A Princess in Calico

She would not tell Belle her letter had been destroyed. She must shield Lemuel.

‘I’m doing my best,’ she said to herself, ‘God understands.’

‘Ain’t yer mad yit?’ whispered Lemuel anxiously, as he peered into the bright peaceful face on his way to bed.

The hand that stroked his tumbled hair was very gentle.

‘No, Lemuel, only sorry that my boy forgot the King was looking on.’

With a shame-faced look the boy’s hand sought his pocket, but Satan whispered, ‘She may be mad to-morrow,’ and he crept away.

‘What are you teasing Pauline about?’ asked Stephen, as he went upstairs.

‘Ain’t doin’ nuthin’,’ was the sullen reply.

‘Yes, you are. She don’t hev sorrowful looks in her eyes unless you’re cuttin’ up worse than common. You’ve just got to leave off sudden, or I’ll give you something you won’t ever forgit.’

‘Ain’t goin’ ter be bossed by nobody,’ said the boy doggedly, as he reached his room. ‘Was goin’ ter give her the old letter to-morrow, anyway, but now I don’t care if she never gits it,’ and opening the chest which held his few treasures, he deliberately shut up the letter in an old tin box, and went to bed.

‘Father is gettin’ so mortal queer,’ said Stephen discontentedly. ‘First he tells me to top-dress the upper lot, and then right off he wants me to harness up and go to the mill. I don’t see how a feller’s to know what to do. Most wish I’d gone West with Leander, it’s a free life there, and he’s his own master.’

‘“One is our Master, even Christ,”’ Pauline quoted softly. ‘Don’t go, Stephen, you and Lemuel are the only ones on the farm now, and father is getting old.’

She spoke sadly. She had noticed with a sinking heart how ‘queer’ her father was.

The years had slipped by until Polly was seventeen. A very frail little body she was, but always so patient and sweet, that Pauline never grudged the constant care.

Two of the boys had taken the shaping of their own lives and gone away, and Susan Ann had a home of her own with two little freckled-faced children to call her mother.

‘We’ll jog along together, Stephen,’ she said in her bright, cheery way. ‘Father forgets now and then, but he doesn’t mean any harm, and it’s only one day at a time, you know.’

Stephen looked at her admiringly.

‘You’re a brick, Pawliney, and I guess if you can stand it, I ought to be able to, with you round making the sunshine. I’d be a brute to go and leave you and Lem with it all on your shoulders’; and the honest, good-hearted fellow went in to give Polly a kiss before he started for the mill.

Clearing out an old trunk next day Pauline came across a soiled, tumbled envelope. It was the letter which Lemuel had tucked away and forgotten while he waited for her to ‘get mad.’

She opened it eagerly. It was from Richard Everidge.

‘I should like to come down and see you,’ he wrote, ‘in Sleepy Hollow, that is, if you care to have me, and it is quite convenient. Do not trouble to write unless you want me. If I do not get an answer I shall know you do not care.’

Richard Everidge had been married for three years now, and had a little girl.

She clasped her hands with one quick cry of pain. What must he have thought of her all these years? Her friend, who had always been so kind! so kind!

‘Pawliney!’ called her father, in the querulous accents of one whose brain is weakening. ‘Pawliney, I wish you’d come down and sing a little, the house is terrible lonesome since mother’s gone.’

And Pauline sang, in her full, sweet tones: —

‘“God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform.”’

‘God is good, Pawliney?’

‘Yes, father.’

‘He never makes mistakes?’

‘Oh, no, father.’

‘You believe that, Pawliney?’

‘Yes, yes, I know it, father.’

And her voice rang out triumphantly in another stanza: —

‘“Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust Him for His grace:
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face.”’

Chapter X

The Angel of Patience

‘Here’s the mortgage money, Pawliney,’ said Stephen, as he handed her a roll of bank-notes. ‘It’s not due for a month yet, but I’ll be away for a week at the Bend, and if father gets hold of it he’ll take it to make matches of, as like as not. You’d better stow it away somewheres till the time comes.’

‘Very well, Stephen, I’ll put it in my strong box, and carry the key in my pocket. You won’t be away at the Bend any longer than you can help, Stephen? It’s such a comfort to have you in the house.’

They were standing by the light waggon, which Lemuel had brought round from the barn, ready for Stephen’s journey.

‘Don’t know about the comfort part, Pawliney,’ said Stephen, with a queer choke in his voice. ‘Seems like as if we all depended on you for that commodity. But I’ll be as quick as I kin. Good-bye, all of you. Git along, Goliath.’

Three days had passed since his departure, and Pauline stood in the doorway feasting her eyes on the lights and shadows which grouped themselves about the distant hills, when Lemuel brushed past her, clad in his Sunday best.

‘Why, Lemuel!’ she cried astonished, ‘you haven’t had your supper yet. Where are you going?’

‘To China,’ was the brusque response. ‘I’ve hed enuff of Sleepy Hollow, an’ bein’ ordered round by an old man with his head in the moon. It’s “Lemuel, do this,” an’ before I git started it’s “Lemuel, do the t’other thing.” You kin stand it ef you’re a mind ter; I won’t.’

‘But, Lemuel!’ gasped Pauline, ‘what will Stephen say?’

‘I don’t care what he says,’ said the boy roughly. ‘Stephen ain’t my boss.’

‘Oh, Lemuel, you can’t mean it!’ cried Pauline, as she followed him down the path to the main road.

‘See if I don’t!’ And he strode away from her, and vaulted over the gate.

‘But what will father do?’