"I shall be here. Good-bye for a couple of hours."

The girl hurried away.

"Well, if she isn't one of the oddest little creatures I've ever come across. I am sure I don't know what impelled me to engage her, for I dare say I could have found a dozen others much better qualified to attend to things here, but-somehow-well, I dare say, there's a lot of mother in me, and when our sympathies are aroused we sometimes do queer things."

Constance was not conscious of having spoken aloud, as she moved about the Arch arranging and giving a touch here and there, until a laughing voice asked:

"What is this I'm listening to? A budding elocutionist practicing her monologue?"

"Does sound a little like it, doesn't it? but it's nothing half so brilliant. In fact, you might suspect me of bordering on mental aberration instead if I told you, so I reckon I won't. But I am starved even if you are not. Let us go see what Blairsdale _and_ Devon have to offer to-day."

A moment later Constance and Hadyn Stuyvesant were seated in the little screened-off corner back of Charles' counter, his duties transferred to his satellite, as he laid before his young mistress, and the one whom in his faithful old heart he had long cherished a wish to call his "Young Ma.s.sa," the dainties especially prepared for them by Mammy.

CHAPTER IX

AT MERRY YULETIDE.

"Hurry, Eleanor. We are all waiting for you," called Constance from the terrace, where a group of young people stood waiting for the tardy one.

It was the day following Christmas, and such a day as long dwells in one's memory of perfect winter days; scarcely a cloud in the sky, and the air filled with a crispness which set one's blood a-tingle. The world wore her white robes of the season, bedecked with a thousand sparkling jewels. The river was frozen nearly across, and on its glistening surface groups of skaters darted about, or pushed ice-chairs, in which were seated older or less vigorous bodies for whom skating was not.

Early in December, when the weather had turned unusually cold for the season, the river had commenced to freeze over. It had been thirty years since such heavy ice had formed, and those who recalled that time predicted that the present cold snap would hold as that one had held, and the New Year find, as it had then found, the sleighs crossing to the opposite sh.o.r.e.

Eleanor Carruth had returned from college three days before Christmas, to find everyone in the liveliest, gayest mood, and each moment crowded to its very limit with duties or pleasures. Christmas in Mrs. Carruth's home had always been a day of "good will toward man" in its truest, sweetest sense. No one had time to think of self in her desire to think of others. For more than sixty years Mammy's voice had been the first one to cry "Christmas gif'" to her children, as she went from bed to bed in the chill Christmas dawn. Try as they might in bygone years, none of the other servants on the old plantation had been able to creep up to the bedchambers before her, and now in the newer life of the Northern world, to which she had followed those she loved, she had never missed her greeting. In the dark, difficult days when resources were limited and every penny had to be so carefully expended, the Christmas gifts had been very simple little remembrances interchanged, but old Mammy had invariably managed to have _some_ trifle for her "chillen," and they would sooner have gone without their own than have failed to have their token of the season lying at her door on Christmas morning.

But happier days had now dawned for all, and the Christmas day just pa.s.sed had been a red-letter one for the family. True, Eleanor's resources were not yet equal to Constance's. Eleanor's spending money was derived from the source which, prior to her entrance in college, had caused Mammy such deep concern. Eleanor still coached a number of the less brilliant lights of the college. In this way she felt more independent of her aunt and less dependent upon Constance.

Constance protested and scolded, declaring that it was perfect nonsense for Eleanor to so burden herself, since the candy kitchen was more than equal to the demands made upon it. But Eleanor was a Carruth.

As the party stood waiting for her, Jean, keeping fast hold of Haydn's hand and jigging up and down in her impatience to be off, Forbes talking to one of Eleanor's friends, and the others all chatting at once, Eleanor came hurrying from the house, carrying in her hand a pair of shining skates, and carefully tucked under her arm a _broom_.

Haydn was the first to spy it. His eyes began to twinkle, and he quickly slipped over to Constance's side.

"Is this a very mid-winter madness?" he asked under his breath.

Constance glanced up quickly. Her eyes instantly caught the twinkle, and darted toward Forbes, who was too deeply engaged in trying to prove to his rather skeptical listener that the soft little wraith-like clouds beginning to gather overhead meant wind, and perhaps more snow also, within twenty-four hours, to be aware of Eleanor's unusual departure in the line of impedimenta. Neither Constance nor Hadyn intended to spoil the joke by jogging their wits, and the others who were alive to the fun preferred to see it to the end.

Eleanor hurried up to Forbes and said, as though to confirm his argument:

"Yes, it _is_ clouding over, isn't it? Mammy says it is going to snow and urged me to carry this umbrella. I can always trust Mammy's 'bones,'

she ended as she held forth the broom to the bewildered man, who looked from her face to it as though questioning her sanity."

Then Eleanor wakened.

"Oh, why-I thought-why, how did I get this?"

"Let me relieve you of your strange burden, Eleanor. Still want an umbrella? I'll fetch one if you say so, but you may find the broom more useful, on second thought. Let's take it along to clear away the light snow which fell last night. Come on, people! If we expect to get up an appet.i.te for Mammy's luncheon at two o'clock, we'd best make a move toward the river," cried Hadyn, leading the way with the broom shouldered like a musket, and Jean in full prance beside him.

It was a merry party which gathered upon the crystal surface of the river that morning. For many days Jack Frost had been busy, and had done his wonderful work most effectively, completing it during the previous night by a light coating of diamond-dust, which glistened and sparkled in the clear sunshine, or swirled up in fantastic spirals as the skaters whirled away through it. The boathouse at the river's edge served as a shelter for the chilled ones, and, far-sighted woman! Mammy had sent Charles down there with a great basket of sandwiches, and a heaterful of steaming chocolate. Somehow nature had made a big mistake when she fashioned Mammy: she should have formed a man, a _white_ man, and cast his lot among the great commerical lights of his day.

The chocolate heater had to be replenished more than once, and the manner in which the sandwiches vanished was almost miraculous.

Eleanor, Constance and Jean were as much at home upon their skates as upon the soles of their feet, and Hadyn had skated ever since he could move without a.s.sistance; but Forbes had acquired the art during a winter spent in Northern Europe, and at a date not so remote as to have lessened the novelty of the experience. He had brought with him from Holland a pair of skates of truly remarkable design, and it was upon these "ice boats," as Hadyn instantly dubbed them, that he was now demonstrating the extraordinary agility of the Dutch skaters.

"Stand off! Make way!" cried Hadyn, as Forbes, one arm about Eleanor's waist and the other holding her hand aloft in what he fondly believed to be a perfect imitation of the Dutch peasants' graceful poise and motion, bore down upon the party, his long, upturned skates and still longer legs causing Eleanor to cast skittish glances in their direction as she swung along beside him.

"Great! How do you do it, old man?" asked Hadyn as Eleanor was almost hurled into his arms, Forbes' momentum carrying him on and past them like a runaway motor-car.

"Simplest thing in the world! Be back in a second to show you how.

Nothing like it! Absolutely-" but he was carried beyond his hearers, whose eyes followed his wild evolutions with more or less apprehension for "what next?" since it seemed contrary to all laws of gravitation for any human being to maintain his equilibrium very long if he took such chances.

"He has turned! He's coming back! Now watch out, Hadyn, and learn how it's done," laughed Constance, as this skated "Ichabod Crane" bore down upon them, hair blown on end, arms flying, legs cutting capers legs never before had cut, and upon his face the expression of "do or die, man, for _she_ is watching you."

"Gee, what a swathe he cuts!" cried another man, as the light snow lying upon the ice flew from beneath the rushing skates.

"Now watch out! Clear the track! Look sharp, and you'll all catch the knack of it without half trying. Nothing easier," shouted the skater as he drew nearer, pride in his eyes, glory descending upon him. But alack!

it's said 'a haughty spirit goeth before a fall.' There _may_ have been an ice fissure. Forbes insisted there _was_ one in which he caught his skate; but there certainly _was_ the fall both actual and figurative. As the enthusiast came within ten feet of his spellbound audience, a pair of very long legs came up, and a very loosely-hung body came down with dispatch. The legs flew apart until the figure resembled an ice-boat under full headway, nor did its momentum perceptibly lessen as it sped past its audience, the light snow piling up in front of it and flying over its shoulders as it flies back from a snow-plow. For fully thirty feet the wild figure slid along before it lost its impetus. Then it came to a dazed stop. Only one of the audience was prepared to go to its aid; the others were entirely helpless, and were hanging upon each other's necks-let us hope in tears of sympathy.

"Can-can I help you?" stammered Hadyn, as he bent over to raise the p.r.o.ne one. "You-you rather came a cropper that time, and-and-"

"Get behind me, for heaven's sake. Do you think a man can slither along on the ice for thirty feet and-and not damage his garments? Quick, before all those people get wise. Is your long cape in the boathouse?

Yes? Thanks, I'll take it, and I don't care a hang if _you freeze_;" and scrambling to his feet Forbes sped for the boathouse, and the world saw him not again that day.

Scarcely had Forbes left the party on the pond when a new member was added to it, or, at least, arrived upon the scene with a very firmly fixed intention of being added to it if he could contrive to be.

He was arrayed, from his standpoint of a proper toilet for the occasion, in a costume altogether irresistible, and which it had cost him no little time and outlay to procure.

Heavy tan shoes, a plaided Scotch tweed suit, a sweater of gorgeous red, and a sealskin cap.

With many a curve and flourish, for the man _could_ skate, he came up to the group, and with a most impressive bow to Constance, raised the fur cap, and, standing uncovered, said:

"Good-morning, Miss Carruth. Fine sport, ain't it? May I compliment you on your skating? You ain't got a rival on the ice, nor off it, neither."

For a moment Constance was at a loss to place the man, then she recalled his visit to her Candy Arch about three weeks before. It was Elijah Sniffins.

The very audacity of this move deprived her of speech for a moment, and the others with her were too amazed to come to her rescue. Indeed, they did not know the man at all, and, consequently, did not realize the extent of his presumption.

Then Constance came to herself. Looking straight into the man's eyes, her own ominous with indignation, and her cheeks flushing with resentment, she replied:

"Haven't you made a slight mistake, Mr. Sniffins? I believe the business matter upon which you called at the Arcade was settled then and there, for I had already made other arrangements. I hardly think there is anything more to be discussed."

"Oh, that's all in the sweet bygones. You needn't think I've got to talk business every time we meet any mor'n you have; I just give myself a holiday once in so often just like you do, and this is one of 'em. Great day for a holiday. But, by the way, did you get a nice girl for your counter?-one that's goin' to have some snap to her and do a rushin'

business with all the young folks anxious to get rid of their money?"