slipped into a borrowed kimona, shook down her hair and settled herself comfortably in a cushioned chair beside the lamp.

"If they keep awake to the end," she thought, "that will be a good test.

I'll know then that it has real interest and I'll not be afraid to give it to the public." So she kept an anxious watch out of the corner of her eye, intending to stop at the first sign of weariness. But the attention of her audience was as profound as it had been during the afternoon.

Stifling an occasional yawn herself, she read on and on. It was half-past two when she laid aside the last page of her ma.n.u.script and looked up timidly to receive the verdict. Lloyd spoke first.

"Betty Lewis, it's perfectly splendid! I'm so proud of you--I've always been suah you'd make a name for yoahself some day, but I nevah dreamed you'd do it so early in life, at only twenty!"

"I haven't made it yet, you know," Betty reminded her smiling. "My friends may be willing to 'pa.s.s my imperfections by,' but I've still to run the gauntlet of the critics."

There was a chorus of protests from the other girls, and Betty's heart grew warm as she listened to their cordial praise and predictions of success.

"I'm dying to have a finger in the launching of this little bark," said Gay. "Let's wrap it up tonight and have it all ready to send off in the morning. It would be so fine to be able to brag to my grandchildren that _I_ helped. I have a strong flat box just the size of the ma.n.u.script. I'm sure it will fit it exactly. Wait and I'll go and get it."

She ran out of the room, and, while she rummaged through a trunk to find it, Lucy climbed up on a chair to look on the wardrobe shelf for some heavy wrapping-paper which she had folded away.

"Let me have some part in it too," cried Kitty. "Although I've no idea what it can be when I'm so far from the source of supplies. Oh, I know now," she said after an instant's thought. "You'll need a string to tie around the box. Here's something that will do."

Opening the wicker satchel she had brought with her she took out a dainty nightgown. It was the work of only a moment to slip out the fresh, new pink ribbons that had been run through the lace beading.

"Now let me tie it!" she insisted. "See what an artistic bow I can make!"

When the ma.n.u.script had been placed in Gay's box, tied with Kitty's ribbon and wrapped in Lucy's paper, it was gravely handed over to Lloyd, who had suggested that as it was to be sent by express it ought to be sealed.

"There's a stick of sealing-wax in the drawer of the library table,"

said Lucy, "if anybody's brave enough to go down and get it at this 'wee sma' hour.' It must be nearly three o'clock."

Before she had finished her sentence Lloyd had lighted a candle to carry down-stairs. She was back in a moment. They all stood around in a circle while she melted the red wax in the heat of the candle. "Somebody ought to say an abracadabra charm ovah it," she suggested. "You do it, Kitty."

Then she looked around her helplessly. "What am I going to do for a seal? Quick, somebody, hand me something off the dressing-table. The stoppah of that vinaigrette will do."

Before Lucy could hand her the bottle Gay caught up the old silver ladle and pressed the end of its handle down on the soft wax.

"There's a crest on it," she explained, holding it firmly in place. "The motto will read backwards, but that won't make any difference. There!"

She lifted the ladle, and they all crowded around to see the clear-cut impression left in the red wax, of a dagger thrust through a crown. The tiny reversed letters of the motto were undecipherable, but Gay translated them.

"Jameson says it's the Latin for 'I strive till I overcome,' and that's a fine war-cry for Betty. She's striven so long it's bound to bring a crown, only that other thing ought to be a pen instead of a dagger."

"Let me put one seal on, just for luck," begged Kitty when Lloyd had carefully fastened both ends of the package. She held the wax to the flame. "Everybody make a wish," she ordered. "Wish _hard_."

They wished in silence. In silence they looked on while Kitty dropped the third red drop on the package and pressed into it the crown and the dagger of the ladle's crest. Then they stood over Betty while she addressed it to the publisher to whom long ago she had decided to send it. Then Gay laid it solemnly beside the silver heirlooms as one of the things "to be carried out first in case of fire."

"Three o'clock and all is well," called Kitty as the chime on the stair began its warning. "The deed is done and all the omens are auspicious."

"That will be a scene to remember always," thought Betty gratefully, looking around at the four pretty girls in the candlelight, as they made a ceremony of the launching of her little ship, their faces filled with loving interest.

The chickens were crowing for daylight before she fell asleep, for she could not hinder her happy thoughts from straying off to the future, when this same little ship should come home from sea with its cargo of fame and fortune that the girls had predicted. She had dedicated the book simply "To my G.o.dmother," and she pictured to herself the supreme moment when she could lay the published volume in her hands. She would send one to Madam Chartley, she decided, and one to Miss Chilton, whose instructions in English had been such an inspiration to her. Then, of course, each one of the girls must have one.

Strangers would write to her, people would thrill with pleasure over her pages as she had thrilled over other authors, and--oh, yes! _Davy_ must have one of the very first copies of the book, since he had been the first lover of her stories. She almost sat up in bed in the excitement of her next thought. She wondered why it never had occurred to her before. If the book should be really successful it would bring her money of her own. She could be the good fairy of the Cuckoo's Nest. How many comforts she could slip into it to make life easier for poor tired, over-worked cousin Hetty! And--_Davy could go away to school_!

That last thought sent a warm glad tingle over her. How good G.o.d had been to give her this delightful way of making a Road of the Loving Heart in every one's memory--with her pen! She felt that her whole life ought to be a perpetual Thanksgiving, and when she fell asleep with a smile on her lips, she was repeating drowsily: "My lines have fallen to me in pleasant places. Yea, I have a goodly heritage."

CHAPTER V

A CAMERA HELPS

SEVERAL days after his return from Lexington, Leland Harcourt sauntered out of the house, after a late breakfast alone. The bored expression on his face showed plainly what he thought of the Valley as a summer resort. His brother and Lucy were off somewhere about the grounds, and for more than an hour the faint sound of Gay's violin had been floating up from the rustic arbour, which she claimed as her private domain.

It was a pleasant little retreat, far back from the road in the dense beech shade, and at such a distance from the house that her energetic practising could disturb no one. Here every morning before the distractions of the day began, she religiously devoted an hour to her music. The time always slipped past that limit if no one came to stop her, for an absorbing devotion to her work made her oblivious to everything else when her beloved violin was once tucked under her chin.

Scales and trills and chords, all the finger exercises that kept her touch supple and sure, were gone through with in faithful routine. Then the new music she was mastering had its share of careful attention, and after that she played on and on, as a bird sings, from sheer love of it.

She was improvising when Leland came out on the porch, a light rollicking little tune, to fit a verse from an Uncle Remus song. It was a verse which Alex Shelby had repeated as he escorted them over to The Beeches, the time they spent the night there, the next night after their burglar scare at the Cabin. Lucy had been so frightened that she gladly accepted Mrs. Walton's invitation to stay with her until the men of the family returned.

They had had such a good time. Now the recollection of it was finding voice in the tune which Gay was trying to manufacture for the words which Alex had laughingly sung when Lucy stuck in the barb wire fence on the way over:

"Hop light, ladies, Oh, Miss Loo, Hit take a heap er scrougin'

Fer to git you throo.

Hop light, ladies, oh, Miss Loo!"

Gay recalled the straggling little procession through the woods with a smile, as her bow quavered again through the refrain. They must have looked ridiculous. There was Lucy lugging the heavy silver pitcher and Jameson's ladle because she was afraid to leave them behind, and she herself with her violin case, and Alex carrying the Lindsey spoons and forks and the enormous seven-branched silver candle-sticks, because Lucy felt responsible for their safety, since she had rented them with the house. And there was Ra.n.a.ld bringing up the rear with their suit-cases, and Kitty laughing at them all for bringing these household G.o.ds. She called Lucy "Ephraim joined to his idols," because she would not put down the pitcher and ladle even while she crawled through the barb wire fence. They had cut across lots in the twilight, instead of going around by the road, not wanting to be seen with a load which looked so much like burglar's booty.

"If Leland only could have been with us then!" thought Gay regretfully.

"And the night before that when we had such a jolly time with the taffy and the duets. He would have been on a real friendly footing with them all by this time. But he's beginning to find it dull. I know he is.

He'll be off again before long if we can't get him interested in something."

While she was worrying over his evident restlessness and discontent, the odour of his cigar came floating out to her, and she knew by that token that he had finished breakfast and needed to be amused. Locking her violin in its case, she carried it back to the house, prepared to shoulder her share of this responsibility.

"Good morning, Brer Tarrypin," she called as she came in sight of him lolling in the hammock. "Lounjoun' roun' as usual, I see. Well, the mail train is in, so you can come with me to the post-office as soon as I get my hat."

"Good heavens, Pug!" he groaned. "I vow you're worse than a little volcano--always in action."

Nevertheless he got up, as she knew he would, and strolled along beside her. The road in front of the post-office was almost blocked with carriages. On summer mornings like this nearly every one in the Valley found some excuse to be at the station when the mail train came in; for while they waited for the delivery window to open, there was time not only to attend to the day's marketing, but to meet all one's friends. At such times the little box of a post-office was the very centre of neighbourhood sociability, and since everybody knew everybody else, the gathering was as informal as a family reunion.

Even Gay felt like an old settler. Her previous visit to the Valley had given her so many acquaintances. As she pa.s.sed down the straggling line of men and boys who were leaning against the fence or sitting on the top rail while they waited, hats were swept off as if a sudden breeze had scurried along the path. Several of the old Confederate soldiers spoke her name as they saluted. She had played for them up at the Home twice on that former visit.

"Oh, the dear little, queer little Valley," she began, but was interrupted by Leland's calling her attention to the Sherman carriage, which was moving in and out at a snail's pace through the blockade of vehicles, stopping repeatedly as greetings were called out to it from the other carriages. Gay's face brightened as she saw Lloyd on the back seat, looking as fresh as a snowdrop in her white linen dress.

"Oh, if she'd only ask us up to Locust to spend the morning!" thought Gay so earnestly that it seemed to her that Lloyd must feel the force of the "thought-wave" she was trying to project. "It's high time for her to remember her promise if she expects to accomplish anything."

Lloyd was remembering her promise. It recurred to her the instant that she caught sight of Leland's dark interesting face as he turned the corner. As instantly she had looked away, remembering how pointedly he had ignored her that night at the Cabin. This was the first time she had seen him since. Now Gay's request seemed utterly absurd. The colour surged up in her face as she remembered her high resolve about lighting a vestal fire on the altar of a promise. How ridiculous of her to have worked herself up into such an exalted mood over nothing. A positive dislike for the man who had been the cause of it took possession of her, and she wished heartily that she need never meet him again.

But an encounter could not be avoided long. Gay was pushing eagerly through the crowd towards the carriage. She would call her in a moment, then she would have to turn around and at least be decently polite. Just then a stylish little runabout stopped opposite the carriage, and a lady leaned out to accost Lloyd. Thankful for the opportunity, Lloyd turned her back squarely on the post-office and plunged into an animated conversation. Without glancing in their direction she was conscious that Gay and Mr. Harcourt were on the curbstone directly behind her, and would come up the moment that she stopped talking.