Ariel Custer (Musaicum Romance Classics). Grace Livingston Hill

sorry,” said the girl. “But didn’t you get her letter?”

      “No, I didn’t get the letter,” said Ariel with white, trembling lips. “I No, I didn’t get any letter.”

      “You look tired. Can I get you a drink of water?” asked the girl. She hurried away with a glass and in a moment was back.

      Ariel sat staring ahead, but she took the glass and sipped a few drops. The Custer courage was coming to the front.

      “Can I do anything for you?” asked the girl. “It must be annoying to have misunderstood.”

      “Thank you,” said Ariel, handing back the glass and rising. “I think I shall have to go now. Could you tell me where I could find the new librarian?”

      “No,” said the other. “She hasn’t reached the city yet. She’s coming down from New York tomorrow, but it won’t be any use for you to see her. She’s bringing her daughter with her to assist her. She’s a relative of one of the board of directors, and they really made this place for her and her daughter, I suppose, though you needn’t say I said so. I’m not to stay either. I’m only here till they arrive. It’s really tough on you, but you’ll probably find another job soon. It really isn’t Miss Larrabee’s fault, for as I told you I saw her writing the letter. It must be in the mail. Things often get lost in the mail. Or perhaps in her hurry she forgot to mail it”

      But Ariel with a wan smile had thanked her and was walking away, her little head held high, her sunny eyes clouded with trouble, but her lips brave as ever.

      The other girl looked after her anxiously, but there seemed nothing she could do, so she went back to the novel she was reading.

      Out in the broad, strange street, Ariel attempted to find a car back to the station. There at least she would have a right to sit down and think, and recover from the blow she had received. Here she felt that she could not quite take it in, it was so sudden and so sharp a reversal of things.

      During the long car ride back to the station, she found herself saying softly in her heart, Dear Lord, are You there? Dear Lord, are You there? You said You’d go with me; are You surely there?”

      She got out of the trolley too soon, it appeared, and must walk a block and cross an awful street, so much worse than when she was there before because of the lateness of the hour. There were throngs everywhere, jostling, and trolleys and automobiles. She stood a long time uncertain, trying to make out which way traffic signs read and whether the policeman in the middle of the road really meant her to come when he held up his hand, and then she made a wild dash. It was not that she was stupid, only tired and dazed, and out of her sheltered life, she had never experienced the noise and crush of the hour and place.

      It was only a man on a bicycle who knocked her down. The big truck had stopped, and two automobiles had stopped when they saw her coming, for somehow there was something delicate and lovely and appealing about Ariel, something alien to the city in her plain country garb, that made people take care of her. The man on the bicycle was head down, going like a rocket, and Ariel didn’t see him till he was upon her. Then he only grazed her slightly, just enough to throw her off her balance and down upon her knees, and himself full length upon the road.

      The traffic officer roared at everybody, swung his sign around to STOP, and bore down upon them. Someone extricated the man and the bicycle, and kind, strong hands lifted Ariel to her feet again. She found herself wondering if it was the Lord or one of His angels. A man picked up the satchel, all burst open with her little white garments flung around the street, but Ariel was too shaken and dazed to realize. Her face was flaming with mortification.

      “Can you walk?” roared the traffic officer.

      “Oh yes, I think so,” gasped Ariel, trying to smile, and wishing only to get away out of this throng to hide her mortification. To think she should have fallen in the street, and all her own fault the officer had said. He spoke so rudely to her. She was glad her grandmother could not know. He had asked her if she hadn’t seen his sign, and told her all women walked along with their heads down and expected to hold up traffic for half an hour while they meandered across the street. He had scolded her like a naughty child! And there were tears in her eyes. She must not cry in the street with all those people looking. And that was her satchel all broken open, and her toothbrush lying in the road. She could never use it again. And people seeing! It was awful. Would she ever get away? Would they never get her little things picked up? And how was she to carry them now, with the handle off her bag and a great gash in its side?

      The young man who was picking up her things gathered her satchel under his arm. He was big and strong, and he put a hand under her sore, shaken little arm and guided her across to the sidewalk. She was beginning to feel the jar of the fall. Her knee was bruised, and her wrist hurt. Her head was throbbing, and little black specks darted before her eyes. She couldn’t somehow think. The young man seemed to know how it was, for he kept hold of her arm and guided her toward the door of the station.

      “Were you going in here?” he asked, and she tried to answer sanely, although she couldn’t remember afterward what she had said.

      He guided her toward the elevator and got her up to the waiting room into a seat before he spoke again.

      “Do you feel all right now,” he asked from what seemed a long way off, “or would you like me to get you a doctor?”

      “Oh no,” she said, rousing at that. “No, I’m all right. I’m just trembling a little yet” But her voice trailed off and she put her head back and closed her eyes.

      The young man summoned a porter and sent for some aromatic ammonia. In a moment more, a glass was at her lips, and she swallowed the dose and then she did sit up and open her eyes, and the color came slowly creeping back into her face.

      “I’m so sorry to have made you so much trouble,” she said in her soft, pleasant Southern voice. “I don’t know what made me do like this”

      “You had enough to take anybody’s nerve. Are you sure you are all right now?”

      “Yes, thank you.” She smiled, and the man knew that here was a girl he could respect.

      He smiled back a big, warm, gentle smile that made her feel he was her friend, yet presumed nothing. She was a Southern girl, used to hospitality, used to trusting people. A girl who had been sheltered phenomenally and was not alert to evil. He saw that she trusted him as a gentleman, and he felt a great yearning to protect her. She in her turn felt that he was the one whom the Lord had sent to guard her.

      The young man turned his attention to the dilapidated satchel that he had deposited on the seat beside the girl.

      “I’ll just tie this up so it will be safe to travel,” he said in a matter-of-fact way, spreading out the newspaper that was in his pocket and wrapping it around the broken, bulging leather bag.

      “Oh, please don’t take all that trouble,” said the girl. “It was an old thing. I’ll have to get a new one.”

      “Time enough for that tomorrow when you’ve rested up from the shock,” said the man pleasantly. He was deftly folding the paper and tying it with a string he’d fished out of another pocket.

      “I guess this will do for tonight,” he said pleasantly. “Wait, I’ll see if they have a handle at the newsstand.”

      He came back in a moment with a wooden handle that he secured to one side of the bundle, and the girl roused from her exhaustion and thanked him with a smile: “I’m sure I don’t know what I should have done if you hadn’t helped me,” she said. “I think I was bewildered.”

      “Oh, someone else would have been there if I hadn’t,” said the young man gallantly. “No one would leave a lady in the middle of the street.”

      “Not everyone would take so much time and trouble as you have, I’m sure. And besides, I think you saved me from being taken to the hospital. I think I heard that policeman say something about calling an ambulance, and I shouldn’t have liked that.”