"I do not like Lethbury," said Mrs. Cristie.

Lodloe could have stamped his feet, in the fire of his impatience.

"But of me, of myself," he said. "And oh! speak quickly, she is almost here."

"Please cease," said Mrs. Cristie; "she will hear you."

Mrs. Petter came up panting.

"I don't want to interrupt you, Mrs. Cristie," she said, "but really and truly you ought to go to your baby. He has stopped crying in the most startling and suspicious way. Of course I don't know what she has done to him, and whether it's anything surgical or laudanum. And it isn't for me to be there to smell the little creature's breath; but you ought to go this minute, and if you find there is anything needed in the way of mustard, or hot water, or sending for the doctor, just call to me from the top of the stairs."

"My dear Mrs. Petter," said Mrs. Cristie, "why didn't Calthea Rose come and tell me this herself, instead of sending you?"

"She said that she thought you would take it better from me than from her; and after we had made up our minds about it, she said I ought not to wait a second."

"Well," said Mrs. Cristie, "it was very good in you to come to me, but I do not feel in the least alarmed. It was Ida's business to quiet the child, and I have no doubt she did it without knives or poison. But now that you are here, Mrs. Petter, I wish to ask your opinion about something that Mr. Lodloe has been talking of to me."

The young man looked at her in astonishment.

"He has been telling me," continued Mrs. Cristie, "of a gentleman he knows, a person of education, and accustomed to society, who had conceived the idea of living in Lethbury. Now what do you think of that?"

"Well," said Mrs. Petter, "if he's married, and if his wife's got the asthma, or he's got it himself, I have heard that Lethbury is good for that sort of complaint. Or if he's failed in business and has to live cheap; or if he is thinking of setting up a store where a person can get honest wash-goods; or if he has sickly children, and isn't particular about schools, I suppose he might as well come to Lethbury as not."

"But he has none of those reasons for settling here," said Mrs. Cristie.

"Well, then," remarked Mrs. Petter, somewhat severely, "he must be weak in his mind. And if he's that, I don't think he's needed in Lethbury."

As she finished speaking the good woman turned and beheld her husband just coming out of the house. Being very desirous of having her talk with him, and not very well pleased at the manner in which her mission had been received, she abruptly betook herself to the house.

"Now, then," said Mrs. Cristie, turning to Lodloe, "what do you think of that very explicit opinion?"

"Does it agree with yours?" he asked.

"Wonderfully," she replied. "I could not have imagined that Mrs. Petter and I were so much of a mind."

"Mrs. Cristie," said Lodloe, "I drop Lethbury, and here I stand with nothing but myself to offer you."

The moon had now set, the evening was growing dark, and the lady began to feel a little chilly about the shoulders.

"Mr. Lodloe," she asked, "what did you do with that bunch of sweet peas you picked this afternoon?"

"They are in my room," he said eagerly. "I have put them in water. They are as fresh as when I gathered them."

"Well," she said, speaking rather slowly, "if to-morrow, or next day, or any time when it may be convenient, you will bring them to me, I think I will take them."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE BABY AND THE SWEET-PEA BLOSSOM.]

In about half an hour Mrs. Cristie went into the house, feeling that she had stayed out entirely too late. In her room she found Ida reading by a shaded lamp, and the baby sleeping soundly. The nurse-maid looked up with a smile, and then turned her face again to her book. Mrs. Cristie stepped quietly to the mantelpiece, on which she had set the little jar from Florence, but to her surprise there was nothing in it. The sweet-pea blossom was gone. After looking here and there upon the floor, she went over to Ida, and in a low voice asked her if she had seen anything of a little flower that had been in that jar.

"Oh, yes," said the girl, putting down her book; "I gave it to baby to amuse him, and the instant he took it he stopped crying, and very soon went to sleep. There it is; I declare, he is holding it yet."

Mrs. Cristie went softly to the bedside of the child and, bending over him, gently drew the sweet-pea blossom from his chubby little fist.

XXIII

HAMMERSTEIN

Miss Calthea Rose was up and about very early the next morning. She had work to do in which there must be no delay or loss of opportunity. It was plain enough that her scheme for driving away Ida Mayberry had failed, and, having carefully noted the extraordinary length of time which Mrs. Cristie and Mr. Lodloe spent together under the stars the previous evening, she was convinced that it would not be easy to make that lady dissatisfied with the Squirrel Inn. She therefore determined to turn aside from her plans of exile, to let the child's nurse stay where she pleased, to give no further thought to Lanigan Beam, and to devote all her energies to capturing Mr. Tippengray. She believed that she had been upon the point of doing this before the arrival of intruders on the scene, and she did not doubt that she could reach that point again.

Miss Calthea was very restless that morning; she was much more anxious to begin work than was anybody else on the place. She walked about the ground, went into the garden, pa.s.sed the summer-house on her way there and back again, and even wandered down to the barnyard, where the milking had just begun. If any one had been roaming about like herself, she could not have failed to observe such person. But there was no one about until a little before breakfast-time, when Mr. Petter showed himself.

This gentleman greeted Calthea coolly. He had had a very animated conversation with his wife on the evening before, and had been made acquainted with the unwarrantable enmity exhibited by this village shopkeeper toward Mrs. Cristie's blooded a.s.sistant. He was beginning to dislike Calthea, and he remembered that the Rockmores never liked her, and he wished very much that she would cease to spend so much of her time at his house. After breakfast Calthea was more fortunate. She saw the Greek scholar walking upon the lawn, with a piece of writing-paper in his hand. In less than five minutes, by the merest accident in the world, Mr. Tippengray was walking across the lawn with Miss Rose, and he had put his piece of paper into his pocket.

She wanted to ask him something. She would detain him only a few minutes. The questions she put to him had been suggested to her by something she had read that morning--a most meager and unsatisfactory pa.s.sage. She held in her hand the volume which, although she did not tell him so, had taken her a half-hour to select in Mr. Petter's book room. Shortly they were seated together, and he was answering her questions which, as she knew, related to the most interesting experiences of his life. As he spoke his eyes glistened and her soul warmed. He did not wish that this should be so. He wanted to bring this interview to an end. He was nervously anxious to go back on the lawn, that he might see Miss Mayberry when she came out of doors; that he might show her the lines of "Pickwick" which he had put into Greek, and which she was to turn back into English.

But he could not cut short the interview. Miss Calthea was not an Ancient Mariner; she had never even seen the sea, and she had no glittering eye, but she held him with a listening ear, and never was wedding guest, or any other man, held more securely.

Minutes, quarter-hours, half-hours pa.s.sed and still he talked and she listened. She guided his speech as a watchful sailor guides his ship, and whichever way she turned it the wind always filled his sails. For the first ten minutes he had been ill at ease, but after that he had begun to feel that he had never so much enjoyed talking. In time he forgot everything but what he had to say, and it was rapture to be able to say it, and to feel that never before had he said it so well.

His back was towards the inn, but through some trees Miss Calthea could see that Mr. Petter's spring wagon, drawn by the two grays, Stolzenfels and Falkenberg, was at the door, and soon she perceived that Mr. Lodloe was in the driver's place, and that Mrs. Cristie, with Ida Mayberry holding the baby, was on the back seat. The place next Lodloe was vacant, and they seemed to be waiting for some one. Then Lanigan Beam came up. There was a good deal of conversation, in which he seemed to be giving information, and presently he sprang up beside the driver and they were off. The party were going for a long drive, Miss Calthea thought, because Mrs. Petter had come out and had put a covered basket into the back of the wagon.

Mr. Tippengray was so absorbed in the interest of what he was saying that he did not hear the roll of the departing wheels, and Miss Calthea allowed him to talk on for nearly a quarter of an hour until she thought she had exhausted the branch of the subject on which he was engaged, and was sure the spring wagon was out of sight and hearing. Then she declared that she had not believed that any part of the world could be as interesting as that region which Mr. Tippengray had been describing to her, and that she was sorry she could not sit there all the morning and listen to him, but duty was duty, and it was necessary for her to return to Lethbury.

This announcement did not seem in the least to decrease the good spirits of the Greek scholar, but his chin and his spirits fell when, on reaching the house, he heard from Mrs. Petter that his fellow-guests had gone off for a long drive.

"They expected to take you, Mr. Tippengray," said his hostess, "but Lanigan Beam said he had seen you and Miss Rose walking across the fields to Lethbury, and so they asked him to go. I hope they'll be back to dinner, but there's no knowing, and so I put in a basket of sandwiches and things to keep them from starving before they get home."

Miss Calthea was quite surprised.

"We were sitting over yonder the whole time," she said, "very much occupied with talking, it is true, but near enough to hear if we had been called. I fancy that Lanigan had reasons of his own for saying we had gone to Lethbury."

Poor Mr. Tippengray was downcast. How much time must elapse before he would have an opportunity to deliver the piece of paper he had in his pocket! How long would he be obliged to lounge around by himself waiting for Ida Mayberry to return!

"Well," said Calthea, "I must go home, and as I ought to have been there long ago, I am going to ask Mr. Petter to lend me a horse and buggy.

It's the greatest pity, Mr. Tippengray, that you have lost your drive with your friends, but as you can't have that, suppose you take one with me. I don't mind acknowledging to you that I am a little afraid of Mr.

Petter's horses, but with you driving I should feel quite safe."

If Mr. Tippengray could have immediately thought of any good reason why he should have staid at home that morning he would probably have given it, but none came into his mind. After all, he might as well be driving to Lethbury as staying there doing nothing, and there could be no doubt that Miss Calthea was very agreeable that morning. Consequently he accepted the invitation.

Calthea Rose went herself to the barn to speak to Mr. Petter about the horse, and especially requested that he would lend her old Zahringen, whom she knew to be the most steady of beasts, but Zahringen had gone to be shod, and there was no horse at her service except Hammerstein, and no vehicle but a village cart. Hammerstein was a better horse than Zahringen, and would take Calthea home more rapidly, which entirely suited Mr. Petter.

It may be here remarked that the barn and stables were not of Mr.

Petter's building, but in order that they might not be entirely exempt from the influence of his architectural fancies, he had given his horses the names of certain castles on the Rhine.

Calthea was not altogether satisfied with the subst.i.tution of the big black horse for the fat brown one, but she could make no reasonable objection, and the vehicle was soon at the door.