Elinor"s last suggestion that the daughter might resemble her mother had been taken literally, and all these moments Ross"s search had been for a tiny, dainty bit of a girl with cornflower eyes. When the crowd had somewhat thinned, he had noticed Arethusa and her prettiness and her height, standing so forlornly by herself, had mentally labeled Miss Let.i.tia"s costuming, "a G.o.dey"s Ladies" Book relic," and had turned away again to his search for the Dresden china daughter, who did not seem to be anywhere about. Ross was vexed to have been s.n.a.t.c.hed from his book for this fruitless trip to the station. If Miss Eliza had postponed Arethusa"s coming once more, she should have written them about it, or telegraphed; for they should surely have been notified.
As he pa.s.sed Arethusa on his way out he saw that her grey eyes under their long black lashes (he noticed them first because they were such unusually beautiful eyes) were full of shining tears, some of which were beginning to roll, unashamed, down the girl"s cheek. A damsel in distress always appealed to Ross, for no knight of the time of tournaments had no more real chivalry in his composition, and so he stopped.
"Could I help you in any way?" he asked courteously. "Are you in trouble?"
Arethusa was just on the point of seeking Mr. Cherry and his promised a.s.sistance, when out of the bleak expanse of that awful and lonely platform Providence had sent this other help: a Man with rea.s.suring grey hairs and a smile which she could not possibly mistake for anything but kindness. She seized it gratefully: and there would be no embarra.s.sment of a Mrs. Cherry connected with it. This new Man knew nothing of any Dream that had been shattered. And if he lived in Lewisburg, he most probably knew her father. Her experience with munic.i.p.alities was that everybody in a town knew everybody else and all their affairs into the bargain. And she was far past remembering Certain Instructions in such a Crisis.
She turned to Ross, a tear-stained face on which her grat.i.tude at his offer struggled with her woes and the Horror of the Situation.
"My ... my fa-ther...." she began brokenly, and then gulped, and stopped.
It sounded very much like a greeting of the man before her, but it was only that her unruly voice refused entirely to respond to her efforts to use it.
Ross"s look searched her quickly, up and down. She was as unlike the child he had expected to find as he could have found in a day"s long journey; but there could hardly be two sets of fathers and daughters in so similar a predicament in the same station.
"I think you"ve found him, right here," he said lightly, to down a curious little feeling that suddenly surged through his heart, "if you"re Miss Arethusa Worthington, that is. I"m...."
Arethusa waited not for him to finish with a definite announcement of his ident.i.ty; she needed no further words to convince her of just who he was. And although this was far, far from being what she had always visioned the wonder of their Meeting, she put her whole soul into her side of it.
She flung both arms tight around his neck as if she never intended to let him go; and sobbed violently, salty tears that soaked clear through the expensive tweed of his new suit. But these were not the tears of unhappiness which he had noticed and which had caused him to stop and make his offer of help; they were tears of joy for the sheer relief that his bodily presence gave to his volatile daughter. With the impulsive suddenness of her embrace her hat had flown clear off, but Arethusa recked not, in such a moment, of hats with precious and beautiful turkey feathers, and she lost, of necessity, her careful grip of her purse and satchel.
Ross, for a moment or two, was entirely bereft of coherent thought by the suddenness of her movement. He was nearly strangled by the clinging arms, and a trifle embarra.s.sed besides; for it was not every day that a strange young lady precipitated herself into his arms and sobbed so violently. That it was a daughter whose acquaintance he was making for the very first time, did not altogether deprive the situation of its strangeness.
"Here," he said, when he began to recover somewhat, "here, buck up, child! Buck up. This won"t do at all, you know. Let"s go home and finish this!"
Arethusa "bucked up."
She drew away from him as suddenly as she had grabbed him and blushed hotly all over with a most unusual accession of sudden shyness. And Ross made straight for the waiting automobile without further parley.
She followed behind him in silence, but about halfway she stopped and clapped her hand to her head.
"Oh, my hat!" she exclaimed. "And I"ve lost my purse and satchel!"
Ross turned around and went back to find them.
But the purse was gone beyond any power of their finding it, though hat and satchel were safely retrieved and progress once more resumed.
CHAPTER XII
"This is Miss Arethusa, Clay," said Ross, when the chauffeur jumped down to open the door of the machine and took charge of the ancient handbag.
Clay touched his cap respectfully.
But to the surprise of both men Arethusa"s acknowledgement of this introduction was a shy and old-fashioned courtesy Miss Let.i.tia had taught her. She murmured politely, "I"m very glad to meet you," and extended her hand.
Clay very nearly dropped the handbag.
But something in the friendly smiling of the grey eyes that regarded him made Clay himself to smile warmly in return, and Arethusa had made a friend. He grasped the out-stretched fingers lightly, in the spirit in which they had been offered, and said with unmistakable cordiality, "I"m awfully glad you"ve come, Miss Arethusa. Home, Mr. Worthington?"
"Home," replied Ross, smiling at him for his kind quickness.
And then Clay slammed the door upon Ross and Arethusa and climbed up in front. Arethusa was just a bit puzzled at first, and then she decided it was the City.
She had had no previous dealings of intimacy with automobiles, the nearest she had ever been to one was to watch them fly past down the Pike. The word "chauffeur" would have conveyed no meaning to her mind, nor have given her any idea of his place in the general scheme of things connected with machines. She had thought the good-looking, well-dressed youth in his natty Norfolk suit and cap was some friend of her father"s out for a ride with him, and so it was quite in order that he should be introduced. People often took their friends driving in the country. It was just a bit strange that he should do the driving and not her father, but it did not bother her long; and after a while, she was rather glad that the friend did sit in front.
She abandoned herself to Complete Happiness against those marvelously soft cushions in the limousine. She dearly loved to ride, and she did not get near enough of it at the Farm. In fact, motion of any sort had a charm for Arethusa. But she had never felt motion so superlative as this. It was even more exhilarating than the train had been, so swiftly they moved forward, and so silently.
Her momentary shyness with her father began to disappear under the influence of her enjoyment. She glanced around at him from under her long lashes and found him watching her.
His daughter"s appearance was proving interestingly mystifying to Ross.
Where in the world had she got that red hair and those wonderful Irish eyes? She had not a single feature like her mother. Her tallness, he thought, could be said to have come straight from him. And that ever-changing play of expression across her face,--it was quite fascinating.
Though thus watching her, from the moment they had sat down, Ross was rather at a loss how to begin conversation; he had not entirely recovered from that first embrace. But he could not help, however, replying to her smile, the friendliest possible smile, with which she conveyed to him her delight in the machine.
"So you like to ride?"
"I _love_ it!" she answered, enthusiastically. "This.... It"s just like flying!"
Ross liked this unbridled ecstasy; it was decidedly refreshing.
"Ever ridden in one before?"
Arethusa shook her head vigorously.
"But I should certainly have thought automobiles had penetrated to Barnett County!"
"Some people in town have them," Arethusa came quickly to the defence of her county, "but it"s n.o.body I really know. Timothy was going to get one, but his silo blew down and he couldn"t this summer; because he put up a concrete one in its place and it cost so much."
"Who is Timothy?"
"Why, Timothy is.... Why, Timothy.... He"s just Timothy Jarvis ... Father."
She added the "Father" a trifle shyly, it being the very first time she had ever addressed that t.i.tle to him in person. "Aunt "Liza wants me to marry him," she continued, as if that ought to explain matters perfectly.
Ross remembered the Jarvises. "I see, but how about you?" He found that shy little "Father" most attractive. He wished she would say it again.
Arethusa laughed. "Why, he"s my very best friend and I"ve known him always and always. Of course I"m not going to marry him! I couldn"t marry Timothy ... Father. You have to fall in love with the person you marry!"
"Then it seems I may gather from your remarks," and Ross was most highly entertained by those same remarks, "that you can"t possibly fall in love with a person you"ve known always!"
"It doesn"t ever happen in books," said Arethusa, seriously, "and they"re supposed to be just like things really are, aren"t they? I"ve read just oceans of love-stories. I just adore them!" she added, with emphasis.
Ross"s smile broadened. "But truth, they say, is stranger than fiction," and he was about to add something to Arethusa"s further mystification, when the automobile stopped.
It had stopped in front of a huge, brick house, painted grey, with tall, narrow windows indicative of the high ceilings within, and a high, pointed roof of grey and red slate. It was a house which had originally been much smaller, but it had been added to until it was spread out, all over a lot which was unusually wide for a city lot, with huge excrescences of wings on each side.
It was not a handsome house, and the most kindly intentioned critic could never have called it so. Elinor had never been able to do much towards the improvement of the outward appearance, however much she had beautified the interior. But it had been her home since she was too small to remember any other, and she loved it dearly despite its deficiencies from an artistic standpoint outwardly. Ross thought it a hideous pile. He said its only redeeming feature was that it so undoubtedly looked respectable.