Up the road, about a mile beyond the college and the Harmon house, there was a wilderness of ferns and sumac trees, ending in a stately pine grove that marked the place where road and river met. Thither Blue and Red were sent on the evening of Trenholme's picnic. They were dressed in their new frocks, and had been started at the time all the picnic-goers were pa.s.sing up the road. They walked alone, but they were consigned to Mrs. Bennett's care at the place of a.s.sembly. Several carriages full of guests pa.s.sed them.

"I'm growing more shy every moment," said Blue.

"So am I," sighed Red.

Young girls will make haunting fears for themselves out of many things, and these two were beset with a not unnatural fear of young men who would talk to them about flora and fauna. Sophia had told them that they looked like ninnies when they appeared not to know what people meant, and they could not endure the thought.

Sighed Blue at last, "Do you think it would be dreadfully wicked not to go?"

All the guests had pa.s.sed them by this time, for they had loitered sadly. It was not that they were not proud of their clothes; they were as proud as peac.o.c.ks, and minced along; but then it was enough just to wear one's fine clothes and imagine that they might meet somebody who would admire them.

"Oh, Blue," said Red suddenly, withholding her steps, "suppose we didn't go, and were to walk back just a little later, don't you think we might meet--?" There was no name, but a sympathetic understanding. It was Harkness of whom they thought.

"I'm sure he's a great deal better looking than young Mr. Brown, and I think it's unkind to mind the way he talks. Since Winifred had her teeth done, I think we might just bow a little, if we met him on the road."

"I think it would be naughty," said Red, reflectively, "but nice--much nicer than a grown-up picnic."

"Let's do it," said Blue. "We're awfully good generally; that ought to make up."

The sunset cloud was still rosy, and the calm bright moon was riding up the heavens when these two naughty little maidens, who had waited out of sight of the picnic ground, judged it might be the right time to be walking slowly home again.

"I feel convinced he won't come," said Blue, "just because we should so much like to pa.s.s him in these frocks."

Now an evil conscience often is the rod of its own chastis.e.m.e.nt; but in this instance there was another factor in the case, nothing less than a little company of half tipsy men, who came along from the town, peacefully enough, but staggering visibly and talking loud, and the girls caught sight of them when they had come a long way from the pleasure party and were not yet very near any house. The possibility of pa.s.sing in safety did not enter their panic-stricken minds. They no sooner spied the men than they stepped back within the temporary shelter of a curve in the road, speechless with terror. They heard the voices and steps coming nearer. They looked back the long road they had come, and perceived that down its length they could not fly. It was in this moment of despair that a brilliant idea was born in the mind of Red. She turned to the low open fence of the little cemetery.

"Come, we can pretend to be tombs," she cried, and whirled Blue over the fence. They climbed and ran like a streak of light, and before the drunkards were pa.s.sing the place, the girls were well back among marble gravestones.

Some artistic instinct warned them that two such queer monuments ought to be widely apart to escape notice. So, in the gathering dimness, each knelt stock still, without even the comfort of the other's proximity to help her through the long, long, awful minutes while the roisterous company were pa.s.sing by. The men proceeded slowly; happily they had no interest in inspecting the gravestones of the little cemetery; but had they been gazing over the fence with eager eyes, and had their designs been nothing short of murderous upon any monument they chanced to find alive, the hearts of the two erring maidens could not have beat with more intense alarm. Fear wrought in them that sort of repentance which fear is capable of working. "Oh, we're very, very naughty; we ought to have gone to the picnic when Sophia was so good as to buy us new frocks," they whispered in their hearts; and the moon looked down upon them benevolently.

The stuff of their repentance was soon to be tested, for the voice of Harkness was heard from over the Harmon fence.

"Oh, Glorianna! there was never such sculptures. Only want wings. Hats instead of wings is a little curious even for a funeral monument."

The two girls stood huddled together now in hasty consultation. "We didn't mean to be sculptures," spoke up Red, defending her brilliant idea almost before she was aware. "There's nothing but stand-up slabs here; we thought we'd look something like them."

"We were so frightened at the men," said Blue. They approached the fence as they spoke.

"Those men wouldn't have done you one mite of harm," said the dentist, looking down from a height of superior knowledge, "and if they had, I'd have come and made a clearance double quick."

They did not believe his first a.s.sertion, and doubted his ability to have thus routed the enemy, but Blue instinctively replied, "You see, we didn't know you were here, or _of course_ we shouldn't have been frightened."

"Beautiful evening, isn't it?" remarked the dentist.

"Yes, but I think perhaps,"--Red spoke doubtfully--"we ought to be going home now."

She was a little mortified to find that he saw the full force of the suggestion.

"Yes, I suppose your mother'll be looking for you."

They both explained, merely to set him right, that this would not be the case, as they had started to Princ.i.p.al Trenholme's picnic.

He asked, with great curiosity, why they were not there, and they explained as well as they could, adding, in a little burst of semi-confidence, "It's rather more fun to talk to you across a fence than sit up and be grand in company."

He smiled at them good-naturedly.

"Say," said he, "if your mother let you stay out, 'twas because you were going to be at the Trenholme party. You're not getting benefit of clergy here, you know."

"We're going;"--loftily--"we're only waiting to be sure there's no more drunken people."

"I was just about to remark that I'd do myself the pleasure of escorting you."

At this they whispered together. Then, aloud--"Thank you very much, but we're not afraid; we're often out as late in papa's fields. We're afraid mamma wouldn't like it if you came with us."

"Wouldn't she now?" said Harkness. "Why not? Is she stuck up?"

Blue felt that a certain romance was involved in acknowledging her parents' antipathy and her own regret.

"Rather," she faltered. "Papa and mamma are rather proud, I'm afraid."

It was a bold flight of speech; it quite took Red's breath away. "And so,"--Blue sighed as she went on--"I'm afraid we mustn't talk to you any more; we're very sorry. We--I'm sure--we think you are very nice."

Her feeling tone drew from him a perfectly sincere reply, "So I am; I'm really a very nice young man. My mother brought me up real well." He added benevolently, "If you're scared of the road, come right through my place here, and I'll set you on your own farm double quick."

It was with pleasurable fear that the girls got through the fence with his help. They whispered to each other their self-excuses, saying that mamma would like them to be in their own fields as quickly as possible.

The moonlight was now gloriously bright. The shrubs of the old garden, in full verdure, were mysteriously beautiful in the light. The old house could be clearly seen. Harkness led them across a narrow open s.p.a.ce in front of it, that had once been a gravel drive, but was now almost green with weeds and gra.s.ses. On the other side the bushes grew, as it seemed, in great heaps, with here and there an opening, moonlit, mysterious. As they pa.s.sed quickly before the house, the girls involuntarily shied like young horses to the further side of Harkness, their eyes glancing eagerly for signs of the old man. In a minute they saw the door in an opening niche at the corner of the house; on its steps sat the old preacher, his grey hair shining, his bronzed face bathed in moonlight.

He sat peaceful and quiet, his hands clasped. Harkness next led them through, a dark overgrown walk, and, true to his promise, brought them at once to the other fence. He seemed to use the old paling as a gate whenever the fancy took him. He pulled away two of the rotten soft wood pales and helped the girls gallantly on to their father's property.

"Charmed, I'm sure, to be of use, ladies!" cried he, and he made his bow.

On the other side of their own fence, knee-deep in dry uncut gra.s.s, they stood together a few paces from the gap he had made, and proffered their earnest thanks.

"Say," said Harkness, abruptly, "d'you often see Miss White up to your house?"

"Eliza, do you mean?" said they, with just a slight intonation to signify that they did not look upon her as a "Miss." Their further answer represented the exact extent of their knowledge in the matter.

"She didn't come much for a good while, but last week she came to tea.

It is arranged for mamma to ask her to tea once in a while, and we're all to try and be nice to her, because--well, our sister says, now that people pay her attentions, she ought to have a place where she can come to, where she can feel she has friends."

"How d'ye mean--'pay her attentions'?"

"That was what we heard sister Sophia say," they replied, pursing up their little lips. They knew perfectly well what the phrase meant, but they were not going to confess it. The arts of those who are on the whole artless are very pretty.

"Say, d'ye think Miss White's got the least bit of a heart about her anywheres?"

"We don't know exactly what you mean"--with dignity--"but one of the ladies who boards at the hotel told mamma that Eliza _always_ behaves _admirably_'; that's part of the reason we're having her to tea."

"Did she, though? If having about as much feeling as this fence has is such fine behaviour--!" He stopped, apparently not knowing exactly how to end his sentence.