The Little Colonel's Knight Comes Riding. Johnston Annie Fellows

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      Wholly unconscious of the way she was spoiling the evening for him Lloyd went on playing the part of Serene Highness, laid out for her. Never to Gay's admiring eyes had she seemed more beautiful, more the fair unattainable Princess, than she was in her meeting with Leland Harcourt. Gay wanted to pat her on the back, for she saw that she had made the very impression expected of her. Long practice had made Gay quick in interpreting Leland's slightest change of expression, and she was well pleased now with what she read in his face.

      But to Lloyd, the dark, smiling eyes, regarding everything with a slightly amused expression, showed nothing more than the superficial interest which ordinary politeness demanded of him. He made some pretty speech about the Valley and his pleasure in meeting its charming people, and then stood talking only long enough to make her feel that Gay was right in her estimate of him. He was entertaining, even fascinating in his manner, more entertaining than any man she had ever met. But just as she reached this conclusion she found herself handed over in some unaccountable way to some one else, and that was the last of his attention to her that night.

      He seemed immensely entertained by Kitty, and much interested in Betty and the fact that she had finished writing a book that very day. Gay heralded her advent with that news. Lloyd could overhear little scraps of conversation that made her long to have a share in it. His repartee was positively brilliant she found herself thinking; the kind that one reads of in books, but never hears elsewhere.

      For the first time in her life Lloyd felt herself calmly and deliberately ignored, just as she had planned to ignore him.

      "Maybe it's because Gay told him that I would be so indifferent," she thought, "and he doesn't think it worth the effort to put himself out to make me be nice to him. I don't care."

      Nevertheless a little feeling of disappointment and pique crept in to spoil her evening also, for in the limited wisdom of her school-girl experiences she did not recognize that this worldly-wise young man was ignoring her because he was interested; that he had only adopted her own tactics as the surest way of gaining his end.

      CHAPTER IV

      BETTY'S NOVEL

      It was Gay's voice over the telephone. "Oh Lloyd, can't you come? Do arrange it some way. Lucy is frightened stiff at the thought of being left here alone all night with just me. And she thought it would be such a good time for Betty to read us her novel, as she promised, before she sends it away to the publishers. There'll be no callers to interrupt us on such a rainy day."

      "Hold the phone a minute," answered Lloyd. "I'll see. It's Gay," she explained to her mother who had come out into the hall at the first tinkle of the bell, thinking the summons might be for her.

      "Mistah Harcourt and his brothah went to Lexington this mawning to buy those hawses, and Gay and Lucy are afraid to stay there tonight. The cook had promised to sleep at the house, but something turned up at her home a little while ago to prevent. So they want Kitty and Betty and me to come ovah right away and spend the aftahnoon and night. It's raining cataracts and I know you don't like to take the new carriage out in such weathah, but couldn't Alec put the curtains on the old one?"

      Mrs. Sherman glanced dubiously towards the windows, against which the rain was beating in torrents.

      "And leave me all alone, when I've been looking forward to this same good, rainy afternoon with you," almost slipped from Mrs. Sherman's tongue. But the eager desire shining in the faces of both girls kept back the words.

      "It's only a warm summer rain," interposed Betty, seeing her hesitate.

      "Very well, then," consented Mrs. Sherman with a smile, but as she went back to her room she stifled a little sigh of disappointment. "I suppose it's only natural they should want to be going," she thought. "But if it wasn't so selfish I could almost wish that Gay hadn't come to the Valley for the summer. She will take Lloyd away from home so often, and I have looked forward so long to the companion she would be when her school days were ended."

      Wholly unconscious of her mother's disappointment Lloyd was answering merrily, "We'll be ovah right away! Ring up Kitty again, and tell her we'll drive by for her."

      An hour later the five girls (for the bride of a year seemed the youngest of them all at times) were seated in an upstairs room at the Lindsey Cabin, each in a comfortable rocking chair. Lucy had taken them to her room saying it was cozier up near the roof where they could hear the rain patter on the shingles. Also her dormer windows faced the West, and they would have daylight longer there.

      It took a little while for them to get settled for the reading. Lucy brought out the family darning with a matronly air, when she saw that Lloyd had brought a square of linen to start a piece of drawn-work, and Kitty had some napkins to hem. Mrs. Walton had turned over the management of the house to Kitty only that day (Allison had had it the year before) and with house-wifely zeal she had begun with an exploration of the linen closet where she had found a pile of unhemmed linen.

      Not wanting to be idle while all the rest were occupied, Gay kept them waiting while she burrowed through her trunk for an intricate piece of knitting work which she had begun two years before. It had been intended for a Christmas present, and she had brought it with her intending to finish it before another Christmas or perish in the attempt. "Don't pay any attention to me," she warned. "There'll be places where I have to stop and count stitches and fairly wrestle with it, but I'll be listening in spite of my bodily contortions."

      They were all ready at last, so Betty picked up the first chapter and cleared her throat. She had been anxious to read her novel to the girls, she had been so sure of its merit. But now as she glanced down the page she was assailed by misgivings. After all she might not have been an impartial judge, and maybe it wasn't as good as it seemed to her.

      "You'll recognize some of the incidents," she explained, "and one character is a composite portrait of three Lloydsboro people. He looks like Mr. Jaynes, stutters like Captain Bedel and has experiences that once happened to Doctor Shelby. I've put Miss Marietta Waring's romance into it too."

      Betty read well. She loved the characters she had fashioned, and with her sympathetic voice to interpret them, they became almost as real to her listeners as they were to herself. Presently the girls began to exchange approving nods. She watched them from the corner of her eye. Now and then there were low murmurs of approbation at some particularly pleasing incident or turn of expression, and at the end of the first chapter there was outspoken applause. They complimented enthusiastically while Betty rested and took breath for the next.

      As she felt the genuine pleasure she was affording them, all her fears as to its short-comings fled. She began to see that her story was even better than she had thought it. She saw it in better perspective through their eyes. Its plot moved so smoothly. There was more life, more go in it than she had been conscious of in her solitary readings. It was certainly worth all the painstaking effort it had cost her. She could look at it now and no longer humbly, but confidently call it good.

      When in one scene she stole a furtive glance around to note the effect, and caught Lucy stealthily slipping out her handkerchief, Gay looking up with tears on her lashes and Lloyd with the peculiar tightening of the lips that showed she was trying to swallow the lump in her throat, she was so happy she could have sung for joy. She read on and on, and they forgot the rain beating against the windows, forgot everything but their interest in the story.

      Lucy pushed her darning basket aside and leaned back in her chair, her hands clasped behind her head. The work over which Lloyd had been bending, dropped in her lap and her little gold thimble rolled away into a corner unheeded. There was a personal interest in the story for each of them. Lloyd saw herself as plainly in Betty's heroine as she could see her reflection in the mirror door of the huge mahogany СКАЧАТЬ