After all, it is perfectly harmless. She really is as kind a little soul as there is in the county. Her life has been so narrow. If she could have been a real worker in a big city she might have grown into a very remarkable person. What a detective she would have made!"
Judy yawned and stretched and sat up as Molly came in bearing a tray of lunch for her tired friend as well as the news of a letter from Mr.
Kean, somewhere on the road, and to be delivered some time that day if Bud Woodsmall"s automobile behaved.
"Oh, Molly, I am tired! Are you the only one of the crowd to be up and doing after last night?"
"I have persuaded mother to stay in bed and get a good rest. The boys took a late train into town, and Miss Hunt never did go to bed. Aunt Mary said she came down early this morning and "phoned over to Aunt Clay"s coachman to come for her immediately, and off she went without saying "boo to a goose." I wish you could have heard Aunt Mary"s description of her!
""Yo" Aunt Clay"s comp"ny sho ain"t no wet weather beauty. Her ha"r was so flat her haid looked jes" like a buckeye; and her dress "min" me of a las" year"s crow"s nes". She was so shamefaced like she resem"led that ole peac.o.c.k when Shep done pull out his tail.""
Judy laughed. "Oh, I do love Aunt Mary! But, Molly, won"t it be fine to see mamma and papa? Do you suppose they are really on their way?"
"It will be fine to see them, but it will be pretty sad to have them take off my Judy. I am mighty afraid that is what they are going to do.
Go back to sleep now and I will bring you your letter as soon as Bud puts in his appearance. I am going to have a hard game of tennis with Jimmy Lufton against Ernest and that nice Miss Rogers. Weren"t those girls s.p.u.n.ky last night? An experience like that will make you know people better than years of plain, everyday life. Professor Green has struck up quite an acquaintance with Miss Ormsby. It seems they have many mutual friends, both of them having summered many times at "Sconset.""
Molly spoke quietly, but there was a slight tremor of lip and a deepening of color that the sharp Judy saw and noted, but nothing would have made her let Molly know that she had betrayed herself in the least.
"Molly was perfectly unconscious of what she was doing last night,"
thought Judy, "but all the same she was making poor Professor Green live up to his name with jealousy. I don"t know but it might make Molly open her childlike old eyes if the patient professor should kick up his staid heels and jump the fence and go grazing in another paddock for a while."
And then aloud she said, "All right, honey, I"ll take forty winks and then get up and come down to the tennis court."
Mr. Kean"s letter arrived in due time and, sure enough, Mrs. Woodsmall"s surmises were correct. He was on the way to Kentucky with Mrs. Kean, and expected to be in Louisville the next day at a hotel, and would motor out to Chatsworth in the afternoon.
"Your father and mother must not think of stopping at a hotel, Judy,"
declared Mrs. Brown. "We have an abundance of room. Miss Rogers and Miss Ormsby are going in town after supper to-night with Ernest and Professor Green. Mr. Lufton expects to go back to Lexington to-morrow, and Professor Green is only waiting for some mail and will take his departure, too. We shall be forlorn, indeed, when all of them go. I"ll make Kent look up what train Mr. Kean will come in on and he will meet it and send them both right out here."
"Oh, Mrs. Brown, you are so good. I would love for mamma and papa to be here and to know all of you and have you know them. They are as wonderful in their way as you are in yours, and your meeting would be a grand combination."
Molly rather dreaded the coming of evening. She had promised Jimmy to take a walk with him by moonlight, and she had a terrible feeling that he might bring up the subject of "lemons" again. She was not prepared for the question that she felt almost sure he was going to ask her.
"I am nothing but a kid, after all," moaned Molly to herself. "Professor Green was right in calling me "dear child." Mother was married when she was my age, but somehow I can"t seem to grow up. Jimmy is so nice, and I do like him so much, but as for spending the rest of my life with him-oh, I just simply can"t contemplate it. Why, why doesn"t he see how it is without having to talk it over? I wish none of them would ever get sentimental over me." And then she blushed and told herself that she was a big story teller and sentimentality from some one who should be nameless would not be so trying, after all.
Supper was over, Professor Green and Ernest had gone gaily off, driving Miss Rogers and Miss Ormsby to Louisville, Judy and Kent were making a long-talked-of duty call on Aunt Clay, "just to show Miss Hunt there is no hard feeling," laughed Judy. And now it was time to take the promised walk with Jimmy Lufton.
"You look a little tired, Miss Molly. Maybe you would rather not go. You must not let me bore you," said Jimmy, a little wistfully.
"Oh, no, I"m all right. I fancy it will take all of us a few days to get over last night. I have wanted to tell you how fine you were and what it meant to all of us to have you so cheerful and tactful. The boys can"t say enough in your praise. We had to have some safety valve, and if we had not been laughing we might have been crying."
"Oh, I"m a cheerful idiot, all right, all right. I have such a short upper lip and such an eternal grin on me that no one ever seems to think I have any feelings. I get no more sympathy than a fat man. I wish I could make people understand that I am as serious as the next, but somehow me Irish grandmither comes popping out in me and I have to joke if I am to die the next minute."
"I think your disposition is most enviable," said Molly kindly, "and, as for the dash of Irish, I always think that is what makes our mother so charming. It was almost a fad with our professor of English at college to find the Irish mother or grandmother for almost all of the great poets or essayists." Molly could not quite trust herself to say Professor Green"s name, the picture of the seemingly ecstatic Edwin driving off with Miss Ormsby was too fresh in her mind, and she could not help smiling at herself for her formal "our professor of English."
Their footsteps led them into the garden and then through the apple orchard down by the little stream, and on to the beech woods.
"I wonder why we are coming this way," thought Molly, trying to keep her mind off another walk she had taken over that same ground not so long ago.
"Let"s sit down here," said Jimmy, stopping under the great beech tree where Molly and Edwin had sat on that memorable day when he had spoken of his vision of the white-haired Molly, and then had stopped himself so suddenly with a joke about his own possible baldness.
"Oh, not right here," said Molly hurriedly. "I know a nice rock a little farther on."
"Molly, Miss Molly, Miss Brown!--Oh, Molly, darling, there is no use in going any farther because I know you know that I have brought you out here to tell you that I--"
"Jimmy, please don"t say anything more. It "most kills me to hurt you."
"Is there no hope for me? I"ll wait a week, oh, I don"t mean a week, I"ll wait forever if there is a chance for me. I know this is a low question to ask you, but is there any one else?"
Honest Molly hung her head. "Not exactly."
That "not exactly" was enough for Jimmy. He smiled a wan little smile that would have put his Irish grandmother to shame.
"Well, don"t you mind, Miss Molly. I wouldn"t have you feel blue about me for a million. You never did lead me on one little bit, and I was almost sure when I came to Kentucky that there would be nothing doing for yours truly; but somehow men are made so they have to make sure about such things. You and I have too much sense of the ridiculous to do any spiel about the brother and sister business, but I"ll tell you one thing, I am your friend forever, and you must know that, and understand that as long as I live I"ll hold myself in readiness to do your bidding."
"Oh, Jimmy, you are so good and generous," holding out her hand to him, "I am your friend forever, and I hope we shall always see a lot of each other."
Jimmy took her hand and for a moment bowed his curly black head over it.
Molly put her other hand on his head, feeling somehow that it was like comforting Kent.
"You are sure, Molly?"
"Yes, Jimmy."
"Well, le"s go home. I know you are tired.
""If no one ever marries me I sha"n"t mind very much; I shall buy a squirrel in a cage, And a little rabbit-hutch,""
sang the irrepressible.
When Judy got back to Chatsworth she found Molly weeping her soul out on the pillow, and she had noticed as they pa.s.sed the office porch that for once Jimmy Lufton was whistling in the minor.
CHAPTER X.-AUNT CLAY MAKES A MISTAKE.
"Sister Ann, do you see any dust arising?" called Molly to Judy, who had actually climbed up on the gate post, hoping to see a little farther up the road, expecting the automobile from Louisville with her beloveds in it.
"I see a little cloud and I hear a little buzzing. Oh, Molly, I believe it"s them."
"Is it, oh, Wellington graduate? Get your cases straight before they come or your father will think that diploma is a fake."
"Grammar go hang," said Judy, performing a dangerous pas seul on the gate post and then jumping lightly down and racing up the avenue to meet the incoming automobile. Molly followed more slowly, never having been the sprinter that Judy was. Mr. Kean sprang from the car and lifted Judy off her feet in a regular bear hug.
"Save a little for me, Bobby," piped the little lady mother. "Judy, Judy, it is too good to be true that we have got you at last, and I mean to keep you forever now, you slippery thing." And then they all of them got into the car and had a three-cornered hug. Molly came up with only enough breath to give them a cordial greeting, welcoming them to Chatsworth.
"That is a very fine young man, your brother, who met us at the station, Miss Molly. Kent is his name? He recognized us by my likeness to you, Judy, so make your best bow and look pleased." In looking pleased, Judy did a great deal of unnecessary blushing which her mother noticed, but, mothers being different from fathers, said nothing about it.
Mrs. Brown came hurrying down the walk to meet her guests. She was amused to see how much Judy resembled both her parents, although Mrs.
Kean was so small and Mr. Kean so large. Mother and daughter were alike in their quick, extravagant speech, and a certain bird-like poise of the head, but father and daughter had eyes that might have been cut out of the same piece of gray and by the same pattern.