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CHAPTER XIV


WHEREIN A NEW POSITION IS TENDERED ELNORA,
AND PHILIP AMMON IS SHOWN LIMBERLOST VIOLETS


The next morning Mrs. Comstock called to Elnora,
"The mail carrier stopped at our box."

Elnora ran down the walk and came back carrying an
official letter.  She tore it open and read:

MY DEAR MISS COMSTOCK:

At the weekly meeting of the Onabasha School Board last night, it
was decided to add the position of Lecturer on Natural History to
our corps of city teachers.  It will be the duty of this person to
spend two hours a week in each of the grade schools exhibiting and
explaining specimens of the most prominent objects in nature:
animals, birds, insects, flowers, vines, shrubs, bushes, and trees.
These specimens and lectures should be appropriate to the seasons
and the comprehension of the grades.  This position was unanimously
voted to you.  I think you will find the work delightful and much
easier than the routine grind of the other teachers.  It is my advice
that you accept and begin to prepare yourself at once.  Your salary
will be $750 a year, and you will be allowed $200 for expenses in
procuring specimens and books.  Let us know at once if you want the
position, as it is going to be difficult to fill satisfactorily if
you do not.

                              Very truly yours,

          DAVID THOMPSON, President, Onabasha Schools.


"I hardly understand," marvelled Mrs. Comstock.

"It is a new position.  They never have had anything
like it before.  I suspect it arose from the help I've been
giving the grade teachers in their nature work.  They are
trying to teach the children something, and half the
instructors don't know a blue jay from a king-fisher, a
beech leaf from an elm, or a wasp from a hornet."

"Well, do you?" anxiously inquired Mrs. Comstock.

"Indeed, I do!" laughed Elnora, "and several other
things beside.  When Freckles bequeathed me the
swamp, he gave me a bigger inheritance than he knew.
While you have thought I was wandering aimlessly, I
have been following a definite plan, studying hard, and
storing up the stuff that will earn these seven hundred
and fifty dollars.  Mother dear, I am going to accept
this, of course.  The work will be a delight.  I'd love
it most of anything in teaching.  You must help me.
We must find nests, eggs, leaves, queer formations in
plants and rare flowers.  I must have flower boxes made
for each of the rooms and filled with wild things.
I should begin to gather specimens this very day."

Elnora's face was flushed and her eyes bright.

"Oh, what great work that will be!" she cried.  "You must
go with me so you can see the little faces when I tell
them how the goldfinch builds its nest, and how the
bees make honey."

So Elnora and her mother went into the woods behind
the cabin to study nature.

"I think," said Elnora, "the idea is to begin with fall
things in the fall, keeping to the seasons throughout the year."

"What are fall things?" inquired Mrs. Comstock.

"Oh, fringed gentians, asters, ironwort, every fall
flower, leaves from every tree and vine, what makes them
change colour, abandoned bird nests, winter quarters
of caterpillars and insects, what becomes of the
butterflies and grasshoppers--myriads of stuff.  I shall
have to be very wise to select the things it will be most
beneficial for the children to learn."

"Can I really help you?" Mrs. Comstock's strong face
was pathetic.

"Indeed, yes!" cried Elnora.  "I never can get through
it alone.  There will be an immense amount of work
connected with securing and preparing specimens."

Mrs. Comstock lifted her head proudly and began
doing business at once.  Her sharp eyes ranged from
earth to heaven.  She investigated everything, asking
innumerable questions.  At noon Mrs. Comstock took
the specimens they had collected, and went to prepare
dinner, while Elnora followed the woods down to the
Sintons' to show her letter.

She had to explain what became of her moths, and why
college would have to be abandoned for that year, but
Margaret and Wesley vowed not to tell.  Wesley waved
the letter excitedly, explaining it to Margaret as if it
were a personal possession.  Margaret was deeply impressed,
while Billy volunteered first aid in gathering material.

"Now anything you want in the ground, Snap can dig
it out," he said.  "Uncle Wesley and I found a hole
three times as big as Snap, that he dug at the roots of
a tree."

"We will train him to hunt pupae cases," said Elnora.

"Are you going to the woods this afternoon?" asked Billy.

"Yes," answered Elnora.  "Dr. Ammon's nephew
from Chicago is visiting in Onabasha.  He is going to
show me how men put some sort of compound on a tree,
hang a light beside it, and take moths that way.  It will
be interesting to watch and learn."

"May I come?" asked Billy.

"Of course you may come!" answered Elnora.

"Is this nephew of Dr. Ammon a young man?" inquired Margaret.

"About twenty-six, I should think," said Elnora.
"He said he had been out of college and at work in his
father's law office three years."

"Does he seem nice?" asked Margaret, and Wesley smiled.

"Finest kind of a person," said Elnora.  "He can
teach me so much.  It is very interesting to hear
him talk.  He knows considerable about moths that will
be a help to me.  He had a fever and he has to stay
outdoors until he grows strong again."

"Billy, I guess you better help me this afternoon,"
said Margaret.  "Maybe Elnora had rather not bother
with you."

"There's no reason on earth why Billy should not
come!" cried Elnora, and Wesley smiled again.

"I must hurry home or I won't be ready," she added.

Hastening down the road she entered the cabin, her
face glowing.

"I thought you never would come," said Mrs. Comstock.
"If you don't hurry Mr. Ammon will be here before you
are dressed."

"I forgot about him until just now," said Elnora.
"I am not going to dress.  He's not coming to visit.
We are only going to the woods for more specimens.
I can't wear anything that requires care.  The limbs
take the most dreadful liberties with hair and clothing."

Mrs. Comstock opened her lips, looked at Elnora and
closed them.  In her heart she was pleased that the
girl was so interested in her work that she had forgotten
Philip Ammon's coming.  But it did seem to her that
such a pleasant young man should have been greeted
by a girl in a fresh dress.  "If she isn't disposed to primp
at the coming of a man, heaven forbid that I should be
the one to start her," thought Mrs. Comstock.

Philip came whistling down the walk between the
cinnamon pinks, pansies, and strawberries.  He carried
several packages, while his face flushed with more colour
than on the previous day.

"Only see what has happened to me!" cried Elnora,
offering her letter.

"I'll wager I know!" answered Philip.  "Isn't it great!
Every one in Onabasha is talking about it.  At last there
is something new under the sun.  All of them are pleased.
They think you'll make a big success.  This will give an
incentive to work.  In a few days more I'll be myself
again, and we'll overturn the fields and woods around here."

He went on to congratulate Mrs. Comstock.

"Aren't you proud of her, though?" he asked.  "You should
hear what folks are saying!  They say she created the
necessity for the position, and every one seems to feel
that it is a necessity.  Now, if she succeeds, and she will,
all of the other city schools will have such departments,
and first thing you know she will have made the whole
world a little better.  Let me rest a few seconds; my feet
are acting up again.  Then we will cook the moth compound
and put it to cool."

He laughed as he sat breathing shortly.

"It doesn't seem possible that a fellow could lose his
strength like this.  My knees are actually trembling,
but I'll be all right in a minute.  Uncle Doc said I
could come.  I told him how you took care of me, and he
said I would be safe here."

Then he began unwrapping packages and explaining
to Mrs. Comstock how to cook the compound to attract
the moths.  He followed her into the kitchen, kindled
the fire, and stirred the preparation as he talked.
While the mixture cooled, he and Elnora walked through
the vegetable garden behind the cabin and strayed from
there into the woods.

"What about college?" he asked.  "Miss Brownlee said
you were going."

"I had hoped to," replied Elnora, "but I had a streak
of dreadful luck, so I'll have to wait until next year.
If you won't speak of it, I'll tell you."

Philip promised, so Elnora recited the history of the
Yellow Emperor.  She was so interested in doing the
Emperor justice she did not notice how many personalities
went into the story.  A few pertinent questions
told him the remainder.  He looked at the girl in wonder.
In face and form she was as lovely as any one of her age
and type he ever had seen.  Her school work far surpassed
that of most girls of her age he knew.  She differed in
other ways.  This vast store of learning she had gathered
from field and forest was a wealth of attraction no other
girl possessed.  Her frank, matter-of-fact manner was an
inheritance from her mother, but there was something more.
Once, as they talked he thought "sympathy" was the word
to describe it and again "comprehension."  She seemed to
possess a large sense of brotherhood for all human and
animate creatures.  She spoke to him as if she had known
him all her life.  She talked to the grosbeak in exactly
the same manner, as she laid strawberries and potato bugs
on the fence for his family.  She did not swerve an inch
from her way when a snake slid past her, while the squirrels
came down from the trees and took corn from her fingers.
She might as well have been a boy, so lacking was she in
any touch of feminine coquetry toward him.  He studied
her wonderingly.  As they went along the path they reached
a large slime-covered pool surrounded by decaying stumps
and logs thickly covered with water hyacinths and blue flags.
Philip stopped.

"Is that the place?" he asked.

Elnora assented.  "The doctor told you?"

"Yes.  It was tragic.  Is that pool really bottomless?"

"So far as we ever have been able to discover."

Philip stood looking at the water, while the long, sweet
grasses, thickly sprinkled with blue flag bloom, over which
wild bees clambered, swayed around his feet.  Then he
turned to the girl.  She had worked hard.  The same
lavender dress she had worn the previous day clung to her
in limp condition.  But she was as evenly coloured and of
as fine grain as a wild rose petal, her hair was really brown,
but never was such hair touched with a redder glory, while
her heavy arching brows added a look of strength to her
big gray-blue eyes.

"And you were born here?"

He had not intended to voice that thought.

"Yes," she said, looking into his eyes.  "Just in time
to prevent my mother from saving the life of my father.
She came near never forgiving me."

"Ah, cruel!" cried Philip.

"I find much in life that is cruel, from our standpoints,"
said Elnora.  "It takes the large wisdom of the Unfathomable,
the philosophy of the Almighty, to endure some of it.
But there is always right somewhere, and at last it seems
to come."

"Will it come to you?" asked Philip, who found himself
deeply affected.

"It has come," said the girl serenely.  "It came a week ago.
It came in fullest measure when my mother ceased to regret
that I had been born.  Now, work that I love has come--that
should constitute happiness.  A little farther along is my
violet bed.  I want you to see it."

As Philip Ammon followed he definitely settled upon the
name of the unusual feature of Elnora's face.  It should be
called "experience."  She had known bitter experiences
early in life.  Suffering had been her familiar more than joy.
He watched her earnestly, his heart deeply moved.  She led
him into a swampy half-open space in the woods, stopped
and stepped aside.  He uttered a cry of surprised delight.

A few decaying logs were scattered around, the grass
grew in tufts long and fine.  Blue flags waved, clusters of
cowslips nodded gold heads, but the whole earth was purple
with a thick blanket of violets nodding from stems a foot
in length.  Elnora knelt and slipping her fingers between
the leaves and grasses to the roots, gathered a few violets
and gave them to Philip.

"Can your city greenhouses surpass them?" she asked.

He sat on a log to examine the blooms.

"They are superb!" he said.  "I never saw such
length of stem or such rank leaves, while the flowers are
the deepest blue, the truest violet I ever saw growing wild.
They are coloured exactly like the eyes of the girl I am
going to marry."

Elnora handed him several others to add to those he held.
"She must have wonderful eyes," she commented.

"No other blue eyes are quite so beautiful," he said.
"In fact, she is altogether lovely."

"Is it customary for a man to think the girl he is going
to marry lovely?  I wonder if I should find her so."

"You would," said Philip.  "No one ever fails to.  She is
tall as you, very slender, but perfectly rounded; you
know about her eyes; her hair is black and wavy--while
her complexion is clear and flushed with red."

"Why, she must be the most beautiful girl in the whole
world!" she cried.

"No, indeed!" he said.  "She is not a particle better
looking in her way than you are in yours.  She is a type
of dark beauty, but you are equally as perfect.  She is
unusual in her combination of black hair and violet eyes,
although every one thinks them black at a little distance.
You are quite as unusual with your fair face, black brows,
and brown hair; indeed, I know many people who would
prefer your bright head to her dark one.  It's all a question
of taste--and being engaged to the girl," he added.

"That would be likely to prejudice one," laughed Elnora.

"Edith has a birthday soon; if these last will you let me
have a box of them to send her?"

"I will help gather and pack them for you, so they will
carry nicely.  Does she hunt moths with you?"

Back went Philip Ammon's head in a gale of laughter.

"No!" he cried.  "She says they are `creepy.'  She would
go into a spasm if she were compelled to touch those
caterpillars I saw you handling yesterday."

"Why would she?" marvelled Elnora.  "Haven't you
told her that they are perfectly clean, helpless,
and harmless as so much animate velvet?"

"No, I have not told her.  She wouldn't care enough
about caterpillars to listen."

"In what is she interested?"

"What interests Edith Carr?  Let me think!  First, I
believe she takes pride in being a little handsomer and
better dressed than any girl of her set.  She is interested
in having a beautiful home, fine appointments, in being
petted, praised, and the acknowledged leader of society.

"She likes to find new things which amuse her, and to always
and in all circumstances have her own way about everything."

"Good gracious!" cried Elnora, staring at him.  "But what
does she do?  How does she spend her time?"

"Spend her time!" repeated Philip.  "Well, she would call
that a joke.  Her days are never long enough.  There is
endless shopping, to find the pretty things; regular visits
to the dressmakers, calls, parties, theatres, entertainments.
She is always rushed.  I never am able to be with her half as
much as I would like."

"But I mean work," persisted Elnora.  "In what is she
interested that is useful to the world?"

"Me!" cried Philip promptly.

"I can understand that," laughed Elnora.  "What I
can't understand is how you can be in----"  She stopped in
confusion, but she saw that he had finished the sentence as
she had intended.  "I beg your pardon!" she cried.  "I didn't
intend to say that.  But I cannot understand these people
I hear about who live only for their own amusement.
Perhaps it is very great; I'll never have a chance to know.
To me, it seems the only pleasure in this world worth
having is the joy we derive from living for those we love,
and those we can help.  I hope you are not angry with me."

Philip sat silently looking far away, with deep thought
in his eyes.

"You are angry," faltered Elnora.

His look came back to her as she knelt before him among
the flowers and he gazed at her steadily.

"No doubt I should be," he said, "but the fact is I
am not.  I cannot understand a life purely for personal
pleasure myself.  But she is only a girl, and this is
her playtime.  When she is a woman in her own home, then
she will be different, will she not?"

Elnora never resembled her mother so closely as when
she answered that question.

"I would have to be well acquainted with her to know,
but I should hope so.  To make a real home for a tired
business man is a very different kind of work from that
required to be a leader of society.  It demands different
talent and education.  Of course, she means to change, or
she would not have promised to make a home for you.  I suspect
our dope is cool now, let's go try for some butterflies."

As they went along the path together Elnora talked of
many things but Philip answered absently.  Evidently he
was thinking of something else.  But the moth bait
recalled him and he was ready for work as they made their
way back to the woods.  He wanted to try the Limberlost,
but Elnora was firm about remaining on home ground.
She did not tell him that lights hung in the swamp would
be a signal to call up a band of men whose presence
she dreaded.  So they started, Ammon carrying the dope,
Elnora the net, Billy and Mrs. Comstock following with
cyanide boxes and lanterns.

First they tried for butterflies and captured several fine
ones without trouble.  They also called swarms of ants,
bees, beetles, and flies.  When it grew dusk, Mrs. Comstock
and Philip went to prepare supper.  Elnora and Billy
remained until the butterflies disappeared.  Then they
lighted the lanterns, repainted the trees and followed
the home trail.

"Do you 'spec you'll get just a lot of moths?" asked
Billy, as he walked beside Elnora.

"I am sure I hardly know," said the girl.  "This is a
new way for me.  Perhaps they will come to the lights, but
few moths eat; and I have some doubt about those which
the lights attract settling on the right trees.  Maybe the
smell of that dope will draw them.  Between us, Billy, I
think I like my old way best.  If I can find a hidden moth,
slip up and catch it unawares, or take it in full flight,
it's my captive, and I can keep it until it dies naturally.
But this way you seem to get it under false pretences, it has no
chance, and it will probably ruin its wings struggling for
freedom before morning."

"Well, any moth ought to be proud to be taken anyway,
by you," said Billy.  "Just look what you do!  You can
make everybody love them.  People even quit hating
caterpillars when they see you handle them and hear you
tell all about them.  You must have some to show people
how they are.  It's not like killing things to see if you
can, or because you want to eat them, the way most men
kill birds.  I think it is right for you to take enough for
collections, to show city people, and to illustrate the
Bird Woman's books.  You go on and take them!  The moths
don't care.  They're glad to have you.  They like it!"

"Billy, I see your future," said Elnora.  "We will
educate you and send you up to Mr. Ammon to make a
great lawyer.  You'd beat the world as a special pleader.

You actually make me feel that I am doing the moths a
kindness to take them."

"And so you are!" cried Billy.  "Why, just from what
you have taught them Uncle Wesley and Aunt Margaret
never think of killing a caterpillar until they look whether
it's the beautiful June moth kind, or the horrid tent ones.
That's what you can do.  You go straight ahead!"

"Billy, you are a jewel!" cried Elnora, throwing her arm
across his shoulders as they came down the path.

"My, I was scared!" said Billy with a deep breath.

"Scared?" questioned Elnora.

"Yes sir-ee!  Aunt Margaret scared me.  May I ask
you a question?"

"Of course, you may!"

"Is that man going to be your beau?"

"Billy!  No!  What made you think such a thing?"

"Aunt Margaret said likely he would fall in love with
you, and you wouldn't want me around any more.  Oh, but
I was scared!  It isn't so, is it?"

"Indeed, no!"

"I am your beau, ain't I?"

"Surely you are!" said Elnora, tightening her arm.

"I do hope Aunt Kate has ginger cookies," said Billy
with a little skip of delight.




CHAPTER XV


WHEREIN MRS. COMSTOCK FACES THE ALMIGHTY,
AND PHILIP AMMON WRITES A LETTER


Mrs. Comstock and Elnora were finishing breakfast
the following morning when they heard a cheery whistle
down the road.  Elnora with surprised eyes looked at
her mother.

"Could that be Mr. Ammon?" she questioned.

"I did not expect him so soon," commented Mrs. Comstock.

It was sunrise, but the musician was Philip Ammon.
He appeared stronger than on yesterday.

"I hope I am not too early," he said.  "I am consumed
with anxiety to learn if we have made a catch.  If we
have, we should beat the birds to it.  I promised Uncle
Doc to put on my waders and keep dry for a few days yet,
when I go to the woods.  Let's hurry!  I am afraid of crows.
There might be a rare moth."

The sun was topping the Limberlost when they started.
As they neared the place Philip stopped.

"Now we must use great caution," he said.  "The lights
and the odours always attract numbers that don't settle
on the baited trees.  Every bush, shrub, and limb may
hide a specimen we want."

So they approached with much care.

"There is something, anyway!" cried Philip.

"There are moths!  I can see them!" exulted Elnora.

"Those you see are fast enough.  It's the ones for
which you must search that will escape.  The grasses
are dripping, and I have boots, so you look beside the
path while I take the outside," suggested Ammon.

Mrs. Comstock wanted to hunt moths, but she was
timid about making a wrong movement, so she wisely
sat on a log and watched Philip and Elnora to learn how
they proceeded.  Back in the deep woods a hermit thrush
was singing his chant to the rising sun.  Orioles were
sowing the pure, sweet air with notes of gold, poured out
while on wing.  The robins were only chirping now, for
their morning songs had awakened all the other birds an
hour ago.  Scolding red-wings tilted on half the bushes.
Excepting late species of haws, tree bloom was almost
gone, but wild flowers made the path border and all the
wood floor a riot of colour.  Elnora, born among such
scenes, worked eagerly, but to the city man, recently from
a hospital, they seemed too good to miss.  He frequently
stooped to examine a flower face, paused to listen
intently to the thrush or lifted his head to see the
gold flash which accompanied the oriole's trailing notes.
So Elnora uttered the first cry, as she softly lifted
branches and peered among the grasses.

"My find!" she called.  "Bring the box, mother!"

Philip came hurrying also.  When they reached her
she stood on the path holding a pair of moths.  Her eyes
were wide with excitement, her cheeks pink, her red
lips parted, and on the hand she held out to them
clung a pair of delicate blue-green moths, with white
bodies, and touches of lavender and straw colour.
All around her lay flower-brocaded grasses, behind the
deep green background of the forest, while the sun slowly
sifted gold from heaven to burnish her hair.  Mrs. Comstock
heard a sharp breath behind her.

"Oh, what a picture!" exulted Philip at her shoulder.
"She is absolutely and altogether lovely!  I'd give a
small fortune for that faithfully set on canvas!"

He picked the box from Mrs. Comstock's fingers and
slowly advanced with it.  Elnora held down her hand
and transferred the moths.  Philip closed the box
carefully, but the watching mother saw that his eyes were
following the girl's face.  He was not making the slightest
attempt to conceal his admiration.

"I wonder if a woman ever did anything lovelier than
to find a pair of Luna moths on a forest path, early on
a perfect June morning," he said to Mrs. Comstock,
when he returned the box.

She glanced at Elnora who was intently searching the bushes.

"Look here, young man," said Mrs. Comstock.  "You seem
to find that girl of mine about right."

"I could suggest no improvement," said Philip.  "I never
saw a more attractive girl anywhere.  She seems absolutely
perfect to me."

"Then suppose you don't start any scheme calculated
to spoil her!" proposed Mrs. Comstock dryly.  "I don't
think you can, or that any man could, but I'm not taking
any risks.  You asked to come here to help in this work.
We are both glad to have you, if you confine yourself to work;
but it's the least you can do to leave us as you find us."

"I beg your pardon!" said Philip.  "I intended no offence.
I admire her as I admire any perfect creation."

"And nothing in all this world spoils the average girl
so quickly and so surely," said Mrs. Comstock.  She raised
her voice.  "Elnora, fasten up that tag of hair over your
left ear.  These bushes muss you so you remind me of a
sheep poking its nose through a hedge fence."

Mrs. Comstock started down the path toward the log
again, when she reached it she called sharply:  "Elnora,
come here!  I believe I have found something myself."

The "something" was a Citheronia Regalis which had
emerged from its case on the soft earth under the log.
It climbed up the wood, its stout legs dragging a big
pursy body, while it wildly flapped tiny wings the size
of a man's thumb-nail.  Elnora gave one look and a cry
which brought Philip.

"That's the rarest moth in America!" he announced.
"Mrs. Comstock, you've gone up head.  You can put
that in a box with a screen cover to-night, and attract
half a dozen, possibly."

"Is it rare, Elnora?" inquired Mrs. Comstock, as if no
one else knew.

"It surely is," answered Elnora.  "If we can find
it a mate to-night, it will lay from two hundred and fifty
to three hundred eggs to-morrow.  With any luck at
all I can raise two hundred caterpillars from them.
I did once before.  And they are worth a dollar apiece."

"Was the one I killed like that?"

"No.  That was a different moth, but its life processes
were the same as this.  The Bird Woman calls this the
King of the Poets."

"Why does she?"

"Because it is named for Citheron who was a poet, and
regalis refers to a king.  You mustn't touch it or you
may stunt wing development.  You watch and don't let
that moth out of sight, or anything touch it.  When the
wings are expanded and hardened we will put it in a box."

"I am afraid it will race itself to death," objected
Mrs. Comstock.

"That's a part of the game," said Philip.  "It is starting
circulation now.  When the right moment comes, it will
stop and expand its wings.  If you watch closely you can
see them expand."

Presently the moth found a rough projection of bark
and clung with its feet, back down, its wings hanging.
The body was an unusual orange red, the tiny wings were
gray, striped with the red and splotched here and there
with markings of canary yellow.  Mrs. Comstock watched
breathlessly.  Presently she slipped from the log and
knelt to secure a better view.

"Are its wings developing?" called Elnora.

"They are growing larger and the markings coming
stronger every minute."

"Let's watch, too," said Elnora to Philip.

They came and looked over Mrs. Comstock's shoulder.
Lower drooped the gay wings, wider they spread, brighter
grew the markings as if laid off in geometrical patterns.
They could hear Mrs. Comstock's tense breath and see
her absorbed expression.

"Young people," she said solemnly, "if your studying
science and the elements has ever led you to feel that
things just happen, kind of evolve by chance, as it were,
this sight will be good for you.  Maybe earth and air
accumulate, but it takes the wisdom of the Almighty God
to devise the wing of a moth.  If there ever was a miracle,
this whole process is one.  Now, as I understand it, this
creature is going to keep on spreading those wings, until
they grow to size and harden to strength sufficient to
bear its body.  Then it flies away, mates with its kind,
lays its eggs on the leaves of a certain tree, and the eggs
hatch tiny caterpillars which eat just that kind of leaves,
and the worms grow and grow, and take on different
forms and colours until at last they are big caterpillars
six inches long, with large horns.  Then they burrow into
the earth, build a water-proof house around themselves
from material which is inside them, and lie through rain
and freezing cold for months.  A year from egg laying they
come out like this, and begin the process all over again.
They don't eat, they don't see distinctly, they live but
a few days, and fly only at night; then they drop off easy,
but the process goes on."

A shivering movement went over the moth.  The wings
drooped and spread wider.  Mrs. Comstock sank into
soft awed tones.

"There never was a moment in my life," she said,
"when I felt so in the Presence, as I do now.  I feel as
if the Almighty were so real, and so near, that I could
reach out and touch Him, as I could this wonderful work
of His, if I dared.  I feel like saying to Him:  `To the
extent of my brain power I realize Your presence, and all
it is in me to comprehend of Your power.  Help me to learn,
even this late, the lessons of Your wonderful creations.
Help me to unshackle and expand my soul to the fullest
realization of Your wonders.  Almighty God, make me bigger,
make me broader!'"

The moth climbed to the end of the projection, up it
a little way, then suddenly reversed its wings, turned
the hidden sides out and dropped them beside its abdomen,
like a large fly.  The upper side of the wings, thus
exposed, was far richer colour, more exquisite texture than
the under, and they slowly half lifted and drooped again.
Mrs. Comstock turned her face to Philip.

"Am I an old fool, or do you feel it, too?" she half whispered.

"You are wiser than you ever have been before,"
answered he.  "I feel it, also."

"And I," breathed Elnora.

The moth spread its wings, shivered them tremulously,
opening and closing them rapidly.  Philip handed the box
to Elnora.

She shook her head.

"I can't take that one," she said.  "Give her freedom."

"But, Elnora," protested Mrs. Comstock, "I don't want to
let her go.  She's mine.  She's the first one I ever found
this way.  Can't you put her in a big box, and let her live,
without hurting her?  I can't bear to let her go.  I want
to learn all about her."

"Then watch while we gather these on the trees," said Elnora.
"We will take her home until night and then decide what to do.
She won't fly for a long time yet."

Mrs. Comstock settled on the ground, gazing at the moth.
Elnora and Philip went to the baited trees, placing
several large moths and a number of smaller ones in the
cyanide jar, and searching the bushes beyond where they
found several paired specimens of differing families.
When they returned Elnora showed her mother how to
hold her hand before the moth so that it would climb upon
her fingers.  Then they started back to the cabin, Elnora
and Philip leading the way; Mrs. Comstock followed
slowly, stepping with great care lest she stumble and
injure the moth.  Her face wore a look of comprehension,
in her eyes was an exalted light.  On she came to the blue-
bordered pool lying beside her path.

A turtle scrambled from a log and splashed into the
water, while a red-wing shouted, "O-ka-lee!" to her.
Mrs. Comstock paused and looked intently at the slime-
covered quagmire, framed in a flower riot and homed over
by sweet-voiced birds.  Then she gazed at the thing of
incomparable beauty clinging to her fingers and said softly:
"If you had known about wonders like these in the days of
your youth, Robert Comstock, could you ever have done what
you did?"

Elnora missed her mother, and turning to look for her,
saw her standing beside the pool.  Would the old
fascination return?  A panic of fear seized the girl.
She went back swiftly.

"Are you afraid she is going?" Elnora asked.  "If you are,
cup your other hand over her for shelter.  Carrying her
through this air and in the hot sunshine will dry her wings
and make them ready for flight very quickly.  You can't trust
her in such air and light as you can in the cool dark woods."

While she talked she took hold of her mother's sleeve,
anxiously smiling a pitiful little smile that Mrs.
Comstock understood.  Philip set his load at the back door,
returning to hold open the garden gate for Elnora and
Mrs. Comstock.  He reached it in time to see them standing
together beside the pool.  The mother bent swiftly and
kissed the girl on the lips.  Philip turned and was busily
hunting moths on the raspberry bushes when they reached
the gate.  And so excellent are the rewards of attending
your own business, that he found a Promethea on a lilac
in a corner; a moth of such rare wine-coloured, velvety
shades that it almost sent Mrs. Comstock to her knees again.
But this one was fully developed, able to fly, and had to
be taken into the cabin hurriedly.  Mrs. Comstock stood in
the middle of the room holding up her Regalis.

"Now what must I do?" she asked.

Elnora glanced at Philip Ammon.  Their eyes met and
both of them smiled; he with amusement at the tall, spare
figure, with dark eyes and white crown, asking the childish
question so confidingly; and Elnora with pride.  She was
beginning to appreciate the character of her mother.

"How would you like to sit and see her finish development?
I'll get dinner," proposed the girl.

After they had dined, Philip and Elnora carried the dishes
to the kitchen, brought out boxes, sheets of cork, pins,
ink, paper slips and everything necessary for mounting and
classifying the moths they had taken.  When the housework
was finished Mrs. Comstock with her ruffle sat near,
watching and listening.  She remembered all they said
that she understood, and when uncertain she asked questions.
Occasionally she laid down her work to straighten some
flower which needed attention or to search the garden for
a bug for the grosbeak.  In one of these absences Elnora
said to Philip:  "These replace quite a number of the moths I
lost for the man of India.  With a week of such luck,
I could almost begin to talk college again."

"There is no reason why you should not have the week
and the luck," said he.  "I have taken moths until the
middle of August, though I suspect one is more likely to
find late ones in the north where it is colder than here.
The next week is hay-time, but we can count on a few
double-brooders and strays, and by working the exchange method
for all it is worth, I think we can complete the collection again."

"You almost make me hope," said Elnora, "but I must
not allow myself.  I don't truly think I can replace all I
lost, not even with your help.  If I could, I scarcely see my
way clear to leave mother this winter.  I have found her
so recently, and she is so precious, I can't risk losing
her again.  I am going to take the nature position in the
Onabasha schools, and I shall be most happy doing the work.
Only, these are a temptation."

"I wish you might go to college this fall with the other
girls," said Philip.  "I feel that if you don't you never will.
Isn't there some way?"

"I can't see it if there is, and I really don't want to
leave mother."

"Well, mother is mighty glad to hear it," said Mrs.
Comstock, entering the arbour.

Philip noticed that her face was pale, her lips quivering,
her voice cold.

"I was telling your daughter that she should go to
college this winter," he explained, "but she says she
doesn't want to leave you."

"If she wants to go, I wish she could," said Mrs. Comstock,
a look of relief spreading over her face.

"Oh, all girls want to go to college," said Philip.  "It's the
only proper place to learn bridge and embroidery; not to
mention midnight lunches of mixed pickles and fruit cake,
and all the delights of the sororities."

"I have thought for years of going to college," said
Elnora, "but I never thought of any of those things."

"That is because your education in fudge and bridge has
been sadly neglected," said Philip.  "You should hear my
sister Polly!  This was her final year!  Lunches and
sororities were all I heard her mention, until Tom Levering
came on deck; now he is the leading subject.  I can't
see from her daily conversation that she knows half as
much really worth knowing as you do, but she's ahead of
you miles on fun."

"Oh, we had some good times in the high school," said Elnora.
"Life hasn't been all work and study.  Is Edith Carr a
college girl?"

"No.  She is the very selectest kind of a private boarding-
school girl."

"Who is she?" asked Mrs. Comstock.

Philip opened his lips.

"She is a girl in Chicago, that Mr. Ammon knows very
well," said Elnora.  "She is beautiful and rich, and a
friend of his sister's.  Or, didn't you say that?"

"I don't remember, but she is," said Philip.  "This moth
needs an alcohol bath to remove the dope."

"Won't the down come, too?" asked Elnora anxiously.

"No.  You watch and you will see it come out, as
Polly would say, `a perfectly good' moth."

"Is your sister younger than you?" inquired Elnora.

"Yes," said Philip, "but she is three years older than you.
She is the dearest sister in all the world.  I'd love
to see her now."

"Why don't you send for her," suggested Elnora.
"Perhaps she'd like to help us catch moths."

"Yes, I think Polly in a Virot hat, Picot embroidered
frock and three-inch heels would take more moths than
any one who ever tried the Limberlost," laughed Philip.

"Well, you find many of them, and you are her brother."

"Yes, but that is different.  Father was reared in
Onabasha, and he loved the country.  He trained me his
way and mother took charge of Polly.  I don't quite
understand it.  Mother is a great home body herself,
but she did succeed in making Polly strictly ornamental."

"Does Tom Levering need a `strictly ornamental' girl?"

"You are too matter of fact!  Too `strictly' material.
He needs a darling girl who will love him plenty, and Polly
is that."

"Well, then, does the Limberlost need a `strictly ornamental' girl?"

"No!" cried Philip.  "You are ornament enough for
the Limberlost.  I have changed my mind.  I don't want
Polly here.  She would not enjoy catching moths, or anything
we do."

"She might," persisted Elnora.  "You are her brother,
and surely you care for these things."

"The argument does not hold," said Philip.  "Polly and
I do not like the same things when we are at home, but we
are very fond of each other.  The member of my family
who would go crazy about this is my father.  I wish he
could come, if only for a week.  I'd send for him, but he is
tied up in preparing some papers for a great corporation
case this summer.  He likes the country.  It was his vote
that brought me here."

Philip leaned back against the arbour, watching the
grosbeak as it hunted food between a tomato vine and a
day lily.  Elnora set him to making labels, and when he
finished them he asked permission to write a letter.
He took no pains to conceal his page, and from where she
sat opposite him, Elnora could not look his way without
reading:  "My dearest Edith."  He wrote busily for a time
and then sat staring across the garden.

"Have you run out of material so quickly?" asked Elnora.

"That's about it," said Philip.  "I have said that I am
getting well as rapidly as possible, that the air is fine, the
folks at Uncle Doc's all well, and entirely too good to me;
that I am spending most of my time in the country helping
catch moths for a collection, which is splendid exercise;
now I can't think of another thing that will be interesting."

There was a burst of exquisite notes in the maple.

"Put in the grosbeak," suggested Elnora.  "Tell her
you are so friendly with him you feed him potato bugs."

Philip lowered the pen to the sheet, bent forward,
then hesitated.

"Blest if I do!" he cried.  "She'd think a grosbeak was
a depraved person with a large nose.  She'd never dream
that it was a black-robed lover, with a breast of snow and
a crimson heart.  She doesn't care for hungry babies and
potato bugs.  I shall write that to father.  He will find
it delightful."

Elnora deftly picked up a moth, pinned it and placed its wings.
She straightened the antennae, drew each leg into position
and set it in perfectly lifelike manner.  As she lifted her
work to see if she had it right, she glanced at Philip.
He was still frowning and hesitating over the paper.

"I dare you to let me dictate a couple of paragraphs."

"Done!" cried Philip.  "Go slowly enough that I can write it."

Elnora laughed gleefully.

"I am writing this," she began, "in an old grape arbour
in the country, near a log cabin where I had my dinner.
From where I sit I can see directly into the home of the
next-door neighbour on the west.  His name is R. B. Grosbeak.
From all I have seen of him, he is a gentleman of the old
school; the oldest school there is, no doubt.  He always
wears a black suit and cap and a white vest, decorated with
one large red heart, which I think must be the emblem of
some ancient order.  I have been here a number of times,
and I never have seen him wear anything else, or his wife
appear in other than a brown dress with touches of white.

"It has appealed to me at times that she was a shade
neglectful of her home duties, but he does not seem to
feel that way.  He cheerfully stays in the sitting-room,
while she is away having a good time, and sings while
he cares for the four small children.  I must tell you about
his music.  I am sure he never saw inside a conservatory.
I think he merely picked up what he knows by ear and without
vocal training, but there is a tenderness in his tones,
a depth of pure melody, that I never have heard surpassed.
It may be that I think more of his music than that of some
other good vocalists hereabout, because I see more of him
and appreciate his devotion to his home life.

"I just had an encounter with him at the west fence,
and induced him to carry a small gift to his children.
When I see the perfect harmony in which he lives, and
the depth of content he and the brown lady find in life,
I am almost persuaded to--  Now this is going to be
poetry," said Elnora.  "Move your pen over here and
begin with a quote and a cap."

Philip's face had been an interesting study while he
wrote her sentences.  Now he gravely set the pen where
she indicated, and Elnora dictated--


          "Buy a nice little home in the country,
           And settle down there for life."


"That's the truth!" cried Philip.  "It's as big a temptation as
I ever had.  Go on!"

"That's all," said Elnora.  "You can finish.  The moths
are done.  I am going hunting for whatever I can find for
the grades."

"Wait a minute," begged Philip.  "I am going, too."

"No.  You stay with mother and finish your letter."

"It is done.  I couldn't add anything to that."

"Very well!  Sign your name and come on.  But I
forgot to tell you all the bargain.  Maybe you won't send
the letter when you hear that.  The remainder is that
you show me the reply to my part of it."

"Oh, that's easy!  I wouldn't have the slightest objection
to showing you the whole letter."

He signed his name, folded the sheets and slipped them
into his pocket.

"Where are we going and what do we take?"

"Will you go, mother?" asked Elnora.

"I have a little work that should be done," said
Mrs. Comstock.  "Could you spare me?  Where do you want
to go?"

"We will go down to Aunt Margaret's and see her a
few minutes and get Billy.  We will be back in time
for supper."

Mrs. Comstock smiled as she watched them down the road.
What a splendid-looking pair of young creatures they were!
How finely proportioned, how full of vitality!  Then her
face grew troubled as she saw them in earnest conversation.
Just as she was wishing she had not trusted her precious
girl with so much of a stranger, she saw Elnora stoop to
lift a branch and peer under.  The mother grew content.
Elnora was thinking only of her work.  She was to be
trusted utterly.




CHAPTER XVI


WHEREIN THE LIMBERLOST SINGS FOR PHILIP,
AND THE TALKING TREES TELL GREAT SECRETS


A few days later Philip handed Elnora a sheet
of paper and she read:  "In your condition I
should think the moth hunting and life at that
cabin would be very good for you, but for any sake keep
away from that Grosbeak person, and don't come home
with your head full of granger ideas.  No doubt he has a
remarkable voice, but I can't bear untrained singers, and
don't you get the idea that a June song is perennial.
You are not hearing the music he will make when the
four babies have the scarlet fever and the measles, and
the gadding wife leaves him at home to care for them then.
Poor soul, I pity her!  How she exists where rampant
cows bellow at you, frogs croak, mosquitoes consume
you, the butter goes to oil in summer and bricks in winter,
while the pump freezes every day, and there is no
earthly amusement, and no society!  Poor things!
Can't you influence him to move?  No wonder she gads when
she has a chance!  I should die.  If you are thinking
of settling in the country, think also of a woman who
is satisfied with white and brown to accompany you!
Brown!  Of all deadly colours!  I should go mad in brown."

Elnora laughed while she read.  Her face was dimpling,
as she returned the sheet.  "Who's ahead?" she asked.

"Who do you think?" he parried.

"She is," said Elnora.  "Are you going to tell her
in your next that R. B. Grosbeak is a bird, and that he
probably will spend the winter in a wild plum thicket
in Tennessee?"

"No," said Philip.  "I shall tell her that I understand her
ideas of life perfectly, and, of course, I never
shall ask her to deal with oily butter and frozen pumps--"

"--and measley babies," interpolated Elnora.

"Exactly!" said Philip.  "At the same time I find so
much to counterbalance those things, that I should not
object to bearing them myself, in view of the recompense.
Where do we go and what do we do to-day?"

"We will have to hunt beside the roads and around the
edge of the Limberlost to-day," said Elnora.  "Mother is
making strawberry preserves, and she can't come until
she finishes.  Suppose we go down to the swamp and
I'll show you what is left of the flower-room that
Terence O'More, the big lumber man of Great Rapids,
made when he was a homeless boy here.  Of course,
you have heard the story?"

"Yes, and I've met the O'Mores who are frequently
in Chicago society.  They have friends there.  I think
them one ideal couple."

"That sounds as if they might be the only one," said
Elnora, "and, indeed, they are not.  I know dozens.
Aunt Margaret and Uncle Wesley are another, the Brownlees
another, and my mathematics professor and his wife.

The world is full of happy people, but no one ever hears
of them.  You must fight and make a scandal to get into
the papers.  No one knows about all the happy people.
I am happy myself, and look how perfectly inconspicuous
I am."

"You only need go where you will be seen," began
Philip, when he remembered and finished.  "What do
we take to-day?"

"Ourselves," said Elnora.  "I have a vagabond streak in
my blood and it's in evidence.  I am going to show you
where real flowers grow, real birds sing, and if I feel quite
right about it, perhaps I shall raise a note or two myself."

"Oh, do you sing?" asked Philip politely.

"At times," answered Elnora.  "`As do the birds;
because I must,' but don't be scared.  The mood does
not possess me often.  Perhaps I shan't raise a note."

They went down the road to the swamp, climbed the
snake fence, followed the path to the old trail and then
turned south upon it.  Elnora indicated to Philip the
trail with remnants of sagging barbed wire.

"It was ten years ago," she said.  "I was a little school
girl, but I wandered widely even then, and no one cared.
I saw him often.  He had been in a city institution all his
life, when he took the job of keeping timber thieves out of
this swamp, before many trees had been cut.  It was a
strong man's work, and he was a frail boy, but he grew
hardier as he lived out of doors.  This trail we are on is
the path his feet first wore, in those days when he was
insane with fear and eaten up with loneliness, but he stuck
to his work and won out.  I used to come down to the road
and creep among the bushes as far as I dared, to watch
him pass.  He walked mostly, at times he rode a wheel.

"Some days his face was dreadfully sad, others it was
so determined a little child could see the force in it, and
once he was radiant.  That day the Swamp Angel was
with him.  I can't tell you what she was like.  I never
saw any one who resembled her.  He stopped close here
to show her a bird's nest.  Then they went on to a sort of
flower-room he had made, and he sang for her.  By the
time he left, I had gotten bold enough to come out on
the trail, and I met the big Scotchman Freckles lived with.
He saw me catching moths and butterflies, so he took me
to the flower-room and gave me everything there.
I don't dare come alone often, so I can't keep it up as
he did, but you can see something of how it was."

Elnora led the way and Philip followed.  The outlines
of the room were not distinct, because many of the
trees were gone, but Elnora showed how it had been as
nearly as she could.

"The swamp is almost ruined now," she said.  "The maples,
walnuts, and cherries are all gone.  The talking trees
are the only things left worth while."

"The `talking trees!'  I don't understand," commented Philip.

"No wonder!" laughed Elnora.  "They are my discovery.
You know all trees whisper and talk during the summer,
but there are two that have so much to say they keep on
the whole winter, when the others are silent.  The beeches
and oaks so love to talk, they cling to their dead,
dry leaves.  In the winter the winds are stiffest
and blow most, so these trees whisper, chatter, sob,
laugh, and at times roar until the sound is deafening.
They never cease until new leaves come out in the spring
to push off the old ones.  I love to stand beneath them
with my ear to the trunks, interpreting what they say
to fit my moods.  The beeches branch low, and their
leaves are small so they only know common earthly things;
but the oaks run straight above almost all other trees
before they branch, their arms are mighty, their leaves large.
They meet the winds that travel around the globe, and from
them learn the big things."

Philip studied the girls face.  "What do the beeches
tell you, Elnora?" he asked gently.

"To be patient, to be unselfish, to do unto others as
I would have them do to me."

"And the oaks?"

"They say `be true,' `live a clean life,' `send your soul
up here and the winds of the world will teach it what
honour achieves.'"

"Wonderful secrets, those!" marvelled Philip.  "Are they
telling them now?  Could I hear?"

"No.  They are only gossiping now.  This is play-time.
They tell the big secrets to a white world, when the
music inspires them."

"The music?"

"All other trees are harps in the winter.  Their trunks are
the frames, their branches the strings, the winds the musicians.
When the air is cold and clear, the world very white, and
the harp music swelling, then the talking trees tell the
strengthening, uplifting things."

"You wonderful girl!" cried Philip.  "What a woman
you will be!"

"If I am a woman at all worth while, it will be because
I have had such wonderful opportunities," said Elnora.
"Not every girl is driven to the forest to learn what God
has to say there.  Here are the remains of Freckles's room.
The time the Angel came here he sang to her, and I listened.
I never heard music like that.  No wonder she loved him.
Every one who knew him did, and they do yet.  Try that
log, it makes a fairly good seat.  This old store box
was his treasure house, just as it's now mine.  I will
show you my dearest possession.  I do not dare take
it home because mother can't overcome her dislike for it.
It was my father's, and in some ways I am like him.
This is the strongest."

Elnora lifted the violin and began to play.  She wore
a school dress of green gingham, with the sleeves rolled to
the elbows.  She seemed a part of the setting all around her.
Her head shone like a small dark sun, and her face never
had seemed so rose-flushed and fair.  From the instant
she drew the bow, her lips parted and her eyes turned
toward something far away in the swamp, and never did
she give more of that impression of feeling for her notes
and repeating something audible only to her.  Philip was
too close to get the best effect.  He arose and stepped back
several yards, leaning against a large tree, looking and
listening intently.

As he changed positions he saw that Mrs. Comstock had
followed them, and was standing on the trail, where she
could not have helped hearing everything Elnora had said.

So to Philip before her and the mother watching on the
trail, Elnora played the Song of the Limberlost.  It seemed
as if the swamp hushed all its other voices and spoke
only through her dancing bow.  The mother out on the
trail had heard it all, once before from the girl, many
times from her father.  To the man it was a revelation.
He stood so stunned he forgot Mrs. Comstock.  He tried
to realize what a city audience would say to that music,
from such a player, with a similar background, and he
could not imagine.

He was wondering what he dared say, how much he might
express, when the last note fell and the girl laid the
violin in the case, closed the door, locked it and hid the
key in the rotting wood at the end of a log.  Then she came
to him.  Philip stood looking at her curiously.

"I wonder," he said, "what people would say to that?"

"I played that in public once," said Elnora.  "I think
they liked it, fairly well.  I had a note yesterday offering
me the leadership of the high school orchestra in Onabasha.
I can take it as well as not.  None of my talks to the
grades come the first thing in the morning.  I can play
a few minutes in the orchestra and reach the rooms in
plenty of time.  It will be more work that I love, and like
finding the money.  I would gladly play for nothing,
merely to be able to express myself."

"With some people it makes a regular battlefield of the
human heart--this struggle for self-expression," said Philip.
"You are going to do beautiful work in the world, and do
it well.  When I realize that your violin belonged to your
father, that he played it before you were born, and
it no doubt affected your mother strongly, and then couple
with that the years you have roamed these fields and
swamps finding in nature all you had to lavish your heart
upon, I can see how you evolved.  I understand what you
mean by self-expression.  I know something of what you
have to express.  The world never so wanted your message
as it does now.  It is hungry for the things you know.
I can see easily how your position came to you.  What you
have to give is taught in no college, and I am not sure but
you would spoil yourself if you tried to run your mind
through a set groove with hundreds of others.  I never
thought I should say such a thing to any one, but I do say
to you, and I honestly believe it; give up the college idea.
Your mind does not need that sort of development.  Stick close
to your work in the woods.  You are becoming so infinitely
greater on it, than the best college girl I ever knew,
that there is no comparison.  When you have money to
spend, take that violin and go to one of the world's great
masters and let the Limberlost sing to him; if he thinks he
can improve it, very well.  I have my doubts."

"Do you really mean that you would give up all idea of
going to college, in my place?"

"I really mean it," said Philip.  "If I now held the
money in my hands to send you, and could give it to you
in some way you would accept I would not.  I do not
know why it is the fate of the world always to want
something different from what life gives them.  If you
only could realize it, my girl, you are in college, and
have been always.  You are in the school of experience,
and it has taught you to think, and given you a heart.
God knows I envy the man who wins it!  You have been in
the college of the Limberlost all your life, and I never
met a graduate from any other institution who could begin
to compare with you in sanity, clarity, and interesting knowledge.
I wouldn't even advise you to read too many books on your lines.
You acquire your material first hand, and you know that
you are right.  What you should do is to begin early
to practise self-expression.  Don't wait too long to tell us
about the woods as you know them."

"Follow the course of the Bird Woman, you mean?"
asked Elnora.

"In your own way; with your own light.  She won't
live forever.  You are younger, and you will be ready
to begin where she ends.  The swamp has given you all
you need so far; now you give it to the world in payment.
College be confounded!  Go to work and show people
what there is in you!"

Not until then did he remember Mrs. Comstock.

"Should we go out to the trail and see if your mother is
coming?" he asked.

"Here she is now," said Elnora.  "Gracious, it's a mercy
I got that violin put away in time!  I didn't expect her
so soon," whispered the girl as she turned and went
toward her mother.  Mrs. Comstock's expression was peculiar
as she looked at Elnora.

"I forgot that you were making sun-preserves and they
didn't require much cooking," she said.  "We should have
waited for you."

"Not at all!" answered Mrs. Comstock.  "Have you
found anything yet?"

"Nothing that I can show you," said Elnora.  "I am
almost sure I have found an idea that will revolutionize
the whole course of my work, thought, and ambitions."

"`Ambitions!'  My, what a hefty word!" laughed Mrs. Comstock.
"Now who would suspect a little red-haired country girl
of harbouring such a deadly germ in her body?  Can you tell
mother about it?"

"Not if you talk to me that way, I can't," said Elnora.

"Well, I guess we better let ambition lie.  I've always
heard it was safest asleep.  If you ever get a bona fide
attack, it will be time to attend it.  Let's hunt specimens.
It is June.  Philip and I are in the grades.  You have an
hour to put an idea into our heads that will stick for a lifetime,
and grow for good.  That's the way I look at your job.  Now, what
are you going to give us?  We don't want any old silly stuff
that has been hashed over and over, we want a big new idea
to plant in our hearts.  Come on, Miss Teacher, what is the
boiled-down, double-distilled essence of June?  Give it to
us strong.  We are large enough to furnish it developing ground.
Hurry up!  Time is short and we are waiting.  What is the
miracle of June?  What one thing epitomizes the whole month,
and makes it just a little different from any other?"

"The birth of these big night moths," said Elnora promptly.

Philip clapped his hands.  The tears started to Mrs.
Comstock's eyes.  She took Elnora in her arms, and kissed
her forehead.

"You'll do!" she said.  "June is June, not because it
has bloom, bird, fruit, or flower, exclusive to it alone.

It's half May and half July in all of them.  But to me,
it's just June, when it comes to these great, velvet-winged
night moths which sweep its moonlit skies, consummating
their scheme of creation, and dropping like a bloomed-
out flower.  Give them moths for June.  Then make that
the basis of your year's work.  Find the distinctive feature
of each month, the one thing which marks it a time apart,
and hit them squarely between the eyes with it.  Even the
babies of the lowest grades can comprehend moths when
they see a few emerge, and learn their history, as it can be
lived before them.  You should show your specimens in
pairs, then their eggs, the growing caterpillars, and then
the cocoons.  You want to dig out the red heart of every
month in the year, and hold it pulsing before them.

"I can't name all of them off-hand, but I think of one
more right now.  February belongs to our winter birds.
It is then the great horned owl of the swamp courts his
mate, the big hawks pair, and even the crows begin to
take notice.  These are truly our birds.  Like the poor
we have them always with us.  You should hear the musicians
of this swamp in February, Philip, on a mellow night.
Oh, but they are in earnest!  For twenty-one years I've
listened by night to the great owls, all the smaller sizes,
the foxes, coons, and every resident left in these woods,
and by day to the hawks, yellow-hammers, sap-suckers,
titmice, crows, and other winter birds.  Only just now it's
come to me that the distinctive feature of February is not
linen bleaching, nor sugar making; it's the love month of our
very own birds.  Give them hawks and owls for February, Elnora."

With flashing eyes the girl looked at Philip.  "How's that?"
she said.  "Don't you think I will succeed, with such help?
You should hear the concert she is talking about!  It is
simply indescribable when the ground is covered with snow,
and the moonlight white."

"It's about the best music we have," said Mrs. Comstock.
"I wonder if you couldn't copy that and make a strong,
original piece out of it for your violin, Elnora?"

There was one tense breath, then----  "I could try," said
Elnora simply.

Philip rushed to the rescue.  "We must go to work," he
said, and began examining a walnut branch for Luna moth eggs.
Elnora joined him while Mrs. Comstock drew her embroidery
from her pocket and sat on a log.  She said she was tired,
they could come for her when they were ready to go.
She could hear their voices around her until she called
them at supper time.  When they came to her she stood
waiting on the trail, the sewing in one hand, the
violin in the other.  Elnora became very white, but
followed the trail without a word.  Philip, unable to see
a woman carry a heavier load than he, reached for
the instrument.  Mrs. Comstock shook her head.  She carried
the violin home, took it into her room and closed the door.
Elnora turned to Philip.

"If she destroys that, I shall die!" cried the girl.

"She won't!" said Philip.  "You misunderstand her.
She wouldn't have said what she did about the owls, if
she had meant to.  She is your mother.  No one loves
you as she does.  Trust her!  Myself--I think she's
simply great!"

Mrs. Comstock returned with serene face, and all of
them helped with the supper.  When it was over Philip
and Elnora sorted and classified the afternoon's specimens,
and made a trip to the woods to paint and light several
trees for moths.  When they came back Mrs. Comstock
sat in the arbour, and they joined her.  The moonlight
was so intense, print could have been read by it.
The damp night air held odours near to earth, making
flower and tree perfume strong.  A thousand insects were
serenading, and in the maple the grosbeak occasionally
said a reassuring word to his wife, while she answered
that all was well.  A whip-poor-will wailed in the swamp and
beside the blue-bordered pool a chat complained disconsolately.
Mrs. Comstock went into the cabin, but she returned immediately,
laying the violin and bow across Elnora's lap.  "I wish you
would give us a little music," she said.




CHAPTER XVII


WHEREIN MRS. COMSTOCK DANCES IN THE MOONLIGHT,
AND ELNORA MAKES A CONFESSION


Billy was swinging in the hammock, at peace with himself
and all the world, when he thought he heard something.
He sat bolt upright, his eyes staring.  Once he opened
his lips, then thought again and closed them.
The sound persisted.  Billy vaulted the fence,
and ran down the road with his queer sidewise hop.
When he neared the Comstock cabin, he left the
warm dust of the highway and stepped softly at slower
pace over the rank grasses of the roadside.  He had
heard aright.  The violin was in the grape arbour,
singing a perfect jumble of everything, poured out in
an exultant tumult.  The strings were voicing the joy of
a happy girl heart.

Billy climbed the fence enclosing the west woods and
crept toward the arbour.  He was not a spy and not a sneak.
He merely wanted to satisfy his child-heart as to
whether Mrs. Comstock was at home, and Elnora at last
playing her loved violin with her mother's consent.
One peep sufficed.  Mrs. Comstock sat in the moonlight,
her head leaning against the arbour; on her face was a
look of perfect peace and contentment.  As he stared at
her the bow hesitated a second and Mrs. Comstock spoke:

"That's all very melodious and sweet," she said, "but I
do wish you could play Money Musk and some of the
tunes I danced as a girl."

Elnora had been carefully avoiding every note that
might be reminiscent of her father.  At the words she
laughed softly and began "Turkey in the Straw."
An instant later Mrs. Comstock was dancing in the
moon light.  Ammon sprang to her side, caught her in
his arms, while to Elnora's laughter and the violin's
impetus they danced until they dropped panting on the
arbour bench.

Billy scarcely knew when he reached the road.  His light
feet barely touched the soft way, so swiftly he flew.
He vaulted the fence and burst into the house.

"Aunt Margaret!  Uncle Wesley!" he screamed.  "Listen!
Listen!  She's playing it!  Elnora's playing her violin
at home!  And Aunt Kate is dancing like anything
before the arbour!  I saw her in the moonlight!  I ran down!
Oh, Aunt Margaret!"

Billy fled sobbing to Margaret's breast.

"Why Billy!" she chided.  "Don't cry, you little dunce!
That's what we've all prayed for these many years; but
you must be mistaken about Kate.  I can't believe it."

Billy lifted his head.  "Well, you just have to!" he said.
"When I say I saw anything, Uncle Wesley knows I did.
The city man was dancing with her.  They danced together
and Elnora laughed.  But it didn't look funny to me;
I was scared."

"Who was it said `wonders never cease,'" asked Wesley.
"You mark my word, once you get Kate Comstock started,
you can't stop her.  There's a wagon load of penned-up
force in her.  Dancing in the moonlight!  Well, I'll
be hanged!"

Billy was at his side instantly.  "Whoever does it will
have to hang me, too," he cried.

Sinton threw his arm around Billy and drew him closely.
"Tell us all about it, son," he said.  Billy told.  "And when
Elnora just stopped a breath, `Can't you play some
of the old things I knew when I was a girl?' said her ma.
Then Elnora began to do a thing that made you want to
whirl round and round, and quicker 'an scat there was her
ma a-whirling.  The city man, he ups and grabs her and
whirls, too, and back in the woods I was going just like
they did.  Elnora begins to laugh, and I ran to tell you,
cos I knew you'd like to know.  Now, all the world is
right, ain't it?" ended Billy in supreme satisfaction.

"You just bet it is!" said Wesley.

Billy looked steadily at Margaret.  "Is it, Aunt Margaret?"

Margaret Sinton smiled at him bravely.

An hour later when Billy was ready to climb the stairs
to his room, he went to Margaret to say good night.
He leaned against her an instant, then brought his lips
to her ear.  "Wish I could get your little girls back
for you!" he whispered and dashed toward the stairs.

Down at the Comstock cabin the violin played on until
Elnora was so tired she scarcely could lift the bow.
Then Philip went home.  The women walked to the gate
with him, and stood watching him from sight.

"That's what I call one decent young man!" said
Mrs. Comstock.  "To see him fit in with us, you'd think
he'd been brought up in a cabin; but it's likely he's
always had the very cream o' the pot."

"Yes, I think so," laughed Elnora, "but it hasn't
hurt him.  I've never seen anything I could criticise.
He's teaching me so much, unconsciously.  You know
he graduated from Harvard, and has several degrees in law.
He's coming in the morning, and we are going to put in a
big day on Catocalae."

"Which is----?"

"Those gray moths with wings that fold back like big
flies, and they appear as if they had been carved from
old wood.  Then, when they fly, the lower wings flash
out and they are red and black, or gold and black, or
pink and black, or dozens of bright, beautiful colours
combined with black.  No one ever has classified all
of them and written their complete history, unless the
Bird Woman is doing it now.  She wants everything
she can get about them."

"I remember," said Mrs. Comstock.  "They are mighty
pretty things.  I've started up slews of them from the
vines covering the logs, all my life.  I must be cautious
and catch them after this, but they seem powerful spry.
I might get hold of something rare."  She thought
intently and added, "And wouldn't know it if I did.
It would just be my luck.  I've had the rarest thing on
earth in reach this many a day and only had the wit to
cinch it just as it was going.  I'll bet I don't let
anything else escape me."

Next morning Philip came early, and he and Elnora
went at once to the fields and woods.  Mrs. Comstock
had come to believe so implicitly in him that she now
stayed at home to complete the work before she joined
them, and when she did she often sat sewing, leaving
them wandering hours at a time.  It was noon before
she finished, and then she packed a basket of lunch.
She found Elnora and Philip near the violet patch, which
was still in its prime.  They all lunched together in the
shade of a wild crab thicket, with flowers spread at their
feet, and the gold orioles streaking the air with flashes
of light and trailing ecstasy behind them, while the red-
wings, as always, asked the most impertinent questions.
Then Mrs. Comstock carried the basket back to the cabin,
and Philip and Elnora sat on a log, resting a few minutes.
They had unexpected luck, and both were eager to continue
the search.

"Do you remember your promise about these violets?"
asked he.  "To-morrow is Edith's birthday, and if I'd
put them special delivery on the morning train, she'd
get them in the late afternoon.  They ought to keep
that long.  She leaves for the North next day."

"Of  course, you may have them," said Elnora.  "We will
quit long enough before supper to gather a large bunch.
They can be packed so they will carry all right.
They should be perfectly fresh, especially if we gather
them this evening and let them drink all night."

Then they went back to hunt Catocalae.  It was a
long and a happy search.  It led them into new,
unexplored nooks of the woods, past a red-poll nest,
and where goldfinches prospected for thistledown for
the cradles they would line a little later.  It led
them into real forest, where deep, dark pools lay,
where the hermit thrush and the wood robin extracted
the essence from all other bird melody, and poured it
out in their pure bell-tone notes.  It seemed as if
every old gray tree-trunk, slab of loose bark, and
prostrate log yielded the flashing gray treasures;
while of all others they seemed to take alarm most
easily, and be most difficult to capture.

Philip came to Elnora at dusk, daintily holding one
by the body, its dark wings showing and its long slender
legs trying to clasp his fingers and creep from his hold.

"Oh for mercy's sake!" cried Elnora, staring at him.

"I half believe it!" exulted Ammon.

"Did you ever see one?"

"Only in collections, and very seldom there."

Elnora studied the black wings intently.  "I surely
believe that's Sappho," she marvelled.  "The Bird Woman
will be overjoyed."

"We must get the cyanide jar quickly," said Philip.

"I wouldn't lose her for anything.  Such a chase as she
led me!"

Elnora brought the jar and began gathering up paraphernalia.

"When you make a find like that," she said, "it's the
right time to quit and feel glorious all the rest of
that day.  I tell you I'm proud!  We will go now.  We have
barely time to carry out our plans before supper.
Won't mother be pleased to see that we have a rare one?"

"I'd like to see any one more pleased than I am!" said
Philip Ammon.  "I feel as if I'd earned my supper to-night.
Let's go."

He took the greater part of the load and stepped aside
for Elnora to precede him.  She followed the path, broken
by the grazing cattle, toward the cabin and nearest the
violet patch she stopped, laid down her net, and the things
she carried.  Philip passed her and hurried straight
toward the back gate.

"Aren't you going to----?" began Elnora.

"I'm going to get this moth home in a hurry," he said.
"This cyanide has lost its strength, and it's not
working well.  We need some fresh in the jar."

He had forgotten the violets!  Elnora stood looking
after him, a curious expression on her face.  One second
so--then she picked up the net and followed.  At the
blue-bordered pool she paused and half turned back, then
she closed her lips firmly and went on.  It was nine o'clock
when Philip said good-bye, and started to town.  His gay
whistle floated to them from the farthest corner of
the Limberlost.  Elnora complained of being tired, so she
went to her room and to bed.  But sleep would not come.
Thought was racing in her brain and the longer she lay
the wider awake she grew.  At last she softly slipped from
bed, lighted her lamp and began opening boxes.  Then she
went to work.  Two hours later a beautiful birch bark
basket, strongly and artistically made, stood on her table.
She set a tiny alarm clock at three, returned to bed and
fell asleep instantly with a smile on her lips.

She was on the floor with the first tinkle of the alarm,
and hastily dressing, she picked up the basket and a box
to fit it, crept down the stairs, and out to the violet patch.
She was unafraid as it was growing light, and lining the
basket with damp mosses she swiftly began picking, with
practised hands, the best of the flowers.  She scarcely
could tell which were freshest at times, but day soon came
creeping over the Limberlost and peeped at her.  The robins
awoke all their neighbours, and a babel of bird notes
filled the air.  The dew was dripping, while the first strong
rays of light fell on a world in which Elnora worshipped.
When the basket was filled to overflowing, she set it in the
stout pasteboard box, packed it solid with mosses, tied it
firmly and slipped under the cord a note she had written
the previous night.

Then she took a short cut across the woods and walked
swiftly to Onabasha.  It was after six o'clock, but all of
the city she wished to avoid were asleep.  She had no
trouble in finding a small boy out, and she stood at a
distance waiting while he rang Dr. Ammon's bell and
delivered the package for Philip to a maid, with the note
which was to be given him at once.

On the way home through the woods passing some baited
trees she collected the captive moths.  She entered
the kitchen with them so naturally that Mrs. Comstock
made no comment.  After breakfast Elnora went to her
room, cleared away all trace of the night's work and was
out in the arbour mounting moths when Philip came down
the road.  "I am tired sitting," she said to her mother.
"I think I will walk a few rods and meet him."

"Who's a trump?" he called from afar.

"Not you!" retorted Elnora.  "Confess that you forgot!"

"Completely!" said Philip.  "But luckily it would not
have been fatal.  I wrote Polly last week to send Edith
something appropriate to-day, with my card.  But that
touch from the woods will be very effective.  Thank you
more than I can say.  Aunt Anna and I unpacked it to
see the basket, and it was a beauty.  She says you are
always doing such things."

"Well, I hope not!" laughed Elnora.  "If you'd seen
me sneaking out before dawn, not to awaken mother and
coming in with moths to make her think I'd been to the
trees, you'd know it was a most especial occasion."

"Then Philip understood two things:  Elnora's mother
did not know of the early morning trip to the city, and
the girl had come to meet him to tell him so.

"You were a brick to do it!" he whispered as he closed
the gate behind them.  "I'll never forget you for it.
Thank you ever so much."

"I did not do that for you," said Elnora tersely.  "I did
it mostly to preserve my own self-respect.  I saw you
were forgetting.  If I did it for anything besides that,
I did it for her."

"Just look what I've brought!" said Philip, entering
the arbour and greeting Mrs. Comstock.  "Borrowed it
of the Bird Woman.  And it isn't hers.  A rare edition
of Catocalae with coloured plates.  I told her the best I
could, and she said to try for Sappho here.  I suspect the
Bird Woman will be out presently.  She was all excitement."

Then they bent over the book together and with the
mounted moth before them determined her family.  The Bird
Woman did come later, and carried the moth away, to put
into a book and Elnora and Philip were freshly filled
with enthusiasm.

So these days were the beginning of the weeks that followed.
Six of them flying on Time's wings, each filled
to the brim with interest.  After June, the moth hunts
grew less frequent; the fields and woods were searched
for material for Elnora's grade work.  The most absorbing
occupation they found was in carrying out Mrs. Comstock's
suggestion to learn the vital thing for which each
month was distinctive, and make that the key to the
nature work.  They wrote out a list of the months,
opposite each the things all of them could suggest which seemed
to pertain to that month alone, and then tried to sift until
they found something typical.  Mrs. Comstock was a
great help.  Her mother had been Dutch and had brought
from Holland numerous quaint sayings and superstitions
easily traceable to Pliny's Natural History; and in Mrs.
Comstock's early years in Ohio she had heard much Indian
talk among her elders, so she knew the signs of each season,
and sometimes they helped.  Always her practical
thought and sterling common sense were useful.  When they
were afield until exhausted they came back to the
cabin for food, to prepare specimens and classify them,
and to talk over the day.  Sometimes Philip brought
books and read while Elnora and her mother worked,
and every night Mrs. Comstock asked for the violin.
Her perfect hunger for music was sufficient evidence of how
she had suffered without it.  So the days crept by, golden,
filled with useful work and pure pleasure.

The grosbeak had led the family in the maple abroad
and a second brood, in a wild grape vine clambering over
the well, was almost ready for flight.  The dust lay thick
on the country roads, the days grew warmer; summer
was just poising to slip into fall, and Philip remained,
coming each day as if he had belonged there always.

One warm August afternoon Mrs. Comstock looked
up from the ruffle on which she was engaged to see
a blue-coated messenger enter the gate.

"Is Philip Ammon here?" asked the boy.

"He is," said Mrs. Comstock.

"I have a message for him."

"He is in the woods back of the cabin.  I will ring the bell.
Do you know if it is important?"

"Urgent," said the boy; "I rode hard."

Mrs. Comstock stepped to the back door and clanged
the dinner bell sharply, paused a second, and rang again.
In a short time Philip and Elnora ran down the path.

"Are you ill, mother?" cried Elnora.

Mrs. Comstock indicated the boy.  "There is an important
message for Philip," she said.

He muttered an excuse and tore open the telegram.
His colour faded slightly.  "I have to take the first train,"
he said.  "My father is ill and I am needed."

He handed the sheet to Elnora.  "I have about two
hours, as I remember the trains north, but my things are
all over Uncle Doc's house, so I must go at once."

"Certainly," said Elnora, giving back the message.
"Is there anything I can do to help?  Mother, bring
Philip a glass of buttermilk to start on.  I will gather
what you have here."

"Never mind.  There is nothing of importance.  I don't
want to be hampered.  I'll send for it if I miss anything
I need."

Philip drank the milk, said good-bye to Mrs. Comstock;
thanked her for all her kindness, and turned to Elnora.

"Will you walk to the edge of the Limberlost with me?"
he asked.  Elnora assented.  Mrs. Comstock followed
to the gate, urged him to come again soon, and repeated
her good-bye.  Then she went back to the arbour to
await Elnora's return.  As she watched down the road
she smiled softly.

"I had an idea he would speak to me first," she thought,
"but this may change things some.  He hasn't time.
Elnora will come back a happy girl, and she has
good reason.  He is a model young man.  Her lot will
be very different from mine."

She picked up her embroidery and began setting dainty
precise little stitches, possible only to certain women.

On the road Elnora spoke first.  "I do hope it is
nothing serious," she said.  "Is he usually strong?"

"Quite strong," said Philip.  "I am not at all alarmed
but I am very much ashamed.  I have been well enough
for the past month to have gone home and helped him
with some critical cases that were keeping him at work
in this heat.  I was enjoying myself so I wouldn't offer
to go, and he would not ask me to come, so long as he could
help it.  I have allowed him to overtax himself until he
is down, and mother and Polly are north at our cottage.
He's never been sick before, and it's probable I am to
blame that he is now."

"He intended you to stay this long when you came,"
urged Elnora.

"Yes, but it's hot in Chicago.  I should have
remembered him.  He is always thinking of me.  Possibly he
has needed me for days.  I am ashamed to go to him in
splendid condition and admit that I was having such a
fine time I forgot to come home."

"You have had a fine time, then?" asked Elnora.

They had reached the fence.  Philip vaulted over to
take a short cut across the fields.  He turned and looked
at her.

"The best, the sweetest, and most wholesome time
any man ever had in this world," he said.  "Elnora, if
I talked hours I couldn't make you understand what a
girl I think you are.  I never in all my life hated anything
as I hate leaving you.  It seems to me that I have not
strength to do it."

"If you have learned anything worth while from me,"
said Elnora, "that should be it.  Just to have strength to
go to your duty, and to go quickly."

He caught the hand she held out to him in both his.
"Elnora, these days we have had together, have they
been sweet to you?"

"Beautiful days!" said Elnora.  "Each like a perfect
dream to be thought over and over all my life.  Oh, they
have been the only really happy days I've ever known;
these days rich with mother's love, and doing useful work
with your help.  Good-bye!  You must hurry!"

Philip gazed at her.  He tried to drop her hand, only
clutched it closer.  Suddenly he drew her toward him.
"Elnora," he whispered, "will you kiss me good-bye?"

Elnora drew back and stared at him with wide eyes.
"I'd strike you sooner!" she said.  "Have I ever said or
done anything in your presence that made you feel free to
ask that, Philip Ammon?"

"No!" panted Philip.  "No!  I think so much of you
I wanted to touch your lips once before I left you.
You know, Elnora----"

"Don't distress yourself," said Elnora calmly.  "I am
broad enough to judge you sanely.  I know what you mean.
It would be no harm to you.  It would not matter to me,
but here we will think of some one else.  Edith Carr
would not want your lips to-morrow if she knew they
had touched mine to-day.  I was wise to say:  `Go quickly!'"

Philip still clung to her.  "Will you write me?" he begged.

"No," said Elnora.  "There is nothing to say, save good-bye.
We can do that now."

He held on.  "Promise that you will write me only one
letter," he urged.  "I want just one message from you to
lock in my desk, and keep always.  Promise you will
write once, Elnora."

She looked into his eyes, and smiled serenely.  "If the
talking trees tell me this winter, the secret of how a man
may grow perfect, I will write you what it is, Philip.
In all the time I have known you, I never have liked you
so little.  Good-bye."

She drew away her hand and swiftly turned back to the road.
Philip Ammon, wordless, started toward Onabasha on a run.

Elnora crossed the road, climbed the fence and sought
the shelter of their own woods.  She chose a diagonal
course and followed it until she came to the path leading
past the violet patch.  She went down this hurriedly.
Her hands were clenched at her side, her eyes dry and
bright, her cheeks red-flushed, and her breath coming fast.
When she reached the patch she turned into it and stood
looking around her.

The mosses were dry, the flowers gone, weeds a foot
high covered it.  She turned away and went on down the
path until she was almost in sight of the cabin.

Mrs. Comstock smiled and waited in the arbour until
it occurred to her that Elnora was a long time coming, so
she went to the gate.  The road stretched away toward
the Limberlost empty and lonely.  Then she knew that
Elnora had gone into their own woods and would come in
the back way.  She could not understand why the girl did
not hurry to her with what she would have to tell.
She went out and wandered around the garden.  Then she
stepped into the path and started along the way leading to
the woods, past the pool now framed in a thick setting of
yellow lilies.  Then she saw, and stopped, gasping for breath.
Her hands flew up and her lined face grew ghastly.
She stared at the sky and then at the prostrate girl figure.
Over and over she tried to speak, but only a dry breath came.
She turned and fled back to the garden.

In the familiar enclosure she gazed around her like a
caged animal seeking escape.  The sun beat down on her
bare head mercilessly, and mechanically she moved to the
shade of a half-grown hickory tree that voluntarily had
sprouted beside the milk house.  At her feet lay an axe
with which she made kindlings for fires.  She stooped and
picked it up.  The memory of that prone figure sobbing in
the grass caught her with a renewed spasm.  She shut her
eyes as if to close it out.  That made hearing so acute she
felt certain she heard Elnora moaning beside the path.
The eyes flew open.  They looked straight at a few
spindling tomato plants set too near the tree and stunted
by its shade.  Mrs. Comstock whirled on the hickory and
swung the axe.  Her hair shook down, her clothing became
disarranged, in the heat the perspiration streamed, but
stroke fell on stroke until the tree crashed over, grazing
a corner of the milk house and smashing the garden fence
on the east.

At the sound Elnora sprang to her feet and came running
down the garden walk.  "Mother!" she cried.  "Mother!
What in the world are you doing?"

Mrs. Comstock wiped her ghastly face on her apron.
"I've laid out to cut that tree for years," she said.
"It shades the beets in the morning, and the tomatoes
in the afternoon!"

Elnora uttered one wild little cry and fled into her
mother's arms.  "Oh mother!" she sobbed.  "Will you
ever forgive me?"

Mrs. Comstock's arms swept together in a tight grip
around Elnora.

"There isn't a thing on God's footstool from a to izzard
I won't forgive you, my precious girl!" she said.  "Tell mother
what it is!"

Elnora lifted her wet face.  "He told me," she panted,
"just as soon as he decently could--that second day he
told me.  Almost all his life he's been engaged to a girl
at home.  He never cared anything about me.  He was only
interested in the moths and growing strong."

Mrs. Comstock's arms tightened.  With a shaking hand
she stroked the bright hair.

"Tell me, honey," she said.  "Is he to blame for a
single one of these tears?"

"Not one!" sobbed Elnora.  "Oh mother, I won't forgive you
if you don't believe that.  Not one!  He never said,
or looked, or did anything all the world might not
have known.  He likes me very much as a friend.
He hated to go dreadfully!"

"Elnora!" the mother's head bent until the white hair
mingled with the brown.  "Elnora, why didn't you tell me
at first?"

Elnora caught her breath in a sharp snatch.  "I know
I should!" she sobbed.  "I will bear any punishment for
not, but I didn't feel as if I possibly could.  I was afraid."

"Afraid of what?" the shaking hand was on the hair again.

"Afraid you wouldn't let him come!" panted Elnora.
"And oh, mother, I wanted him so!"




CHAPTER XVIII


WHEREIN MRS. COMSTOCK EXPERIMENTS WITH REJUVENATION,
AND ELNORA TEACHES NATURAL HISTORY


For the following week Mrs. Comstock and Elnora
worked so hard there was no time to talk, and they
were compelled to sleep from physical exhaustion.
Neither of them made any pretence of eating, for they
could not swallow without an effort, so they drank milk
and worked.  Elnora kept on setting bait for Catacolae
and Sphinginae, which, unlike the big moths of June, live
several months.  She took all the dragonflies and
butterflies she could, and when she went over the list
for the man of India, she found, to her amazement,
that with Philip's help she once more had it complete
save a pair of Yellow Emperors.

This circumstance was so surprising she had a fleeting
thought of writing Philip and asking him to see if he could
not secure her a pair.  She did tell the Bird Woman, who
from every source at her command tried to complete the
series with these moths, but could not find any for sale.

"I think the mills of the Gods are grinding this grist,"
said Elnora, "and we might as well wait patiently until
they choose to send a Yellow Emperor."

Mrs. Comstock invented work.  When she had nothing more
to do, she hoed in the garden although the earth was hard
and dry and there were no plants that really needed attention.
Then came a notification that Elnora would be compelled
to attend a week's session of the Teachers' Institute
held at the county seat twenty miles north of Onabasha
the following week.  That gave them something of which
to think and real work to do.  Elnora was requested to bring
her violin.  As she was on the programme of one of the most
important sessions for a talk on nature work in grade schools,
she was driven to prepare her speech, also to select and
practise some music.  Her mother turned her attention to clothing.

They went to Onabasha together and purchased a simple
and appropriate fall suit and hat, goods for a dainty little
coloured frock, and a dress skirt and several fancy waists.
Margaret Sinton came down and the sewing began.  When everything
was finished and packed, Elnora kissed her mother good-bye
at the depot, and entered the train.  Mrs. Comstock went into
the waiting-room and dropped into a seat to rest.  Her heart
was so sore her whole left side felt tender.  She was half
starved for the food she had no appetite to take.  She had
worked in dogged determination until she was exhausted.
For a time she simply sat and rested.  Then she began to think.
She was glad Elnora had gone where she would be compelled to
fix her mind on other matters for a few days.  She remembered
the girl had said she wanted to go.

School would begin the following week.  She thought
over what Elnora would have to do to accomplish her
work successfully.  She would be compelled to arise at
six o'clock, walk three miles through varying weather, lead
the high school orchestra, and then put in the remainder of
the day travelling from building to building over the city,
teaching a specified length of time every week in each room.
She must have her object lessons ready, and she must do a
certain amount of practising with the orchestra.  Then a
cold lunch at noon, and a three-mile walk at night.

"Humph!" said Mrs. Comstock, "to get through that
the girl would have to be made of cast-iron.  I wonder
how I can help her best?"

She thought deeply.

"The less she sees of what she's been having all summer,
the sooner she'll feel better about it," she muttered.

She arose, went to the bank and inquired for the cashier.

"I want to know just how I am fixed here," she said.

The cashier laughed.  "You haven't been in a hurry,"
he replied.  "We have been ready for you any time these
twenty years, but you didn't seem to pay much attention.
Your account is rather flourishing.  Interest, when it gets
to compounding, is quite a money breeder.  Come back
here to a table and I will show you your balances."

Mrs. Comstock sank into a chair and waited while
the cashier read a jumble of figures to her.  It meant
that her deposits had exceeded her expenses from one
to three hundred dollars a year, according to the cattle,
sheep, hogs, poultry, butter, and eggs she had sold.
The aggregate of these sums had been compounding interest
throughout the years.  Mrs. Comstock stared at the
total with dazed and unbelieving eyes.  Through her
sick heart rushed the realization, that if she merely had
stood before that wicket and asked one question, she
would have known that all those bitter years of skimping
for Elnora and herself had been unnecessary.  She arose
and went back to the depot.

"I want to send a message," she said.  She picked
up the pencil, and with rash extravagance, wrote, "Found
money at bank didn't know about.  If you want to go
to college, come on first train and get ready."
She hesitated a second and then she said to herself grimly,
"Yes, I'll pay for that, too," and recklessly added, "With
love, Mother."  Then she sat waiting for the answer.  It came
in less than an hour.  "Will teach this winter.  With dearest
love, Elnora."

Mrs. Comstock held the message a long time.  When she
arose she was ravenously hungry, but the pain in her
heart was a little easier.  She went to a restaurant
and ate some food, then to a dressmaker where she ordered
four dresses: two very plain every-day ones, a serviceable
dark gray cloth suit, and a soft light gray silk with
touches of lavender and lace.  She made a heavy list
of purchases at Brownlee's, and the remainder of the day
she did business in her direct and spirited way.  At night
she was so tired she scarcely could walk home, but she
built a fire and cooked and ate a hearty meal.

Later she went out beside the west fence and gathered
an armful of tansy which she boiled to a thick green tea.
Then she stirred in oatmeal until it was a stiff paste.
She spread a sheet over her bed and began tearing strips
of old muslin.  She bandaged each hand and arm with the
mixture and plastered the soggy, evil-smelling stuff in a
thick poultice over her face and neck.  She was so tired
she went to sleep, and when she awoke she was half skinned.
She bathed her face and hands, did the work and went back
to town, coming home at night to go through the same process.

By the third morning she was a raw even red, the fourth
she had faded to a brilliant pink under the soothing
influence of a cream recommended.  That day came a
letter from Elnora saying that she would remain where
she was until Saturday morning, and then come to Ellen
Brownlee's at Onabasha and stay for the Saturday's
session of teachers to arrange their year's work.
Sunday was Ellen's last day at home, and she wanted Elnora
very much.  She had to call together the orchestra and
practise them Sunday; and could not come home until
after school Monday night.  Mrs. Comstock at once
answered the letter saying those arrangements suited her.

The following day she was a pale pink, later a delicate
porcelain white.  Then she went to a hairdresser and
had the rope of snowy hair which covered her scalp washed,
dressed, and fastened with such pins and combs as were
decided to be most becoming.  She took samples of her
dresses, went to a milliner, and bought a street hat to
match her suit, and a gray satin with lavender orchids to
wear with the silk dress.  Her last investment was a loose
coat of soft gray broadcloth with white lining, and touches
of lavender on the embroidered collar, and gray gloves to match.

Then she went home, rested and worked by turns
until Monday.  When school closed on that evening,
Elnora, so tired she almost trembled, came down the
long walk after a late session of teachers' meeting,
to be stopped by a messenger boy.

"There's a lady wants to see you most important.
I am to take you to the place," he said.

Elnora groaned.  She could not imagine who wanted
her, but there was nothing to do but find out; tired and
anxious to see her mother as she was.

"This is the place," said the boy, and went his way whistling.
Elnora was three blocks from the high school building on the
same street.  She was before a quaint old house, fresh with
paint and covered with vines.  There was a long wide lot,
grass-covered, closely set with trees, and a barn and chicken
park at the back that seemed to be occupied.  Elnora stepped
on the veranda which was furnished with straw rugs, bent-
hickory chairs, hanging baskets, and a table with a work-
box and magazines, and knocked at the screen door.

Inside she could see polished floors, walls freshly papered
in low-toned harmonious colours, straw rugs and madras curtains.
It seemed to be a restful, homelike place to which she had come.
A second later down an open stairway came a tall, dark-eyed
woman with cheeks faintly pink and a crown of fluffy snow-
white hair.  She wore a lavender gingham dress with white
collar and cuffs, and she called as she advanced:  "That screen
isn't latched!  Open it and come see your brand-new mother,
my girl."

Elnora stepped inside the door.  "Mother!" she cried.
"You my mother!  I don't believe it!"

"Well, you better!" said Mrs. Comstock, "because
it's true!  You said you wished I were like the other
girls' mothers, and I've shot as close the mark as I could
without any practice.  I thought that walk would be
too much for you this winter, so I just rented this house
and moved in, to be near you, and help more in case I'm needed.
I've only lived here a day, but I like it so well I've a
mortal big notion to buy the place."

"But mother!" protested Elnora, clinging to her wonderingly.
"You are perfectly beautiful, and this house is a little
paradise, but how will we ever pay for it?  We can't afford it!"

"Humph!  Have you forgotten I telegraphed you I'd
found some money I didn't know about?  All I've done
is paid for, and plenty more to settle for all I
propose to do."

Mrs. Comstock glanced around with satisfaction.

"I may get homesick as a pup before spring," she said,
"but if I do I can go back.  If I don't, I'll sell some
timber and put a few oil wells where they don't show much.
I can have land enough cleared for a few fields and put
a tenant on our farm, and we will buy this and settle here.
It's for sale."

"You don't look it, but you've surely gone mad!"

"Just the reverse, my girl," said Mrs. Comstock,
"I've gone sane.  If you are going to undertake this
work, you must be convenient to it.  And your mother
should be where she can see that you are properly dressed,
fed, and cared for.  This is our--let me think--reception-room.
How do you like it?  This door leads to your workroom and study.
I didn't do much there because I wasn't sure of my way.
But I knew you would want a rug, curtains, table, shelves
for books, and a case for your specimens, so I had a
carpenter shelve and enclose that end of it.  Looks pretty
neat to me.  The dining-room and kitchen are back, one
of the cows in the barn, and some chickens in the coop.
I understand that none of the other girls' mothers milk a
cow, so a neighbour boy will tend to ours for a third of
the milk.  There are three bedrooms, and a bath upstairs.
Go take one, put on some fresh clothes, and come to supper.
You can find your room because your things are in it."

Elnora kissed her mother over and over, and hurried upstairs.
She identified her room by the dressing-case.  There were
a pretty rug, and curtains, white iron bed, plain and
rocking chairs to match her case, a shirtwaist chest,
and the big closet was filled with her old clothing and
several new dresses.  She found the bathroom, bathed,
dressed in fresh linen and went down to a supper that
was an evidence of Mrs. Comstock's highest art in cooking.
Elnora was so hungry she ate her first real meal in two weeks.
But the bites went down slowly because she forgot about them
in watching her mother.

"How on earth did you do it?" she asked at last.  "I always
thought you were naturally brown as a nut."

"Oh, that was tan and sunburn!" explained Mrs. Comstock.
"I always knew I was white underneath it.  I hated to
shade my face because I hadn't anything but a sunbonnet,
and I couldn't stand for it to touch my ears, so I went
bareheaded and took all the colour I accumulated.
But when I began to think of moving you in to your work,
I saw I must put up an appearance that wouldn't disgrace
you, so I thought I'd best remove the crust.  It took
some time, and I hope I may die before I ever endure
the feel and the smell of the stuff I used again, but it
skinned me nicely.  What you now see is my own with a
little dust of rice powder, for protection.  I'm sort of
tender yet."

"And your lovely, lovely hair?" breathed Elnora.

"Hairdresser did that!" said Mrs. Comstock.  "It cost
like smoke.  But I watched her, and with a little
help from you I can wash it alone next time, though it
will be hard work.  I let her monkey with it until she
said she had found `my style.'  Then I tore it down and
had her show me how to build it up again three times.
I thought my arms would drop.  When I paid the bill for
her work, the time I'd taken, the pins, and combs she'd
used, I nearly had heart failure, but I didn't turn a hair
before her.  I just smiled at her sweetly and said, `How
reasonable you are!' Come to think of it, she was!  She might
have charged me ten dollars for what she did quite as well
as nine seventy-five.  I couldn't have helped myself.
I had made no bargain to begin on."

Then Elnora leaned back in her chair and shouted, in a
gust of hearty laughter, so a little of the ache ceased
in her breast.  There was no time to think, the remainder
of that evening, she was so tired she had to sleep, while
her mother did not awaken her until she barely had time
to dress, breakfast and reach school.  There was nothing
in the new life to remind her of the old.  It seemed as
if there never came a minute for retrospection, but her
mother appeared on the scene with more work, or some
entertaining thing to do.

Mrs. Comstock invited Elnora's friends to visit her,
and proved herself a bright and interesting hostess.
She digested a subject before she spoke; and when she
advanced a view, her point was sure to be original and
tersely expressed.  Before three months people waited
to hear what she had to say.  She kept her appearance so
in mind that she made a handsome and a distinguished figure.

Elnora never mentioned Philip Ammon, neither did
Mrs. Comstock.  Early in December came a note and a
big box from him.  It contained several books on nature
subjects which would be of much help in school work,
a number of conveniences Elnora could not afford, and a
pair of glass-covered plaster casts, for each large moth
she had.  In these the upper and underwings of male and
female showed.  He explained that she would break her
specimens easily, carrying them around in boxes.  He had
seen these and thought they would be of use.  Elnora was
delighted with them, and at once began the tedious process
of softening the mounted moths and fitting them to the
casts moulded to receive them.  Her time was so taken in
school, she progressed slowly, so her mother undertook
this work.  After trying one or two very common ones she
learned to handle the most delicate with ease.  She took
keen pride in relaxing the tense moths, fitting them to the
cases, polishing the glass covers to the last degree and
sealing them.  The results were beautiful to behold.

Soon after Elnora wrote to Philip:

DEAR FRIEND:

I am writing to thank you for the books, and the box of conveniences
sent me for my work.  I can use everything with fine results.
Hope I am giving good satisfaction in my position.  You will be
interested to learn that when the summer's work was classified and
pinned, I again had my complete collection for the man of India,
save a Yellow Emperor.  I have tried everywhere I know, so has the
Bird Woman.  We cannot find a pair for sale.  Fate is against me,
at least this season.  I shall have to wait until next year and try again.

Thank you very much for helping me with my collection and for the
books and cases.

                              Sincerely yours,

                                        ELNORA COMSTOCK.


Philip was disappointed over that note and instead of
keeping it he tore it into bits and dropped them into the
waste basket.

That was precisely what Elnora had intended he should do.
Christmas brought beautiful cards of greeting to
Mrs. Comstock and Elnora, Easter others, and the year
ran rapidly toward spring.  Elnora's position had been
intensely absorbing, while she had worked with all her power.
She had made a wonderful success and won new friends.
Mrs. Comstock had helped in every way she could, so she was
very popular also.

Throughout the winter they had enjoyed the city thoroughly,
and the change of life it afforded, but signs of spring
did wonderful things to the hearts of the country-bred women.
A restlessness began on bright February days, calmed during
March storms and attacked full force in April.  When neither
could bear it any longer they were forced to discuss the matter
and admit they were growing ill with pure homesickness.
They decided to keep the city house during the summer,
but to return to the farm to live as soon as school closed.

So Mrs. Comstock would prepare breakfast and lunch
and then slip away to the farm to make up beds in her
ploughed garden, plant seeds, trim and tend her flowers,
and prepare the cabin for occupancy.  Then she would go
home and make the evening as cheerful as possible for
Elnora; in these days she lived only for the girl.

Both of them were glad when the last of May came and the
schools closed.  They packed the books and clothing they
wished to take into a wagon and walked across the fields
to the old cabin.  As they approached it, Mrs. Comstock
said to Elnora:  "You are sure you won't be lonely here?"

Elnora knew what she really meant.

"Quite sure," she said.  "For a time last fall I was
glad to be away, but that all wore out with the winter.
Spring made me homesick as I could be.  I can scarcely wait
until we get back again."

So they began that summer as they had begun all others
--with work.  But both of them took a new joy in everything,
and the violin sang by the hour in the twilight.




CHAPTER XIX


WHEREIN PHILIP AMMON GIVES A BALL IN HONOUR OF EDITH CARR,
AND HART HENDERSON APPEARS ON THE SCENE


Edith Carr stood in a vine-enclosed side veranda
of the Lake Shore Club House waiting while Philip
Ammon gave some important orders.  In a few days
she would sail for Paris to select a wonderful trousseau
she had planned for her marriage in October.  To-night
Philip was giving a club dance in her honour.  He had
spent days in devising new and exquisite effects in
decorations, entertainment, and supper.  Weeks before the
favoured guests had been notified.  Days before they had
received the invitations asking them to participate in this
entertainment by Philip Ammon in honour of Miss Carr.
They spoke of it as "Phil's dance for Edith!"

She could hear the rumble of carriages and the panting
of automobiles as in a steady stream they rolled to the
front entrance.  She could catch glimpses of floating
draperies of gauze and lace, the flash of jewels, and the
passing of exquisite colour.  Every one was newly arrayed
in her honour in the loveliest clothing, and the most
expensive jewels they could command.  As she thought of it
she lifted her head a trifle higher and her eyes flashed proudly.

She was robed in a French creation suggested and designed
by Philip.  He had said to her:  "I know a competent
judge who says the distinctive feature of June is her
exquisite big night moths.  I want you to be the very
essence of June that night, as you will be the embodiment
of love.  Be a moth.  The most beautiful of them is either
the pale-green Luna or the Yellow Imperialis.  Be my
moon lady, or my gold Empress."

He took her to the museum and showed her the moths.
She instantly decided on the yellow.  Because she knew
the shades would make her more startlingly beautiful than
any other colour.  To him she said:  "A moon lady seems
so far away and cold.  I would be of earth and very near
on that night.  I choose the Empress."

So she matched the colours exactly, wrote out the idea
and forwarded the order to Paquin.  To-night when
Philip Ammon came for her, he stood speechless a minute
and then silently kissed her hands.

For she stood tall, lithe, of grace inborn, her dark waving
hair high piled and crossed by gold bands studded with
amethyst and at one side an enamelled lavender orchid
rimmed with diamonds, which flashed and sparkled.  The soft
yellow robe of lightest weight velvet fitted her form
perfectly, while from each shoulder fell a great velvet wing
lined with lavender, and flecked with embroidery of that
colour in imitation of the moth.  Around her throat was a
wonderful necklace and on her arms were bracelets of gold
set with amethyst and rimmed with diamonds.  Philip had said
that her gloves, fan, and slippers must be lavender, because
the feet of the moth were that colour.  These accessories
had been made to order and embroidered with gold.  It had
been arranged that her mother, Philip's, and a few best
friends should receive his guests.  She was to appear when
she led the grand march with Philip Ammon.  Miss Carr was
positive that she would be the most beautiful, and most
exquisitely gowned woman present.  In her heart she thought
of herself as "Imperialis Regalis," as the Yellow Empress.
In a few moments she would stun her world into feeling it as
Philip Ammon had done, for she had taken pains that the
history of her costume should be whispered to a few who
would give it circulation.  She lifted her head proudly and
waited, for was not Philip planning something unusual and
unsurpassed in her honour?  Then she smiled.

But of all the fragmentary thoughts crossing her brain the
one that never came was that of Philip Ammon as the Emperor.
Philip the king of her heart; at least her equal in all things.
She was the Empress--yes, Philip was but a mere man, to
devise entertainments, to provide luxuries, to humour whims,
to kiss hands!

"Ah, my luck!" cried a voice behind her.

Edith Carr turned and smiled.

"I thought you were on the ocean," she said.

"I only reached the dock," replied the man, "when I had
a letter that recalled me by the first limited."

"Oh!  Important business?"

"The only business of any importance in all the world
to me.  I'm triumphant that I came.  Edith, you are the
most superb woman in every respect that I have ever seen.
One glimpse is worth the whole journey."

"You like my dress?"  She moved toward him and turned,
lifting her arms.  "Do you know what it is intended
to represent?"

"Yes, Polly Ammon told me.  I knew when I heard
about it how you would look, so I started a sleuth hunt,
to get the first peep.  Edith, I can become intoxicated
merely with looking at you to-night."

He half-closed his eyes and smilingly stared straight at her.
He was taller than she, a lean man, with close-cropped light
hair, steel-gray eyes, a square chin and "man of the world"
written all over him.

Edith Carr flushed.  "I thought you realized when you
went away that you were to stop that, Hart Henderson,"
she cried.

"I did, but this letter of which I tell you called me back
to start it all over again."

She came a step closer.  "Who wrote that letter, and
what did it contain concerning me?" she demanded.

"One of your most intimate chums wrote it.  It contained
the hazard that possibly I had given up too soon.  It said
that in a fit of petulance you had broken your engagement
with Ammon twice this winter, and he had come back because
he knew you did not really mean it.  I thought deeply there
on the dock when I read that, and my boat sailed without me.
I argued that anything so weak as an engagement twice broken
and patched up again was a mighty frail affair indeed, and
likely to smash completely at any time, so I came on the run.
I said once I would not see you marry any other man.
Because I could not bear it, I planned to go into exile of
any sort to escape that.  I have changed my mind.  I have
come back to haunt you until the ceremony is over.  Then I go,
not before.  I was insane!"

The girl laughed merrily.  "Not half so insane as you
are now, Hart!" she cried gaily.  "You know that Philip
Ammon has been devoted to me all my life.  Now I'll tell
you something else, because this looks serious for you.
I love him with all my heart.  Not while he lives shall he
know it, and I will laugh at him if you tell him, but the
fact remains:  I intend to marry him, but no doubt I shall
tease him constantly.  It's good for a man to be uncertain.
If you could see Philip's face at the quarterly return of his
ring, you would understand the fun of it.  You had better
have taken your boat."

"Possibly," said Henderson calmly.  "But you are the
only woman in the world for me, and while you are free, as
I now see my light, I remain near you.  You know the old adage."

"But I'm not `free!'" cried Edith Carr.  "I'm telling
you I am not.  This night is my public acknowledgment
that Phil and I are promised, as our world has surmised
since we were children.  That promise is an actual fact,
because of what I just have told you.  My little fits of
temper don't count with Phil.  He's been reared on them.
In fact, I often invent one in a perfect calm to see him
perform.  He is the most amusing spectacle.  But, please,
please, do understand that I love him, and always shall,
and that we shall be married."

"Just the same, I'll wait and see it an accomplished
fact," said Henderson.  "And Edith, because I love you,
with the sort of love it is worth a woman's while  to
inspire, I want your happiness before my own.  So  I
am going to say this to you, for I never dreamed you
were capable of the feeling you have displayed for Phil.
If you do love him, and have loved him always, a
disappointment would cut you deeper than you know.
Go careful from now on!  Don't strain that patched
engagement of yours any further.  I've known Philip all
my life.  I've known him through boyhood, in college,
and since.  All men respect him.  Where the rest of us
confess our sins, he stands clean.  You can go to his arms
with nothing to forgive.  Mark this thing!  I have heard
him say, `Edith is my slogan,' and I have seen him march
home strong in the strength of his love for you, in the face
of temptations before which every other man of us fell.
Before the gods! that ought to be worth something to a
girl, if she really is the delicate, sensitive, refined
thing she would have man believe.  It would take a woman
with the organism of an ostrich to endure some of the
men here to-night, if she knew them as I do; but Phil
is sound to the core.  So this is what I would say
to you: first, your instincts are right in loving him,
why not let him feel it in the ways a woman knows?
Second, don't break your engagement again.  As men
know the man, any of us would be afraid to the soul.
He loves you, yes!  He is long-suffering for you, yes!
But men know he has a limit.  When the limit is
reached, he will stand fast, and all the powers can't
move him.  You don't seem to think it, but you can go
too far!"

"Is that all?" laughed Edith Carr sarcastically.

"No, there is one thing more," said Henderson.  "Here or
here-after, now and so long as I breathe, I am your slave.
You can do anything you choose and know that I will
kneel before you again.  So carry this in the depths of
your heart; now or at any time, in any place or condition,
merely lift your hand, and I will come.  Anything you
want of me, that thing will I do.  I am going to wait; if
you need me, it is not necessary to speak; only give me
the faintest sign.  All your life I will be somewhere near
you waiting for it."

"Idjit!  You rave!" laughed Edith Carr.  "How you
would frighten me!  What a bugbear you would raise!
Be sensible and go find what keeps Phil.  I was waiting
patiently, but my patience is going.  I won't look nearly
so well as I do now when it is gone."

At that instant Philip Ammon entered.  He was in
full evening dress and exceptionally handsome.
"Everything is ready," he said; "they are waiting for
us to lead the march.  It is formed."

Edith Carr smiled entrancingly.  "Do you think I am ready?"

Philip looked what he thought, and offered his arm.
Edith Carr nodded carelessly to Hart Henderson, and
moved away.  Attendants parted the curtains and the
Yellow Empress bowing right and left, swept the length
of the ballroom and took her place at the head of the
formed procession.  The large open dancing pavilion was
draped with yellow silk caught up with lilac flowers.
Every corner was filled with bloom of those colours.
The music was played by harpers dressed in yellow and
violet, so the ball opened.

The midnight supper was served with the same colours
and the last half of the programme was being danced.
Never had girl been more complimented and petted in
the same length of time than Edith Carr.  Every minute
she seemed to grow more worthy of praise.  A partners'
dance was called and the floor was filled with couples
waiting for the music.  Philip stood whispering delightful
things to Edith facing him.  From out of the night,
in at the wide front entrance to the pavilion, there
swept in slow wavering flight a large yellow moth and
fluttered toward the centre cluster of glaring electric lights.
Philip Ammon and Edith Carr saw it at the same instant.

"Why, isn't that----?" she began excitedly.

"It's a Yellow Emperor!  This is fate!" cried Philip.
"The last one Elnora needs for her collection.  I must
have it!  Excuse me!"

He ran toward the light.  "Hats!  Handkerchiefs!  Fans!
Anything!" he panted.  "Every one hold up something and
stop that!  It's a moth; I've got to catch it!"

"It's yellow!  He wants it for Edith!" ran in a murmur
around the hall.  The girl's face flushed, while she bit her
lips in vexation.

Instantly every one began holding up something to
keep the moth from flying back into the night.  One fan
held straight before it served, and the moth gently settled
on it.

"Hold steady!" cried Philip.  "Don't move for your life!"
He rushed toward the moth, made a quick sweep and held it
up between his fingers.  "All right!" he called.  "Thanks,
every one!  Excuse me a minute."

He ran to the office.

"An ounce of gasolene, quick!" he ordered.  "A cigar
box, a cork, and the glue bottle."

He poured some glue into the bottom of the box, set the
cork in it firmly, dashed the gasolene over the moth
repeatedly, pinned it to the cork, poured the remainder
of the liquid over it, closed the box, and fastened it.
Then he laid a bill on the counter.

"Pack that box with cork around it, in one twice its
size, tie securely and express to this address at once."

He scribbled on a sheet of paper and shoved it over.

"On your honour, will you do that faithfully as I say?"
he asked the clerk.

"Certainly," was the reply.

"Then keep the change," called Philip as he ran back
to the pavilion.

Edith Carr stood where he left her, thinking rapidly.
She heard the murmur that arose when Philip started
to capture the exquisite golden creature she
was impersonating.  She saw the flash of surprise that
went over unrestrained faces when he ran from the room,
without even showing it to her.  "The last one Elnora
needs," rang in her ears.  He had told her that he
helped collect moths the previous summer, but she had
understood that the Bird Woman, with whose work Miss
Carr was familiar, wanted them to put in a book.

He had spoken of a country girl he had met who played
the violin wonderfully, and at times, he had shown a
disposition to exalt her as a standard of womanhood.
Miss Carr had ignored what he said, and talked of
something else.  But that girl's name had been Elnora.
It was she who was collecting moths!  No doubt she was
the competent judge who was responsible for the yellow
costume Philip had devised.  Had Edith Carr been in
her room, she would have torn off the dress at the thought.

Being in a circle of her best friends, which to her meant
her keenest rivals and harshest critics, she grew rigid
with anger.  Her breath hurt her paining chest.  No one
thought to speak to the musicians, and seeing the floor
filled, they began the waltz.  Only part of the guests
could see what had happened, and at once the others
formed and commenced to dance.  Gay couples came
whirling past her.

Edith Carr grew very white as she stood alone.  Her lips
turned pale, while her dark eyes flamed with anger.
She stood perfectly still where Philip had left her, and
the approaching men guided their partners around her,
while the girls, looking back, could be seen making
exclamations of surprise.

The idolized only daughter of the Carr family hoped that
she would drop dead from mortification, but nothing happened.
She was too perverse to step aside and say that she was
waiting for Philip.  Then came Tom Levering dancing with
Polly Ammon.  Being in the scales with the Ammon family,
Tom scented trouble from afar, so he whispered to Polly:
"Edith is standing in the middle of the floor, and she's
awful mad about something."

"That won't hurt her," laughed Polly.  "It's an old
pose of hers.  She knows she looks superb when she is
angry, so she keeps herself furious half the time on purpose."

"She looks like the mischief!" answered Tom.  "Hadn't we
better steer over and wait with her?  She's the ugliest
sight I ever saw!"

"Why, Tom!" cried Polly.  "Stop, quickly!"

They hurried to Edith.

"Come dear," said Polly.  "We are going to wait
with you until Phil returns.  Let's go after a drink.
I am so thirsty!"

"Yes, do!" begged Tom, offering his arm.  "Let's get
out of here until Phil comes."

There was the opportunity to laugh and walk away, but
Edith Carr would not accept it.

"My betrothed left me here," she said.  "Here I shall
remain until he returns for me, and then--he will be my
betrothed no longer!"

Polly grasped Edith's arm.

"Oh, Edith!" she implored.  "Don't make a scene here,
and to-night.  Edith, this has been the loveliest
dance ever given at the club house.  Every one is saying so.
Edith!  Darling, do come!  Phil will be back in a second.
He can explain!  It's only a breath since I saw him go out.
I thought he had returned."

As Polly panted these disjointed ejaculations, Tom
Levering began to grow angry on her account.

"He has been gone just long enough to show every
one of his guests that he will leave me standing alone,
like a neglected fool, for any passing whim of his.
Explain!  His explanation would sound well!  Do you know
for whom he caught that moth?  It is being sent to a girl
he flirted with all last summer.  It has just occurred to me
that the dress I am wearing is her suggestion.  Let him
try to explain!"

Speech unloosed the fountain.  She stripped off her
gloves to free her hands.  At that instant the dancers
parted to admit Philip.  Instinctively they stopped as
they approached and with wondering faces walled in
Edith and Philip, Polly and Tom.

"Mighty good of you to wait!" cried Philip, his face
showing his delight over his success in capturing the
Yellow Emperor.  "I thought when I heard the music
you were going on."

"How did you think I was going on?" demanded Edith
Carr in frigid tones.

"I thought you would step aside and wait a few seconds
for me, or dance with Henderson.  It was most important
to have that moth.  It completes a valuable collection for
a person who needs the money.  Come!"

He held out his arms.

"I `step aside' for no one!" stormed Edith Carr.
"I await no other girl's pleasure!  You may `complete
the collection' with that!"

She drew her engagement ring from her finger and
reached to place it on one of Philip's outstretched hands.
He saw and drew back.  Instantly Edith dropped the ring.
As it fell, almost instinctively Philip caught it in air.
With amazed face he looked closely at Edith Carr.
Her distorted features were scarcely recognizable.
He held the ring toward her.

"Edith, for the love of mercy, wait until I can explain,"
he begged.  "Put on your ring and let me tell you how it is."

"I know perfectly `how it is,'" she answered.  "I never
shall wear that ring again."

"You won't even hear what I have to say?  You won't
take back your ring?" he cried.

"Never!  Your conduct is infamous!"

"Come to think of it," said Philip deliberately, "it is
`infamous' to cut a girl, who has danced all her life, out of
a few measures of a waltz.  As for asking forgiveness for so
black a sin as picking up a moth, and starting it to a friend
who lives by collecting them, I don't see how I could!
I have not been gone three minutes by the clock, Edith.
Put on your ring and finish the dance like a dear girl."

He thrust the glittering ruby into her fingers and again
held out his arms.  She dropped the ring, and it rolled some
distance from them.  Hart Henderson followed its shining
course, and caught it before it was lost.

"You really mean it?" demanded Philip in a voice as
cold as hers ever had been.

"You know I mean it!" cried Edith Carr.

"I accept your decision in the presence of these
witnesses," said Philip Ammon.  "Where is my father?"
The elder Ammon with a distressed face hurried to him.
"Father, take my place," said Philip.  "Excuse me to
my guests.  Ask all my friends to forgive me.  I am
going away for awhile."

He turned and walked from the pavilion.  As he went
Hart Henderson rushed to Edith Carr and forced the ring
into her fingers.  "Edith, quick.  Come, quick!" he implored.
"There's just time to catch him.  If you let him go that way,
he never will return in this world.  Remember what I told you."

"Great prophet! aren't you, Hart?" she sneered.
"Who wants him to return?  If that ring is thrust upon
me again I shall fling it into the lake.  Signal the
musicians to begin, and dance with me."

Henderson put the ring into his pocket, and began the dance.
He could feel the muscular spasms of the girl in his arms,
her face was cold and hard, but her breath burned with
the scorch of fever.  She finished the dance and all
others, taking Phil's numbers with Henderson, who had
arrived too late to arrange a programme.  She left with
the others, merely inclining her head as she passed
Ammon's father taking his place, and entered the big touring
car for which Henderson had telephoned.  She sank limply
into a seat and moaned softly.

"Shall I drive awhile in the night air?" asked Henderson.

She nodded.  He instructed the chauffeur.

She raised her head in a few seconds.  "Hart, I'm going
to pieces," she said.  "Won't you put your arm around me
a little while?"

Henderson gathered her into his arms and her head fell
on his shoulder.  "Closer!" she cried.

Henderson held her until his arms were numb, but he
did not know it.  The tricks of fate are cruel enough, but
there scarcely could have been a worse one than that:
To care for a woman as he loved Edith Carr and have her
given into his arms because she was so numb with misery
over her trouble with another man that she did not know or
care what she did.  Dawn was streaking the east when he
spoke to her.

"Edith, it is growing light."

"Take me home," she said.

Henderson helped her up the steps and rang the bell.

"Miss Carr is ill," he said to the footman.  "Arouse her
maid instantly, and have her prepare something hot as
quickly as possible."

"Edith," he cried, "just a word.  I have been thinking.
It isn't too late yet.  Take your ring and put it on.
I will go find Phil at once and tell him you have, that
you are expecting him, and he will come."

"Think what he said!" she cried.  "He accepted my decision
as final, `in the presence of witnesses,' as if it were court.
He can return it to me, if I ever wear it again."

"You think that now, but in a few days you will find
that you feel very differently.  Living a life of heartache
is no joke, and no job for a woman.  Put on your ring and
send me to tell him to come."

"No."

"Edith, there was not a soul who saw that, but sympathized
with Phil.  It was ridiculous for you to get so angry over
a thing which was never intended for the slightest offence,
and by no logical reasoning could have been so considered."

"Do you think that?" she demanded.

"I do!" said Henderson.  "If you had laughed and stepped
aside an instant, or laughed and stayed where you were,
Phil would have been back; or, if he needed punishment
in your eyes, to have found me having one of his dances
would have been enough.  I was waiting.  You could have
called me with one look.  But to publicly do and say
what you did, my lady--I know Phil, and I know you
went too far.  Put on that ring, and send him word
you are sorry, before it is too late."

"I will not!  He shall come to me."

"Then God help you!" said Henderson, "for you are
plunging into misery whose depth you do not dream.
Edith, I beg of you----"

She swayed where she stood.  Her maid opened the door
and caught her.  Henderson went down the hall and out
to his car.




CHAPTER XX


WHEREIN THE ELDER AMMON OFFERS ADVICE,
AND EDITH CARR EXPERIENCES REGRETS


Philip Ammon walked from among his friends a
humiliated and a wounded man.  Never before had
Edith Carr appeared quite so beautiful.  All evening
she had treated him with unusual consideration.
Never had he loved her so deeply.  Then in a few seconds
everything was different.  Seeing the change in her face,
and hearing her meaningless accusations, killed something
in his heart.  Warmth went out and a cold weight took
its place.  But even after that, he had offered the ring
to her again, and asked her before others to reconsider.
The answer had been further insult.

He walked, paying no heed to where he went.  He had
traversed many miles when he became aware that his feet
had chosen familiar streets.  He was passing his home.
Dawn was near, but the first floor was lighted.
He staggered up the steps and was instantly admitted.
The library door stood open, while his father sat with
a book pretending to read.  At Philip's entrance the
father scarcely glanced up.

"Come on!" he called.  "I have just told Banks to bring
me a cup of coffee before I turn in.  Have one with me!"

Philip sat beside the table and leaned his head on his
hands, but he drank a cup of steaming coffee and felt better.

"Father," he said, "father, may I talk with you a little while?"

"Of course," answered Mr. Ammon.  "I am not at
all tired.  I think I must have been waiting in the
hope that you would come.  I want no one's version
of this but yours.  Tell me the straight of the
thing, Phil."

Philip told all he knew, while his father sat in deep thought.

"On my life I can't see any occasion for such a display of
temper, Phil.  It passed all bounds of reason and breeding.
Can't you think of anything more?"

"I cannot!"

"Polly says every one expected you to carry the moth
you caught to Edith.  Why didn't you?"

"She screams if a thing of that kind comes near her.
She never has taken the slightest interest in them.  I was
in a big hurry.  I didn't want to miss one minute of my
dance with her.  The moth was not so uncommon, but by
a combination of bad luck it had become the rarest in
America for a friend of mine, who is making a collection to
pay college expenses.  For an instant last June the series
was completed; when a woman's uncontrolled temper ruined
this specimen and the search for it began over.  A few
days later a pair was secured, and again the money was
in sight for several hours.  Then an accident wrecked
one-fourth of the collection.  I helped replace those
last June, all but this Yellow Emperor which we could
not secure, and we haven't been able to find, buy or
trade for one since.  So my friend was compelled to teach
this past winter instead of going to college.  When that
moth came flying in there to-night, it seemed to me like fate.
All I thought of was, that to secure it would complete the
collection and secure the money.  So I caught the Emperor and
started it to Elnora.  I declare to you that I was not out of
the pavilion over three minutes at a liberal estimate.  If I
only had thought to speak to the orchestra!  I was sure I
would be back before enough couples gathered and formed
for the dance."

The eyes of the father were very bright.

"The friend for whom you wanted the moth is a girl?"
he asked indifferently, as he ran the book leaves through
his fingers.

"The girl of whom I wrote you last summer, and told
you about in the fall.  I helped her all the time I was away."

"Did Edith know of her?"

"I tried many times to tell her, to interest her, but she
was so indifferent that it was insulting.  She would not
hear me."

"We are neither one in any condition to sleep.  Why don't
you begin at the first and tell me about this girl?
To think of other matters for a time may clear our vision
for a sane solution of this.  Who is she, just what is she
doing, and what is she like?  You know I was reared among
those Limberlost people, I can understand readily.
What is her name and where does she live?"

Philip gave a man's version of the previous summer,
while his father played with the book industriously.

"You are very sure as to her refinement and education?"

"In almost two months' daily association, could a man
be mistaken?  She can far and away surpass Polly, Edith,
or any girl of our set on any common, high school, or
supplementary branch, and you know high schools have
French, German, and physics now.  Besides, she is a
graduate of two other institutions.  All her life she has
been in the school of Hard Knocks.  She has the biggest,
tenderest, most human heart I ever knew in a girl.  She has
known life in its most cruel phases, and instead of
hardening her, it has set her trying to save other
people suffering.  Then this nature position of which
I told you; she graduated in the School of the Woods,
before she secured that.  The Bird Woman, whose work you
know, helped her there.  Elnora knows more interesting
things in a minute than any other girl I ever met knew in
an hour, provided you are a person who cares to understand
plant and animal life."

The book leaves slid rapidly through his fingers as
the father drawled:  "What sort of looking girl is she?"

"Tall as Edith, a little heavier, pink, even complexion,
wide open blue-gray eyes with heavy black brows, and
lashes so long they touch her cheeks.  She has a rope
of waving, shining hair that makes a real crown on her
head, and it appears almost red in the light.  She is as
handsome as any fair woman I ever saw, but she doesn't
know it.  Every time any one pays her a compliment,
her mother, who is a caution, discovers that, for some
reason, the girl is a fright, so she has no appreciation of
her looks."

"And you were in daily association two months with
a girl like that!  How about it, Phil?"

"If you mean, did I trifle with her, no!" cried Philip hotly.
"I told her the second time I met her all about Edith.
Almost every day I wrote to Edith in her presence.
Elnora gathered violets and made a fancy basket to put
them in for Edith's birthday.  I started to err in
too open admiration for Elnora, but her mother brought
me up with a whirl I never forgot.  Fifty times a day
in the swamps and forests Elnora made a perfect picture,
but I neither looked nor said anything.  I never met
any girl so downright noble in bearing and actions.
I never hated anything as I hated leaving her, for we were
dear friends, like two wholly congenial men.  Her mother
was almost always with us.  She knew how much I admired
Elnora, but so long as I concealed it from the girl,
the mother did not care."

"Yet you left such a girl and came back whole-hearted
to Edith Carr!"

"Surely!  You know how it has been with me about
Edith all my life."

"Yet the girl you picture is far her superior to an
unprejudiced person, when thinking what a man would
require in a wife to be happy."

"I never have thought what I would `require' to be happy!
I only thought whether I could make Edith happy.  I have
been an idiot!  What I've borne you'll never know!
To-night is only one of many outbursts like that,
in varying and lesser degrees."

"Phil, I love you, when you say you have thought
only of Edith!  I happen to know that it is true.
You are my only son, and I have had a right to watch
you closely.  I believe you utterly.  Any one who cares
for you as I do, and has had my years of experience in
this world over yours, knows that in some ways, to-night
would be a blessed release, if you could take it; but
you cannot!  Go to bed now, and rest.  To-morrow, go back
to her and fix it up."

"You heard what I said when I left her!  I said it because
something in my heart died a minute before that, and
I realized that it was my love for Edith Carr.  Never again
will I voluntarily face such a scene.  If she can act
like that at a ball, before hundreds, over a thing of which
I thought nothing at all, she would go into actual physical
fits and spasms, over some of the household crises I've
seen the mater meet with a smile.  Sir, it is truth that
I have thought only of her up to the present.  Now, I
will admit I am thinking about myself.  Father, did you
see her?  Life is too short, and it can be too sweet, to
throw it away in a battle with an unrestrained woman.
I am no fighter--where a girl is concerned, anyway.
I respect and love her or I do nothing.  Never again is
either respect or love possible between me and Edith Carr.
Whenever I think of her in the future, I will see her as
she was to-night.  But I can't face the crowd just yet.
Could you spare me a few days?"

"It is only ten days until you were to go north for the
summer, go now."

"I don't want to go north.  I don't want to meet people
I know.  There, the story would precede me.  I do not
need pitying glances or rough condolences.  I wonder if
I could not hide at Uncle Ed's in Wisconsin for awhile?"

The book closed suddenly.  The father leaned across
the table and looked into the son's eyes.

"Phil, are you sure of what you just have said?"

"Perfectly sure!"

"Do you think you are in any condition to decide to-night?"

"Death cannot return to life, father.  My love for
Edith Carr is dead.  I hope never to see her again."

"If I thought you could be certain so soon!  But, come
to think of it, you are very like me in many ways.  I am
with you in this.  Public scenes and disgraces I would
not endure.  It would be over with me, were I in your
position, that I know."

"It is done for all time," said Philip Ammon.  "Let us
not speak of it further."

"Then, Phil," the father leaned closer and looked at the
son tenderly, "Phil, why don't you go to the Limberlost?"

"Father!"

"Why not?  No one can comfort a hurt heart like a
tender woman; and, Phil, have you ever stopped to think
that you may have a duty in the Limberlost, if you
are free?  I don't know!  I only suggest it.  But, for a
country schoolgirl, unaccustomed to men, two months
with a man like you might well awaken feelings of which
you do not think.  Because you were safe-guarded is no
sign the girl was.  She might care to see you.  You can
soon tell.  With you, she comes next to Edith, and you
have made it clear to me that you appreciate her in many
ways above.  So I repeat it, why not go to the Limberlost?"

A long time Philip Ammon sat in deep thought.  At last
he raised his head.

"Well, why not!" he said.  "Years could make me
no surer than I am now, and life is short.  Please ask
Banks to get me some coffee and toast, and I will bathe
and dress so I can take the early train."

"Go to your bath.  I will attend to your packing
and everything.  And Phil, if I were you, I would
leave no addresses."

"Not an address!" said Philip.  "Not even Polly."

When the train pulled out, the elder Ammon went home
to find Hart Henderson waiting.

"Where is Phil?" he demanded.

"He did not feel like facing his friends at present, and
I am just back from driving him to the station.  He said
he might go to Siam, or Patagonia.  He would leave no address."

Henderson almost staggered.  "He's not gone?  And left
no address?  You don't mean it!  He'll never forgive her!"

"Never is a long time, Hart," said Mr. Ammon.  "And it
seems even longer to those of us who are well acquainted
with Phil.  Last night was not the last straw.  It was
the whole straw-stack.  It crushed Phil so far as she
is concerned.  He will not see her again voluntarily, and
he will not forget if he does.  You can take it from him,
and from me, we have accepted the lady's decision.  Will you
have a cup of coffee?"

Twice Henderson opened his lips to speak of Edith
Carr's despair.  Twice he looked into the stern, inflexible
face of Mr. Ammon and could not betray her.  He held
out the ring.

"I have no instructions as to that," said the elder
Ammon, drawing back.  "Possibly Miss Carr would have
it as a keepsake."

"I am sure not," said Henderson curtly.

"Then suppose you return it to Peacock.  I will phone him.
He will give you the price of it, and you might add
it to the children's Fresh Air Fund.  We would be obliged
if you would do that.  No one here cares to handle the object."

"As you choose," said Henderson.  "Good morning!"

Then he went to his home, but he could not think of sleep.
He ordered breakfast, but he could not eat.  He paced the
library for a time, but it was too small.  Going on the
streets he walked until exhausted, then he called
a hansom and was driven to his club.  He had thought
himself familiar with every depth of suffering; that night
had taught him that what he felt for himself was not to be
compared with the anguish which wrung his heart over
the agony of Edith Carr.  He tried to blame Philip Ammon,
but being an honest man, Henderson knew that was unjust.
The fault lay wholly with her, but that only made it
harder for him, as he realized it would in time for her.

As he sauntered into the room an attendant hurried to him.

"You are wanted most urgently at the 'phone, Mr.
Henderson," he said.  "You have had three calls from
Main 5770."

Henderson shivered as he picked down the receiver and
gave the call.

"Is that you, Hart?" came Edith's voice.

"Yes."

"Did you find Phil?"

"No."

"Did you try?"

"Yes.  As soon as I left you I went straight there."

"Wasn't he home yet?"

"He has been home and gone again."

"Gone!"

The cry tore Henderson's heart.

"Shall I come and tell you, Edith?"

"No! Tell me now."

"When I reached the house Banks said Mr. Ammon
and Phil were out in the motor, so I waited.  Mr. Ammon
came back soon.  Edith, are you alone?"

"Yes.  Go on!"

"Call your maid.  I can't tell you until some one is
with you."

"Tell me instantly!"

"Edith, he said he had been to the station.  He said
Phil had started to Siam or Patagonia, he didn't know
which, and left no address.  He said----"

Distinctly Henderson heard her fall.  He set the buzzer
ringing, and in a few seconds heard voices, so he knew she
had been found.  Then he crept into a private den and
shook with a hard, nervous chill.

The next day Edith Carr started on her trip to Europe.
Henderson felt certain she hoped to meet Philip there.
He was sure she would be disappointed, though he had no
idea where Ammon could have gone.  But after much
thought he decided he would see Edith soonest by
remaining at home, so he spent the summer in Chicago.




CHAPTER  XXI


WHEREIN PHILIP AMMON RETURNS TO THE LIMBERLOST,
AND ELNORA STUDIES THE SITUATION


We must be thinking about supper, mother," said Elnora,
while she set the wings of a Cecropia with much care.
"It seems as if I can't get enough to eat, or enough
of being at home.  I enjoyed that city house.  I don't
believe I could have done my work if I had been
compelled to walk back and forth.  I thought at first
I never wanted to come here again.  Now, I feel as if
I could not live anywhere else."

"Elnora," said Mrs. Comstock, "there's some one
coming down the road."

"Coming here, do you think?"

"Yes, coming here, I suspect."

Elnora glanced quickly at her mother and then turned
to the road as Philip Ammon reached the gate.

"Careful, mother!" the girl instantly warned.  "If you
change your treatment of him a hair's breadth, he
will suspect.  Come with me to meet him."

She dropped her work and sprang up.

"Well, of all the delightful surprises!" she cried.

She was a trifle thinner than during the previous summer.
On her face there was a more mature, patient look, but
the sun struck her bare head with the same ray of red gold.
She wore one of the old blue gingham dresses, open
at the throat and rolled to the elbows.  Mrs. Comstock
did not appear at all the same woman, but Philip saw only
Elnora; heard only her greeting.  He caught both hands
where she offered but one.

"Elnora," he cried, "if you were engaged to me, and we
were at a ball, among hundreds, where I offended you very
much, and didn't even know I had done anything, and if I
asked you before all of them to allow me to explain,
to forgive me, to wait, would your face grow distorted
and unfamiliar with anger?  Would you drop my ring on the
floor and insult me repeatedly?  Oh Elnora, would you?"

Elnora's big eyes seemed to leap, while her face grew
very white.  She drew away her hands.

"Hush, Phil!  Hush!" she protested.  "That fever has
you again!  You are dreadfully ill.  You don't know
what you are saying."

"I am sleepless and exhausted; I'm heartsick; but I am
well as I ever was.  Answer me, Elnora, would you?"

"Answer nothing!" cried Mrs. Comstock.  "Answer nothing!
Hang your coat there on your nail, Phil, and come split
some kindling.  Elnora, clean away that stuff, and set
the table.  Can't you see the boy is starved and tired?
He's come home to rest and eat a decent meal.  Come on, Phil!"

Mrs. Comstock marched away, and Philip hung his coat
in its old place and followed.  Out of sight and hearing
she turned on him.

"Do you call yourself a man or a hound?" she flared.

"I beg your pardon----" stammered Philip Ammon.

"I should think you would!" she ejaculated.  "I'll admit
you did the square thing and was a man last summer,
though I'd liked it better if you'd faced up and told
me you were promised; but to come back here babying,
and take hold of Elnora like that, and talk that way
because you have had a fuss with your girl, I don't tolerate.
Split that kindling and I'll get your supper, and then you
better go.  I won't have you working on Elnora's big
heart, because you have quarrelled with some one else.
You'll have it patched up in a week and be gone again, so
you can go right away."

"Mrs. Comstock, I came to ask Elnora to marry me."

"The more fool you, then!" cried Mrs. Comstock.
"This time yesterday you were engaged to another woman,
no doubt.  Now, for some little flare-up you come racing
here to use Elnora as a tool to spite the other girl.
A week of sane living, and you will be sorry and ready to
go back to Chicago, or, if you really are man enough to be
sure of yourself, she will come to claim you.  She has
her rights.  An engagement of years is a serious matter, and
not broken for a whim.  If you don't go, she'll come.
Then, when you patch up your affairs and go sailing away
together, where does my girl come in?"

"I am a lawyer, Mrs. Comstock," said Philip.  "It appeals
to me as beneath your ordinary sense of justice to decide
a case without hearing the evidence.  It is due me that
you hear me first."

"Hear your side!" flashed Mrs. Comstock.  "I'd a
heap sight rather hear the girl!"

"I wish to my soul that you had heard and seen her last
night, Mrs. Comstock," said Ammon.  "Then, my way
would be clear.  I never even thought of coming
here to-day.  I'll admit I would have come in time,
but not for many months.  My father sent me."

"Your father sent you!  Why?"

"Father, mother, and Polly were present last night.
They, and all my friends, saw me insulted and disgraced
in the worst exhibition of uncontrolled temper any of us
ever witnessed.  All of them knew it was the end.
Father liked what I had told him of Elnora, and he
advised me to come here, so I came.  If she does not
want me, I can leave instantly, but, oh I hoped she
would understand!"

"You people are not splitting wood," called Elnora.

"Oh yes we are!" answered Mrs. Comstock.  "You set
out the things for biscuit, and lay the table."  She turned
again to Philip.  "I know considerable about your father,"
she said.  "I have met your Uncle's family frequently
this winter.  I've heard your Aunt Anna say that she
didn't at all like Miss Carr, and that she and all your
family secretly hoped that something would happen to
prevent your marrying her.  That chimes right in with
your saying that your father sent you here.  I guess you
better speak your piece."

Philip gave his version of the previous night.

"Do you believe me?" he finished.

"Yes," said Mrs. Comstock.

"May I stay?"

"Oh, it looks all right for you, but what about her?"

"Nothing, so far as I am concerned.  Her plans were all
made to start to Europe to-day.  I suspect she is on the
way by this time.  Elnora is very sensible, Mrs. Comstock.
Hadn't you better let her decide this?"

"The final decision rests with her, of course," admitted
Mrs. Comstock.  "But look you one thing!  She's all I have.
As Solomon says, `she is the one child, the only child
of her mother.'  I've suffered enough in this world
that I fight against any suffering which threatens her.
So far as I know you've always been a man, and you
may stay.  But if you bring tears and heartache to her,
don't have the assurance to think I'll bear it tamely.
I'll get right up and fight like a catamount, if things
go wrong for Elnora!"

"I have no doubt but you will," replied Philip, "and I
don't blame you in the least if you do.  I have the utmost
devotion to offer Elnora, a good home, fair social position,
and my family will love her dearly.  Think it over.  I know
it is sudden, but my father advised it."

"Yes, I reckon he did!" said Mrs. Comstock dryly.  "I guess
instead of me being the catamount, you had the genuine
article up in Chicago, masquerading in peacock feathers,
and posing as a fine lady, until her time came to scratch.
Human nature seems to be the same the world over.  But I'd
give a pretty to know that secret thing you say you don't,
that set her raving over your just catching a moth for Elnora.
You might get that crock of strawberries in the spring house."

They prepared and ate supper.  Afterward they sat in
the arbour and talked, or Elnora played until time for
Philip to go.

"Will you walk to the gate with me?" he asked Elnora
as he arose.

"Not to-night," she answered lightly.  "Come early in
the morning if you like, and we will go over to Sleepy
Snake Creek and hunt moths and gather dandelions for dinner."

Philip leaned toward her.  "May I tell you to-morrow
why I came?" he asked.

"I think not," replied Elnora.  "The fact is, I don't
care why you came.  It is enough for me that we are your
very good friends, and that in trouble, you have found us
a refuge.  I fancy we had better live a week or two before
you say anything.  There is a possibility that what you
have to say may change in that length of time.

"It will not change one iota!" cried Philip.

"Then it will have the grace of that much age to give it
some small touch of flavour," said the girl.  "Come early
in the morning."

She lifted the violin and began to play.

"Well bless my soul!" ejaculated the astounded Mrs. Comstock.
"To think I was worrying for fear you couldn't take care
of yourself!"

Elnora laughed while she played.

"Shall I tell you what he said?"

"Nope!  I don't want to hear it!" said Elnora.  "He is
only six hours from Chicago.  I'll give her a week to
find him and fix it up, if he stays that long.  If she doesn't
put in an appearance then, he can tell me what he wants
to say, and I'll take my time to think it over.  Time in
plenty, too!  There are three of us in this, and one must
be left with a sore heart for life.  If the decision rests
with me I propose to be very sure that it is the one who
deserves such hard luck."

The next morning Philip came early, dressed in the outing
clothing he had worn the previous summer, and aside
from a slight paleness seemed very much the same as when
he left.  Elnora met him on the old footing, and for a
week life went on exactly as it had the previous summer.
Mrs. Comstock made mental notes and watched in silence.
She could see that Elnora was on a strain, though she
hoped Philip would not.  The girl grew restless as the
week drew to a close.  Once when the gate clicked she
suddenly lost colour and moved nervously.  Billy came down
the walk.

Philip leaned toward Mrs. Comstock and said:  "I am
expressly forbidden to speak to Elnora as I would like.
Would you mind telling her for me that I had a letter from
my father this morning saying that Miss Carr is on her way
to Europe for the summer?"

"Elnora," said Mrs. Comstock promptly, "I have just
heard that Carr woman is on her way to Europe, and I
wish to my gracious stars she'd stay there!"

Philip Ammon shouted, but Elnora arose hastily and
went to meet Billy.  They came into the arbour together
and after speaking to Mrs. Comstock and Philip, Billy
said:  "Uncle Wesley and I found something funny, and
we thought you'd like to see."

"I don't know what I should do without you and Uncle
Wesley to help me," said Elnora.  "What have you found now?"

"Something I couldn't bring.  You have to come to it.
I tried to get one and I killed it.  They are a kind of
insecty things, and they got a long tail that is three
fine hairs.  They stick those hairs right into the hard
bark of trees, and if you pull, the hairs stay fast and
it kills the bug."

"We will come at once," laughed Elnora.  "I know
what they are, and I can use some in my work."

"Billy, have you been crying?" inquired Mrs. Comstock.

Billy lifted a chastened face.  "Yes, ma'am," he replied.
"This has been the worst day."

"What's the matter with the day?"

"The day is all right," admitted Billy.  "I mean every
single thing has gone wrong with me."

"Now that is too bad!" sympathized Mrs. Comstock.

"Began early this morning," said Billy.  "All Snap's
fault, too."

"What has poor Snap been doing?" demanded Mrs.
Comstock, her eyes beginning to twinkle.

"Digging for woodchucks, like he always does.  He gets
up at two o'clock to dig for them.  He was coming
in from the woods all tired and covered thick with dirt.
I was going to the barn with the pail of water for Uncle
Wesley to use in milking.  I had to set down the pail to
shut the gate so the chickens wouldn't get into the flower
beds, and old Snap stuck his dirty nose into the water
and began to lap it down.  I knew Uncle Wesley wouldn't
use that, so I had to go 'way back to the cistern for more,
and it pumps awful hard.  Made me mad, so I threw the
water on Snap."

"Well, what of it?"

"Nothing, if he'd stood still.  But it scared him awful,
and when he's afraid he goes a-humping for Aunt Margaret.
When he got right up against her he stiffened
out and gave a big shake.  You oughter seen the nice
blue dress she had put on to go to Onabasha!"

Mrs. Comstock and Philip laughed, but Elnora put
her arms around the boy.  "Oh Billy!" she cried.
"That was too bad!"

"She got up early and ironed that dress to wear because
it was cool.  Then, when it was all dirty, she
wouldn't go, and she wanted to real bad." Billy wiped
his eyes.  "That ain't all, either," he added.

"We'd like to know about it, Billy," suggested Mrs.
Comstock, struggling with her face.

"Cos she couldn't go to the city, she's most worked
herself to death.  She's done all the dirty, hard jobs she
could find.  She's fixing her grape juice now."

"Sure!" cried Mrs. Comstock.  "When a woman is
disappointed she always works like a dog to gain sympathy!"

"Well, Uncle Wesley and I are sympathizing all we
know how, without her working so.  I've squeezed until
I almost busted to get the juice out from the seeds
and skins.  That's the hard part.  Now, she has to strain
it through white flannel and seal it in bottles, and it's
good for sick folks.  Most wish I'd get sick myself, so
I could have a glass.  It's so good!"

Elnora glanced swiftly at her mother.

"I worked so hard," continued Billy, "that she said if
I would throw the leavings in the woods, then I could come
after you to see about the bugs.  Do you want to go?"

"We will all go," said Mrs. Comstock.  "I am mightily
interested in those bugs myself."

From afar commotion could be seen at the Sinton home.
Wesley and Margaret were running around wildly and
peculiar sounds filled the air.

"What's the trouble?" asked Philip, hurrying to Wesley.

"Cholera!" groaned Sinton.  "My hogs are dying like flies."

Margaret was softly crying.  "Wesley, can't I fix
something hot?  Can't we do anything?  It means several
hundred dollars and our winter meat."

"I never saw stock taken so suddenly and so hard,"
said Wesley.  "I have 'phoned for the veterinary to come
as soon as he can get here."

All of them hurried to the feeding pen into which the
pigs seemed to be gathering from the woods.  Among the
common stock were big white beasts of pedigree which
were Wesley's pride at county fairs.  Several of these
rolled on their backs, pawing the air feebly and emitting
little squeaks.  A huge Berkshire sat on his haunches,
slowly shaking his head, the water dropping from his
eyes, until he, too, rolled over with faint grunts.  A pair
crossing the yard on wavering legs collided, and attacked
each other in anger, only to fall, so weak they scarcely
could squeal.  A fine snowy Plymouth Rock rooster, after
several attempts, flew to the fence, balanced with great
effort, wildly flapped his wings and started a guttural crow,
but fell sprawling among the pigs, too helpless to stand.

"Did you ever see such a dreadful sight?" sobbed Margaret.

Billy climbed on the fence, took one long look and
turned an astounded face to Wesley.

"Why them pigs is drunk!" he cried.  "They act just
like my pa!"

Wesley turned to Margaret.

"Where did you put the leavings from that grape juice?"
he demanded.

"I sent Billy to throw it in the woods."

"Billy----" began Wesley.

"Threw it just where she told me to," cried Billy.
But some of the pigs came by there coming into the
pen, and some were close in the fence corners."

"Did they eat it?" demanded Wesley.

"They just chanked into it," replied Billy graphically.
"They pushed, and squealed, and fought over it.
You couldn't blame 'em!  It was the best stuff I ever tasted!"

"Margaret," said Wesley, "run 'phone that doctor he
won't be needed.  Billy, take Elnora and Mr. Ammon to
see the bugs.  Katharine, suppose you help me a minute."

Wesley took the clothes basket from the back porch and
started in the direction of the cellar.  Margaret returned
from the telephone.

"I just caught him," she said.  "There's that much saved.
Why Wesley, what are you going to do?"

"You go sit on the front porch a little while," said Wesley.
"You will feel better if you don't see this."

"Wesley," cried Margaret aghast.  "Some of that wine
is ten years old.  There are days and days of hard work
in it, and I couldn't say how much sugar.  Dr. Ammon
keeps people alive with it when nothing else will stay on
their stomachs."

"Let 'em die, then!" said Wesley.  "You heard the boy,
didn't you?"

"It's a cold process.  There's not a particle of fermentation
about it."

"Not a particle of fermentation!  Great day, Margaret!  Look at
those pigs!"

Margaret took a long look.  "Leave me a few bottles
for mince-meat," she wavered.

"Not a smell for any use on this earth!  You heard
the boy!  He shan't say, when he grows to manhood, that
he learned to like it here!"

Wesley threw away the wine, Mrs. Comstock cheerfully assisting.
Then they walked to the woods to see and learn about the
wonderful insects.  The day ended with a big supper at
Sintons', and then they went to the Comstock cabin for
a concert.  Elnora played beautifully that night.  When the
Sintons left she kissed Billy with particular tenderness.
She was so moved that she was kinder to Philip than she had
intended to be, and Elnora as an antidote to a disappointed
lover was a decided success in any mood.

However strong the attractions of Edith Carr had
been, once the bond was finally broken, Philip Ammon
could not help realizing that Elnora was the superior
woman, and that he was fortunate to have escaped, when
he regarded his ties strongest.  Every day, while working
with Elnora, he saw more to admire.  He grew very
thankful that he was free to try to win her, and impatient
to justify himself to her.

Elnora did not evince the slightest haste to hear what
he had to say, but waited the week she had set, in spite
of Philip's hourly manifest impatience.  When she did
consent to listen, Philip felt before he had talked five
minutes, that she was putting herself in Edith Carr's
place, and judging him from what the other girl's
standpoint would be.  That was so disconcerting, he did
not plead his cause nearly so well as he had hoped, for
when he ceased Elnora sat in silence.

"You are my judge," he said at last.  "What is your verdict?"

"If I could hear her speak from her heart as I just have
heard you, then I could decide," answered Elnora.

"She is on the ocean," said Philip.  "She went because
she knew she was wholly in the wrong.  She had nothing
to say, or she would have remained."

"That sounds plausible," reasoned Elnora, "but it is
pretty difficult to find a woman in an affair that involves
her heart with nothing at all to say.  I fancy if I could
meet her, she would say several things.  I should love to
hear them.  If I could talk with her three minutes, I
could tell what answer to make you."

"Don't you believe me, Elnora?"

"Unquestioningly," answered Elnora.  "But I would
believe her also.  If only I could meet her I soon
would know."

"I don't see how that is to be accomplished," said
Philip, "but I am perfectly willing.  There is no reason
why you should not meet her, except that she probably
would lose her temper and insult you."

"Not to any extent," said Elnora calmly.  "I have
a tongue of my own, while I am not without some small
sense of personal values."

Philip glanced at her and began to laugh.  Very different
of facial formation and colouring, Elnora at times closely
resembled her mother.  She joined in his laugh ruefully.

"The point is this," she said.  "Some one is going to
be hurt, most dreadfully.  If the decision as to whom it
shall be rests with me, I must know it is the right one.
Of course, no one ever hinted it to you, but you are a
very attractive man, Philip.  You are mighty good to
look at, and you have a trained, refined mind, that makes
you most interesting.  For years Edith Carr has felt that
you were hers.  Now, how is she going to change?  I have
been thinking--thinking deep and long, Phil.  If I were
in her place, I simply could not give you up, unless
you had made yourself unworthy of love.  Undoubtedly, you
never seemed so desirable to her as just now, when she is
told she can't have you.  What I think is that she will
come to claim you yet."

"You overlook the fact that it is not in a woman's power
to throw away a man and pick him up at pleasure," said
Philip with some warmth.  "She publicly and repeatedly
cast me off.  I accepted her decision as publicly as
it was made.  You have done all your thinking from
a wrong viewpoint.  You seem to have an idea that it
lies with you to decide what I shall do, that if you say the
word, I shall return to Edith.  Put that thought out of
your head!  Now, and for all time to come, she is a matter
of indifference to me.  She killed all feeling in my heart
for her so completely that I do not even dread meeting her.

"If I hated her, or was angry with her, I could not be
sure the feeling would not die.  As it is, she has deadened
me into a creature of indifference.  So you just revise
your viewpoint a little, Elnora.  Cease thinking it is for
you to decide what I shall do, and that I will obey you.
I make my own decisions in reference to any woman, save you.
The question you are to decide is whether I may remain here,
associating with you as I did last summer; but with the
difference that it is understood that I am free; that it
is my intention to care for you all I please, to make you
return my feeling for you if I can.  There is just one
question for you to decide, and it is not triangular.
It is between us.  May I remain?  May I love you?
Will you give me the chance to prove what I think of you?"

"You speak very plainly," said Elnora.

"This is the time to speak plainly," said Philip Ammon.
"There is no use in allowing you to go on threshing out
a problem which does not exist.  If you do not want
me here, say so and I will go.  Of course, I warn you
before I start, that I will come back.  I won't yield
without the stiffest fight it is in me to make.  But drop
thinking it lies in your power to send me back to Edith Carr.
If she were the last woman in the world, and I the last man,
I'd jump off the planet before I would give her further
opportunity to exercise her temper on me.  Narrow this to
us, Elnora.  Will you take the place she vacated?
Will you take the heart she threw away?  I'd give my
right hand and not flinch, if I could offer you my
life, free from any contact with hers, but that is
not possible.  I can't undo things which are done.
I can only profit by experience and build better in
the future."

"I don't see how you can be sure of yourself," said Elnora.
"I don't see how I could be sure of you.  You loved her first,
you never can care for me anything like that.  Always I'd
have to be afraid you were thinking of her and regretting."

"Folly!" cried Philip.  "Regretting what?  That I
was not married to a woman who was liable to rave at
me any time or place, without my being conscious of
having given offence?  A man does relish that!  I am
likely to pine for more!"

"You'd be thinking she'd learned a lesson.  You would
think it wouldn't happen again."

"No, I wouldn't be `thinking,'" said, Philip.  "I'd be
everlastingly sure!  I wouldn't risk what I went
through that night again, not to save my life!  Just you
and me, Elnora.  Decide for us."

"I can't!" cried Elnora.  "I am afraid!"

"Very well," said Philip.  "We will wait until you feel
that you can.  Wait until fear vanishes.  Just decide
now whether you would rather have me go for a few
months, or remain with you.  Which shall it be, Elnora?"

"You can never love me as you did her," wailed Elnora.

"I am happy to say I cannot," replied he.  "I've cut
my matrimonial teeth.  I'm cured of wanting to swell
in society.  I'm over being proud of a woman for her
looks alone.  I have no further use for lavishing myself on
a beautiful, elegantly dressed creature, who thinks only
of self.  I have learned that I am a common man.  I admire
beauty and beautiful clothing quite as much as I ever
did; but, first, I want an understanding, deep as the lowest
recess of my soul, with the woman I marry.  I want to work
for you, to plan for you, to build you a home with every
comfort, to give you all good things I can, to shield
you from every evil.  I want to interpose my body between
yours and fire, flood, or famine.  I want to give
you everything; but I hate the idea of getting nothing at
all on which I can depend in return.  Edith Carr had
only good looks to offer, and when anger overtook her,
beauty went out like a snuffed candle.

"I want you to love me.  I want some consideration.
I even crave respect.  I've kept myself clean.  So far
as I know how to be, I am honest and scrupulous.
It wouldn't hurt me to feel that you took some interest
in these things.  Rather fierce temptations strike a man,
every few days, in this world.  I can keep decent, for a
woman who cares for decency, but when I do, I'd like
to have the fact recognized, by just enough of a show of
appreciation that I could see it.  I am tired of this one-
sided business.  After this, I want to get a little in return
for what I give.  Elnora, you have love, tenderness,
and honest appreciation of the finest in life.  Take what
I offer, and give what I ask."

"You do not ask much," said Elnora.

"As for not loving you as I did Edith," continued
Philip, "as I said before, I hope not!  I have a newer
and a better idea of loving.  The feeling I offer you was
inspired by you.  It is a Limberlost product.  It is as
much bigger, cleaner, and more wholesome than any feeling
I ever had for Edith Carr, as you are bigger than she,
when you stand before your classes and in calm dignity
explain the marvels of the Almighty, while she stands
on a ballroom floor, and gives way to uncontrolled temper.
Ye gods, Elnora, if you could look into my soul, you
would see it leap and rejoice over my escape!  Perhaps it
isn't decent, but it's human; and I'm only a common
human being.  I'm the gladdest man alive that I'm free!
I would turn somersaults and yell if I dared.  What an escape!
Stop straining after Edith Carr's viewpoint and take a look
from mine.  Put yourself in my place and try to study out
how I feel.

"I am so happy I grow religious over it.  Fifty times
a day I catch myself whispering, `My soul is escaped!'
As for you, take all the time you want.  If you prefer to
be alone, I'll take the next train and stay away as long as
I can bear it, but I'll come back.  You can be most sure
of that.  Straight as your pigeons to their loft, I'll come
back to you, Elnora.  Shall I go?"

"Oh, what's the use to be extravagant?" murmured Elnora.




CHAPTER XXII


WHEREIN PHILIP AMMON KNEELS TO ELNORA,
AND STRANGERS COME TO THE LIMBERLOST


The month which followed was a reproduction of
the previous June.  There were long moth hunts,
days of specimen gathering, wonderful hours with
great books, big dinners all of them helped to prepare,
and perfect nights filled with music.  Everything was as
it had been, with the difference that Philip was now an
avowed suitor.  He missed no opportunity to advance
himself in Elnora's graces.  At the end of the month
he was no nearer any sort of understanding with her
than he had been at the beginning.  He revelled in the
privilege of loving her, but he got no response.
Elnora believed in his love, yet she hesitated to
accept him, because she could not forget Edith Carr.

One afternoon early in July, Philip came across the
fields, through the Comstock woods, and entered the garden.
He inquired for Elnora at the back door and was told that
she was reading under the willow.  He went around the
west end of the cabin to her.  She sat on a rustic
bench they had made and placed beneath a drooping branch.
He had not seen her before in the dress she was wearing.
It was clinging mull of pale green, trimmed with narrow
ruffles and touched with knots of black velvet; a simple
dress, but vastly becoming.  Every tint of her bright hair,
her luminous eyes, her red lips, and her rose-flushed
face, neck, and arms grew a little more vivid with the
delicate green setting.

He stopped short.  She was so near, so temptingly
sweet, he lost control.  He went to her with a half-
smothered cry after that first long look, dropped on one
knee beside her and reached an arm behind her to the bench
back, so that he was very near.  He caught her hands.

"Elnora!" he cried tensely, "end it now!  Say this
strain is over.  I pledge you that you will be happy.
You don't know!  If you only would say the word, you
would awake to new life and great joy!  Won't you promise
me now, Elnora?"

The girl sat staring into the west woods, while strong
in her eyes was her father's look of seeing something
invisible to others.  Philip's arm slipped from the bench
around her.  His fingers closed firmly over hers.
Elnora," he pleaded, "you know me well enough.
You have had time in plenty.  End it now.  Say you will
be mine!"  He gathered her closer, pressing his face against
hers, his breath on her cheek.  "Can't you quite promise
yet, my girl of the Limberlost?"

Elnora shook her head.  Instantly he released her.

"Forgive me," he begged.  "I had no intention of thrusting
myself upon you, but, Elnora, you are the veriest Queen
of Love this afternoon.  From the tips of your toes to
your shining crown, I worship you.  I want no woman save you.
You are so wonderful this afternoon, I couldn't help urging.
Forgive me.  Perhaps it was something that came this
morning for you.  I wrote Polly to send it.  May we try
if it fits?  Will you tell me if you like it?"

He drew a little white velvet box from his pocket and
showed her a splendid emerald ring.

"It may not be right," he said.  "The inside of a glove
finger is not very accurate for a measure, but it was the
best I could do.  I wrote Polly to get it, because she and
mother are home from the East this week, but next they
will go on to our cottage in the north, and no one knows
what is right quite so well as Polly."  He laid the ring
in Elnora's hand.  "Dearest," he said, "don't slip that
on your finger; put your arms around my neck and promise me,
all at once and abruptly, or I'll keel over and die of sheer joy."

Elnora smiled.

"I won't!  Not all those venturesome things at once;
but, Phil, I'm ashamed to confess that ring simply
fascinates me.  It is the most beautiful one I ever saw,
and do you know that I never owned a ring of any kind
in my life?  Would you think me unwomanly if I slip
it on for a second, before I can say for sure?  Phil, you
know I care!  I care very much!  You know I will tell
you the instant I feel right about it."

"Certainly you will," agreed Philip promptly.  "It is
your right to take all the time you choose.  I can't
put that ring on you until it means a bond between us.
I'll shut my eyes and you try it on, so we can see if
it fits." Philip turned his face toward the west woods
and tightly closed his eyes.  It was a boyish thing to do,
and it caught the hesitating girl in the depths of her
heart as the boy element in a man ever appeals to a
motherly woman.  Before she quite realized what she
was doing, the ring slid on her finger.  With both arms
she caught Philip and drew him to her breast, holding
him closely.  Her head drooped over his, her lips were
on his hair.  So an instant, then her arms dropped.
He lifted a convulsed, white face.

"Dear Lord!" he whispered.  "You--you didn't mean that,
Elnora!  You----  What made you do it?"

"You--you looked so boyish!" panted Elnora.  "I didn't
mean it!  I--I forgot that you were older than Billy.
Look--look at the ring!"

"`The Queen can do no wrong,'" quoted Philip between his
set teeth.  "But don't you do that again, Elnora, unless
you do mean it.  Kings are not so good as queens, and
there is a limit with all men.  As you say, we will
look at your ring.  It seems very lovely to me.  Suppose you
leave it on until time for me to go.  Please do!  I have
heard of mute appeals; perhaps it will plead for me.
I am wild for your lips this afternoon.  I am going to
take your hands."

He caught both of them and covered them with kisses.

"Elnora," he said, "Will you be my wife?"

"I must have a little more time," she whispered.  "I must
be absolutely certain, for when I say yes, and give
myself to you, only death shall part us.  I would not
give you up.  So I want a little more time--but, I think
I will."

"Thank you," said Philip.  "If at any time you feel that
you have reached a decision, will you tell me?  Will you
promise me to tell me instantly, or shall I keep asking
you until the time comes?"

"You make it difficult," said Elnora.  "But I will
promise you that.  Whenever the last doubt vanishes, I
will let you know instantly--if I can."

"Would it be difficult for you?" whispered Ammon.

"I--I don't know," faltered Elnora.

"It seems as if I can't be man enough to put this
thought aside and give up this afternoon," said Philip.
"I am ashamed of myself, but I can't help it.  I am going
to ask God to make that last doubt vanish before I go
this night.  I am going to believe that ring will plead
for me.  I am going to hope that doubt will disappear suddenly.
I will be watching.  Every second I will be watching.
If it happens and you can't speak, give me your hand.
Just the least movement toward me, I will understand.
Would it help you to talk this over with your mother?
Shall I call her?  Shall I----?"

Honk!  Honk!  Honk!  Hart Henderson set the horn
of the big automobile going as it shot from behind the
trees lining the Brushwood road.  The picture of a vine-
covered cabin, a large drooping tree, a green-clad girl
and a man bending over her very closely flashed into view.
Edith Carr caught her breath with a snap.  Polly Ammon
gave Tom Levering a quick touch and wickedly winked
at him.

Several days before, Edith had returned from Europe suddenly.
She and Henderson had called at the Ammon residence saying
that they were going to motor down to the Limberlost to see
Philip a few hours, and urged that Polly and Tom accompany them.
Mrs. Ammon knew that her husband would disapprove of the trip,
but it was easy to see that Edith Carr had determined on going.
So the mother thought it better to have Polly along to support
Philip than to allow him to confront Edith unexpectedly and alone.
Polly was full of spirit.  She did not relish the thought of
Edith as a sister.  Always they had been in the same set,
always Edith, because of greater beauty and wealth,
had patronized Polly.  Although it had rankled, she had borne
it sweetly.  But two days before, her father had extracted
a promise of secrecy, given her Philip's address and told her
to send him the finest emerald ring she could select.
Polly knew how that ring would be used.  What she did not know
was that the girl who accompanied her went back to the store
afterward, made an excuse to the clerk that she had been sent
to be absolutely sure that the address was right, and so secured
it for Edith Carr.

Two days later Edith had induced Hart Henderson to take
her to Onabasha.  By the aid of maps they located the
Comstock land and passed it, merely to see the place.
Henderson hated that trip, and implored Edith not to take
it, but she made no effort to conceal from him what she
suffered, and it was more than he could endure.  He pointed
out that Philip had gone away without leaving an address,
because he did not wish to see her, or any of them.
But Edith was so sure of her power, she felt certain Philip
needed only to see her to succumb to her beauty as he always
had done, while now she was ready to plead for forgiveness.
So they came down the Brushwood road, and Henderson had just
said to Edith beside him:  "This should be the Comstock land
on our left."

A minute later the wood ended, while the sunlight,
as always pitiless, etched with distinctness the scene at
the west end of the cabin.  Instinctively, to save Edith,
Henderson set the horn blowing.  He had thought to drive to
the city, but Polly Ammon arose crying:  "Phil!  Phil!"
Tom Levering was on his feet shouting and waving, while
Edith in her most imperial manner ordered him to turn
into the lane leading through the woods beside the cabin.

"Find some way for me to have a minute alone with her,"
she commanded as he stopped the car.

"That is my sister Polly, her fiance Tom Levering, a
friend of mine named Henderson, and----" began Philip,

"--and Edith Carr," volunteered Elnora.

"And Edith Carr," repeated Philip Ammon.  "Elnora, be
brave, for my sake.  Their coming can make no difference
in any way.  I won't let them stay but a few minutes.
Come with me!"

"Do I seem scared?" inquired Elnora serenely.  "This is
why you haven't had your answer.  I have been waiting
just six weeks for that motor.  You may bring them to me
at the arbour."

Philip glanced at her and broke into a laugh.  She had
not lost colour.  Her self-possession was perfect.
She deliberately turned and walked toward the grape arbour,
while he sprang over the west fence and ran to the car.

Elnora standing in the arbour entrance made a perfect
picture, framed in green leaves and tendrils.  No matter
how her heart ached, it was good to her, for it pumped
steadily, and kept her cheeks and lips suffused with colour.
She saw Philip reach the car and gather his sister into
his arms.  Past her he reached a hand to Levering,
then to Edith Carr and Henderson.  He lifted his sister
to the ground, and assisted Edith to alight.  Instantly, she
stepped beside him, and Elnora's heart played its first trick.

She could see that Miss Carr was splendidly beautiful,
while she moved with the hauteur and grace supposed to
be the prerogatives of royalty.  And she had instantly
taken possession of Philip.  But he also had a brain which
was working with rapidity.  He knew Elnora was watching,
so he turned to the others.

"Give her up, Tom!" he cried.  "I didn't know I wanted
to see the little nuisance so badly, but I do.  How are
father and mother?  Polly, didn't the mater send me something?"

"She did!" said Polly Ammon, stopping on the path and
lifting her chin as a little child, while she drew away
her veil.

Philip caught her in his arms and stooped for his
mother's kiss.

"Be good to Elnora!" he whispered.

"Umhu!" assented Polly.  And aloud--"Look at that ripping
green and gold symphony!  I never saw such a beauty!
Thomas Asquith Levering, you come straight here and take
my hand!"

Edith's move to compel Philip to approach Elnora beside her
had been easy to see; also its failure.  Henderson stepped
into Philip's place as he turned to his sister.  Instead of
taking Polly's hand Levering ran to open the gate.
Edith passed through first, but Polly darted in front
of her on the run, with Phil holding her arm, and swept up
to Elnora.  Polly looked for the ring and saw it.  That settled
matters with her.

"You lovely, lovely, darling girl!" she cried, throwing
her arms around Elnora and kissing her.  With her lips close
Elnora's ear, Polly whispered, "Sister!  Dear, dear sister!"

Elnora drew back, staring at Polly in confused amazement.
She was a beautiful girl, her eyes were sparkling and
dancing, and as she turned to make way for the others,
she kept one of Elnora's hands in hers.  Polly would have
dropped dead in that instant if Edith Carr could have
killed with a look, for not until then did she realize that
Polly would even many a slight, and that it had been a
great mistake to bring her.

Edith bowed low, muttered something and touched
Elnora's fingers.  Tom took his cue from Polly.

"I always follow a good example," he said, and before
any one could divine his intention he kissed Elnora as he
gripped her hand and cried:  "Mighty glad to meet you!
Like to meet you a dozen times a day, you know!"

Elnora laughed and her heart pumped smoothly.  They had
accomplished their purpose.  They had let her know they
were there through compulsion, but on her side.  In that
instant only pity was in Elnora's breast for the flashing
dark beauty, standing with smiling face while her heart
must have been filled with exceeding bitterness.
Elnora stepped back from the entrance.

"Come into the shade," she urged.  "You must have
found it warm on these country roads.  Won't you lay
aside your dust-coats and have a cool drink?  Philip, would
you ask mother to come, and bring that pitcher from the
spring house?"

They entered the arbour exclaiming at the dim, green coolness.
There was plenty of room and wide seats around the sides,
a table in the centre, on which lay a piece of embroidery,
magazines, books, the moth apparatus, and the cyanide jar
containing several specimens.  Polly rejoiced in the
cooling shade, slipped off her duster, removed her hat,
rumpled her pretty hair and seated herself to indulge in
the delightful occupation of paying off old scores.
Tom Levering followed her example.  Edith took a seat
but refused to remove her hat and coat, while Henderson
stood in the entrance.

"There goes something with wings!  Should you have
that?" cried Levering.

He seized a net from the table and raced across the garden
after a butterfly.  He caught it and came back mightily
pleased with himself.  As the creature struggled in the net,
Elnora noted a repulsed look on Edith Carr's face.
Levering helped the situation beautifully.

"Now what have I got?" he demanded.  "Is it just a
common one that every one knows and you don't keep, or
is it the rarest bird off the perch?"

"You must have had practice, you took that so perfectly,"
said Elnora.  "I am sorry, but it is quite common and not
of a kind I keep.  Suppose all of you see how beautiful
it is and then it may go nectar hunting again."

She held the butterfly where all of them could see,
showed its upper and under wing colours, answered Polly's
questions as to what it ate, how long it lived, and how
it died.  Then she put it into Polly's hand saying:  "Stand
there in the light and loosen your hold slowly and easily."

Elnora caught a brush from the table and began softly
stroking the creature's sides and wings.  Delighted with
the sensation the butterfly opened and closed its wings,
clinging to Polly's soft little fingers, while every one cried
out in surprise.  Elnora laid aside the brush, and the
butterfly sailed away.

"Why, you are a wizard!  You charm them!" marvelled Levering.

"I learned that from the Bird Woman," said Elnora.
"She takes soft brushes and coaxes butterflies and moths
into the positions she wants for the illustrations of a book
she is writing.  I have helped her often.  Most of the rare
ones I find go to her."

"Then you don't keep all you take?" questioned Levering.

"Oh, dear, no!" cried Elnora.  "Not a tenth!  For myself,
a pair of each kind to use in illustrating the lectures I
give in the city schools in the winter, and one pair for each
collection I make.  One might as well keep the big night
moths of June, for they only live four or five days anyway.
For the Bird Woman, I only save rare ones she has not yet secured.
Sometimes I think it is cruel to take such creatures from
freedom, even for an hour, but it is the only way to teach
the masses of people how to distinguish the pests they
should destroy, from the harmless ones of great beauty.
Here comes mother with something cool to drink."

Mrs. Comstock came deliberately, talking to Philip as
she approached.  Elnora gave her one searching look, but
could discover only an extreme brightness of eye to denote
any unusual feeling.  She wore one of her lavender dresses,
while her snowy hair was high piled.  She had taken care
of her complexion, and her face had grown fuller during
the winter.  She might have been any one's mother with
pride, and she was perfectly at ease.

Polly instantly went to her and held up her face to be kissed.
Mrs. Comstock's eyes twinkled and she made the greeting hearty.

The drink was compounded of the juices of oranges and
berries from the garden.  It was cool enough to frost
glasses and pitcher and delicious to dusty tired travellers.
Soon the pitcher was empty, and Elnora picked it up and
went to refill it.  While she was gone Henderson asked
Philip about some trouble he was having with his car.
They went to the woods and began a minute examination
to find a defect which did not exist.  Polly and Levering
were having an animated conversation with Mrs. Comstock.
Henderson saw Edith arise, follow the garden path
next the woods and stand waiting under the willow which
Elnora would pass on her return.  It was for that meeting
he had made the trip.  He got down on the ground, tore
up the car, worked, asked for help, and kept Philip busy
screwing bolts and applying the oil can.  All the time
Henderson kept an eye on Edith and Elnora under the willow.
But he took pains to lay the work he asked Philip to do
where that scene would be out of his sight.  When Elnora
came around the corner with the pitcher, she found herself
facing Edith Carr.

"I want a minute with you," said Miss Carr.

"Very well," replied Elnora, walking on.

"Set the pitcher on the bench there," commanded Edith
Carr, as if speaking to a servant.

"I prefer not to offer my visitors a warm drink," said Elnora.
"I'll come back if you really wish to speak with me."

"I came solely for that," said Edith Carr.

"It would be a pity to travel so far in this dust and heat
for nothing.  I'll only be gone a second."

Elnora placed the pitcher before her mother.  "Please serve
this," she said.  "Miss Carr wishes to speak with me."

"Don't you pay the least attention to anything she
says," cried Polly.  "Tom and I didn't come here because
we wanted to.  We only came to checkmate her.  I hoped
I'd get the opportunity to say a word to you, and now she
has given it to me.  I just want to tell you that she threw
Phil over in perfectly horrid way.  She hasn't any right
to lay the ghost of a claim to him, has she, Tom?"

"Nary a claim," said Tom Levering earnestly.  "Why, even
you, Polly, couldn't serve me as she did Phil, and
ever get me back again.  If I were you, Miss Comstock,
I'd send my mother to talk with her and I'd stay here."

Tom had gauged Mrs. Comstock rightly.  Polly put her
arms around Elnora.  "Let me go with you, dear," she begged.

"I promised I would speak with her alone," said Elnora,
"and she must be considered.  But thank you, very much."

"How I shall love you!" exulted Polly, giving Elnora
a parting hug.

The girl slowly and gravely walked back to the willow.
She could not imagine what was coming, but she was promising
herself that she would be very patient and control her temper.

"Will you be seated?" she asked politely.

Edith Carr glanced at the bench, while a shudder shook her.

"No.  I prefer to stand," she said.  "Did Mr. Ammon
give you the ring you are wearing, and do you consider
yourself engaged to him?"

"By what right do you ask such personal questions as
those?" inquired Elnora.

"By the right of a betrothed wife.  I have been promised
to Philip Ammon ever since I wore short skirts.  All our
lives we have expected to marry.  An agreement of years
cannot be broken in one insane moment.  Always he has
loved me devotedly.  Give me ten minutes with him and he
will be mine for all time."

"I seriously doubt that," said Elnora.  "But I am
willing that you should make the test.  I will call him."

"Stop!" commanded Edith Carr.  "I told you that it was
you I came to see."

"I remember," said Elnora.

"Mr. Ammon is my betrothed," continued Edith Carr.
"I expect to take him back to Chicago with me."

"You expect considerable," murmured Elnora.  "I will
raise no objection to your taking him, if you can--but, I
tell you frankly, I don't think it possible."

"You are so sure of yourself as that," scoffed Edith Carr.
"One hour in my presence will bring back the old spell,
full force.  We belong to each other.  I will not give him up."

"Then it is untrue that you twice rejected his ring,
repeatedly insulted him, and publicly renounced him?"

"That was through you!" cried Edith Carr.  "Phil and
I never had been so near and so happy as we were on
that night.  It was your clinging to him for things that
caused him to desert me among his guests, while he tried
to make me await your pleasure.  I realize the spell of
this place, for a summer season.  I understand what you
and your mother have done to inveigle him.  I know that
your hold on him is quite real.  I can see just how you
have worked to ensnare him!"

"Men would call that lying," said Elnora calmly.
"The second time I met Philip Ammon he told me of
his engagement to you, and I respected it.  I did by you
as I would want you to do by me.  He was here parts
of each day, almost daily last summer.  The Almighty
is my witness that never once, by word or look, did I ever
make the slightest attempt to interest him in my person
or personality.  He wrote you frequently in my presence.
He forgot the violets for which he asked to send you.
I gathered them and carried them to him.  I sent him back
to you in unswerving devotion, and the Almighty is also
my witness that I could have changed his heart last summer,
if I had tried.  I wisely left that work for you.  All my
life I shall be glad that I lived and worked on the square.
That he ever would come back to me free, by your act,
I never dreamed.  When he left me I did not hope or expect
to see him again," Elnora's voice fell soft and low,"
and, behold!  You sent him--and free!"

"You exult in that!" cried Edith Carr.  "Let me tell
you he is not free!  We have belonged for years.
We always shall.  If you cling to him, and hold him to rash
things he has said and done, because he thought me still
angry and unforgiving with him, you will ruin all our lives.
If he married you, before a month you would read heart-hunger
for me in his eyes.  He could not love me as he has done,
and give me up for a little scene like that!"

"There is a great poem," said Elnora, "one line of which
reads, `For each man kills the thing he loves.'  Let me
tell you that a woman can do that also.  He did love you
--that I concede.  But you killed his love everlastingly,
when you disgraced him in public.  Killed it so completely
he does not even feel resentment toward you.  To-day,
he would do you a favour, if he could; but love you, no!
That is over!"

Edith Carr stood truly regal and filled with scorn.
"You are mistaken!  Nothing on earth could kill that!"
she cried, and Elnora saw that the girl really believed
what she said.

"You are very sure of yourself!" said Elnora.

"I have reason to be sure," answered Edith Carr.

"We have lived and loved too long.  I have had years
with him to match against your days.  He is mine!
His work, his ambitions, his friends, his place in
society are with me.  You may have a summer charm for a
sick man in the country; if he tried placing you in
society, he soon would see you as others will.  It takes
birth to position, schooling, and endless practice to meet
social demands gracefully.  You would put him to shame in
a week."

"I scarcely think I should follow your example so far,"
said Elnora dryly.  "I have a feeling for Philip that
would prevent my hurting him purposely, either in public
or private.  As for managing a social career for him he
never mentioned that he desired such a thing.  What he
asked of me was that I should be his wife.  I understood
that to mean that he desired me to keep him a clean house,
serve him digestible food, mother his children, and give
him loving sympathy and tenderness."

"Shameless!" cried Edith Carr.

"To which of us do you intend that adjective to apply?"
inquired Elnora.  "I never was less ashamed in all my life.
Please remember I am in my own home, and your presence here
is not on my invitation."

Miss Carr lifted her head and struggled with her veil.
She was very pale and trembling violently, while Elnora
stood serene, a faint smile on her lips.

"Such vulgarity!" panted Edith Carr.  "How can a
man like Philip endure it?"

"Why don't you ask him?" inquired Elnora.  "I can
call him with one breath; but, if he judged us as we stand,
I should not be the one to tremble at his decision.
Miss Carr, you have been quite plain.  You have told me
in carefully selected words what you think of me.
You insult my birth, education, appearance, and home.
I assure you I am legitimate.  I will pass a test examination
with you on any high school or supplementary branch,
or French or German.  I will take a physical examination
beside you.  I will face any social emergency you can
mention with you.  I am acquainted with a whole world
in which Philip Ammon is keenly interested, that you
scarcely know exists.  I am not afraid to face any
audience you can get together anywhere with my violin.
I am not repulsive to look at, and I have a wholesome regard
for the proprieties and civilities of life.  Philip Ammon
never asked anything more of me, why should you?"

"It is plain to see," cried Edith Carr, "that you took
him when he was hurt and angry and kept his wound wide open.
Oh, what have you not done against me?"

"I did not promise to marry him when an hour ago he
asked me, and offered me this ring, because there was so
much feeling in my heart for you, that I knew I never
could be happy, if I felt that in any way I had failed in
doing justice to your interests.  I did slip on this ring,
which he had just brought, because I never owned one,
and it is very beautiful, but I made him no promise, nor
shall I make any, until I am quite, quite sure, that you
fully realize he never would marry you if I sent him away
this hour."

"You know perfectly that if your puny hold on him
were broken, if he were back in his home, among his
friends, and where he was meeting me, in one short week
he would be mine again, as he always has been.  In your
heart you don't believe what you say.  You don't dare
trust him in my presence.  You are afraid to allow him
out of your sight, because you know what the results
would be.  Right or wrong, you have made up your mind
to ruin him and me, and you are going to be selfish enough
to do it.  But----"

"That will do!" said Elnora.  "Spare me the enumeration
of how I will regret it.  I shall regret nothing.
I shall not act until I know there will be nothing to regret.
I have decided on my course.  You may return to your friends."

"What do you mean?" demanded Edith Carr.

"That is my affair," replied Elnora.  "Only this!
When your opportunity comes, seize it!  Any time you
are in Philip Ammon's presence, exert the charms of which
you boast, and take him.  I grant you are justified in
doing it if you can.  I want nothing more than I want to
see you marry Philip if he wants you.  He is just across
the fence under that automobile.  Go spread your meshes
and exert your wiles.  I won't stir to stop you.  Take him
to Onabasha, and to Chicago with you.  Use every art you possess.
If the old charm can be revived I will be the first to wish
both of you well.  Now, I must return to my visitors.
Kindly excuse me."

Elnora turned and went back to the arbour.  Edith Carr
followed the fence and passed through the gate into
the west woods where she asked Henderson about the car.
As she stood near him she whispered:  "Take Phil back
to Onabasha with us."

"I say, Ammon, can't you go to the city with us and
help me find a shop where I can get this pinion fixed?"
asked Henderson.  "We want to lunch and start back by five.
That will get us home about midnight.  Why don't you
bring your automobile here?"

"I am a working man," said Philip.  "I have no time to
be out motoring.  I can't see anything the matter with
your car, myself; but, of course you don't want to break
down in the night, on strange roads, with women on your hands.
I'll see."

Philip went into the arbour, where Polly took possession of
his lap, fingered his hair, and kissed his forehead and lips.

"When are you coming to the cottage, Phil?" she asked.
"Come soon, and bring Miss Comstock for a visit.  All of
us will be so glad to have her."

Philip beamed on Polly.  "I'll see about that," he said.
"Sounds pretty good.  Elnora, Henderson is in trouble
with his automobile.  He wants me to go to Onabasha
with him to show him where the doctor lives, and make
repairs so he can start back this evening.  It will take
about two hours.  May I go?"

"Of course, you must go," she said, laughing lightly.
"You can't leave your sister.  Why don't you return to
Chicago with them?  There is plenty of room, and you
could have a fine visit."

"I'll be back in just two hours," said Philip.  "While I
am gone, you be thinking over what we were talking of
when the folks came."

"Miss Comstock can go with us as well as not," said Polly.
"That back seat was made for three, and I can sit on your lap."

"Come on!  Do come!" urged Philip instantly, and
Tom Levering joined him, but Henderson and Edith
silently waited at the gate.

"No, thank you," laughed Elnora.  "That would crowd you,
and it's warm and dusty.  We will say good-bye here."

She offered her hand to all of them, and when she came
to Philip she gave him one long steady look in the eyes,
then shook hands with him also.




CHAPTER XXIII


WHEREIN ELNORA REACHES A DECISION,
AND FRECKLES AND THE ANGEL APPEAR


Well, she came, didn't she?" remarked Mrs. Comstock
to Elnora as they watched the automobile speed down
the road.  As it turned the Limberlost corner, Philip
arose and waved to them.

"She hasn't got him yet, anyway," said Mrs. Comstock,
taking heart.  "What's that on your finger, and what did
she say to you?"

Elnora explained about the ring as she drew it off.

"I have several letters to write, then I am going to
change my dress and walk down toward Aunt Margaret's
for a little exercise.  I may meet some of them, and I don't
want them to see this ring.  You keep it until Philip
comes," said Elnora.  "As for what Miss Carr said to me,
many things, two of importance: one, that I lacked every
social requirement necessary for the happiness of Philip
Ammon, and that if I married him I would see inside a
month that he was ashamed of me----"

"Aw, shockins!" scorned Mrs. Comstock.  "Go on!"

"The other was that she has been engaged to him for
years, that he belongs to her, and she refuses to give
him up.  She said that if he were in her presence one hour,
she would have him under a mysterious thing she calls `her
spell' again; if he were where she could see him for one
week, everything would be made up.  It is her opinion
that he is suffering from wounded pride, and that the
slightest concession on her part will bring him to his knees
before her."

Mrs. Comstock giggled.  "I do hope the boy isn't weak-kneed,"
she said.  "I just happened to be passing the west window
this afternoon----"

Elnora laughed.  "Nothing save actual knowledge ever
would have made me believe there was a girl in all this
world so infatuated with herself.  She speaks casually of
her power over men, and boasts of `bringing a man to his
knees' as complacently as I would pick up a net and say:
`I am going to take a butterfly.'  She honestly believes
that if Philip were with her a short time she could rekindle
his love for her and awaken in him every particle of
the old devotion.  Mother, the girl is honest!  She is
absolutely sincere!  She so believes in herself and the
strength of Phil's love for her, that all her life she will
believe in and brood over that thought, unless she is
taught differently.  So long as she thinks that, she will
nurse wrong ideas and pine over her blighted life.  She must
be taught that Phil is absolutely free, and yet he will not go
to her."

"But how on earth are you proposing to teach her that?"

"The way will open."

"Lookey here, Elnora!" cried Mrs. Comstock.  "That Carr
girl is the handsomest dark woman I ever saw.  She's got
to the place where she won't stop at anything.  Her coming
here proves that.  I don't believe there was a thing
the matter with that automobile.  I think that was a
scheme she fixed up to get Phil where she could see him
alone, as she worked to see you.  If you are going
deliberately to put Philip under her influence again, you've
got to brace yourself for the possibility that she may win.
A man is a weak mortal, where a lovely woman is concerned,
and he never denied that he loved her once.  You may make
yourself downright miserable."

"But mother, if she won, it wouldn't make me half so
miserable as to marry Phil myself, and then read hunger
for her in his eyes!  Some one has got to suffer over this.
If it proves to be me, I'll bear it, and you'll never hear a
whisper of complaint from me.  I know the real Philip
Ammon better in our months of work in the fields than she
knows him in all her years of society engagements.
So she shall have the hour she asked, many, many of them,
enough to make her acknowledge that she is wrong.
Now I am going to write my letters and take my walk."

Elnora threw her arms around her mother and kissed
her repeatedly.  "Don't you worry about me," she said.
"I will get along all right, and whatever happens, I always
will be your girl and you my darling mother."

She left two sealed notes on her desk.  Then she
changed her dress, packed a small bundle which she
dropped with her hat from the window beside the willow,
and softly went down stairs.  Mrs. Comstock was in
the garden.  Elnora picked up the hat and bundle, hurried
down the road a few rods, then climbed the fence and
entered the woods.  She took a diagonal course, and after
a long walk reached a road two miles west and one south.
There she straightened her clothing, put on her hat and a
thin dark veil and waited the passing of the next trolley.
She left it at the first town and took a train for Fort Wayne.
She made that point just in time to climb on the evening
train north, as it pulled from the station.  It was after
midnight when she left the car at Grand Rapids, and went
into the depot to await the coming of day.

Tired out, she laid her head on her bundle and fell asleep
on a seat in the women's waiting-room.  Long after light
she was awakened by the roar and rattle of trains.  She washed,
re-arranged her hair and clothing, and went into the general
waiting-room to find her way to the street.  She saw him as
he entered the door.  There was no mistaking the tall,
lithe figure, the bright hair, the lean, brown-splotched face,
the steady gray eyes.  He was dressed for travelling, and
carried a light overcoat and a bag.  Straight to him Elnora
went speeding.

"Oh, I was just starting to find you!" she cried.

"Thank you!" he said.

"You are going away?" she panted.

"Not if I am needed.  I have a few minutes.  Can you
be telling me briefly?"

"I am the Limberlost girl to whom your wife gave the
dress for Commencement last spring, and both of you sent
lovely gifts.  There is a reason, a very good reason, why I
must be hidden for a time, and I came straight to you--as
if I had a right."

"You have!" answered Freckles.  "Any boy or girl who
ever suffered one pang in the Limberlost has a claim
to the best drop of blood in my heart.  You needn't be
telling me anything more.  The Angel is at our cottage
on Mackinac.  You shall tell her and play with the babies
while you want shelter.  This way!"

They breakfasted in a luxurious car, talked over the
swamp, the work of the Bird Woman; Elnora told of her
nature lectures in the schools, and soon they were
good friends.  In the evening they left the train at
Mackinaw City and crossed the Straits by boat.  Sheets of
white moonlight flooded the water and paved a molten path
across the breast of it straight to the face of the moon.

The island lay a dark spot on the silver surface, its tall
trees sharply outlined on the summit, and a million lights
blinked around the shore.  The night guns boomed from
the white fort and a dark sentinel paced the ramparts
above the little city tucked down close to the water.
A great tenor summering in the north came out on the upper
deck of the big boat, and baring his head, faced the moon
and sang:  "Oh, the moon shines bright on my old
Kentucky home!"  Elnora thought of the Limberlost, of
Philip, and her mother, and almost choked with the sobs
that would arise in her throat.  On the dock a woman of
exquisite beauty swept into the arms of Terence O'More.

"Oh, Freckles!" she cried.  "You've been gone a month!"

"Four days, Angel, only four days by the clock,"
remonstrated Freckles.  "Where are the children?"

"Asleep!  Thank goodness!  I'm worn to a thread.  I never
saw such inventive, active children.  I can't keep track of them!"

"I have brought you help," said Freckles.  "Here is the
Limberlost girl in whom the Bird Woman is interested.
Miss Comstock needs a rest before beginning her school
work for next year, so she came to us."

"You dear thing!  How good of you!" cried the Angel.
"We shall be so happy to have you!"

In her room that night, in a beautiful cottage furnished
with every luxury, Elnora lifted a tired face to the Angel.

"Of course, you understand there is something back of
this?" she said.  "I must tell you."

"Yes," agreed the Angel.  "Tell me!  If you get it out
of your system, you will stand a better chance of sleeping."

Elnora stood brushing the copper-bright masses of her
hair as she talked.  When she finished the Angel was
almost hysterical.

"You insane creature!" she cried.  "How crazy of you
to leave him to her!  I know both of them.  I have met
them often.  She may be able to make good her boast.
But it is perfectly splendid of you!  And, after all, really
it is the only way.  I can see that.  I think it is what I
should have done myself, or tried to do.  I don't know
that I could have done it!  When I think of walking away
and leaving Freckles with a woman he once loved, to let
her see if she can make him love her again, oh, it gives me
a graveyard heart.  No, I never could have done it!  You are
bigger than I ever was.  I should have turned coward, sure."

"I am a coward," admitted Elnora.  "I am soul-sick!
I am afraid I shall lose my senses before this is over.
I didn't want to come!  I wanted to stay, to go straight
into his arms, to bind myself with his ring, to love him
with all my heart.  It wasn't my fault that I came.
There was something inside that just pushed me.  She is
beautiful----"

"I quite agree with you!"

"You can imagine how fascinating she can be.  She used
no arts on me.  Her purpose was to cower me.  She found
she could not do that, but she did a thing which helped
her more: she proved that she was honest, perfectly
sincere in what she thought.  She believes that if she
merely beckons to Philip, he will go to her.  So I am giving
her the opportunity to learn from him what he will do.
She never will believe it from any one else.  When she is
satisfied, I shall be also."

"But, child! Suppose she wins him back!"

"That is the supposition with which I shall eat and sleep
for the coming few weeks.  Would one dare ask for a peep
at the babies before going to bed?"

"Now, you are perfect!" announced the Angel.  "I never
should have liked you all I can, if you had been content
to go to sleep in this house without asking to see
the babies.  Come this way.  We named the first boy
for his father, of course, and the girl for Aunt Alice.
The next boy is named for my father, and the baby for
the Bird Woman.  After this we are going to branch out."

Elnora began to laugh.

"Oh, I suspect there will be quite a number of them,"
said the Angel serenely.  "I am told the more there are
the less trouble they make.  The big ones take care of the
little ones.  We want a large family.  This is our start."

She entered a dark room and held aloft a candle.  She went
to the side of a small white iron bed in which lay a
boy of eight and another of three.  They were perfectly
formed, rosy children, the elder a replica of his mother,
the other very like.  Then they came to a cradle where a
baby girl of almost two slept soundly, and made a picture.

"But just see here!" said the Angel.  She threw the light
on a sleeping girl of six.  A mass of red curls swept
the pillow.  Line and feature the face was that of Freckles.
Without asking, Elnora knew the colour and expression
of the closed eyes.  The Angel handed Elnora the candle,
and stooping, straightened the child's body.  She ran
her fingers through the bright curls, and lightly touched
the aristocratic little nose.

"The supply of freckles holds out in my family, you see!"
she said.  "Both of the girls will have them, and the
second boy a few."

She stood an instant longer, then bending, ran her hand
caressingly down a rosy bare leg, while she kissed the
babyish red mouth.  There had been some reason for
touching all of them, the kiss fell on the lips which were
like Freckles's.

To Elnora she said a tender good-night, whispering
brave words of encouragement and making plans to fill
the days to come.  Then she went away.  An hour later
there was a light tap on the girl's door.

"Come!" she called as she lay staring into the dark.

The Angel felt her way to the bedside, sat down and
took Elnora's hands.

"I just had to come back to you," she said.  "I have
been telling Freckles, and he is almost hurting himself
with laughing.  I didn't think it was funny, but he does.
He thinks it's the funniest thing that ever happened.
He says that to run away from Mr. Ammon, when you
had made him no promise at all, when he wasn't sure of
you, won't send him home to her; it will set him hunting you!
He says if you had combined the wisdom of Solomon,
Socrates, and all the remainder of the wise men, you
couldn't have chosen any course that would have sealed
him to you so surely.  He feels that now Mr. Ammon will
perfectly hate her for coming down there and driving
you away.  And you went to give her the chance she wanted.
Oh, Elnora!  It is becoming funny!  I see it, too!"

The Angel rocked on the bedside.  Elnora faced the
dark in silence.

"Forgive me," gulped the Angel.  "I didn't mean to laugh.
I didn't think it was funny, until all at once it
came to me.  Oh, dear!  Elnora, it <i is> funny!  I've got
to laugh!"

"Maybe it is," admitted Elnora "to others; but it
isn't very funny to me.  And it won't be to Philip, or
to mother."

That was very true.  Mrs. Comstock had been slightly
prepared for stringent action of some kind, by what Elnora
had said.  The mother instantly had guessed where the
girl would go, but nothing was said to Philip.  That would
have been to invalidate Elnora's test in the beginning, and
Mrs. Comstock knew her child well enough to know that
she never would marry Philip unless she felt it right that
she should.  The only way was to find out, and Elnora
had gone to seek the information.  There was nothing to
do but wait until she came back, and her mother was not
in the least uneasy but that the girl would return brave and
self-reliant, as always.

Philip Ammon hurried back to the Limberlost, strong
in the hope that now he might take Elnora into his arms
and receive her promise to become his wife.  His first
shock of disappointment came when he found her gone.
In talking with Mrs. Comstock he learned that Edith Carr
had made an opportunity to speak with Elnora alone.
He hastened down the road to meet her, coming back alone,
an agitated man.  Then search revealed the notes.  His read:

DEAR PHILIP:

I find that I am never going to be able to answer your question of
this afternoon fairly to all of us, when you are with me.  So I am going
away a few weeks to think over matters alone.  I shall not tell you,
or even mother, where I am going, but I shall be safe, well cared for,
and happy.  Please go back home and live among your friends, just
as you always have done, and on or before the first of September, I
will write you where I am, and what I have decided.  Please do not
blame Edith Carr for this, and do not avoid her.  I hope you will call
on her and be friends.  I think she is very sorry, and covets your
friendship at least.  Until September, then, as ever,

                                        ELNORA.


Mrs. Comstock's note was much the same.  Philip was
ill with disappointment.  In the arbour he laid his head on
the table, among the implements of Elnora's loved work, and
gulped down dry sobs he could not restrain.  Mrs. Comstock
never had liked him so well.  Her hand involuntarily crept
toward his dark head, then she drew back.  Elnora would not
want her to do anything whatever to influence him.

"What am I going to do to convince Edith Carr that I
do not love her, and Elnora that I am hers?" he demanded.

"I guess you have to figure that out yourself," said
Mrs. Comstock.  "I'd be glad to help you if I could,
but it seems to be up to you."

Philip sat a long time in silence.  "Well, I have decided!"
he said abruptly.  "Are you perfectly sure Elnora had
plenty of money and a safe place to go?"

"Absolutely!" answered Mrs. Comstock.  "She has
been taking care of herself ever since she was born, and she
always has come out all right, so far; I'll stake all I'm
worth on it, that she always will.  I don't know where she
is, but I'm not going to worry about her safety."

"I can't help worrying!" cried Philip.  "I can think of
fifty things that may happen to her when she thinks she
is safe.  This is distracting!  First, I am going to run
up to see my father.  Then, I'll let you know what we
have decided.  Is there anything I can do for you?"

"Nothing!" said Mrs. Comstock.

But the desire to do something for him was so strong
with her she scarcely could keep her lips closed or her
hands quiet.  She longed to tell him what Edith Carr had
said, how it had affected Elnora, and to comfort him as she
felt she could.  But loyalty to the girl held her.  If Elnora
truly felt that she could not decide until Edith Carr was
convinced, then Edith Carr would have to yield or triumph.
It rested with Philip.  So Mrs. Comstock kept silent, while
Philip took the night limited, a bitterly disappointed man.

By noon the next day he was in his father's offices.  They had
a long conference, but did not arrive at much until the elder
Ammon suggested sending for Polly.  Anything that might have
happened could be explained after Polly had told of the
private conference between Edith and Elnora.

"Talk about lovely woman!" cried Philip Ammon.  "One would
think that after such a dose as Edith gave me, she would
be satisfied to let me go my way, but no!  Not caring for
me enough herself to save me from public disgrace, she must
now pursue me to keep any other woman from loving me.
I call that too much!  I am going to see her, and I want
you to go with me, father."

"Very well," said Mr. Ammon, "I will go."

When Edith Carr came into her reception-room that
afternoon, gowned for conquest, she expected only Philip,
and him penitent.  She came hurrying toward him, smiling,
radiant, ready to use every allurement she possessed, and
paused in dismay when she saw his cold face and his father.
"Why, Phil!" she cried.  "When did you come home?"

"I am not at home," answered Philip.  "I merely ran up
to see my father on business, and to inquire of you what
it was you said to Miss Comstock yesterday that caused
her to disappear before I could return to the Limberlost."

"Miss Comstock disappear!  Impossible!" cried Edith Carr.
"Where could she go?"

"I thought perhaps you could answer that, since it was
through you that she went."

"Phil, I haven't the faintest idea where she is," said the
girl gently.

"But you know perfectly why she went!  Kindly tell me that."

"Let me see you alone, and I will."

"Here and now, or not at all."

"Phil!"

"What did you say to the girl I love?"

Then Edith Carr stretched out her arms.

"Phil, I am the girl you love!" she cried.  "All your
life you have loved me.  Surely it cannot be all gone in
a few weeks of misunderstanding.  I was jealous of her!
I did not want you to leave me an instant that night for any
other girl living.  That was the moth I was representing.
Every one knew it!  I wanted you to bring it to me.
When you did not, I knew instantly it had been for her
that you worked last summer, she who suggested my
dress, she who had power to take you from me, when I
wanted you most.  The thought drove me mad, and I said
and did those insane things.  Phil, I beg your pardon!
I ask your forgiveness.  Yesterday she said that you had
told her of me at once.  She vowed both of you had been
true to me and Phil, I couldn't look into her eyes and not
see that it was the truth.  Oh, Phil, if you understood how
I have suffered you would forgive me.  Phil, I never knew
how much I cared for you!  I will do anything--anything!"

"Then tell me what you said to Elnora yesterday that
drove her, alone and friendless, into the night, heaven
knows where!"

"You have no thought for any one save her?"

"Yes," said Philip.  "I have.  Because I once loved you,
and believed in you, my heart aches for you.  I will gladly
forgive anything you ask.  I will do anything you want,
except to resume our former relations.  That is impossible.
It is hopeless and useless to ask it."

"You truly mean that!"

"Yes."

"Then find out from her what I said!"

"Come, father," said Philip, rising.

"You were going to show Miss Comstock's letter to
Edith!" suggested Mr. Ammon.

"I have not the slightest interest in Miss Comstock's
letter," said Edith Carr.

"You are not even interested in the fact that she says
you are not responsible for her going, and that I am to call
on you and be friends with you?"

"That is interesting, indeed!" sneered Miss Carr.

She took the letter, read and returned it.

"She has done what she could for my cause, it seems,"
she said coldly.  "How very generous of her!  Do you
propose calling out Pinkertons and instituting a
general search?"

"No," replied Philip.  "I simply propose to go back to
the Limberlost and live with her mother, until Elnora
becomes convinced that I am not courting you, and never
shall be.  Then, perhaps, she will come home to us.
Good-bye.  Good luck to you always!"




CHAPTER XXIV


WHEREIN EDITH CARR WAGES A BATTLE,
AND HART HENDERSON STANDS GUARD


Many people looked, a few followed, when Edith Carr
slowly came down the main street of Mackinac, pausing
here and there to note the glow of colour in one small
booth after another, overflowing with gay curios.
That street of packed white sand, winding with the
curves of the shore, outlined with brilliant shops,
and thronged with laughing, bare-headed people in outing
costumes was a picturesque and fascinating sight.
Thousands annually made long journeys and paid exorbitant
prices to take part in that pageant.

As Edith Carr passed, she was the most distinguished
figure of the old street.  Her clinging black gown was
sufficiently elaborate for a dinner dress.  On her head was
a large, wide, drooping-brimmed black hat, with immense
floating black plumes, while on the brim, and among the
laces on her breast glowed velvety, deep red roses.
Some way these made up for the lack of colour in her cheeks
and lips, and while her eyes seemed unnaturally bright,
to a close observer they appeared weary.  Despite the
effort she made to move lightly she was very tired,
and dragged her heavy feet with an effort.

She turned at the little street leading to the dock, and
went to meet the big lake steamer ploughing up the Straits
from Chicago.  Past the landing place, on to the very end
of the pier she went, then sat down, leaned against a dock
support and closed her tired eyes.  When the steamer
came very close she languidly watched the people lining
the railing.  Instantly she marked one lean anxious face
turned toward hers, and with a throb of pity she lifted a
hand and waved to Hart Henderson.  He was the first
man to leave the boat, coming to her instantly.  She spread
her trailing skirts and motioned him to sit beside her.
Silently they looked across the softly lapping water.
At last she forced herself to speak to him.

"Did you have a successful trip?"

"I accomplished my purpose."

"You didn't lose any time getting back."

"I never do when I am coming to you."

"Do you want to go to the cottage for anything?"

"No."

"Then let us sit here and wait until the Petoskey
steamer comes in.  I like to watch the boats.
Sometimes I study the faces, if I am not too tired."

"Have you seen any new types to-day?"

She shook her head.  "This has not been an easy day, Hart."

"And it's going to be worse," said Henderson bitterly.
"There's no use putting it off.  Edith, I saw some one to-day."

"You should have seen thousands," she said lightly.

"I did.  But of them all, only one will be of interest to you."

"Man or woman?"

"Man."

"Where?"

"Lake Shore private hospital."

"An accident?"

"No.  Nervous and physical breakdown."

"Phil said he was going back to the Limberlost."

"He went.  He was there three weeks, but the strain
broke him.  He has an old letter in his hands that he has
handled until it is ragged.  He held it up to me and said:
"You can see for yourself that she says she will be well and
happy, but we can't know until we see her again, and that
may never be.  She may have gone too near that place her
father went down, some of that Limberlost gang may have
found her in the forest, she may lie dead in some city
morgue this instant, waiting for me to find her body."

"Hart!  For pity sake stop!"

"I can't," cried Henderson desperately.  "I am forced
to tell you.  They are fighting brain fever.  He did go
back to the swamp and he prowled it night and day.
The days down there are hot now, and the nights wet with
dew and cold.  He paid no attention and forgot his food.
A fever started and his uncle brought him home.
They've never had a word from her, or found a trace
of her.  Mrs. Comstock thought she had gone to O'Mores' at
Great Rapids, so when Phil broke down she telegraphed there.
They had been gone all summer, so her mother is as anxious as Phil."

"The O'Mores are here," said Edith.  "I haven't seen
any of them, because I haven't gone out much in the
few days since we came, but this is their summer home."

"Edith, they say at the hospital that it will take careful
nursing to save Phil.  He is surrounded by stacks of
maps and railroad guides.  He is trying to frame up a plan
to set the entire detective agency of the country to work.
He says he will stay there just two days longer.  The doctors
say he will kill himself when he goes.  He is a sick
man, Edith.  His hands are burning and shaky and his
breath was hot against my face."

"Why are you telling me?"  It was a cry of acute anguish.

"He thinks you know where she is."

"I do not!  I haven't an idea!  I never dreamed she
would go away when she had him in her hand!  I should
not have done it!"

"He said it was something you said to her that made her go."

"That may be, but it doesn't prove that I know where
she went."

Henderson looked across the water and suffered keenly.  At last
he turned to Edith and laid a firm, strong hand over hers.

"Edith," he said, "do you realize how serious this is?"

"I suppose I do."

"Do you want as fine a fellow as Philip driven any further?
If he leaves that hospital now, and goes out to the
exposure and anxiety of a search for her, there will be a
tragedy that no after regrets can avert.  Edith, what did
you say to Miss Comstock that made her run away from Phil?"

The girl turned her face from him and sat still, but the
man gripping her hands and waiting in agony could see that
she was shaken by the jolting of the heart in her breast.

"Edith, what did you say?"

"What difference can it make?"

"It might furnish some clue to her action."

"It could not possibly."

"Phil thinks so.  He has thought so until his brain is
worn enough to give way.  Tell me, Edith!"

"I told her Phil was mine!  That if he were away from
her an hour and back in my presence, he would be to me as
he always has been."

"Edith, did you believe that?"

"I would have staked my life, my soul on it!"

"Do you believe it now?"

There was no answer.  Henderson took her other hand and
holding both of them firmly he said softly:  "Don't mind
me, dear.  I don't count!  I'm just old Hart!  You can
tell me anything.  Do you still believe that?"

The beautiful head barely moved in negation.
Henderson gathered both her hands in one of his and stretched
an arm across her shoulders to the post to support her.
She dragged her hands from him and twisted them together.

"Oh, Hart!" she cried.  "It isn't fair!  There is
a limit!  I have suffered my share.  Can't you see?
Can't you understand?"

"Yes," he panted.  "Yes, my girl!  Tell me just this
one thing yet, and I'll cheerfully kill any one who annoys
you further.  Tell me, Edith!"

Then she lifted her big, dull, pain-filled eyes to his and
cried:  "No! I do not believe it now!  I know it is not true!
I killed his love for me.  It is dead and gone forever.
Nothing will revive it!  Nothing in all this world.
And that is not all.  I did not know how to touch the
depths of his nature.  I never developed in him those
things he was made to enjoy.  He admired me.  He was
proud to be with me.  He thought, and I thought, that he
worshipped me; but I know now that he never did care for
me as he cares for her.  Never!  I can see it!  I planned to
lead society, to make his home a place sought for my
beauty and popularity.  She plans to advance his political
ambitions, to make him comfortable physically, to stimulate
his intellect, to bear him a brood of red-faced children.
He likes her and her plans as he never did me and mine.
Oh, my soul!  Now, are you satisfied?"

She dropped back against his arm exhausted.
Henderson held her and learned what suffering
truly means.  He fanned her with his hat, rubbed
her cold hands and murmured broken, incoherent things.
By and by slow tears slipped from under her closed lids,
but when she opened them her eyes were dull and hard.

"What a rag one is when the last secret of the soul is
torn out and laid bare!" she cried.

Henderson thrust his handkerchief into her fingers and
whispered, "Edith, the boat has been creeping up.
It's very close.  Maybe some of our crowd are on it.
Hadn't we better slip away from here before it lands?"

"If I can walk," she said.  "Oh, I am so dead tired, Hart!

"Yes, dear," said Henderson soothingly.  "Just try to
pass the landing before the boat anchors.  If I only dared
carry you!"

They struggled through the waiting masses, but directly
opposite the landing there was a backward movement in
the happy, laughing crowd, the gang-plank came down
with a slam, and people began hurrying from the boat.
Crowded against the fish house on the dock, Henderson
could only advance a few steps at a time.  He was straining
every nerve to protect and assist Edith.  He saw no
one he recognized near them, so he slipped his arm across
her back to help support her.  He felt her stiffen against
him and catch her breath.  At the same instant, the
clearest, sweetest male voice he ever had heard called:
"Be careful there, little men!"

Henderson sent a swift glance toward the boat.  Terence O'More
had stepped from the gang-plank, leading a little daughter,
so like him, it was comical.  There followed a picture not
easy to describe.  The Angel in the full flower of her
beauty, richly dressed, a laugh on her cameo face, the
setting sun glinting on her gold hair, escorted by her
eldest son, who held her hand tightly and carefully watched
her steps.  Next came Elnora, dressed with equal richness,
a trifle taller and slenderer, almost the same type of
colouring, but with different eyes and hair, facial lines
and expression.  She was led by the second O'More boy
who convulsed the crowd by saying:  "Tareful, Elnora!
Don't 'oo be 'teppin' in de water!"

People surged around them, purposely closing them in.

"What lovely women!  Who are they?  It's the O'Mores.
The lightest one is his wife.  Is that her sister?
No, it is his!  They say he has a title in England."

Whispers ran fast and audible.  As the crowd pressed
around the party an opening was left beside the fish sheds.
Edith ran down the dock.  Henderson sprang after her,
catching her arm and assisting her to the street.

"Up the shore!  This way!" she panted.  "Every one
will go to dinner the first thing they do."

They left the street and started around the beach, but
Edith was breathless from running, while the yielding sand
made difficult walking.

"Help me!" she cried, clinging to Henderson.  He put
his arm around her, almost carrying her from sight into a
little cove walled by high rocks at the back, while there
was a clean floor of white sand, and logs washed from the
lake for seats.  He found one of these with a back rest,
and hurrying down to the water he soaked his handkerchief
and carried it to her.  She passed it across her lips,
over her eyes, and then pressed the palms of her hands
upon it.  Henderson removed the heavy hat, fanned her
with his, and wet the handkerchief again.

"Hart, what makes you?" she said wearily.  "My mother
doesn't care.  She says this is good for me.  Do you
think this is good for me, Hart?"

"Edith, you know I would give my life if I could save
you this," he said, and could not speak further.

She leaned against him, closed her eyes and lay silent so
long the man fell into panic.

"Edith, you are not unconscious?" he whispered, touching her.

"No.  just resting.  Please don't leave me."

He held her carefully, gently fanning her.  She was
suffering almost more than either of them could endure.

"I wish you had your boat," she said at last.  "I want
to sail with the wind in my face."

"There is no wind.  I can bring my motor around in a
few minutes."

"Then get it."

"Lie on the sand.  I can 'phone from the first booth.
It won't take but a little while."

Edith lay on the white sand, and Henderson covered her
face with her hat.  Then he ran to the nearest booth and
talked imperatively.  Presently he was back bringing a
hot drink that was stimulating.  Shortly the motor ran
close to the beach and stopped.  Henderson's servant
brought a row-boat ashore and took them to the launch.
It was filled with cushions and wraps.  Henderson made a
couch and soon, warmly covered, Edith sped out over the
water in search of peace.

Hour after hour the boat ran up and down the shore.
The moon arose and the night air grew very chilly.
Henderson put on an overcoat and piled more covers on Edith.

"You must take me home," she said at last.  "The folks
will be uneasy."

He was compelled to take her to the cottage with the
battle still raging.  He went back early the next morning,
but already she had wandered out over the island.
Instinctively Henderson felt that the shore would attract her.
There was something in the tumult of rough little Huron's
waves that called to him.  It was there he found her,
crouching so close the water the foam was dampening her skirts.

"May I stay?" he asked.

"I have been hoping you would come," she answered.
"It's bad enough when you are here, but it is a little easier
than bearing it alone."

"Thank God for that!" said Henderson sitting beside
her.  "Shall I talk to you?"

She shook her head.  So they sat by the hour.  At last
she spoke:  "Of course, you know there is something I
have got to do, Hart!"

"You have not!" cried Henderson, violently.
"That's all nonsense!  Give me just one word
of permission.  That is all that is required of you."

"`Required?'  You grant, then, that there is something `required?'"

"One word.  Nothing more."

"Did you ever know one word could be so big, so black,
so desperately bitter?  Oh, Hart!"

"No."

"But you know it now, Hart!"

"Yes."

"And still you say that it is `required?'"

Henderson suffered unspeakably.  At last he said:  "If you
had seen and heard him, Edith, you, too, would feel that
it is `required.'  Remember----"

"No!  No!  No!" she cried.  "Don't ask me to remember even
the least of my pride and folly.  Let me forget!"

She sat silent for a long time.

"Will you go with me?" she whispered.

"Of course."

At last she arose.

"I might as well give up and have it over," she faltered.

That was the first time in her life that Edith Carr ever
had proposed to give up anything she wanted.

"Help me, Hart!"

Henderson started around the beach assisting her all he could.
Finally he stopped.

"Edith, there is no sense in this!  You are too tired to go.
You know you can trust me.  You wait in any of these lovely
places and send me.  You will be safe, and I'll run.
One word is all that is necessary."

"But I've got to say that word myself, Hart!"

"Then write it, and let me carry it.  The message is not
going to prove who went to the office and sent it."

"That is quite true," she said, dropping wearily, but she
made no movement to take the pen and paper he offered.

"Hart, you write it," she said at last.

Henderson turned away his face.  He gripped the pen,
while his breath sucked between his dry teeth.

"Certainly!" he said when he could speak.  "Mackinac,
August 27, 1908.  Philip Ammon, Lake Shore Hospital, Chicago."
He paused with suspended pen and glanced at Edith.  Her white
lips were working, but no sound came.  "Miss Comstock is with
the Terence O'Mores, on Mackinac Island," prompted Henderson.

Edith nodded.

"Signed, Henderson," continued the big man.

Edith shook her head.

"Say, `She is well and happy,' and sign, Edith Carr!"
she panted.

"Not on your life!" flashed Henderson.

"For the love of mercy, Hart, don't make this any harder!
It is the least I can do, and it takes every ounce of
strength in me to do it."

"Will you wait for me here?" he asked.

She nodded, and, pulling his hat lower over his eyes,
Henderson ran around the shore.  In less than an hour he
was back.  He helped her a little farther to where the
Devil's Kitchen lay cut into the rocks; it furnished places
to rest, and cool water.  Before long his man came with
the boat.  From it they spread blankets on the sand for
her, and made chafing-dish tea.  She tried to refuse it,
but the fragrance overcame her for she drank ravenously.
Then Henderson cooked several dishes and spread an
appetizing lunch.  She was young, strong, and almost
famished for food.  She was forced to eat.  That made
her feel much better.  Then Henderson helped her into the
boat and ran it through shady coves of the shore, where
there were refreshing breezes.  When she fell asleep the
girl did not know, but the man did.  Sadly in need of rest
himself, he ran that boat for five hours through quiet bays,
away from noisy parties, and where the shade was cool
and deep.  When she awoke he took her home, and as they
went she knew that she had been mistaken.  She would
not die.  Her heart was not even broken.  She had suffered
horribly; she would suffer more; but eventually the pain
must wear out.  Into her head crept a few lines of an
old opera:


     "Hearts do not break, they sting and ache,
      For old love's sake, but do not die,
      As witnesseth the living I."


That evening they were sailing down the Straits before
a stiff breeze and Henderson was busy with the tiller when
she said to him:  "Hart, I want you to do something more
for me."

"You have only to tell me," he said.

"Have I only to tell you, Hart?" she asked softly.

"Haven't you learned that yet, Edith?"

"I want you to go away."

"Very well," he said quietly, but his face whitened visibly.

"You say that as if you had been expecting it."

"I have.  I knew from the beginning that when this
was over you would dislike me for having seen you suffer.
I have grown my Gethsemane in a full realization of what
was coming, but I could not leave you, Edith, so long as it
seemed to me that I was serving you.  Does it make any
difference to you where I go?"

"I want you where you will be loved, and good care
taken of you."

"Thank you!" said Henderson, smiling grimly.  "Have you
any idea where such a spot might be found?"

"It should be with your sister at Los Angeles.  She always
has seemed very fond of you."

"That is quite true," said Henderson, his eyes brightening
a little.  "I will go to her.  When shall I start?"

"At once."

Henderson began to tack for the landing, but his hands
shook until he scarcely could manage the boat.  Edith Carr
sat watching him indifferently, but her heart was
throbbing painfully.  "Why is there so much suffering in
the world?" she kept whispering to herself.  Inside her
door Henderson took her by the shoulders almost roughly.

"For how long is this, Edith, and how are you going to
say good-bye to me?"

She raised tired, pain-filled eyes to his.

"I don't know for how long it is," she said.  "It seems
now as if it had been a slow eternity.  I wish to my soul
that God would be merciful to me and make something
`snap' in my heart, as there did in Phil's, that would give
me rest.  I don't know for how long, but I'm perfectly
shameless with you, Hart.  If peace ever comes and I want
you, I won't wait for you to find it out yourself, I'll cable,
Marconigraph, anything.  As for how I say good-bye; any
way you please, I don't care in the least what happens to me."

Henderson studied her intently.

"In that case, we will shake hands," he said.  "Good-bye, Edith.
Don't forget that every hour I am thinking of you and hoping
all good things will come to you soon."




CHAPTER XXV


WHEREIN PHILIP FINDS ELNORA,
AND EDITH CARR OFFERS A YELLOW EMPEROR


Oh, I need my own violin," cried Elnora.  "This one
may be a thousand times more expensive, and much older
than mine; but it wasn't inspired and taught to sing
by a man who knew how.  It doesn't know `beans,' as
mother would say, about the Limberlost."

The guests in the O'More music-room laughed appreciatively.

"Why don't you write your mother to come for a visit
and bring yours?" suggested Freckles.

"I did that three days ago," acknowledged Elnora.
"I am half expecting her on the noon boat.  That is
one reason why this violin grows worse every minute.
There is nothing at all the matter with me."

"Splendid!" cried the Angel.  "I've begged and begged
her to do it.  I know how anxious these mothers become.
When did you send?  What made you?  Why didn't you
tell me?"

"`When?' Three days ago.  `What made me?'  You. `Why didn't
I tell you?'  Because I can't be sure in the least that she
will come.  Mother is the most individual person.  She never
does what every one expects she will.

She may not come, and I didn't want you to be disappointed."

"How did I make you?" asked the Angel.

"Loving Alice.  It made me realize that if you cared for
your girl like that, with Mr. O'More and three other
children, possibly my mother, with no one, might like to
see me.  I know I want to see her, and you had told me to
so often, I just sent for her.  Oh, I do hope she comes!
I want her to see this lovely place."

"I have been wondering what you thought of Mackinac,"
said Freckles.

"Oh, it is a perfect picture, all of it!  I should like to
hang it on the wall, so I could see it whenever I wanted to;
but it isn't real, of course; it's nothing but a picture."

"These people won't agree with you," smiled Freckles.

"That isn't necessary," retorted Elnora.  "They know
this, and they love it; but you and I are acquainted with
something different.  The Limberlost is life.  Here it is
a carefully kept park.  You motor, sail, and golf, all so
secure and fine.  But what I like is the excitement of
choosing a path carefully, in the fear that the quagmire
may reach out and suck me down; to go into the swamp
naked-handed and wrest from it treasures that bring me
books and clothing, and I like enough of a fight for things
that I always remember how I got them.  I even enjoy
seeing a canny old vulture eyeing me as if it were saying:
`Ware the sting of the rattler, lest I pick your bones as I
did old Limber's.' I like sufficient danger to put an edge
on life.  This is so tame.  I should have loved it when all
the homes were cabins, and watchers for the stealthy
Indian canoes patrolled the shores.  You wait until
mother comes, and if my violin isn't angry with me for
leaving it, to-night we shall sing you the Song of
the Limberlost.  You shall hear the big gold bees over the
red, yellow, and purple flowers, bird song, wind talk, and
the whispers of Sleepy Snake Creek, as it goes past you.
You will know!"  Elnora turned to Freckles.

He nodded.  "Who better?" he asked.  "This is secure
while the children are so small, but when they grow larger,
we are going farther north, into real forest, where they can
learn self-reliance and develop backbone."

Elnora laid away the violin.  "Come along, children,"
she said.  "We must get at that backbone business at once.
Let's race to the playhouse."

With the brood at her heels Elnora ran, and for an hour
lively sounds stole from the remaining spot of forest on the
Island, which lay beside the O'More cottage.  Then Terry
went to the playroom to bring Alice her doll.  He came
racing back, dragging it by one leg, and crying:
"There's company!  Someone has come that mamma and papa
are just tearing down the house over.  I saw through
the window."

"It could not be my mother, yet," mused Elnora.  "Her boat
is not due until twelve.  Terry, give Alice that doll----"

"It's a man-person, and I don't know him, but my
father is shaking his hand right straight along, and my
mother is running for a hot drink and a cushion.  It's a
kind of a sick person, but they are going to make him well
right away, any one can see that.  This is the best place.

I'll go tell him to come lie on the pine needles in the sun
and watch the sails go by.  That will fix him!"

"Watch sails go by," chanted Little Brother.  "'A fix him!
Elnora fix him, won't you?"

"I don't know about that," answered Elnora.  "What sort
of person is he, Terry?"

"A beautiful white person; but my father is going to
`colour him up,' I heard him say so.  He's just out of the
hospital, and he is a bad person, 'cause he ran away from
the doctors and made them awful angry.  But father
and mother are going to doctor him better.  I didn't know
they could make sick people well."

"'Ey do anyfing!" boasted Little Brother.

Before Elnora missed her, Alice, who had gone to
investigate, came flying across the shadows and through the
sunshine waving a paper.  She thurst it into Elnora's hand.

"There is a man-person--a stranger-person!" she shouted.
"But he knows you!  He sent you that!  You are to be
the doctor!  He said so!  Oh, do hurry!  I like him heaps!"

Elnora read Edith Carr's telegram to Philip Ammon
and understood that he had been ill, that she had been
located by Edith who had notified him.  In so doing
she had acknowledged defeat.  At last Philip was free.
Elnora looked up with a radiant face.

"I like him `heaps' myself!" she cried.  "Come on
children, we will go tell him so."

Terry and Alice ran, but Elnora had to suit her steps
to Little Brother, who was her loyal esquire, and would
have been heartbroken over desertion and insulted at
being carried.  He was rather dragged, but he was
arriving, and the emergency was great, he could see that.

"She's coming!" shouted Alice.

"She's going to be the doctor!" cried Terry.

"She looked just like she'd seen angels when she read
the letter," explained Alice.

"She likes you `heaps!'  She said so!" danced Terry.
"Be waiting!  Here she is!"

Elnora helped Little Brother up the steps, then deserted
him and came at a rush.  The stranger-person stood
holding out trembling arms.

"Are you sure, at last, runaway?" asked Philip Ammon.

"Perfectly sure!" cried Elnora.

"Will you marry me now?"

"This instant!  That is, any time after the noon boat
comes in."

"Why such unnecessary delay?" demanded Ammon.

"It is almost September," explained Elnora.  "I sent
for mother three days ago.  We must wait until she comes,
and we either have to send for Uncle Wesley and Aunt
Margaret, or go to them.  I couldn't possibly be married
properly without those dear people."

"We will send," decided Ammon.  "The trip will be
a treat for them.  O'More, would you get off a message
at once?"

Every one met the noon boat.  They went in the motor
because Philip was too weak to walk so far.  As soon as
people could be distinguished at all Elnora and Philip
sighted an erect figure, with a head like a snowdrift.
When the gang-plank fell the first person across it was
a lean, red-haired boy of eleven, carrying a violin in
one hand and an enormous bouquet of yellow marigolds and
purple asters in the other.  He was beaming with broad
smiles until he saw Philip.  Then his expression changed.

"Aw, say!" he exclaimed reproachfully.  "I bet you
Aunt Margaret is right.  He is going to be your beau!"

Elnora stooped to kiss Billy as she caught her mother.

"There, there!" cried Mrs. Comstock.  "Don't knock
my headgear into my eye.  I'm not sure I've got either
hat or hair.  The wind blew like bizzem coming up the river."

She shook out her skirts, straightened her hat, and
came forward to meet Philip, who took her into his arms
and kissed her repeatedly.  Then he passed her along to
Freckles and the Angel to whom her greetings were mingled
with scolding and laughter over her wind-blown hair.

"No doubt I'm a precious spectacle!" she said to the Angel.
"I saw your pa a little before I started, and he sent you
a note.  It's in my satchel.  He said he was coming up
next week.  What a lot of people there are in this world!
And what on earth are all of them laughing about?
Did none of them ever hear of sickness, or sorrow,
or death?  Billy, don't you go to playing Indian or
chasing woodchucks until you get out of those clothes.
I promised Margaret I'd bring back that suit good as new."

Then the O'More children came crowding to meet Elnora's mother.

"Merry Christmas!" cried Mrs. Comstock, gathering
them in.  "Got everything right here but the tree, and
there seems to be plenty of them a little higher up.
If this wind would stiffen just enough more to blow away
the people, so one could see this place, I believe it would
be right decent looking."

"See here," whispered Elnora to Philip.  "You must
fix this with Billy.  I can't have his trip spoiled."

"Now, here is where I dust the rest of 'em!" complacently
remarked Mrs. Comstock, as she climbed into the motor car
for her first ride, in company with Philip and Little Brother.
"I have been the one to trudge the roads and hop out of the
way of these things for quite a spell."

She sat very erect as the car rolled into the broad main
avenue, where only stray couples were walking.  Her eyes
began to twinkle and gleam.  Suddenly she leaned forward
and touched the driver on the shoulder.

"Young man," she said, "just you toot that horn suddenly
and shave close enough a few of those people, so that I
can see how I look when I leap for ragweed and snake fences."

The amazed chauffeur glanced questioningly at Philip
who slightly nodded.  A second later there was a quick
"honk!" and a swerve at a corner.  A man engrossed
in conversation grabbed the woman to whom he was talking
and dashed for the safety of a lawn.  The woman
tripped in her skirts, and as she fell the man caught and
dragged her.  Both of them turned red faces to the car
and berated the driver.  Mrs. Comstock laughed in
unrestrained enjoyment.  Then she touched the chauffeur again.

"That's enough," she said.  "It seems a mite risky."
A minute later she added to Philip, "If only they had
been carrying six pounds of butter and ten dozen eggs
apiece, wouldn't that have been just perfect?"

Billy had wavered between Elnora and the motor, but
his loyal little soul had been true to her, so the walk to
the cottage began with him at her side.  Long before
they arrived the little O'Mores had crowded around and
captured Billy, and he was giving them an expurgated
version of Mrs. Comstock's tales of Big Foot and Adam
Poe, boasting that Uncle Wesley had been in the camps
of Me-shin-go-me-sia and knew Wa-ca-co-nah before
he got religion and dressed like white men; while the
mighty prowess of Snap as a woodchuck hunter was done
full justice.  When they reached the cottage Philip took
Billy aside, showed him the emerald ring and gravely
asked his permission to marry Elnora.  Billy struggled
to be just, but it was going hard with him, when Alice,
who kept close enough to hear, intervened.

"Why don't you let them get married?" she asked.
"You are much too small for her.  You wait for me!"

Billy studied her intently.  At last he turned to Ammon.
"Aw, well!  Go on, then!" he said gruffly.  "I'll marry Alice!"

Alice reached her hand.  "If you got that settled
let's put on our Indian clothes, call the boys, and go to
the playhouse."

"I haven't got any Indian clothes," said Billy ruefully.

"Yes, you have," explained Alice.  "Father bought
you some coming from the dock.  You can put them on in
the playhouse.  The boys do."

Billy examined the playhouse with gleaming eyes.

Never had he encountered such possibilities.  He could
see a hundred amusing things to try, and he could not
decide which to do first.  The most immediate attraction
seemed to be a dead pine, held perpendicularly by its
fellows, while its bark had decayed and fallen, leaving
a bare, smooth trunk.

"If we just had some grease that would make the dandiest
pole to play Fourth of July with!" he shouted.

The children remembered the Fourth.  It had been
great fun.

"Butter is grease.  There is plenty in the 'frigerator,"
suggested Alice, speeding away.

Billy caught the cold roll and began to rub it against
the tree excitedly.

"How are you going to get it greased to the top?" inquired Terry.

Billy's face lengthened.  "That's so!" he said.  "The thing
is to begin at the top and grease down.  I'll show you!"

Billy put the butter in his handkerchief and took the
corners between his teeth.  He climbed the pole, greasing
it as he slid down.

"Now, I got to try first," he said, "because I'm the
biggest and so I have the best chance; only the one that
goes first hasn't hardly any chance at all, because he has
to wipe off the grease on himself, so the others can get up
at last.  See?"

"All right!" said Terry.  "You go first and then I will
and then Alice.  Phew!  It's slick.  He'll never get up."

Billy wrestled manfully, and when he was exhausted
he boosted Terry, and then both of them helped Alice,
to whom they awarded a prize of her own doll.  As they
rested Billy remembered.

"Do your folks keep cows?" he asked.

"No, we buy milk," said Terry.

"Gee!  Then what about the butter?  Maybe your
ma needs it for dinner!"

"No, she doesn't!" cried Alice.  "There's stacks of it!
I can have all the butter I want."

"Well, I'm mighty glad of it!" said Billy.  "I didn't
just think.  I'm afraid we've greased our clothes, too."

"That's no difference," said Terry.  "We can play
what we please in these things."

"Well, we ought to be all dirty, and bloody, and have
feathers on us to be real Indians," said Billy.

Alice tried a handful of dirt on her sleeve and it
streaked beautifully.  Instantly all of them began
smearing themselves.

"If we only had feathers," lamented Billy.

Terry disappeared and shortly returned from the garage
with a feather duster.  Billy fell on it with a shriek.
Around each one's head he firmly tied a twisted handkerchief,
and stuck inside it a row of stiffly upstanding feathers.

"Now, if we just only had some pokeberries to paint us
red, we'd be real, for sure enough Indians, and we could go
on the warpath and fight all the other tribes and burn a
lot of them at the stake."

Alice sidled up to him.  "Would huckleberries do?"
she asked softly.

"Yes!" shouted Terry, wild with excitement.  "Anything that's
a colour."

Alice made another trip to the refrigerator.  Billy crushed
the berries in his hands and smeared and streaked all their
faces liberally.

"Now are we ready?" asked Alice.

Billy collapsed.  "I forgot the ponies!  You got to ride
ponies to go on the warpath!"

"You ain't neither!" contradicted Terry.  "It's the
very latest style to go on the warpath in a motor.
Everybody does!  They go everywhere in them.  They are
much faster and better than any old ponies."

Billy gave one genuine whoop.  "Can we take your motor?"

Terry hesitated.

"I suppose you are too little to run it?" said Billy.

"I am not!" flashed Terry.  "I know how to start and
stop it, and I drive lots for Stephens.  It is hard to turn
over the engine when you start."

"I'll turn it," volunteered Billy.  "I'm strong as anything."

"Maybe it will start without.  If Stephens has just
been running it, sometimes it will.  Come on, let's try."

Billy straightened up, lifted his chin and cried:  "Houpe!
Houpe!  Houpe!"

The little O'Mores stared in amazement.

"Why don't you come on and whoop?" demanded Billy.
"Don't you know how?  You are great Indians!
You got to whoop before you go on the warpath.
You ought to kill a bat, too, and see if the wind
is right.  But maybe the engine won't run if we wait
to do that.  You can whoop, anyway.  All together now!"


They did whoop, and after several efforts the cry satisfied
Billy, so he led the way to the big motor, and took
the front seat with Terry.  Alice and Little Brother
climbed into the back.

"Will it go?" asked Billy, "or do we have to turn it?"

"It will go," said Terry as the machine gently slid out
into the avenue and started under his guidance.

"This is no warpath!" scoffed Billy.  "We got to go a
lot faster than this, and we got to whoop.  Alice, why
don't you whoop?

Alice arose, took hold of the seat in front and whooped.

"If I open the throttle, I can't squeeze the bulb to scare
people out of our way," said Terry.  "I can't steer and
squeeze, too."

"We'll whoop enough to get them out of the way.  Go faster!"
urged Billy.

Billy also stood, lifted his chin and whooped like the
wildest little savage that ever came out of the West.
Alice and Little Brother added their voices, and when he
was not absorbed with the steering gear, Terry joined in.

"Faster!" shouted Billy.

Intoxicated with the speed and excitement, Terry
threw the throttle wider and the big car leaped forward
and sped down the avenue.  In it four black, feather-
bedecked children whooped in wild glee until suddenly
Terry's war cry changed to a scream of panic.

"The lake is coming!"

"Stop!" cried Billy.  "Stop!  Why don't you stop?"

Paralyzed with fear Terry clung to the steering gear and
the car sped onward.

"You little fool!  Why don't you stop?" screamed
Billy, catching Terry's arm.  "Tell me how to stop!"

A bicycle shot beside them and Freckles standing on
the pedals shouted:  "Pull out the pin in that little
circle at your feet!"

Billy fell on his knees and tugged and the pin yielded
at last.  Just as the wheels struck the white sand the bicycle
sheered close, Freckles caught the lever and with one strong
shove set the brake.  The water flew as the car struck Huron,
but luckily it was shallow and the beach smooth.  Hub deep
the big motor stood quivering as Freckles climbed in and
backed it to dry sand.

Then he drew a deep breath and stared at his brood.

"Terence, would you kindly be explaining?" he said at last.

Billy looked at the panting little figure of Terry.

"I guess I better," he said.  "We were playing Indians
on the warpath, and we hadn't any ponies, and Terry
said it was all the style to go in automobiles now,
so we----"

Freckles's head went back, and be did some whooping himself.

"I wonder if you realize how nearly you came to being
four drowned children?" he said gravely, after a time.

"Oh, I think I could swim enough to get most of us out,"
said Billy.  "Anyway, we need washing."

"You do indeed," said Freckles.  "I will head this
procession to the garage, and there we will remove the
first coat." For the remainder of Billy's visit the nurse,
chauffeur, and every servant of the O'More household had
something of importance on their minds, and Billy's every
step was shadowed.

"I have Billy's consent," said Philip to Elnora, "and all
the other consent you have stipulated.  Before you think
of something more, give me your left hand, please."

Elnora gave it gladly, and the emerald slipped on her finger.
Then they went together into the forest to tell each other
all about it, and talk it over.

"Have you seen Edith?" asked Philip.

"No," answered Elnora.  "But she must be here, or she
may have seen me when we went to Petoskey a few days ago.
Her people have a cottage over on the bluff, but the
Angel never told me until to-day.  I didn't want to make
that trip, but the folks were so anxious to entertain me,
and it was only a few days until I intended to let you know
myself where I was."

"And I was going to wait just that long, and if I didn't
hear then I was getting ready to turn over the country.
I can scarcely realize yet that Edith sent me that telegram."

"No wonder!  It's a difficult thing to believe.  I can't
express how I feel for her."

"Let us never speak of it again," said Philip.  "I came
nearer feeling sorry for her last night than I have yet.
I couldn't sleep on that boat coming over, and I couldn't
put away the thought of what sending that message cost her.
I never would have believed it possible that she would do it.
But it is done.  We will forget it."

"I scarcely think I shall," said Elnora.  "It is something
I like to remember.  How suffering must have changed her!
I would give anything to bring her peace."

"Henderson came to see me at the hospital a few days ago.
He's gone a rather wild pace, but if he had been held
from youth by the love of a good woman he might have
lived differently.  There are things about him one cannot
help admiring."

"I think he loves her," said Elnora softly.

"He does!  He always has!  He never made any secret
of it.  He will cut in now and do his level best,
but he told me that he thought she would send him away.
He understands her thoroughly."

Edith Carr did not understand herself.  She went to
her room after her good-bye to Henderson, lay on her
bed and tried to think why she was suffering as she was.

"It is all my selfishness, my unrestrained temper, my
pride in my looks, my ambition to be first," she said.
"That is what has caused this trouble."

Then she went deeper.

"How does it happen that I am so selfish, that I never
controlled my temper, that I thought beauty and social
position the vital things of life?" she muttered.  "I think
that goes a little past me.  I think a mother who allows a
child to grow up as I did, who educates it only for the
frivolities of life, has a share in that child's ending.
I think my mother has some responsibility in this," Edith
Carr whispered to the night.  "But she will recognize none.
She would laugh at me if I tried to tell her what I have
suffered and the bitter, bitter lesson I have learned.
No one really cares, but Hart.  I've sent him away, so
there is no one!  No one!"

Edith pressed her fingers across her burning eyes and
lay still.

"He is gone!" she whispered at last.   "He would go at once.
He would not see me again.  I should think he never would
want to see me any more.  But I will want to see him!
My soul!  I want him now!  I want him every minute!
He is all I have.  And I've sent him away.  Oh, these
dreadful days to come, alone!  I can't bear it.  Hart!
Hart!" she cried aloud.  "I want you!  No one cares but you.
No one understands but you.  Oh, I want you!"

She sprang from her bed and felt her way to her desk.

"Get me some one at the Henderson cottage," she said
to Central, and waited shivering.

"They don't answer."

"They are there!  You must get them.  Turn on the buzzer."

After a time the sleepy voice of Mrs. Henderson answered.

"Has Hart gone?" panted Edith Carr.

"No!  He came in late and began to talk about starting
to California.  He hasn't slept in weeks to amount
to anything.  I put him to bed.  There is time enough to
start to California when he awakens.  Edith, what are you
planning to do next with that boy of mine?"

"Will you tell him I want to see him before he goes?"

"Yes, but I won't wake him."

"I don't want you to.  Just tell him in the morning."

"Very well."

"You will be sure?"

"Sure!"

Hart was not gone.  Edith fell asleep.  She arose at
noon the next day, took a cold bath, ate her breakfast,
dressed carefully, and leaving word that she had gone to
the forest, she walked slowly across the leaves.  It was
cool and quiet there, so she sat where she could see him
coming, and waited.  She was thinking deep and fast.

Henderson came swiftly down the path.  A long sleep,
food, and Edith's message had done him good.  He had
dressed in new light flannels that were becoming.
Edith arose and went to meet him.

"Let us walk in the forest," she said.

They passed the old Catholic graveyard, and entered
the deepest wood of the Island, where all shadows were
green, all voices of humanity ceased, and there was no
sound save the whispering of the trees, a few bird notes and
squirrel rustle.  There Edith seated herself on a mossy old
log, and Henderson studied her.  He could detect a change.
She was still pale and her eyes tired, but the dull, strained
look was gone.  He wanted to hope, but he did not dare.
Any other man would have forced her to speak.  The mighty
tenderness in Henderson's heart shielded her in every way.

"What have you thought of that you wanted yet, Edith?"
he asked lightly as he stretched himself at her feet.

"You!"

Henderson lay tense and very still.

"Well, I am here!"

"Thank Heaven for that!"

Henderson sat up suddenly, leaning toward her with
questioning eyes.  Not knowing what he dared say,
afraid of the hope which found birth in his heart, he tried
to shield her and at the same time to feel his way.

"I am more thankful than I can express that you feel
so," he said.  "I would be of use, of comfort, to you if I
knew how, Edith."

"You are my only comfort," she said.  "I tried to send
you away.  I thought I didn't want you.  I thought I
couldn't bear the sight of you, because of what you have
seen me suffer.  But I went to the root of this thing last
night, Hart, and with self in mind, as usual, I found that
I could not live without you."

Henderson began breathing lightly.  He was afraid to
speak or move.

"I faced the fact that all this is my own fault,"
continued Edith, "and came through my own selfishness.
Then I went farther back and realized that I am as I
was reared.  I don't want to blame my parents, but I
was carefully trained into what I am.  If Elnora Comstock had
been like me, Phil would have come back to me.  I can see
how selfish I seem to him, and how I appear to you, if you
would admit it."

"Edith," said Henderson desperately, "there is no use
to try to deceive you.  You have known from the first
that I found you wrong in this.  But it's the first time in
your life I ever thought you wrong about anything--and
it's the only time I ever shall.  Understand, I think you
the bravest, most beautiful woman on earth, the one most
worth loving."

"I'm not to be considered in the same class with her."

"I don't grant that, but if I did, you, must remember
how I compare with Phil.  He's my superior at every point.
There's no use in discussing that.  You wanted to see me, Edith.
What did you want?"

"I wanted you to not go away."

"Not at all?"

"Not at all!  Not ever!  Not unless you take me with
you, Hart."

She slightly extended one hand to him.  Henderson took
that hand, kissing it again and again.

"Anything you want, Edith," he said brokenly.  "Just as
you wish it.  Do you want me to stay here, and go on as
we have been?"

"Yes, only with a difference."

"Can you tell me, Edith?"

"First, I want you to know that you are the dearest
thing on earth to me, right now.  I would give up
everything else, before I would you.  I can't honestly say
that I love you with the love you deserve.  My heart is
too sore.  It's too soon to know.  But I love you some way.
You are necessary to me.  You are my comfort, my shield.
If you want me, as you know me to be, Hart, you may consider
me yours.  I give you my word of honour I will try to be
as you would have me, just as soon as I can."

Henderson kissed her hand passionately.  "Don't, Edith,"
he begged.  "Don't say those things.  I can't bear it.
I understand.  Everything will come right in time.
Love like mine must bring a reward.  You will love me
some day.  I can wait.  I am the most patient fellow."

"But I must say it," cried Edith.  "I--I think, Hart,
that I have been on the wrong road to find happiness.
I planned to finish life as I started it with Phil; and you
see how glad he was to change.  He wanted the other sort of
girl far more than he ever wanted me.  And you, Hart,
honest, now--I'll know if you don't tell me the truth!
Would you rather have a wife as I planned to live life with
Phil, or would you rather have her as Elnora Comstock intends
to live with him?"

"Edith!" cried the man, "Edith!"

"Of course, you can't say it in plain English," said the girl.
"You are far too chivalrous for that.  You needn't
say anything.  I am answered.  If you could have your
choice you wouldn't have a society wife, either.  In your
heart you'd like the smaller home of comfort, the furtherance
of your ambitions, the palatable meals regularly served,
and little children around you.  I am sick of all we
have grown up to, Hart.  When your hour of trouble
comes, there is no comfort for you.  I am tired to death.
You find out what you want to do, and be, that is a man's
work in the world, and I will plan our home, with no
thought save your comfort.  I'll be the other kind of a girl,
as fast as I can learn.  I can't correct all my faults in one
day, but I'll change as rapidly as I can."

"God knows, I will be different, too, Edith.  You shall
not be the only generous one.  I will make all the rest of
life worthy of you.  I will change, too!"

"Don't you dare!" said Edith Carr, taking his head between
her hands and holding it against her knees, while the
tears slid down her cheeks.  "Don't you dare change, you
big-hearted, splendid lover!  I am little and selfish.
You are the very finest, just as you are!"

Henderson was not talking then, so they sat through a
long silence.  At last he heard Edith draw a quick
breath, and lifting his head he looked where she pointed.
Up a fern stalk climbed a curious looking object.
They watched breathlessly.  By lavender feet clung a big,
pursy, lavender-splotched, yellow body.  Yellow and lavender
wings began to expand and take on colour.  Every instant
great beauty became more apparent.  It was one of those
double-brooded freaks, which do occur on rare occasions,
or merely an Eacles Imperialis moth that in the cool damp
northern forest had failed to emerge in June.  Edith Carr
drew back with a long, shivering breath.  Henderson caught
her hands and gripped them firmly.  Steadily she
looked the thought of her heart into his eyes.

"By all the powers, you shall not!" swore the man.
"You have done enough.  I will smash that thing!"

"Oh no you won't!" cried the girl, clinging to his hands.
"I am not big enough yet, Hart, but before I leave this
forest I shall have grown to breadth and strength to carry
that to her.  She needs two of each kind.  Phil only sent
her one!"

"Edith I can't bear it!  That's not demanded!  Let me
take it!"

"You may go with me.  I know where the O'More cottage is.
I have been there often."

"I'll say you sent it!"

"You may watch me deliver it!"

"Phil may be there by now."

"I hope he is!  I should like him to see me do one decent
thing by which to remember me."

"I tell you that is not necessary!"

"`Not necessary!'" cried the girl, her big eyes shining.
"Not necessary?  Then what on earth is the thing doing
here?  I just have boasted that I would change, that I
would be like her, that I would grow bigger and broader.
As the words are spoken God gives me the opportunity to
prove whether I am sincere.  This is my test, Hart!  Don't
you see it?  If I am big enough to carry that to her, you
will believe that there is some good in me.  You will not
be loving me in vain.  This is an especial Providence, man!
Be my strength!  Help me, as you always have done!"

Henderson arose and shook the leaves from his clothing.
He drew Edith Carr to her feet and carefully picked the
mosses from her skirts.  He went to the water and
moistened his handkerchief to bathe her face.

"Now a dust of powder," he said when the tears were
washed away.

From a tiny book Edith tore leaves that she passed over
her face.

"All gone!" cried Henderson, critically studying her.
"You look almost half as lovely as you really are!"

Edith Carr drew a wavering breath.  She stretched one
hand to him.

"Hold tight, Hart!" she said.  "I know they handle
these things, but I would quite as soon touch a snake."

Henderson clenched his teeth and held steadily.  The moth
had emerged too recently to be troublesome.  It climbed
on her fingers quietly and obligingly clung there
without moving.  So hand in hand they went down the
dark forest path.  When they came to the avenue, the first
person they met paused with an ejaculation of wonder.
The next stopped also, and every one following.  They could
make little progress on account of marvelling,
interested people.  A strange excitement took possession
of Edith.  She began to feel proud of the moth.

"Do you know," she said to Henderson," this is growing
easier every step.  Its clinging is not disagreeable as I
thought it would be.  I feel as if I were saving it,
protecting it. I am proud that we are taking it to be put
into a collection or a book.  It seems like doing a thing
worth while.  Oh, Hart, I wish we could work together at
something for which people would care as they seem to
for this.  Hear what they say!  See them lift their
little children to look at it!"

"Edith, if you don't stop," said Henderson, "I will take
you in my arms here on the avenue.  You are adorable!"

"Don't you dare!" laughed Edith Carr.  The colour
rushed to her cheeks and a new light leaped in her eyes

"Oh, Hart!" she cried.  "Let's work!  Let's do something!
That's the way she makes people love her so.  There's the
place, and thank goodness, there is a crowd."

"You darling!" whispered Henderson as they passed up
the walk.  Her face was rose-flushed with excitement and
her eyes shone.

"Hello, every, one!" she cried as she came on the wide veranda.
"Only see what we found up in the forest!  We thought you
might like to have it for some of your collections."

She held out the moth as she walked straight to Elnora,
who arose to meet her, crying:  "How perfectly splendid!
I don't even know how to begin to thank you."

Elnora took the moth.  Edith shook hands with all of
them and asked Philip if he were improving.  She said a few
polite words to Freckles and the Angel, declined to remain
on account of an engagement, and went away, gracefully.

"Well bully for her!" said Mrs. Comstock.  "She's a
little thoroughbred after all!"

"That was a mighty big thing for her to be doing,"
said Freckles in a hushed voice.

"If you knew her as well as I do," said Philip Ammon,
"you would have a better conception of what that cost."

"It was a terror!" cried the Angel.  "I never could have done it."

"`Never could have done it!'" echoed Freckles.  "Why, Angel,
dear, that is the one thing of all the world you would have done!"

"I have to take care of this," faltered Elnora, hurrying
toward the door to hide the tears which were rolling down
her cheeks.

"I must help," said Philip, disappearing also.  "Elnora,"
he called, catching up with her, "take me where I may cry, too.
Wasn't she great?"

"Superb!" exclaimed Elnora.  "I have no words.  I feel so humbled!"

"So do I," said Philip.  "I think a brave deed like that
always makes one feel so.  Now are you happy?"

"Unspeakably happy!" answered Elnora.