The Loves of Ambrose. Vandercook Margaret

questions. Notwithstanding, after a few words of greeting, Ambrose had the impression of being shooed into the house, Peachy using her white apron for the purpose.

      Yet this had not been his intention, for indeed he had arrived at the farm an hour before dinner, with the idea of taking Peachy out for a walk and then possibly confiding to her the original purpose of his escape from Pennyroyal; surely she could be made to understand better than any one else, and his mood was now one requiring sympathy. Instead, however, there was something mysterious the matter with the girl's costume, so that Ambrose shortly found himself divested of his hat and duster and shut up in a sticky parlour with the family album on his lap for entertainment, and only one window open to give him just enough light to be able faintly to see and air to keep barely alive. On entering the room his first impulse naturally had been to fling open wide all the windows, but hearing his hostess's cries of horror, both his arms and his inclination had weakened. Although truly the lawn about the Red Farm house was exquisitely green and free from dust, yet the thought of possible desecration to the best parlour had the effect of reality.

      Now although Ambrose was miserably settled according to Peachy's directions, and in spite of having expressed the desire to change her dress at once, the girl still lingered on, her face wearing a look that troubled her suitor as it was so unlike her usually placid and admiring one. Her red lips were drawn, her brow puckered, her atmosphere one of extreme disapproval. Under the circumstances Ambrose's forehead was naturally moist with perspiration and his face not overly clean, yet his clothes, notwithstanding being somewhat crumpled and dusty, were plainly his Sunday best.

      "What is it, Peachy?" he asked, first studying himself solicitously. Then, following her shuddering gaze across the crimson splendour of the Brussels carpet, he beheld a track of mud made with footprints so large that they could belong to no other feet than his. His eyes dropped. Surely his feet were caked with mud – mud from the shadowy cool depth of the woods, from the banks of that celestial river so lately deserted by him. Yet, seeing the girl's unhappiness, again the young man surrendered and so for a longtime (it was hard to tell how long) continued sitting in the same place. Peachy had gone away, to remain perhaps till dinner time, and taken his shoes with her. So Ambrose's feet were now encased in a pair of hot carpet slippers, a whole size too small for him, so that he could not even shuffle without crumpling his toes or else walking about in his socks.

      Several times he sighed, pushing back his long hair, a gesture with him expressive of mental unrest. Why, oh, why, had he given up his original plan of two days' solitary freedom and companionship with nature? Peachy had never seemed less alluring, and as for physical comfort or even the pleasure of her society, had he gained either? Cold shivers every now and then had their way up and down the young man's spine in the course of his meditations, notwithstanding the warmth of the room. For he knew himself to be easily stirred, so supposing that he and Peachy had taken the walk together that morning and something serious had happened! By and by young Ambrose began to feel as utterly uninterested in female charms, as cool and remote as a snow-capped mountain, and at about this moment Peachy returned to the room.

      She was wearing a pure white dress and, moving over into a dark corner, smiling at her suitor, she sat down on a small sofa. Here, by dint of pinning his toes down into his slippers, and letting his heels rise above them, Ambrose managed to arrive a few seconds later. He was close up beside her, as comfortably near as Peachy's starched clothes permitted, liking the clean smell of her dress, the perfume of her body; there were odours about her of warm new milk, of fresh honey, of ripening fruits.

      And quite by accident, it seemed to him, the girl's plump hand was laid near his, so that a moment later it required pressing. Then the kerchief about her full breast, rising and falling softly, showed a hint of something whiter and softer beneath. With surprising rapidity the boy's recent regret for his lost holiday began slipping away from him. The room was still close, but a breeze blowing in from the partly raised window fanned them both. Perhaps Ambrose's head was swimming from fatigue and drowsiness, perhaps from his sense of his companion's nearness, of her readiness to fall into his arms with his first desiring touch.

      "Peachy," Ambrose was whispering, when stealthily the door of the parlour opened, and there stood Peachy's father, his red face wearing such an expression of amusement and coarse understanding that instantly Ambrose felt a return of his former coldness. His boots having been cleaned and returned to him five minutes later, he followed the farmer and his daughter into their dining-room.

      There the meal was a hideous one to him despite his hunger and the good and plentiful food. For seated at the family table, were several farm hands, white overseers of the negro labourers, and they made stupid jokes, shoving their elbows into one another and grinning idiotically from Peachy to him. Their ugly thoughts were like palpable close presences in the room, destroying all possible illusions for the boy, and yet the girl herself seemed not to mind. Instead, she blushed and bridled, sending challenging looks at Ambrose across the spring freshness of his piled-up plate of new potatoes, jowl, and spring greens each time he attempted putting his fork up to his mouth.

      So that after a while, inch by inch, the boy felt himself being pushed into a corner where he had meant to walk one day of his own accord. And by the time dinner was over, not only had all desire passed from him, but apparently all will power as well. For next he allowed Peachy to lead him to an enclosed summer house. This summer house was some distance away from the big place and so shut in by carefully trained vines that it allowed no opportunity for distracting views or vistas beyond. It was what one under some circumstances might have called, "a chosen spot."

      Now there is no reasonable explanation of why Peachy Williams, the chief heiress of "the Pennyrile," had so set her heart upon the possession of Ambrose Thompson. Lovers were plentiful, and among them the rich owner of the place adjoining her father's, and Ambrose had no fortune worth mentioning, and, moreover, was distinctly homely; but perhaps Peachy was drawn as many another woman has been before – by the lure of the unknown; for never could she have any proper understanding of Ambrose Thompson's temperament. Times were when he appeared more ardent than any of her other suitors, and then his attention being distracted, both physically and mentally he faded from sight. Now in contrast Peachy's own disposition was direct and simple. At a distance from the Red Farm to the village she recognized that her lover might be difficult to control, but near at hand she believed him tractable, and in a measure this was true, for Ambrose could always be managed by his friends up to a certain point – only the trouble was that at this time of life Peachy Williams did not understand where this point ended.

      Like a long tallow candle slowly melting from the heat, the young man was now lolling idly on the narrow circular bench of the summer house appearing so limp and dispirited that he seemed incapable of any kind of opposition.

      Would the afternoon never pass? Could he ever remember having been forced to remain so long in the society of any one woman? So long that he ceased to have anything he desired to say or any possible idea that he wished to express; indeed his mind felt as clean and empty as a slate wiped by a wet rag. Why in heaven's name didn't Peachy herself have something to say once in a while? Before this day his calls had been short evening ones, when he had had opinions of his own and to spare. Could the time ever come in a man's life when he might want a girl to be inspiration as well as audience, to have an idea of her own now and then?

      "Oh, Lord," Ambrose groaned half aloud. If only he could think of some plan of escape, but in the rash enthusiasm of his arrival at the farm had he not promised Peachy to remain all day? And now in his exhausted condition even his imagination had deserted him. Certainly he could think of no excuse for getting away at once.

      Yet more and more depressing were Peachy's long silences, her frequent laugh more irritating, since Ambrose could find no reasonable excuse for laughter in the dulness of the interminable May afternoon with nothing to look at but the ground at his feet, or the lacing of leaves overhead, except Peachy, stitching, stitching everlastingly on something so white and weblike that Ambrose felt he too was being sewed in, made prisoner for life.

      His long legs twitched, fairly his body ached with his longing to be off, until by and by even the girl was made to realize that things were not going as she had reasonably expected.

      "What is it ails you this afternoon, Ambrose?" she asked at last, wistful if he had but known it. "Wasn't