 Section 83 of Uncollected Short Stories of L. M. Montgomery. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Violet Blue, Albertville. Uncollected Short Stories of L. M. Montgomery by Lucy Maud Montgomery. Section 83. Our Neighbors at the Tansy Patch. Part One. When during our second summer at the Tansy Patch, the whiskers of one of our cats were cut off mysteriously, we always blamed a small boy pertaining to a family living near us, behind a thick, spruce grove. Whether we were right or wrong in this conclusion, I cannot say. None of us, not even our redoubtable solemnay, cared to accuse any member of this family openly. We had too well-founded dread of Granny's tongue. So nothing was ever said about Doc's whiskers and our amiable relations with our neighbors remained undisturbed. They were certainly a curious assortment. Solemnay always referred to them as them lunatics behind the bush and asserted vehemently that every one of them is crazier than the others, ma'am. She thought it quite dreadful that Dick and I should allow the children to consort with them so freely. But the children liked them. We found ourselves an endless source of amusement in their peculiarities. They were even better fun than our cats, we thought. The head of the house was a handsome middle-aged man whom we seldom saw and with whom, save on one memorable occasion, we never had any conversation. His legal name appeared to be William Conway. His offspring called him Pa. Aunt Lillie always referred to him pathetically as my poor brother. And Granny called him my worthless skin-em-a-links of a son-in-law. What his wife had called him, I want not. She had died, it appears, eight years previously when Millicent Mary Selina Munn Cook Conway had been born. If she resembled her mother, it is not probable that her bereaved spouse sorrowed as one without hope. When Timothy Benjamin, the oldest son, better known, it may be said, as T.B., paid us a long, friendly, first call, Salome had asked him bluntly, What does your father do for a living? Nothing, mostly, was T.B.'s frank and laconic response. Then how do you get along, demanded Salome. My old beast of a granny has a little money, we live on that, said T.B. easily. Folks round here call Pa lazy, but he says no, he's just contented. Does he never work? Nope, he fiddles and fishes, and he hunts for buried treasure. Buried treasure? Yep, down on them sandhills cross from the hotel. He says Captain Kidd buried millions there. He keeps a digging for it Pa does, says when he finds it will all be rich. Your father'd better be digging in his garden, said Salome severely. I never saw such a scandal of weeds. That's what Granny says, retorted T.B. Salome was squelched for the time being. The thought that she and Granny could be of the same opinion about anything enraged her into silence. Of Mr. Conway's prowess as fisherman and treasure seeker, I know nothing but I can testify to his ability as a violinist. When he fiddled on his tumbledown back stoop on the summer evenings, the music that drifted over to the tansy patch through the arches of the spruce wood was enchanting. Even Salome, who prided herself on her ear for music, admitted that. It's angelic, ma'am. That's what it is, she said with a solemn reluctance, and to think that lazy good for nothing could make it. What could Providence have been thinking of, ma'am? My good hard-working brother John tried all his life to learn to play well on the fiddle, and he never could. But this Bill Conway can do it without trying. Why, he can almost make me dance, ma'am. That would have been a miracle, indeed. But Dick and I often did dance on our own stoop, in time to the witching lils of the invisible musician beyond the spruces. In appearance, Mr. Conway looked like a poet run to seed. He had a shock of wavy, dark, auburn hair, a drooping mustache and a goatee, and brilliant brown eyes. He was shy or unsociable. We did not know which. At all events, he never came near us. Just too lazy to talk, that's all, T.B. assured us. Pa hasn't nothing again used. The first member of the family to call upon us, and the only one who ever paid us a formal call, was Aunt Lily. Miss Lily and Althea Conway, according to the limp, broken-cornered card she left behind. The formality of her call consisted in her leaving this card. For the rest, she stayed the afternoon, took supper with us, and then remained for the evening. I am not, my dear Mrs. Bruce, a soulless society woman, was her somewhat unnecessary introductory remark. She swam up to the steps, she really had a very graceful walk, and subsided limply into a rocker. She wore a rumpled dress of pale blue muslin with a complicated adornment of black velvet ribbon, and her long, thin arms were encased in cream lace gloves. Remarkably nice gloves of their kind at that. Some of Granny's money must have gone into those gloves. She had a pale freckled face and reddish hair, yet she was not absolutely lacking in beauty. Later on, I saw her once in the moonlight and was surprised by her good looks. Her features were quite classical, and if she had known how to do anything with her hair, she would have been a pretty woman. I asked her to come into the house, but she assured me she preferred to remain outside. I love to sit and watch the golden bees plundering the sweets of the clover, she said dreamily, clasping her lace-covered hands. Neither bees nor clover were noticeable about the tansy patch, but that did not worry Aunt Lily. She rolled her large, blue eyes upon me and added, I adore the country, Mrs. Bruce. The city is so artificial. Don't you truly think the city is so artificial? There can be no real interchange of soul in the city. Here in the beautiful country, under God's blue sky, human beings can be their real and highest selves. I'm sure you agree with me, Mrs. Bruce. I did, or pretended to. Salome and I knitted the afternoon away while Aunt Lily swayed idly and unceasingly in her rocker, and talked quite as idly and unceasingly. She told us all there was to be told about her family and herself. She kept a diary, it appeared. I must have some place to pour out my soul in, Mrs. Bruce, she said pathetically. Someday, if you wish, I will show you my journal. It is a self-revelation, and yet I cannot write out what burns in my bosom. I envy my niece, Dorinda, her powers of expression. Dorinda is a poetess, Mrs. Bruce. She experiences the divine aflatus. My poor brother can express the deepest emotions of his soul in music, but I can only wield my halting pen. Yet my journal is not devoid of interest, Mrs. Bruce, and I should not object to sharing it with a sympathetic friend. I should like to see it, I assured her sincerely enough, for I suspected that journal would be rather good fun. I will bring it to you some day, then, said Aunt Lily, and when you read it, remember, oh, pray, remember, that it was written by a being with a tired heart. I suffer greatly, Mrs. Bruce, from a tired heart. I did not know whether this was a physical or an emotional ailment. Solomy understood it to be the former and asked her quite sympathetically, did you ever try a mustard plaster at the pit of your stomach, Miss? I fear that would not benefit of weary heart, Mrs. Silver-Sides. Side, Aunt Lily, possibly you have never suffered as I have from a weary, wounded heart. No, thank the Lord, my heart's all right, said Solomy Briskley. My only trouble is rheumatism in the knee-joint. Ever have rheumatism in your knee-joint, Miss? No, Aunt Lily's knee-joints were all right. In fact, Aunt Lily proved to be a remarkably healthy woman. Her wearied heart evidently found no difficulty in pumping sufficient blood through her body, and her appetite, as suppertime showed, as anything but feeble. When I can forget what might have been I am happy, she sighed. I have had my romance, Mrs. Bruce, alas, that it should be in the past tense. I once thought I had found my true soulmate, Mrs. Bruce, and I dreamed of happy real marriage. What happened that you didn't get married? queried Solomy, pricking up her ears. Solomy is always rather interested in blighted romances despite her grim exterior. A misunderstanding, Miss Silver-Sides. A misunderstanding that severed two fond hearts. He wed another. Never since that sad day have I met a man who could stir the dead ashes of my heart to tingling life again. But let us not talk of my sorrows, dear friends. Will you tell me how to can peas? When Aunt Lily went away, I asked her to come again, and she assured me that she would. I think you will understand me. I have always been misunderstood, she said. Then she trailed her blue draperies down the hill to the wood, looking, when kindly distance had lent enchantment, quite a graceful, romantic, and attractive figure. Did you ever hear such a lunatic, ma'am? demanded Solomy. Her and her soulmates and her tired hearts. Her hair looks as if she'd swept it up with a broom and her nails weren't cleaned and her stockings were scandalous dirty. And yet, for all, there's something about the creature that I like, ma'am. That was the eventual verdict of our household upon Lily. In spite of everything, there was a queer charm about her to which we succumbed. The same thing could be said of that absurd diary of hers, which she brought over to us during our second summer. It was as ridiculous and sentimental and lackadaisical as Aunt Lily herself, and yet there was an odd fragrance about it that lingered in our memories. We could not somehow laugh quite as much over it as we wanted to. TB was also an early infrequent caller. He was 13 years old in our first summer at the patch. He had thick, fair, thatch-like hair and keen blue eyes, the only intelligent eyes in the family. He was, it developed, much addicted to creeping and crawling things. He always had bugs, toads, frogs, or snakes secreted about his anatomy. The only time he ever had a meal with us, a small green snake slipped from the pocket of his ragged shirt and glided over the table. Do you think he is human, ma'am? Salome asked with bated breath after he was gone. He is a born naturalist, said Dick. He is making a small study of ants this summer, it appears. Snakes are only a side issue at present. If he could be educated, he would amount to something. There did not seem to be much likelihood of this. TB himself had no illusions on the subject. There ain't any chance for me, never was and never will be, he once told me gloomily. Perhaps your grandmother would help you, I suggested. TB grinned. Perhaps when stones bleed, he said scornfully, I don't suppose the old beast has enough money. None of us knows how much she has got. She just doles it out, but she wouldn't give me any if she had pecs. She hates me. If there's any money left when she dies, suppose and she ever does die, Joe's to get it, he's her baby. If Joseph, TB was the only one who ever called him Joe, was Granny's favorite, he was not the favorite of anybody else. However, we of the Tanzi patch might differ concerning the other members of the Conway family. We all united in cordially detesting Joseph. He was such a sly, smug little wretch, a born hypocrite. That child is, ma'am, declared Salome solemnly. We had no proof that it was really he who had cut off Doc's whiskers, but there was no doubt that it was Joseph who painted poor Una's legs with stripes of red and green paint one day. Una came home in tears quickly followed by TB and Aunt Lily, the latter in tears also. I would rather have lost my right hand than have this happen, dear Mrs. Bruce, she wailed. Oh, do not cherish it against us. Your friendship has been such a sweet boon to me, and turpentine will take it off. It can't be very dry yet. Just wait till Granny goes to sleep and I'll lambast Joe within an inch of his life, said TB. He did too. When Granny wakened from her nap, she heard the sobbing Joe's tale and shrieked objugations at TB for an hour. TB sat on the fence and laughed at her. We could hear him and hear Granny also. Granny's vocal powers had not failed with advancing years and every word came over distinctly to the tansy patch through the clear evening air. May you be eaten by pigs, vociferated Granny, and we knew she was brandishing her stick at the graceless TB. I'll bite your face off. I'll tear your eyes out. I'll rip your heart out. You blatant beast, you putrid pup. Oh, listen to that awesome woman, ma'am, said Salome shuddering. Ain't it a wonder she isn't struck dead? But Granny was every inch alive, except that she could not walk, having what Aunt Lily called paralytics in the hips. She was confined to a chair, generally placed on the back veranda, whence she could command a view of the main road. From this point of vantage, she would scream maledictions and shake her long black stick at any person or objects which incurred her dislike or displeasure. Granny was of striking appearance. She had snow-white hair and dead white face and flashing black eyes. She still possessed all her teeth, but they were discolored and fang-like, and when she drew her lips back and snarled, she was certainly a rather wolf-like old dame. She always wore a frilled widow's cap tied tightly under her chin and was addicted to bare feet. It was war to the hilt between Granny and Salome from the start. Granny attacked first without the slightest provocation. Salome had gone through the spruce wood to call the children home to dinner. Perhaps Granny found Salome's expression rather trying. Salome always did look very well-satisfied with herself. At least something about her seemed to grate on Granny's nerves. Yeah, she shrieked vindictively. Your grandfather hanged himself in this horse stable. Go home, jailbird, go home! Outrage Salome was too much overcome to attempt a reply. She came home, almost in tears. Ma'am, my grandfathers both died most respectable deaths. You mustn't mind what Granny says, Salome, I said soothingly. Indeed, ma'am, nobody should mind what a lunatic says, but it's hard for a decent woman to have her grandfathers insulted. I do not mind the name she called me ma'am, but she might respect the dead. Granny respected nothing on Earth. T.B., who, although he hated her, had a certain pride in her, told tales of her repartee. On one occasion a new minister had stopped on the road and accosted. Granny, over the fence, he was young and callow and perhaps Granny's eyes disconcerted him, for he certainly worded his question rather innately. Can you tell me, ma'am, where I am going? He asked politely. How should I know where you're going, Gosling? Retorted Granny. Then she had burst into a series of chuckles which had completed his discomforture. The poor young man drove hastily away, crimson aface, looking like 30 cents, declared T.B. with a relish. On another occasion, Granny routed an automobile, one filled with gay hotel guests had stopped at the gate. Its driver had intended to ask for some water, but Granny did not allow him to utter a word. Get out of this with your demon machine, she yelled. She caught up the nearest missile, which happened to be her dinner plate and hurled it at him. It missed his face by hair's breath and landed squarely, grease and all, in a fashionable lady's soaken lap. Granny followed this up by a series of fearsome yells and maledictions, of which the mildest were, may he never have a night without a bad dream, and may he always be looking for something and never finding it. And finally, may he all die tonight. I'll pray for it that I will. The dismayed driver got his car away as quickly as possible and Granny laughed out loud and long. My old Granny's the limit, declared TB. If Joseph was Granny's favorite, poor Charity was her pet detestation. Charity was the oldest of the family. She was eighteen and a good-hearted, hard-working creature. Almost all the work that was done in the house was done by Charity. Consequently, she had little time for visiting and her calls on us were few. She was a dark, rather stocky girl, but had her share of the family's good looks. She had dusky red cheeks and a very pretty red mouth. Granny vowed that Charity was a born fool. Charity was very far from being that, but she certainly did not possess very much gumption, as Salome said. She had no taste in dress and went about one summer wearing an old rose gown with a bright scarlet hat. Oh, if only something would happen to one of them, ma'am, before they dislocate my eyes, groaned Salome. One day something did happen. A glad Salome told us of it. Charity Conway won't wear that dress again, ma'am. Yesterday, when she was going to church, she found a nest of five eggs in the field, so she put them in the pocket of her petticoat and when she got to church, she forgot all about them and sat down on them and the dress is ruined, ma'am. It is a good thing, but I am sorry for poor Charity, too, for Granny is mad at her and says she won't buy her another dress this summer. Part Two If Charity came to see us but seldom, Darinda made up for it. Darinda was a constant guest. Darinda was sixteen and Darinda wrote poetry. Bushels of it, so said TB. The first time Darinda came, she wanted to borrow some mutton tallow. I have chapped hands and I find it difficult to write poetry with chapped hands. I should think you would miss, said Salome, but she got out the mutton tallow. Darinda bored us to death with her poetry. It really was the most awful trash. One line, however, in a poem which Darinda addressed to the returned soldiers of the Boer War, always shown like a star in our family memory. Canada, like a maiden, welcomes back her sons. But Salome thought it wasn't quite decent. If there was only a wood-pool near here, sighed Darinda, I can write my best only by a wood-pool. Why not try the pond? Suggested Salome. My muse, said Darinda with dignity, only inspires me by a wood-pool. I cannot remember the names of all Darinda's poems. Some of them were lines on a birch tree, lines to my northern birds, a romantic tale, and lines written on a friend's tansy patch. Darinda was stout but very good-looking. She had magnificent hair, great masses of silky-brown curls. She always dressed it beautifully, too. But like all mortals, Darinda was not satisfied. I wish I was silk-like, Mrs. Bruce, she sighed. A poetess should be silk-like. The relations between Darinda and Aunt Lily were not as cordial as their common addiction to literary pursuits might presuppose. There was some antagonism between them, the cause of which we never knew, but it resulted in TB hating Darinda with an unbrotherly hatred and deriding her poems unmercifully. One little white blossom of pure affection bloomed in the arid desert of TB's emotional life. He loved his aunt. She sympathized with his pursuits, and in spite of her lackadaisical ways she was not afraid of his snakes. TB would not allow Granny to abuse Aunt Lily. How did you stop it? queried Salome anxiously. The first time she turned her tongue loose on Aunt Lily, I went up to her and bit her, said TB coolly. You ought to bite her oftener, said Salome vindictively. There ain't none of the rest of us worth standing up for, said TB, Granny's tough-biting. TB figured conspicuously in Aunt Lily's diary she seemed to send her maternal affection in him. I wish I could educate TB, she wrote, but alas, I am poor. How bitter a thing is grinding poverty. My poor brother is a genius, but he makes no money, and I fear he will never find the treasure he seeketh. Like myself, he is misunderstood and unappreciated. My beloved TB lacks many things which should pertain to youth. I patched his best trousers today. Many of TB's speeches and exploits figured in the diary. For perhaps, in spite of all, he may be famous someday, wrote Aunt Lily, and then this neglected diary, written by a woman whose hopes in life have been blighted, will be of inestimable value to a biographer in search of material. I have noticed that the boyish pranks of great men are of suppressing interest. I could wish that TB used less slang, but English, undefiled, is seldom heard today. Alas for it, I feel that TB's association with the unrefined family who are now so droning at the Tansy Patch may be of a great help to him. I don't know that we helped TB very much, but Salome tried to do him good in a spiritual way. She was much horrified to find that TB was a skeptic and prided himself on it. Accordingly, Salome took to lending him some books and tracks and bribing him to read them with donuts. One of them was the memoir of Susanna B. Morton, an account of the life and early death of a child of extraordinary piety. Salome used to read it and weep over it Sunday afternoons. TB enjoyed the book, but scarcely I fear in the way Salome desired. Ain't Susanna a holy terror, he would say to me with a grin? TB had a sense of humor, and that book tickled it. Una, too, told him sweetly that she meant to pray for him, but this roused TB's dander instantly. You ain't, don't you dast, I won't be prayed for, he shouted. Oh, TB, aren't you afraid you're going to the bad place, whispered poor Una, quite aghast? Nick's on that, contemptuously. I don't believe there's any hell or heaven either. When you die, that's the end of you. Wouldn't you like to go on living? Ask Dick, who enjoyed drawing TB out. Nope, there's no fun in it, said the youthful misanthrope. Heaven's a dull place from all the accounts I've heard of it. I'd like a heaven full of snakes and ants and things, though. There'd be some sense in that kind. How are your ants coming on? I queried. TB was transformed in a moment. He sat up, eager, alert, bright-eyed. They're done interesting, he exclaimed. I sat all day yesterday and watched their doings in that nest below the garden. Say, but there quarrel some little cusses. Some of them like to start a fight, without any reason, far as I can see. And some of them are cowards. They get so scared they just double themselves up into a ball and let the other fellow bang them around. They won't put up no fight. Some of them are lazy and won't work. I've watched them shirking. And there was one ant died of grief because another ant got killed. Wouldn't eat, wouldn't work, just died. Tell you. I wish humans was as interesting as ants. Well, so long I must be getting home to dinner. Which we spent in our town home. The children kept up a correspondence with TB. He wrote very interesting letters, too, allowing for eccentricities of grammar and spelling. Aunt Lily wrote me wondrous underlined epistles full of sentiment, and Derinda sent us a poem every week on memories of other days or some kindred subject. We often wondered what life must be in the house beyond the spruces in winter, when granny must, per force, be cooped up indoors. Salome shuttered over the thought of it. It was not until our fourth and last summer at the Tansy Patch that we were ever asked to partake of a meal in the Conway establishment. One day, not long before our final departure, TB came over and gravely handed us a formal invitation in Aunt Lily's handwriting on a soiled, guilt-edged correspondence card. We were asked to supper the next evening at seven o'clock. Salome got one, too. Say, ma'am, you'll never try to eat a meal in that house, she exclaimed, why, I have heard that they have been known to mix up cakes in the wash pan, ma'am, and remember the dog and the soup, ma'am? But they threw the soup out, said Una. I think Mr. Bruce and I must go, I said. I do not want to hurt Aunt Lily's feelings, but you can please yourself about going, Salome. Salome drew a deep breath. I'd rather go to supper with the king of the cannibal islands, ma'am, she said. But if you are determined to go, I'll go, too, and we'll all be poisoned together. I really believe Salome was curious. She wanted to see what sort of meal them lunatics would put up. We all got a surprise. The Conway supper table was as pretty a one as I have ever sat down to. The linen was spotless. The china and silver, old and good, evidently relics of Granny's palmy days. The decorations of ferns and wildflowers were charming, and the awful lamp with its hideous red globe, which stood on a corner table, cast a very becoming rose-light over everything. You see, we can put on style when we want to, said T.B. Slyly. All the family were dressed up for the occasion. Paw, in a dark suit and white shirt, was handsome and presentable. Aunt Lily for once had her hair done nicely, and she and the girls in their pretty muslins looked quite charming. Even Granny had on a new black silk and a fresh cap, and if she could only have held her tongue might have passed for a decidedly handsome and aristocratic old dame. But that Granny could not do. I hope you've got more in your head than you carry on your face, she said when Dick was introduced. Having said that, however, she behaved herself quite well during supper. The Bill of Fair presented to us was surprisingly good and, what was still more surprising, quite fashionable. Charity must have studied household magazines to some effect. Everything was so delicious that we could not but enjoy it, despite sundry, disconcerting recollections of gossip concerning snakes and wash pans. We had angel cake that night, and whatever it was mixed up in, it was toothsome. Granny in particular was much impressed by the style and menu. She never spoke quite so scornfully of them afterwards. They may be lunatics, ma'am, she said, as we went home, but that silver was solid, ma'am, and that cloth was double-demask, and there was initials on the spoons, and when all said and done, ma'am, there's family behind them whatever they've come to. I hope you've got your claws full, was Granny's parting salutation. We all noticed how pretty and chipper Aunt Lily was that night. She was quite bright and animated. The reason, therefore, was disclosed soon after when Aunt Lily informed us that she was going to be married. She was very well satisfied about it, too, in spite of her tired heart and blighted life. We discovered that the bridegroom-elect was a commonplace farmer living near the hotel. He's no beauty, T.B. informed us, and Granny twits Aunt Lily with it. Aunt Lily says she'd marry him if he was as ugly as a gorilla, because it is his soul she loves. I don't know nothing about his soul, but he's got the dough, and he's going to educate me. Aunt Lily told him she wouldn't have him if he didn't. I'm going to live with him, too. Say, won't I be glad to get away from Granny's tongue in Derrinda's poetry? It makes me feel young again. How on earth will that woman ever keep a house, ma'am, said Salome? I pity that poor man. He is very well able to keep a servant, I said, and I have always had a suspicion that Aunt Lily is not by any means as die-away as her looks, Salome. The woman who arranged that supper table must have something of what you call gumption. Anyhow, everybody is so well satisfied that it seems a pity to carp. Oh, I like the creature, and I wish her well, ma'am. Salome rejoined with a toss of her head, and I'm glad poor T.B. is to have his chance. Say what you will, ma'am. George Black is marrying into a queer lot, and that is my final opinion, ma'am. Aunt Lily meant to give up keeping a diary, so she informed me. I shall not need it, she said. I can pour out my soul to my husband. I have put the past and all its sadness behind me. Will you help me select my bridal suit, Mrs. Bruce? I did want to be wedded in a sky-blue gown, the tint of God's own heaven, Mrs. Bruce. But George says he would like a plain dark suit better, and I believe that a wife should reverence and obey her husband. I am no new woman, Mrs. Bruce, and I believe in the sacredness of the conjugal tie. The secret of life is devotion, Mrs. Bruce. I'm very glad you're taking T.B. with you, I said. I could not dream of leaving him behind, Mrs. Bruce. My heart is knit to his. I trust that in my home his surroundings will be more uplifting than they have hitherto been. In the atmosphere of calm and joy, I feel sure that he will develop, Mrs. Bruce. The next week, Aunt Lily and T.B. went to the new atmosphere of calm and joy, and we departed regretfully from the tansy patch. As we drove away in the still evening, we heard Pa fiddling gloriously on his stoop, and as we turned the corner of the road and passed the house, Granny shook her stick at us with a parting malediction, May your potatoes always be rotten, she shrieked. But Pa's fiddle followed us further than Granny's howls, and our memories of our tansy patch neighbours were not unpleasant ones. When all is said and done, ma'am, was Salamé's summing up, them lunatics were interesting. Section 84 of Uncollected Short Stories of L.M. Montgomery. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Brett Montgomery. Uncollected Short Stories of L.M. Montgomery by Lucy Maud Montgomery. Section 84, The Matchmaker. There is not a single baby in Lancaster, said Mrs. Churchill. There is not one young married couple in Lancaster? And what's worse, nobody is getting married, or has any notion of getting married. It's a disheartening state of affairs. Mrs. Churchill was talking to her friend Mrs. Mildred Burnham as they sat on her veranda in the clear spring twilight. They were both middle-aged widows and had been chum since they had shared the same desk at school. Mrs. Burnham was a tall, thin lady who admitted that she had a sensitive disposition. Mrs. Churchill, who was a large, placid, slow-moving person, never jarred on this sensitiveness, so they were very fond of each other. Well, said Mrs. Burnham, all the people who have been married in Lancaster for the last ten years have gone away. Just now there doesn't seem to be any candidates. What young folks there are here about are too young. Except Alden Churchill and this new niece of yours, what's her name? Stella Chase. Now if they would take a notion to each other, suggested Mrs. Burnham. Mrs. Churchill gazed earnestly at the rose in her fillet crochet. She had already made up her mind that a nephew Alden should marry her niece Stella, but matchmaking is something requiring subtlety and discretion, and there are things you do not tell, even to your intimate friend. I don't suppose there's much chance of that, she said, and if they did it wouldn't be any use. Mary will never let Alden marry as long as she can keep him from it. The property is hers until he marries, and then it goes to him, you know. And as for Richard, he has never let poor Stella have a bow in her life. All the young men who ever tried to come to see her, he simply terrified out of their senses with sarcasm. He is the most sarcastic creature you ever heard of. Stella can't manage him. Her mother before her couldn't manage him. They didn't know how. He goes by contraries, but neither of them ever seemed to catch onto that. I thought Miss Chase seemed very devoted to her father. Oh, she is. She adores him. He's a most agreeable man when he gets his own way about everything. He and I get on beautifully. I know the secret of coming at over him. I'm real glad they've moved up here from Clancy. They're such company for me. Stella is a very sweet girl. I always loved her, and her mother was my favourite sister. Poor Lizette. She died young? Yes, when Stella was only eight. Richard brought Stella up himself. I don't wonder they're everything to each other, but he should have more sense about Stella's marrying. He must know he can't live forever, though to hear him talk you'd think he meant to. He's an old man. He wasn't young when he married. And what is Stella to do after he's gone? Just shrivel up, I suppose. It's a shame, agreed Mrs Burnham. I don't hold with old folks spoiling young folks' lives like that. And Olden's another whose life is going to be spoiled. Mary is determined, he shan't marry. Every time he's gone about with a girl, she puts a stop to it somehow. Do you suppose it's all her doings? We're Mrs Burnham, rather dryly. Some folks think Olden is very changeable. I've heard him called a flirt. Olden is handsome, and the girls chase him, cried Mrs Churchill, up in arms against any criticism of her favourite. I don't blame him for stringing them along a bit and dropping them when he's taught them a lesson. But there's been one or two nice girls he really liked, and Mary just blocked it every time. She told me so herself, told me she went to the Bible. She's always going to the Bible, you know, and turned up a verse, and every time it was a warning against Olden getting married. I have no patience with her in her odd ways. Why can't she go to church and be a decent creature like the rest of us in Lancaster? But no, she must set up a religion for herself, consisting of going to the Bible. Last fall, when that valuable horse took sick, worth four hundred if he was a dollar, instead of sending for the Clancy Vet, as we all begged her to do, she went to the Bible and turned up a verse. The Lord gave, and the Lord taketh away, blessed be the name of the Lord. Though sinned for the Vet, she would not, and the horse died. Fancy applying that verse in such a way, I call it irreverent. Mrs. Churchill paused, being rather out of breath. Her sister-in-law's vagaries always made her impatient. Alden isn't much like his mother, said Mrs. Burnham. Alden's like his father. A finer man never stepped. Why he ever married Mary was something we could never fathom. Of course she had lots of money, but that wasn't the reason. George was really in love with her. I don't know how Alden stands his mother's whims. He rather plumes himself on his liberal views, believes in evolution and that sort of stuff. Going, are you? What's your hurry? Well, sighed Mrs. Burnham, I find that if I'm out in the dew much, my new router troubles me considerable. We're getting old, Ellen. To be sure we are, agreed Mrs. Churchill. My rumour jizzing takes hold this spring, too, if I'm not mighty careful. Good night. Mind the step. Mrs. Churchill continued rocking on her veranda, crocheting and plotting. When her brother-in-law, Richard Chase, had moved from Clancy to Lancaster, Mrs. Churchill had been delighted. She was very fond of Stella, and as Clancy was ten miles away, she had never been able to see as much of her as she wished. And she had made up her mind that Stella and Alden Churchill must be married off to each other by hook or by crook. Stella was twenty-four and Alden was thirty and it was high time they were married, so Mrs. Churchill thought. I've no doubt I can bring it about, she said to herself, but I'll have to be careful. It would never do to let one of them suspect a thing. It's going to mean a lot of trouble and bother, and some fiddling as well, I'm afraid. But it's all in a good cause. Neither Alden nor Stella will ever get married to anybody if I don't lend a hand. That's certain. And they won't take a fancy to each other without some help. That's equally certain. Stella isn't the kind of girl Alden thinks he fancies. He imagines he likes the high-coloured, laughing ones. We'll see, Ellen. We'll see. I know how to deal with picketed people of all sorts. Mrs. Churchill laughed comfortably. Then she decided she must get to work at once. Stella had been living in Lancaster for three weeks and the new minister was casting sheep's eyes at her. Mrs. Churchill had caught him at it. She did not like him. He was too anemic and short-sighted. She was not going to help him to Stella. Besides, Alden, who hadn't been dangling after any girl winter, might begin at any moment. There was a new and handsome schoolteacher down on the baseline road and spring was a dangerous time. If Alden began a new flirtation he would have no eyes for Stella. As yet they were not even acquainted. The first thing to do was to have them meet each other. How was this to be managed? It must be brought about in some way absolutely innocent in appearance. Mrs. Churchill wracked her kindly brains but could think of only one way. She must give a party and invite them both. She did not like the way. She was intensely proud of her beautiful, beautifully kept house with its nice furnishings and the old heirlooms that had come down to her through three generations. She hated the thought of it being torn up by preparations for a party and desecrated by a horde of young romps. The Lancaster boys and girls were such romps. But a good cause demands sacrifices. Mrs. Churchill sent out her invitations alleging that she was giving the party as a farewell send-off for her cousin Alice's daughter Janet who was going away to teach in the city. Janet who hadn't expected Aunt Ellen to come out like this was rather pleased. But Mrs. Churchill's other cousin, Elizabeth, two of whose daughters had gone away without any such farewell party was bitterly jealous and offended and never forgave Ellen. Mrs. Churchill cleaned her house from attic to cellar for the event and did all the cooking for the supper herself, help being impossible to get in Lancaster. She was woefully tired the night before the party. Every bone in her body ached, her head ached, her eyes ached. But instead of going to bed, she sat out on the veranda in the chilly spring night and talked to Alden who had dropped in but would not go into the house. Mrs. Churchill was very anxious to have a talk with him, so she braved the damp and the chill. Alden sat on the veranda steps with his bare head thrown back against the post. He was, as his aunt had said, a very handsome fellow, tall, broad-shouldered, with a marble white face that never tanned, and dead black hair and eyes. He had a laughing, velvety voice which no girl could hear without a heartbeat, and a dangerous way of listening to a woman, any woman, as if she were saying something he had thirsted all his life to hear. He had gone to Midland Academy for three years and had thought of going to college, but his mother refused to let him go, alleging biblical reasons, and Alden had settled down contentedly enough on the farm. He liked farming. It was free, out of doors, independent work. He had his mother's knack of making money and his father's attractive personality. It was no wonder he was considered a matrimonial prize. Alden, I want to ask a favour of you, said Mrs Churchill. Will you do it for me? Sure, Aunt Ellen, he answered heartily. Just name it. You know I'd do anything for you. Alden was very fond of his aunt Ellen, and would really have done a good deal for her. I'm afraid it will bore you, said Mrs Churchill anxiously, but it's just this. I want you to see that Stella Chase has a good time at the party tomorrow night. I'm so afraid she won't. She doesn't know the young people here, and they're all so much younger than she is—at least the boys are. Ask her to dance, and see that she isn't left alone and out of things. She's so shy with strangers, I do want her to have a good time. Oh, well, do my best, said Alden readily. But you mustn't fall in love with her, you know, said Mrs Churchill, laughing carefully. Have a heart, Aunt Ellen. Why not? I'm in earnest. It wouldn't do at all, Alden. Why not? persisted Alden. Well, confidentially, I think the new minister has taken quite a shine to her. That conceited young ass exploded Alden with unexpected warmth. Mrs Churchill looked mild-rebuke. Why, Alden, he's a very nice young man, so clever and well educated, it's only that kind of man who would have any chance at all with Stella's father, you know. That's so, asked Alden, relapsing into his indifference. Yes, and I don't even know if he would. Richard thinks there's nobody alive good enough for Stella. He simply wouldn't let her look at a farmer like you. So I don't want you to make trouble for yourself, falling in love with a girl you could never get. I'm just giving you a friendly warning. Oh, thanks. Thanks. What sort of a girl is she, anyhow? Looks good? If you'd gone to church as often as you should, Alden, you'd have seen her before now. She's not a beauty. Stella is my favorite niece, but I can see what she lacks. She's pale and delicate. She'd never do for a farmer's wife. That's why I'd like to see her and the minister make a match of it. To be sure, she's too fond of dress. She's positively extravagant. But they say Mr. Paxton has money of his own. To my thinking, it would be an ideal match, and that's why I don't want you to spoil it. Why don't you invite Paxton to your spree and tell him to give Stella a good time? Demanded Alden rather truculently. You know I couldn't ask the minister to a dance, Alden. Don't be cranky, and do see that Stella has a nice time. Oh, I'll see that she has a rip-rawing time. Good night, Aunt Ellen. Alden swung off abruptly. Left alone, Mrs. Churchill chuckled. Now, if I know anything of human nature, that boy will sail right in to show me and Richard that he can get Stella if he wants her, in spite of us. And he rose right to my bait about the minister. I declare it's easy to manage men if you're half-cute. Dear me, this shoulder of mine is starting up. I suppose I'll have a bad night. She had a rather bad night, but the next evening she was a gallant and smiling hostess. Her party was a success. Everybody seemed to have a good time. Stella certainly had. Alden saw to that. Almost too zealously for good form, his aunt saw it. It was going a little too strong for a first meeting that after supper Alden should whisk Stella off to a dim corner of the Randa and keep her there for an hour. But on the whole, Mrs. Churchill was satisfied when she thought things over the next morning. To be sure, the parlour carpet had been practically ruined by a two-spilled saucer full of ice cream. Her grandmother's Bristol glass candlesticks had been broken to smithereens, and one of the girls had upset a pitcher full of rainwater in the spare room, which had soaked downwards and discoloured the dining room ceiling in a tragic fashion. But on the credit side of the ledger was the fact that, unless all signs failed, Alden had fallen in love with Stella. Mrs. Churchill thought the balance was in her favour. Later on, she discovered another and more serious debit item. In a fortnight, it transpired that Mrs. Burnham was deeply offended because she had not been asked to the party. That it was strictly a young people's party and that no elderly people were invited did not matter. Mrs. Burnham's sensitive nature was terribly hurt, and she told sundry neighbours that she would never feel the same to Ellen Churchill again. She came no more for friendly evening calls and was frostily polite when they met elsewhere. Mrs. Churchill was very blue about it. She missed Mildred terribly, though she thought she was absurdly unreasonable. But she was repaid on the evening she came upon Alden and Stella, loitering along arm in arm in the leafy byroad east of the village, which Lancaster folks called Lovers Lane. Mrs. Churchill perked right up. She had not been able to find out if her party had produced any lasting results. Now it was evident things were going all right. Alden was caught. But what about Stella? Mrs. Churchill knew that her niece was not the sort of girl to fall rightfully into any young man's outstretched hand. She had a spice of her father's contrariness, which in her worked out in a charming independence. Stella came to see her aunt the next evening and they sat on the veranda steps. Besides Stella, the big bridal wreath shrub banked up on its dune-tide whiteness, making a beautiful background for the girl. Stella was a pale, slender thing, shy but intensely sweet. She had large, purplish gray eyes with very black lashes and brows. And when she was excited, a wild rose hue spread over her cheeks. She was not considered pretty, but nobody ever forgot her face. I was very sorry to see you strolling in Lovers Lane with Alden Churchill yesterday evening, Stella, said Mrs. Churchill severely. Stella turned a startled face towards her aunt. Why? He isn't the right kind of bow for you at all, Stella. He is your nephew, aunt Ellen, and I thought you were so fond of him. He is my nephew by marriage, and I like him well enough. But he's not good enough for you, Stella. He has no family behind him. Why, his mother's grandfather hanged himself, and her father made his money hawking a medicine he concocted himself around the country. The Churchills all felt dreadful bad when George Churchill married her, and the Churchills themselves weren't strong on family. I have to admit that, though I did marry one myself. But that's not the worst. Alden's awfully fickle, Stella. No girl can hold him long. Lots have tried, and they all failed. I don't want to see you left like that the minute his fancy veers. Now, just take your auntie's advice, darling, and have nothing to do with him. You know how fond and proud of you I am. I know you've always been awfully good to me, aunt Ellen, said Stella slowly. But I think you're mistaken about Alden. No fear, I've known him for 30 years, and you've known him for two weeks. Which of us is most likely to understand him? He'll act as if he was mad about you for a few months, and then he'll drop you. You can't hold him, you're not his type. He likes the bouncing jolly girls, like the baseline teacher, for example. Oh, well, I must be going home, said Stella vaguely. Father will be lonesome. When she had gone, Mrs. Churchill chuckled again. Now, if I know anything of human nature, Mrs. Stella has gone off, vowing she'll show meddling old aunts that she can hold Alden, and that no baseline school ma'am shall ever get her claws on him. That little toss of her head and that flush on her cheeks told me that. I can read these young geese like a book. When it became a matter of common gossip that Alden Churchill was going with Stella Chase, Mrs. Churchill looked out of her door one night with a sigh. The wind is east, and I wish I could stay home tonight and nurse my rheumatism, but I must go a matchmaking. It's high time I tried my hand on Mary. She'll be the hardest nut to crack. But I know how to tackle her. Everyone has a weak point, and I found Mary's out long ago. The Churchill farm was a mile and a half from Lancaster, and Mrs. Churchill was very tired when she got there. Mrs. Mary Churchill did not welcome her too effusively either. She never did. The two sisters-in-law had never cared much for each other. But Aunt Ellen did not worry over Mary's coolness. She sat down in a rocker and took out her fillet while Mary sat opposite to her in a stiff-backed chair, folded her long, thin hands, and gazed steadily at her. Mary Churchill was tall and thin, and austere. She had a prominent chin and a long, compressed mouth. She never wasted words, and she never gossiped. So Ellen found it somewhat difficult to work up to her subject naturally, but she managed it through the medium of the new minister, whom Mary did not like. Here's not a spiritual man, said Mary coldly. He believes the kingdom of heaven can be taken by brains. It cannot. He's a very clever young fellow, said Ellen, rocking placidly. His sermons are remarkable. I heard but one, and do not wish to hear more. My soul sought food, and was given a lecture. Oh, well, Mary, you know other people don't think and feel as you do. Mr. Paxton is a fine young man. He has quite a notion of my niece Stella Chase, too. I'm hoping it will be a match. Do you mean a marriage? Asked Mary. Ellen shrugged her plump shoulders. Now, Mary, you understand what I mean well enough, and it would be just the thing. Stella is especially fitted to be a minister's wife. By the way, I hear that Alden is going with her a bit. You ought to put a stop to that, Mary. Why? Asked Mary, without the flicker of an eyelid. Because it isn't a bit of use, responded Ellen energetically. He could never get her in this world. Her father doesn't think anyone is good enough for her, except a minister or a doctor or someone like that. He'd show a plain farmer to the door in a moment. You'd better tell Alden to give up all notion of Stella Chase, Mary. He'll find himself thrown over before long and made a laughing stock of if he doesn't. Look at all the girls that have flirted with him and then dropped him. If that goes on much longer, he'll never get a decent wife. No nice girl wants shop-worn goods. No girl ever dropped my son, said Mary, compressing her thin lips. It was always the other way about. My son could marry any woman he chose, any woman, Ellen Churchill. Oh, said Ellen's tongue. Her tone said, of course I am too polite to contradict you, but you have not changed my opinion. Mary Churchill understood the tone and her white shriveled face warmed a little. Ellen went away soon after, very well satisfied with the interview. Of course, one can't count on Mary, she reflected, but if I know anything of human nature, I have worried her a little. She doesn't like the idea of folks thinking Alden is the jilted one. I suppose she's busy turning up Bible verses now to solve the problem. Lord, how my shoulders ache. East winds were invented by the old Nick, but I feel I've done Alden and Stella a good turn tonight. There's only Richard to manipulate now. I wonder if he has the slightest idea that Stella and Alden are going together. Not likely. Stella would never dare take Alden to the house, of course. I'll tackle Richard next week. Mrs. Churchill tackled him, according to program. He was sitting in his little library reading, but he put his book aside when his sister-in-law came in. He was always courteous to her, and they got unsurprisingly well. He was a small, thin man with an unkempt shock of grey hair and little twinkling, deep-set eyes. Ellen sat down, but said she could not stay long. She had just run up to Boris Della's recipe for snow pudding. I'll sit a minute to call off. It's dreadful hot tonight. Likely there'll be a thunderstorm. Mercy, that cat is bigger than ever. Richard Chase had a familiar in the shape of a huge black cat. It always sat on the arm of his chair while he read. When he put his book away, it climbed over into his lap. He stroked it tenderly. Lucifer gives the world assurance of a cat, he said. Don't you, Lucifer? Look at your aunt, Ellen, Lucifer. Observe the baleful glances she's casting upon you from orbs created to express only kindness and affection. Don't you call me that beast's aunt, Ellen? Protested Mrs. Churchill sharply. A joke's a joke, but that is carrying things too far. Wouldn't you rather be Lucifer's aunt than Neddie Churchill's aunt? Queer Richard Chase, plaintively. Neddie Churchill is a glutton and a wine beaver, isn't he? You've often given me a catalog of his crimes. Wouldn't you rather be aunt to a fine upstanding cat like Lucifer with a blameless record where whiskey and tabby's are concerned? Poor Ned is a human being, retorted Mrs. Churchill. I can't abide cats. It's the only fault I have to find with old and Churchill. He's got the strangest liking for cats too. Lord knows where he got it. His mother and father loathed them as I do. What a sensible young man he must be, said Richard Chase ironically. Sensible? Well, he's sensible enough, except in the matter of cats and evolution, another thing he didn't inherit from his mother. Do you know, Ellen, said Richard Chase solemnly. I have a secret leaning towards evolution myself. So you've told me for the last 30 years, retorted Mrs. Churchill. Well, believe what you like, Richard. Thank God nobody could ever make me believe I was descended from a monkey. You don't look it, I confess. You cumbly woman, said Richard Chase. I see no simian resemblances in your rosy, comfortable, eminently respectable physiognomy. Still, your great-grandmother a million times removed swung herself from branch to branch by her tail. Science proves that, Ellen, like it or leave it. I'll leave it then. I'm not going to argue with you on that or any point. I've got my own religion and no ape ancestors figure in it. By the way, Richard, Stella doesn't look as well this summer as I'd like to see her. She always feels the hot weather a good deal. She'll pick up when it's cooler. I hope so. Loretta picked up every summer, but the last, Richard, don't forget that. Stella has her mother's constitution. She's far from strong. It's just as well she isn't likely to marry. Why isn't she likely to marry? I asked from Curiosity, Ellen, rank Curiosity. The processes of feminine thought are intensely interesting to me. From what premises or data do you draw the conclusion in your own delightful offhand way that Stella is not likely to marry? Well, Richard, to put it plainly, she isn't the kind of girl that is popular with the men. She's a dear, sweet, good girl, but she doesn't take with them. She has had admirers. I've spent much of my substance in the purchase and maintenance of shotguns and bulldogs. They admired your money bags, I fancy. They were easily discouraged, too. Just one broad side of sarcasm from you and off they went. If they had really wanted Stella, they wouldn't have wilted for that any more than for your imaginary bulldogs. No, Richard, we might as well admit that Stella isn't the girl to win desirable bows, especially when she's getting on in years. Loretta wasn't, you know. She never had a bow till you came along. But wasn't I worth waiting for? Surely Loretta was a wise young woman. You would not have me give my daughter to any Tom, Dick, or Harry, would you? My star, who, despite your somewhat disparaging remarks, is fit to shine in the palaces of kings. We have no kings in this country, said Mrs. Churchill, getting up. I'm not saying Stella isn't a lovely girl. I'm only saying the men are not likely to see it. And considering her constitution, I think it is decidedly a good thing. A good thing for you, too. You could never get on without her. You'd be as helpless as a baby. Well, I'm off. I know you were dying to get back to that book of yours. Admirable, clear-sighted woman. What a treasure you are for a sister-in-law. I admit it, I am dying. But no other but yourself would have been perspicacious enough to see it, or amiable enough to save my life by acting upon it. Good evening, pearl of in-laws. Of course, there's never any knowing what effect anything you've said has had on him, used Mrs. Churchill, as she went down the street. But if I know anything of human nature, he didn't like the idea of Stella not being popular with the men any too well, in spite of the fact that their grandfathers were monkeys. I think he'd like to show me. Well, I've done all I can. I've interested Olin and Stella in each other, and I've made Mary and Richard rather anxious for the match than otherwise. And now I'll just sit tight and watch how things go. Two evenings later, Stella came up to see her Aunt Ellen. It was a hot, smoky evening, so they sat on the veranda steps again. Stella seemed absent-minded and quiet. Presently, she said abruptly, looking the while at a crystal-white star hanging over the lombardy at the gate. Aunt Ellen, I want to tell you something. Yes, dear? I am engaged to Olden Churchill, said Stella desperately. We've been engaged ever since last Christmas. We've kept it secret just because it was so sweet to have such a secret. But we are going to be married next month. Mrs. Churchill dropped her crochet and looked at Stella, who still continued to stare at the star. So she did not see the expression on Aunt's face. She went on a little more easily. Olden and I met at a party in Clancy last September, and we loved each other from the very first moment. He said he had always dreamed of me, had always been looking for me. He said to himself, there is my wife, when he saw me come in at the door, and I just felt the same. Oh, we are so happy, Aunt Ellen. The only cloud on our happiness has been your attitude about the matter. Bless me, said Mrs. Churchill feebly. Would you try to approve, Aunt Ellen? You've been like a mother to me. I'll feel so badly if I have to marry against your wish. There was a sound of tears in Stella's voice. Mrs. Churchill picked her fillet up blindly. Why, I don't care, child. I like Olden. He's a splendid fellow. Only he has had the reputation of being a flirt. But he isn't. He was just looking for the right one. Don't you see, auntie? And he couldn't find her. How will your father regard it? Oh, father is greatly pleased. He has known it all along. He took to Olden from the start. He used to argue for hours about evolution. Father said he always meant to let me marry as soon as the right one came along. I feel dreadfully about leaving him, but Cousin Dealea Chase is coming to keep house for him, and father likes her very much. And Olden's mother? She is quite willing too. When Olden told her last Christmas that we were engaged, she went to the Bible, and the first verse she turned up was, a man shall leave father and mother and cleave unto his wife. She said it was perfectly clear to her then what she ought to do, and she consented at once. So you see, everyone is pleased. And won't you give us your good wishes too, auntie? Oh, of course, said Mrs. Churchill rather vaguely. There was not much heartiness in her voice, and Stella went away a little disappointed. After she had gone, Mrs. Churchill took stock of the preceding weeks. She had burdened her conscience with innumerable fibs. She had confirmed her rheumatism. She had ruined her parlour carpet, destroyed two treasured heirlooms and spoiled her dining-room ceiling. She had alienated the affections of her dearest friend, perhaps forever. She had given Richard Chase something to tease her about the rest of her life. She had put a weapon into Mary Churchill's merciless hand, which, if she, Mrs. Churchill knew anything about human nature, Mary would not fail to use upon occasion. She had got in wrong with Olden and Stella and could only get out by a confession too humiliating to make. And all for what? To bring about a marriage between two people who were already engaged. I have had enough of matchmaking, said Mrs. Churchill firmly. The end. End of section 84. Section 85 of Uncollected Short Stories of LM Montgomery. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Brenda J. Davis. Uncollected Short Stories of LM Montgomery by Lucy Maud Montgomery. Section 85, The Bloom of May. The story of an old apple tree and those who loved it. The apple tree grew in a big green meadow by a brook. It was an old tree, so old that hardly anybody remembered when it had begun to grow. Nobody had planted it. It had sprung from some chance sown seed and had grown so sturdily and valiantly that Miser Tom's father had let it live when he discovered it. Now Miser Tom's father had been dead for 40 years and the tree was living still. A great wide branching thing known to all the country around as Miser Tom's apple tree. Miser Tom cared nothing for it. The sour green apples it bore were fit only for pigs to eat, but somehow the countryside had a sort of prescriptive right to it as it had to the little cross-lots road that ran past it. And though there were few things Miser Tom dared not do for the sake of making and hoarding, he never dared to cut down the tree or shut up the road. In Maytime, Miser Tom's tree was a wonderful thing. The blossoms were snow-white with no tint of rose and they covered its bow so thickly that hardly a leaf could be seen. It always bloomed. There were no off-years for it. Old homesteads, sacred to the loves of the living and the memories of the dead, were all around it. Violets grew thickly in the grass at its roots and the little cross-lots path ran by it and looped lightly up and over the hill. A little lovable red path over which the vagabond wandered and the lover went to his lady and children to joy and tired men home. Years before, one of Miser Tom's hired men had built a little wooden seat under the tree. Miser Tom did not keep him very long. He was lacy, it seemed, but the seat remained and almost every hour of the day some passer-by would step aside from the path to rest a while under the great tree and look up into its fragrant arch of bloom with eyes that saw it or saw it not, according as they were or were not holding by human passions. The slim pale girl with the delicate air and the large wistful brown eyes did not see it as she sat there with the young man who had overtaken her on the path. She had loved him always, it seemed to her, and there had been times when she thought he'd loved or might love her. But now she knew he never would. He was joyously telling her of his coming marriage to another girl. She was so pale she could not turn any paler and she kept her eyes down so that he might not see the anguish in them. She forced her lips to utter some words of good wishes and he was so wrapped up in the egotism of his own happiness that he found nothing wanting. She had always been a quiet, dull little thing when he was gone. She sat there for a long time because she was too unhappy to move. I shall hate this place forever. She sat aloud looking up at the beautiful tree. She walked away full of bitterness when she saw two men coming along the path. They turned in and sat down under the tree. One was a minister of the community and the other a visiting friend. And they were deep in a profound discussion concerning the immortality of the soul. The friend was doubtful of it and the minister desired greatly to convince him but at the end his friend looked up with a smile and said, after all, John, this tree is a better argument than any you've advanced. When I look at it, I feel I'm immortal. That is better than believing, said the minister with a little laugh. They felt suddenly very near to each other. Our love, our old friendship, of course, it's immortal, he said. It couldn't be anything else. One knows that here. I have wasted my breath. When they went away, two lovers came along the path through the blue of the afternoon. They held each other openly by the hand as people dared to do on the by-path. And when he asked her seriously to sit for a while on the bench under the old tree, she assented tremblingly. For she knew what he was going to say. She was very young and very pretty and very sweet as sweet and virginal as the apple blossoms. When she said yes to his question, he kissed her and both sat silently for joy. They hated to go away and leave the darling spot. How I shall always love this dear old tree, he said. This place will always be sacred to me. The old tree suddenly waved its bows over them as if in blessing. So many lovers had sat beneath it. It had screened so many kisses. Many of the lips that had kissed were ashes now. But the miracle of love renewed itself every springtime. In the early evening came a little orphan boy on his way to bring home the cows from pasture. He was very tired, for he had been picking stones off a field all day. So he sat down for a few minutes to rest his weary little bones. He worked for Miser Tom, and no one who worked for Miser Tom ever ate the bread of idleness. He was a shy, delicate lad, and the other boys tormented him because of this. So he had no playmates and was often very lonely. Sometimes he wished wistfully that he had just one friend. There seemed to be so much love in the world and none of it for him. He liked the old apple tree. It seemed like a friend to him, a great, kindly blooming, fragrant creature reaching protecting arms over him. His heart grew warm with his love for it, and he began to whistle. He whistled beautifully, and the notes of his tune blew across the Brook Valley like drops of elfin sound. He was very happy while he whistled, and he had a right to be happy. For he had lived a good day, though he did not know that, and was not thinking about it. He had done faithful work. He had saved a little bird from a cat, and he had planted a tree, a little wild white birch, which he had brought home from the field, and set out at the gate. Miser Tom giving a surly assent because it cost him nothing. So the lad whistled blithely. Life was all before him, and it was May, and the world was a bloom. Long after he had gone up the path to the pasture, the echoes of his music seemed to linger under the tree. Many children had sat under it. The old apple tree seemed to love them. At sunset an old man came to the dam spring valley and sat for a while, seeing visions and dreaming dreams. He was an ugly old man, but he had very clear beautiful blue eyes, which told you that he had kept the child heart. His neighbours thought that he was a failure. He had been tied down to farm drudgery all his life. He lived poorly and was sometimes cold and sometimes hungry. But he dwelt in an ideal world of the imagination, of which none of his critics knew anything. He was a poet, and he had composed a great many pieces of poetry, but he had never written any of them down. They existed only in his mind and memory. He had recited them all a hundred times to the old tree. It was his only confidant. The ghosts of many springs haunted it for him. He always came there when it was in bloom. He was an odd, ridiculous figure enough if anyone had seen him, bent and warped and unkempt, gesticulating awkwardly as he recited his poems. But it was his hour, and he felt every inch a king in his own realm. For a little time he was strong and young and splendid and beautiful, an accredited master of song to a listening enraptured world. None of his prosperous neighbours ever lived through such an hour. He would not have exchanged places with one of them. The next visitor to the tree was a pale woman with a pain-lined face. She walked slowly and sat down with a sigh of relief. She had seen the old tree blossom white for many springs, and she knew she would never see it again. She had a deadly disease, and her doctor had told her that day that she had only a few more weeks to live. And she did not want to die. She was afraid of death. A young moon set behind the dark hills, and the old tree was very wonderful in the starlight. It seemed to have a life and a speech of its own, and she felt as if it were talking to her, consoling her, encouraging her. The universe was full of love, it said, and spring came everywhere, and in death you opened and shut a door. There were beautiful things on the other side of the door. One need not be afraid. Then suddenly she was not afraid any longer. Love seemed all about her and around her as if breathed out from some great, invisible, hovering tenderness. One could not be afraid where love was, and love was everywhere. She laid her face against the trunk of the old tree, and rested. She had not been gone long when old Miser Tom came himself, walking home from market, and sat down with a grunt. He was tired, and he did not like it because it meant that he was getting old. He had a thin, pinched, merciless mouth, and he looked around with eyes that held nothing in reference. All the land he could see around him belonged to him, or he thought it did. Really, it did not belong to him at all, but to the old dumb poet and the little orphan who loved it. Miser Tom thought he was very rich, but he was horribly poor, for not one living creature loved him, not even a dog or a cat. His heart was poisoned, and his thoughts were venomous because a neighbour had got higher prices at market that day than he had. He scowled up at the tree and wished he dared cut it down for firewood. It was no good, and it spoiled several yards of the meadow. Yet, even as he scowled, a thought came to him, what if he hadn't made money his god and scrimped and starved mind and soul and body for it? What if, long ago, he had married the girl with whom he had sat here one evening in his youth? What if he had had a home in children like other men? It was only for a moment, he thought thus. The next minute he was Miser Tom again, sneering at such questions. A lavish wife and a spin-thrift brood, not for him. He had been too wise. That girl was no longer fair. She was a faded, drab married woman, ground down with hard work, gnawing her heart out over the boy whose unknown grave was somewhere in France. Poor fool. Oh yes, he had been wise. But he would not cut the old tree down, not just yet. It was a pretty thing, so white in the night's dim beauty. He would leave it be. After all, some shade enhanced the value of the pasture. After Miser Tom had shuffled away, an old man and his wife came along the path and turned aside to rest. It was the anniversary of their wedding, and they had been spending it with their daughter in the village, but now they were on their way home. They too loved the old apple tree. I sat here for a long time the night before our wedding-day gene. The old husband said, It was a small tree then, barely large enough to cast a shade, but it was as white as it is now. It was the first spring it had bloomed. There was no seed here then. So I sat on the grass under it and thought about you. He began to dream of youth and his bridal day, murmuring bits of recollection aloud. But the old wife sat very silent. For it was not her wedding day she was thinking about, but her little first-born son, who had lived a year, just one year. She brought him here once, when her tired old eyes had been young and eager and laughter-lighted, and had sat with him on the grass under the tree, and he had rolled over in it and laughed and clutched at the violets with his little dimpled hands. He had been dead for forty years, but he was still unforgotten. She always felt that he was very near her here by the old tree, nearer than anywhere else. By reason of that one day they had played together under it. When she went away she had an odd little idea which she would not have uttered for the world, of which she was even a little ashamed, thinking it foolish and perhaps wicked, that she left him there, playing with the gypsies of the night, the little wandering, whispering, tricksy winds, the moths, the beetles, the shadows, in his eternal youth, under the white and folding arms of Meiser Tom's old apple tree, and of the bloom of May, the story of an old apple tree and those who loved it. Recording by Brenda J. Davis. Section 86 of Uncollected Short Stories of L. M. Montgomery. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Jordan P. Uncollected Short Stories of L. M. Montgomery by Lucy Maud Montgomery. Hill of the Winds, Part 1. Chapter 1. Mrs. Edward Wallace puffed up the Hill of the Winds. Having called her Mrs. Edward Wallace once by way of conventional introduction, I shall hereafter call her cousin Clarinda because everybody who knew her called her that, even those who were of no relation at all. And few ever left off the cousin in spite of the indefinable awkwardness of it. Nobody could call her Mrs. Wallace, and yet there was something about her that forbade plain Clarinda to all but her husband and a few old, intimate contemporaries. She was so sweet and lovable and dignified. You see, she had been born a Cooper. She was a fat, saucy lady who at 60 still retained the asking eyes of a girl and yet had something about her capacious maternal bosom that made you want to lay your head on it if you were tired or troubled. You could tell without half looking that she was a perfect cook and that her children rose up and called her blessed. She was addicted to wearing light-tinted dresses which she admitted calmly were far too young for her. She wore one now, a pink-flowered muslin and a shade hat trimmed with clouds of pink tulle and daisies. She looked like a big, full-blown cabbage rose in it, and as she had all the outdoors and the sun steeped summer afternoon around her for a background, she was not unpleasing to the aesthetic sense. This is quite enough to say of a woman who was not the heroine of this story. Cousin Clarinda did not come up to healer the winds very often. Elizabeth Cooper, who reigned there, was only a second cousin who kept up all the Cooper traditions and disapproved strongly of Cousin Clarinda's flower-hued dresses and daisied hats. Cousin Clarinda drove up on a duty visit once a year and was painfully polite to Elizabeth, who was painlessly polite to her. But Cousin Clarinda, weighing 180, would not have walked up to healer the winds on a hot, dusty afternoon to see Cousin Elizabeth if she never saw her. She was going up now to see Romney Cooper, walking because she could not get a horse that day and to have waited another day for Romney would have killed her. She had loved him as her own son in his boyhood days when he had spent his vacations nominally at healer the winds and actually down on her seashore farm. But she had not seen him for ten years and she was hungry for a sight of him. He had been such a darling. He was, in the strict way in which the Cooper's tabulated relationship, her first cousin once removed. Elizabeth was his aunt. Elizabeth didn't deserve such luck, thought Clarinda. Romney had gone into journalism in a distant city when he was through college and had ceased to come to healer the winds for his vacations. But he had had pneumonia in the winter, followed by some complications and had been ordered to rest wholly for the summer. So much Cousin Clarinda knew because Elizabeth had so told Dr. John Cooper, who told Clarinda. But there were a million other things she wanted to know if she had breath enough left to ask them after she reached the top of that terrible hill. She stopped at the gate when she did get up and leaned against it thankfully. Really, healer the winds was a lovely spot. It was the old Cooper homestead so Clarinda had a prescriptive right to be proud of it, although she herself had never lived there. The old house was a fine, stately white building hooded in trees that had taken three generations of widespreading leafy luxurians. There was an old formal garden with clipped cedars, thick high hedges and broad paths beautifully kept, and the view of the big, green, sunshiny valley all around it below with gauzy hills on one side and the long, silvery sand shore of the hazy blue sea on the other was something strangers always raved over. The Coopers themselves never said much about it. They were too proud of it to talk of it. It's an awful place to get to, sighed Clarinda, but when you do get here you've something for your pains. I wonder who Elizabeth will leave this all to when she dies. I know it won't be me or any of mine so I can wonder about it with a clear conscience. John Cooper is rich enough already and has no sons, but she hates almost everybody else. She ought to leave it to Romney, but she disapproves of him. She likes him well enough, but she disapproves of him, so he has no chance. Now I must go in and talk to her a few minutes first, I suppose. Good Lord, send me something to say. Few of Cousin Clarinda's associates would have supposed she could ever be in want of something to say, but she always found it very hard to talk to Elizabeth, that high-bred, stately, old maiden lady of the hill, who could, so Dr. John was want to ever be silent in all the languages of the world. At least Cousin Elizabeth never talked the language of gossip, and gossip was Cousin Clarinda's mother tongue. Perhaps the good Lord whom Cousin Clarinda invoked thought it would be easier to prevent an interview with Cousin Elizabeth at all than to furnish conversation for it. Elizabeth met Clarinda at the door of the dim, cool, old hall and said distantly, I suppose you have come to see Romney. Go right upstairs to the tower room. I've given him that for a sitting room for the summer. Cousin Clarinda swam up the stairs. Cousin Elizabeth looked up at her from the hall. An old you dressed like a lamb, she thought contemptuously. She herself wore dark purple velvet with a real lace collar. It was old-fashioned, but very handsome. She returned to her embroidery with the comfortable feeling born of a justified contempt for somebody we have never really liked. But then Cousin Clarinda didn't care. What luck, she thought as she made her way to the tower room. Cousin Clarinda said Romney between hugs. So you really know me, said Cousin Clarinda complacently. Know you, you haven't changed a particle. Know you, could I ever forget you? I'm much fatter, said Cousin Clarinda with a sigh. Then she held him off and looked at him. Yes, he was just as handsome as ever. His dark reddish hair was just as thick and wavy. His gray eyes just as kind and luminous and twinkly. His figure just as fine and well-bred. Cousin Clarinda was strong on breeding. But he was far, far too thin. Kiss me again, she said, and then we'll sit down and talk. I've come up to pump you. I'm going to ask you about everything. You've got to tell me about everything. Of course, said Romney. He found her hatpins for her, pulled them out, and took her hat off. He looked admiringly at her thick, brown, gold hair lying in sleek waves in which was not a thread of silver. You darling thing, you're as young as ever, he said. I was a little afraid you might have grown old. I was coming down to see you tonight. Did you know it? You and your jam closet. Have you a jam closet still? I couldn't wait for tonight. I want what I want when I want it. And of course I have a jam closet. While I live and move and have my being, I'll have a jam closet. And a dairy full of cream? Do you remember how I used to steal cream out of your dairy? The dairy is there, all right. But we separate the cream now. Oh, cousin, I'm sorry. No more delightful, big, brown panfuls to skim. But you'll give me plenty to drink, won't you? I must have plenty of cream, cousin Clarinda. The doctors insist that I must have oceans of cream and raspberry vinegar. They didn't tell me I must have raspberry vinegar because they didn't know anything about it. They would have if they had known. Mind the time I stole a bottle of it to christen a boat and you smacked my ear for it, I've been lopsided ever since. You haven't changed much, said cousin Clarinda in a satisfied tone. Of course not. Sit here, dear thing, right by the window. I've been sitting here for an hour musing on the edge-low garden. When all said and done, it's finer than the Cooper Garden. Cousin Clarinda gave a scornful glance at the edge-low garden as she filled the big chair with her pink billows, arranged them to her liking, and leaned back as ineffably contented as a cat with its tail folded about its paws. She had not climbed Hill of the Winds to discuss the comparative merits of Cooper and edge-low gardens. How do you feel, Romney? she asked anxiously. Lazy and contented. I've always been lazy, but never before have I felt contented. As for the rest, I am as poor and orphaned as I ever was. Lordy, but it's good to see you again. I'm going to stretch out on this sofa and feast my eyes on you. I love you in that pink. Why do ladies of sixty? Excuse me, of course I'm not implying that you are sixty ageless being. Generally go about so soberly and dourly clad. Sixty is the very time they should bloom out into gorgeousness like a tumble-trees. I always liked bright colors, said Cousin Clarinda complacently. I shall wear them till I die. They can bury me in black if they like, but as long as breath is in me, I'll have pink ribbons in my nightdress. Dear Elizabeth is likely throwing a fit down in the parlor now because of this pink dress. How have you been getting along in journalism, Romney? Cousin Clarinda spoke rather doubtfully. No other cooper had ever gone in for journalism. It seemed a foolish, inconsequential occupation for a cooper. The cooper's had been solid folk. I haven't made any money. I'm as poor as a rat, admitted Romney. But I've had a darned interesting time. Have you had that, Cousin Clarinda? No, said Clarinda, one of whose charms was honesty. Nor any of the other cooper's hear abouts. I suppose not, reflected Clarinda. No, I think they've all been as dull as I. But if you can't make any money at your profession, Romney, how are you going to keep a wife and family? But Cousin Clarinda, darling, I haven't a wife and family to keep. Don't you ever expect to have? Cousin Clarinda was slightly severe. The cooper's had always thought it a highly respectable thing to be married. You are thirty, Romney, it is time you were married. Oh, Cousin, did you come all the way up here to lecture me on getting married, to twit me with my single cussedness? No, I didn't. And at sixty, you have annoyed me, Cousin, by casting my years up to me so I won't pretend you aren't sixty. You shouldn't be interested in marrying and giving in marriage. I thank my stars that I didn't lose interest in youthful things when I lost my youth, retorted Clarinda. I have lots of sentiment in me still and I'm not afraid to show it. That's what makes you so adorable. Romney stretched out his hand, possessed himself of hers and kissed it. If there were a young Cousin Clarinda about, I'd snap her up. Cousin, I'm afraid I'm doomed to die a bachelor. They tell me it's an easy death. Why won't you be serious? reproached Clarinda. When you were in your teens, you used to tell me all about your love affairs. Do you remember your desperate flirtations with those Marrowbee girls down Harbor? Of course I do. Say, those girls were delicious. What became of them? But I have no love affairs now, darling, or I'd certainly tell you all about them. I am not, never have been, and never will be, actually in love. Said Cousin Clarinda. Because I have an ideal. Shucks, we all have. I had an ideal 40 years ago. He was tall, like you, and gray-eyed, like you. Curly-haired, musical. And I married Ned Wallace, who was short and had hair so straight it wouldn't even brush and who couldn't tell God Save the King from Money Musk. As for his eyes, I've lived with him 35 years and I don't know even now what color they are exactly. I think they're green, but I've been happy with him. I can't fall in love with anybody, but my ideal, said Romney obstinately. What is she like? Her name is Sylvia. Sylvia, you have met her then. I have not, but her name is Sylvia. She is tall and has very black hair, which she always wears brushed straight back from her forehead as only a really pretty woman can dare to brush it. Of course she is fortunate enough to have a widow's peak. Then she wears it in a heavy, glossy braid around her head. Sylvia has intensely blue eyes with very black lashes and straight black brows. She has a pale, creamy face with a skin like a white Narcissus petal, but a red, red mouth and lovely hands, Cousin Clarenda. A beautiful hand is one of the chief charms of a beautiful woman. Sylvia's hands are... Oh, I wish you could see Sylvia's hands. I wish I could see them, but I never shall. It's a depressing thought, Cousin, but haven't you a nice girl or two round to amuse me? Do you have shoals of them? That was when my girls were home. They don't come anymore. Girls are scarce, it seems to me. Soon as they grow up now, they're often away. I have the school teacher boarding with me. She might do. She's cute and pretty. And it would be quite safe for both of you, concluded Cousin Clarenda solemnly, because you would never really fall in love with her and she has a young man of her own. Maybe the young man would object. Oh, he's away out west. She writes to him every day. You'll find her good company. Romney hit a smile behind his hand. Cousin Clarenda was so deeply in earnest in regard to providing amusement for his summer, the darling, thoughtful old thing. I've been chumming with Samuel Rice since I came, he said. Our acquaintance is only 24 hours old, but we are sworn friends. Know him? No. He's Elizabeth's man's son, isn't he? Nephew. Orphan nephew. Age 10. The most amazing compound of mischief and precocity I've ever come across. Aunt Elizabeth detests him and frowns on our league of offense and defense. But you'd love him. He's taken on all our traditions because his uncle works for us, even the old family feud. He parades the whispering lane, whistling impudently, and last night I caught him firing stones over the hedge into the edge low garden. He was quite indignant because I stopped him. Why did you stop him? Why did I... why... Cousin Clarenda, do you think I should have let him go on firing stones over there? Of course. It would serve old Jim Edgelow perfectly right and give him the exercise he needs throwing them back again, the lazy old sinner. You don't mean to say that you keep up the old feud still? Of course Aunt Elizabeth does, but you, a moldy old scrap like that? Do you even know who and what began it? I do not, and it's no difference. A feud's a respectable thing and should be kept up like all the other family customs. Romney examined Cousin Clarenda's face and eyes to see if she was being sarcastic or facetious. He concluded that she was neither, but wholly in earnest, and the wonder of the thing almost staggered him. It's the only honest to goodness passion in our existence, continued Clarenda. It lends spice to everything. I'd get tired to death of going to church if it wasn't for the fun of sweeping past Mary Edgelow from Clifton and staring her brazenly in the face without a hint of recognition every Sunday. But I admit that the feud isn't what it was once. There are fewer coopers and no Edgelow's at all except Mary and Old Jim. When they die, the feud will die with them. But he's only sixty and most of the Edgelow men lived well into the eighties. The men, but not the women. Well, the men killed them, of course, in different ways, all quite legal. I never knew a happy Edgelow woman. Look at that old cream-brick house there, nice chubby old place all grown over with vines. Yet it's been full of tragedies. Old Jim tortured his wife to death for thirty years by denying her everything she wanted and showering on her everything she didn't want. She was smothered and starved. Of course, in the first place, he really courted her to cut out Ronald Cooper. Then, when he got her, he lost his enthusiasm. Now they say he's lonely. I'm glad of it, though I'm afraid it's too good to be true. He doesn't look any more amiable than of yours, said Romney. I saw him glowering at me from his front doorway last night precisely as he glowered at me twenty years ago. Wouldn't you think anybody'd get tired of glowering in twenty years? I smiled at him and shouted, Good evening. He went in and banged the door. You shouldn't have demeaned yourself. Cousin Clarenda was as severe as she could be with Romney. Cousin Clarenda, where is the sense of keeping it up, he pleaded. There isn't any, but hate's a good lasting passion. You get over love, but never over hate. And as for the sense of it, there's no sense in heaps of things we do. There's no sense in your force-wearing marriage and the comforts of home because you've got an impossible ideal. Still you do it. Still I do it, echoed Romney in a melancholy tone. You're right, perfectly right, Divine One. Man cannot live by bread alone. He must have either feuds or ideals. My ideal means everything to me, everything, even though I shall never find her. Oh, maybe you will yet, said Cousin Clarenda with cheerful optimism. Cousin Clarenda couldn't believe that tall, wax-skinned girls with black hair and blue eyes were as scarce as Romney seemed to think. Never, said Romney in a tone of profound conviction, she is shadowing only of my castle in Spain. I shall never find her in the flesh. He sighed and went to the window, looking down into the edge-low garden. He stood there for a few seconds. Then he said calmly, there she is now, down in the edge-low garden. Cousin Clarenda gasped, got up and went over to the window. There was a girl in the edge-low garden, walking about bare-headed, pulling a flower here and there. She was a slender thing with heavy, glossy black hair. She was too far away for her eyes to be read, but her skin was as creamy as a lily, and her mouth was crimson. She wore a dress of pale green and one great pink rose was stuck in the braid of her hair over her ear. You've been making fun of me, said Clarenda severely. You knew all about that girl. You've been describing her to me. You, Cousin Clarenda, interrupted Romney solemnly, never taking his eyes from the girl. Your suspicion is natural, but unjust. I give you my word of honor that I never saw her before, save in my dreams. I didn't even know there was a girl over there. Who is she? It must be Dorcas Edge-low, said Clarenda, compelled to believe him. Dorcas, nonsense, her name is Sylvia. Must be Sylvia. I never heard of a Sylvia edge-low, but I did hear last spring that old Jim was expecting his niece Dorcas for a visit this summer. She's Martin Edge-low's daughter from Montreal, you know. Well, whoever she is, she's mine. It's a staggering thing, Cousin Clarenda, to look out of a casual window with us and see the very girl you've been dreaming about all your life. But Romney, you can't marry her. She's an edge-low. I don't care. I told you I had cast off the edge-low feud with the shackles of the past. That girl there is mine. It's old Jim Edge-low's heiress, too. He's worth nobody knows how much. She'll be very rich. She won't. She won't. She will. I don't care whose heiress she is, nor how rich, at least I don't now. At three o'clock tonight I'll probably care horribly. But now I'm drunk, Cousin Clarenda. I'm drunk just with looking at her. I've seen all my fancies, ideals, hopes, dreams in a human shape. She looks like love incarnate. I know her eyes are blue and her name is Sylvia. Dorcas. Dorcas. Sylvia. Look at her hands. Did you ever see anything so perfect? The edge-low hands admitted, Cousin Clarenda. They were always noted for fine hands. Oh, she's a lovely thing, Romney, and it's not likely you're the first man that's noticed it. She's likely engaged already. Not a bit of it. She was predestined for me. Look, she's smiling to herself, Cousin. I do like to see a woman smiling to herself. Her thoughts must be so pleasant and innocent. I wish she'd look up. Can't I wrap on the glass? She'd think you were crazy, Romney. This was just how you carried on over the second Maroby Girl when you were eighteen. Slanderer. I did not, nor with the first nor third Maroby Girl, rollicking soulless young non-entities. Of course I'm crazy. She's driven me crazy, so she might as well know it. Before Cousin Clarenda could prevent him, Romney had thrown up the window and leaned out. He put his hands to his mouth and sent a long, tender, persuasive, cooie down into the edge low garden. The girl looked up startled. Romney waved his hand at her and smiled. For a moment, both he and Cousin Clarenda thought she was going to smile back. Then she coolly turned her back on them and walked into the big cream brick house and shut the door. Romney pulled his head in and sat down. Have I made an awful ass of myself? He said doubtfully. I have, said Cousin Clarenda comfortingly. But she added as an afterthought. Either she liked it or she has a born flirt. Her rose fell out of her hair as she went in, said Romney. It's lying there on the porch. I wonder if old Jim Edgelow would shoot me if I went over and got it. I think I'll risk it. Romney gasped, Cousin Clarenda. But Romney had gone. She looked out of the window in helpless fascination, saw him appear below, saw him cross the Cooper Garden, opened the gate, go along the road to the Edgelow gate, disappear, reappear again round the corner of the house and pick up the rose in triumph. The door opened and old Jim Edgelow came out. What are you doing here, you impertinent pup? He growled. Why be so unoriginal, asked Romney cheerfully. Anybody could call me a pup. Why not think of something worthy of the Edgelow's? Besides, I'm not a pup really. I'm quite a middle-aged dog. Romney's his rose. I'm going to marry her, you know. Will you get out of this before I kick you out? Asked old Jim with dangerous calmness. Oh, I didn't mean to stay. I'd have been gone before this if you hadn't detained me, un-goal that is to be. Romney took out his pocket-book, carefully placed the rose therein, shut it, restored it to its place, bowed low to his ancient enemy and returned to the tower-room with the air of a conqueror. From a vine-hid upstairs window to a house, Miss Edgelow watched him as long as he was in sight. End of Hill of the Winds Part 1 End of Section 86