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

      Geraldine seemed to see him holding the actual bag and leering at her over it with his odious, oblique eye and smile.

      "And let me give you a word of advice," continued the old woman, lowering her voice and looking toward the door. "Don't make him mad. It's terrible when he's angry." She winked and lowered her voice to a whisper. "He's crazy about you and he's the biggest man in the county." The old woman nodded and snapped her eyes knowingly. "You've got a home here for life if you don't make him mad. For life. I'll go down and make the tea. You come down pretty soon."

      She disappeared, leaving Geraldine standing in the middle of the room. She looked about her at the cheap, meager furniture, the small mirror that distorted her face, the bare outlook from the window.

      "For life!" she repeated to herself. "For life!"

CHAPTER III

       Table of Contents

The Prince

       Table of Contents

      Miss Upton's accounts were still in a muddle when she reached Keefe. Try as she might her unruly thoughts would wander back to the golden hair and dark, wistful eyes of that forlorn girl.

      "I was such a fool to lose her!" she kept saying to herself. "Such a fool."

      Arrived at her station she left the car, encumbered by her bulging bag and the umbrella which had performed a nobler deed to-day than keeping off the rain.

      "I don't know, though," soliloquized Miss Mehitable. "If I hadn't had my umbrella I couldn't have stopped him and he'd have sat with her and I shouldn't be havin' a span-tod now."

      From the car in front of her she saw descend a young man with a bag. He was long-legged, lean and broad-shouldered, and Miss Upton, who had known him all his life, estimated him temperately as a mixture of Adonis, Apollo, and Hercules. He caught sight of his friend now and a merry look came into his eyes. Miss Mehitable's mental perturbation and physical weariness had given her plump face a troubled cast, accented by the fact that her hat was slightly askew. The young man hurried forward and was in time to ease his portly friend down the last step of her car.

      "Howdy, Miss Mehit?" he said. "You look as if the great city hadn't treated you well."

      "Ben Barry, was you on this train?" she asked dismally.

      "I was. My word, you're careful of your complexion! An umbrella with such a sky as this!"

      "You don't know what that umbrella has meant to me to-day," returned Miss Upton with no abatement of the portentous in her tone. "Let me have my bag, Ben. The top don't shut very good and you might drop something out."

      "You must let me take you home," he said. "You don't look fit to walk. You have certainly had a big day. Anything left in the shops? The Upton Emporium must be going to surprise the natives."

      As he talked, the young man led his friend along the platform to where a handsome motor waited among the dusty line of vehicles. "Gee, I'm off for a vacation and I'm beginning to appreciate Keefe, Miss Upton. The air is great out here."

      "That's nice for your mother," observed Miss Mehitable wearily.

      They both greeted the chauffeur, who wore a plain livery. Miss Upton sank back among the cushions. "It's awful good of you to take me home, Ben. I'm just beat out."

      "Miss Upton's celebrated notions, I suppose," returned the young fellow as the car started. "They get harder to select every year, perhaps."

      "I've come home with just one notion this time," returned his companion with sudden fierceness. "It is that I'm a fool."

      "Now, Mehit, don't tell me you've fallen a prey in the gay metropolis and lost a lot of money."

      "That's nothin' to what has happened. I'm poor and I don't know what I'd do if I lost money, but, Ben Barry, it's much worse than that."

      "Look here, you're scaring me. I'm timid."

      "If I'd seen you on the train I could have told you all about it; but there isn't time now." In fact the motor was rapidly traversing the short distance up the main street and was now approaching a shop on the elm-shaded trolley track which bore across its front a sign reading: "Upton's Notions and Fancy Goods."

      Before Miss Mehitable disembarked, and this was a matter of some moments, she turned wistfully to her companion.

      "Ben, do you think your mother ever gets lonely?"

      "I've never seen any sign of it. Why? What were you thinking of—that I ought to give up the law school and come home and turn market-gardener? I sometimes think I'd like it."

      Miss Upton continued to study his clean-cut face wistfully.

      "Don't she need a secretary, or a sort of a—a sort of a companion?"

      "Why? Have you had about as much of Bright-Eyes as you can stand? Do you want to make a present of her to some undeserving person?"

      Miss Upton shook her head. "No, indeed, it ain't poor Charlotte I'm thinkin' of, Ben," again speaking impressively. "Can you spare time to come over and see me a little while to-morrow afternoon? I know your mother always has a lot of young folks in for tea for you Sundays."

      "She won't to-morrow. I told her I wanted to lie in the grass under the apple-blossoms and compose sonnets; but your feelings will do just as well."

      "I must tell somebody, and you know Charlotte isn't sympathetic."

      "No, except perhaps with a porcupine. You might try her with one of those. Tether it in the back yard, and when she is in specially good form turn her out there and let them sport together.—Easy now, Mehit—easy." For Miss Upton's escort had jumped out and she was essaying to leave the car.

      "If I ever knew which foot to put first," she said desperately, withdrawing the left and reaching down gingerly with her right.

      "Let me have the bag and the umbrella," suggested her companion. "Now, then, one light spring. Steady!" For clutching both the young man's hands she made him quiver to the shock as she fell against him.

      "I'm clumsy when I'm tired, Ben," she explained. "I'm so much obliged to you, and you will come over to-morrow afternoon?"

      "To hear about the umbrella? Yes, indeed! Look at its fine open countenance. You can see at once that it has performed some great deed to-day." He shook the capacious fluttering folds and handed it to its owner.

      "Thank you so much, Ben, and give my love to your mother."

      The young fellow jumped into the car and sped away and Miss Upton plodded slowly up to her door whose bell pealed sharply as it was pulled open by an unseen hand, and a colorless, sour-visaged woman appeared in the entrance. Her hay-colored hair was strained back and wound in a tight, small knot, her forehead wore a chronic scowl, and her one-sided mouth had a vinegary expression.

      "Think you're smart, don't you?" was her greeting; "comin' home in a grand automobile with the biggest ketch in the village."

      "Yes, wasn't I lucky?" responded Miss Upton nasally. "I hope the kettle's on, Charlotte. I'm beat out."

      "Well, what did you stay so long for? That's what you always do—stay till the last dog's hung and wear yourself out." The speaker snatched the bag and umbrella and Miss Mehitable followed her into the house, through the shop, and into the little living-room at the back where an open fire burned in the Franklin stove and the tea-table was neatly set for two.

      Miss Upton regarded the platter of sliced meat, the amber preserve, and napkin-enfolded biscuit listlessly.

      "How nice you always make a table look," she said.