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Page 28
"Amang the train there is a swain
I dearly lo'e mysel'."
"It must be awfully nice," she mused, "to have somebody as devoted to
you as the Lieutenant is to Elise and Jimmy is to A.O. If I were A.O. I
wouldn't care if the whole school came down to meet him. I'd _want_ them
to see him. I made up my mind at Eugenia's wedding that it was safer to
be an old maid, but I'd hate to be one without ever having had an
'affair' like other girls. It must be lovely to be called the Queen of
Hearts like Lloyd, and to have such a train of admirers as Mister Rob
and Mister Malcolm and Phil and all the others."
There was a wistful look in the gray eyes that peered dreamily out of
the window into the gathering dusk of the December twilight. But it was
not the wintry landscape that she saw. It was a big boyish figure,
cake-walking in the little Wigwam kitchen. A handsome young fellow
turning in the highroad to wave his hat with a cheery swing to the
disconsolate little girl who was flapping a farewell to him with her old
white sunbonnet. And then the same face, older grown, smiling at her
through the crowds at the Lloydsboro Valley depot, as he came to her
with outstretched hands, exclaiming, "Good-bye, little Vicar! Think of
the Best Man whenever you look at the Philip on your shilling."
She was thinking of him now so intently that she lost count of the
pieces she had packed into the box she was filling with the squares of
sweets, and had to empty them all out and begin again. But as she
recalled other scenes, especially the time she had overheard a
conversation not intended for her about a turquoise he was offering
Lloyd, she said to herself, "He is for Lloyd. They are just made for
each other, and I am glad that the nicest man I ever knew happens to
like the dearest girl in the world. And I hope if there ever should be
'a swain amang the train' for me, he'll be as near like him as possible.
I don't know where I'd ever meet him, though. Certainly not here and
most positively not in Lone-Rock."
"Not like other girls," she laughed presently, recalling the title of
the book Ethelinda was reading. "That fits me exactly. No Lieutenant, no
Jimmy, and no birthstone ring, and no prospect of ever having any. But I
don't care--much. The candy is a success and Jack is going to have his
bloodstone fob."
With her arms piled full of boxes, she started down to her room. As she
opened the door a burst of music came floating out from the gymnasium
where the carol-singers were practising for the yearly service. This one
was a new carol to her. She did not know the words, but to the swinging
measures other words fitted themselves; some lines which she had read
that morning in a magazine. She sang them softly in time with the
carol-singers as she went on down the stairs:
"For should he come not by the road, and come not by the hill
And come not by the far sea way, _yet come he surely will_.
Close all the roads of all the world, _love's road is open still_."
CHAPTER VI
JACK'S WATCH-FOB
Elise spent Saturday and Sunday in Washington with the Claiborne family,
and A.O. almost prayed that Jimmy would make his visit in her absence.
On her return she had so much to tell that she did not mention his name,
and A.O. hoped that he was forgotten. All Monday afternoon she went
around in a flutter of nervousness, "feeling in her bones" that Jimmy
would be there that night, and afraid that Elise would find some way in
which to carry out her threat of seeing him at all hazards. One of the
ways she had suggested trying, was to sound a burglar or a fire alarm,
so that every one would rush out into the hall. But when the dreaded
moment actually arrived and A.O. stood in the middle of the floor with
his card in her hand, Elise merely looked up from her book with a
provoking grin.
"Oh, haven't I had you going for the last week!" she exclaimed. "Really
made you believe that I wanted to see your dear Jimmy-boy! A.O., you
are dead easy! I haven't had so much fun out of anything for ages."
Almost giddy with the sense of relief, A.O. hurried away, leaving Elise
poring over her French lesson. At the lower landing she paused to tear
Jimmy's card to atoms and drop them in a waste basket which was standing
there. Even his card might betray him, for it was not an elegant correct
bit of engraved board like the Lieutenant's. It was a large square card
inscribed by a professional penman; the kind who sets up stands on
street corners or in convenient doorways, and executes showy scrolls and
tendrils in the way of initial letters "while you wait."
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