In Apple-Blossom Time: A Fairy-Tale to Date. Clara Louise Burnham

we're through eating?"

      "You're very good to take an interest," replied the girl.

      "I'm as poor as Job's turkey," went on Miss Upton, "and I haven't got much to give you but advice."

      The girl leaned across the table. "Yes, you have," she said, her soft dark eyes expressive. "Kindness. Generosity. A warm heart."

      "Well, then, you come with me some place where we can talk; but," with sudden cheerfulness, "let's have some ice-cream first. Don't you love it? I ought to run a mile from the sight of it; and these fried potatoes I've just been eatin' too. I've no business to look at 'em; but when I come to town I just kick over the traces. I forget there is such a thing as Graham bread and I just have one good time."

      She laughed and the young girl regarded her wistfully.

      "It's a pity you haven't any daughters," she said.

      "I haven't even any husband," was the cheerful response, "and I never shall have now, so why should I worry over my waistline? Queen Victoria had one the same size and everybody respected her. Now I'm goin' to order the ice-cream. That's my treat as a proof that you and I are friends. My name is Upton. What's yours, my dear?"

      "Melody."

      "First or last?"

      "Last. Geraldine Melody."

      "It's a nawful pretty name," declared Miss Upton impressively. "There ain't any discord in melody. Now you take courage. Which'll you have? Chocolate or strawberry?"

CHAPTER II

       Table of Contents

The Ogre

       Table of Contents

      It proved that Miss Upton's new acquaintance had an appointment later at a hotel near by, so thither they repaired when the ice-cream was finished.

      "Now tell me all about it," said Miss Mehitable encouragingly, when they had found the vacant corner of a reception-room and sat down side by side.

      "I feel like holding on to you and not letting you go," said the girl, looking about apprehensively.

      "Are you afraid of the folks you're goin' to meet here? Is it another job you're lookin' for? I can tell you right now," added Miss Mehitable firmly, "that I'm goin' to stay and see what they look like if I lose every train out to Keefe."

      "You are so good," said the girl wistfully. "Are you always so kind to strangers?"

      "When they're a hundred times too pretty and as young as you are I am," returned Miss Upton promptly; "but this is my first experience. What sort of position are you tryin' for now?"

      "I don't know what to call it," replied Geraldine, with another apprehensive look toward the door. "General utility, I hope." She looked back at her companion. "When my father died, it left me alone in the world; for my stepmother is the sort that lives in the fairy tales; not the loving kind who are in real life. I know a girl who has the dearest stepmother. I was fourteen years old when my father married again. My mother had been dead for three years. I was an only child and had always lived at home, but my stepmother didn't want me. She persuaded my father to send me away to school. I think Daddy never had any happiness after he married her. He had always been very extravagant and easy-going. While my precious mother lived she helped him and guided him, and although I was only a little girl I always believed he married again because he was greatly embarrassed for money. This woman appeared to have plenty and she was so in love with him! If you had seen him, I think you would have said he was a hundred times too handsome. Well, from what I could see at vacation time she was never sufficiently in love with him to let him have her money; and I am sure the last years of his life were wretched and full of hard places because of his financial ill-success. Poor father." The girl's voice failed and she waited, looking down at the gloved hands in her lap. "I had been at home from school only a few months when he died," she went on. "My stepmother endured me and that was all. She is a quite young woman, very fond of gayety, and she made me feel that I was very much in her way no matter how hard I tried to keep out of it."

      "I'll bet you were," put in Miss Upton sotto voce.

      "As soon as my dear father was gone she threw off all disguise to her impatience. She put on very becoming mourning and said she wanted to travel. She said my father had left nothing, but that I was young and could easily get a position. She broke up the home, found a cheap room for me to lodge, gave me a little money and went away." Again Geraldine's voice broke and she stopped.

      "You poor child," said Miss Upton; "to try as you have and find all your efforts failures!"

      "My stepmother has some relatives who live on a farm," went on the girl. "Before my father died we three had one talk which it always sickens me to remember. My stepmother was saying that it was high time I went out into the world and did something for my own support. My father perhaps knew that he was very ill; but we did not. His death came suddenly. That day while my stepmother talked he walked the floor casting troubled looks at me and I knew she was hurting him. 'Everybody should be where she can be of some use,' said my stepmother. 'I think the Carder farm would be a fine place for Geraldine, and after all Rufus Carder has done for you I should think you'd be glad to send her out there.'

      "I shall never forget the light that came into Daddy's eyes as he stopped and turned on her. 'What Rufus Carder has done for me is what the icy sidewalk does for the man who trips,' he answered. My stepmother shrugged her shoulders. 'That was your own weakness, then,' she said. 'I think a more appropriate simile for Rufus would be the bridge that carried you over!' Her voice was so cold and contemptuous! Daddy came to me and there was despair in his face. He put his hand on my shoulder while she went on talking: 'Many times since the day that Rufus saw Geraldine in the park,' she said, 'he has told me they would be glad to have her come out to the farm and live with them. I think you ought to send her. She isn't needed here and they really do need somebody.' The desperate look in my father's face wrung my heart. He did not look at my stepmother nor answer her; but just gazed into my eyes and said over and over softly, 'Forgive me, Gerrie. Forgive me.' I took his hands in mine and told him I had nothing to forgive." The young girl choked.

      When she could go on she spoke again: "A couple of days after that he died. My stepmother was angry because he left no life insurance, and she talked to me again about going to work, and again brought up the subject of the Carder farm. She tried to flatter me by talking of her cousin's admiration of me the day he saw me in the park. I told her I could not bear to go to people who had not been kind to my father, and she replied that what Daddy had said that day must have been caused by his illness, for Rufus Carder had befriended him times without number."

      The girl lifted her appealing eyes to Miss Upton's face as she continued: "Of course I knew that my dear father had been weak and I couldn't contradict her; so after trying and failing, trying and failing many times, as I've told you, I came to feel that the farm might be the right place for me after all. Work is the only thing I'm not afraid of now. It must be a forlorn place if they need help and can't get it. I think they said he and his mother live alone, but I shan't care how forlorn it is if only Mrs. Carder is like—like—you, for instance!" The girl laid her hand impulsively on her companion's knee.

      At that moment a man appeared in the wide doorway to the reception-room and looked about uncertainly. Instantly Miss Upton recognized the long, weather-beaten face, the straggling hair, the half-open mouth, and the revealing collar of her restaurant rival.

      She gave her companion a mirthful nudge.

      "He's right on my trail, you see," she whispered. "Adam's apple and all."

      Geraldine glanced up and the stranger's roving gaze fell straight upon hers. He came toward her.

      "Miss Melody?" he said in a rasping voice.