Talbot's Angles

Miss Ri looked at her watch as they started on this walk. "It is earlier than I thought," she remarked. "The days are getting so short one cannot realize the time. The train doesn't leave till seven, and we have over an hour to spare. What shall we do with ourselves?"

"We don't want to go to the postoffice to be stared at," returned Linda, "so perhaps we'd better entertain one another as best we can at the station; it seemed rather a horrid little place, but what better can we do?"

However, this experiment was spared them, for they had not gone more than half way to their destination when they were pleasantly accosted by a man who was coming from the other direction. "I believe you are the ladies who came from Sandbridge on the train this morning," he began. "I am Mr. Brown, the agent of the railroad, and as such I feel that I must extend you such hospitality as we have to offer. Our accommodations at the station are rather poor, and you have a long wait before you, for I suppose you take the seven o'clock train."

"Yes, we intended to," Miss Ri told him.

"Then I beg that you will make yourselves comfortable at my house. It is only a step away. I am sure you will find it a better place to wait than the station." He was so evidently anxious for the good repute of the village, and was so earnestly sincere in his invitation that there was but one thing to do, and that to accept.

Mr. Brown conducted them up on the porch of a neat little house, opened the door and ushered them into an orderly sitting-room where he saw that they were provided with the most comfortable of the chairs and then he settled himself to entertain them. But a very few remarks had been exchanged before he sprang to his feet with a shocked expression on his face. "Ladies," he exclaimed, "I am entirely forgetting that you will not be able to get any supper before you reach home, and that it will be then very late. What was I thinking of? We have only just finished our own meal, and – Excuse me, but I must speak to Mrs. Brown," and before they could utter a word of protest he rushed from the room.

"Do you suppose he has gone to fetch the keys of the city?" whispered Linda. "What are we to do, Aunt Ri? We can't run, for there is nowhere that we can escape, and – "

She was interrupted by the entrance of their host with his wife, who, though somewhat less importunate, was nevertheless quite determined that the strangers should not leave the town without being properly fed, and this in spite of Miss Ri's protest that they had brought some fruit and biscuits with them, and that they really needed nothing more.

Mr. Brown waved all such suggestions aside. Therefore, seeing that it would be less rude to accept the proffered hospitality they followed Mrs. Brown to the small dining-room where a dainty little meal was soon spread for them, served by Mrs. Brown and her sister, Miss Weedon.

The rain, which the gathering clouds in the west had threatened that morning, and which had begun to drop before they entered the house, was coming down in torrents by the time the meal was over, and was accompanied by heavy rolls of thunder and vivid lightning. At each resounding peal and sharp flash the hostess and her sister would disappear within the recesses of a darkened room somewhere beyond, issuing only when there was a lull in the storm.

"It is rather unusual to have so heavy a thunderstorm this late in the season," Miss Ri was remarking when from the station someone came in haste to say that lightning had struck the building and would Mr. Brown come at once. He hurried off, though not without the parting assurance that he would soon return, leaving his wife and Miss Weedon divided between the responsibility of remaining with their guests and their desire to escape to the darkened room.

The storm, however, seemed to have spent its fury in hurling a final bolt at the station, and the timid women had the hardihood to remain in the outer room while only sullen mutterings once in a while reached them. Miss Ri and Linda did their best to reassure them, but in the face of the fact that lightning had struck so near, this was not easy to do.

It was getting on toward train time, and though the station was but a short walk the two visitors wondered how they were to reach it without umbrellas, but in spite of the confusion occasioned by the lightning shock, they were not forgotten by good Mr. Brown, who, true to his feeling of responsibility as agent, appeared with umbrellas at the proper moment, and bore them off with the manner of one who would furnish a band of music if he could. He was faithful to the last, piloting them to seats in the car, telling the conductor to look after them, and at the last expressing regret at the coming of the storm as if he were in some way accountable for it. He came to the car window to urge them to come again when it should be made more agreeable for them, then as the train began to move off, he stood, hat in hand till darkness hid him from sight.

"That is what I call a true Maryland gentleman," said Miss Ri. "Did you ever meet such beautiful hospitality, and isn't it worth while to find out that it has not entirely disappeared from the land?"

"I wouldn't have missed it for anything," declared Linda. "It has been a wonderful trip, Aunt Ri, from beginning to end."

"And the end is not yet," responded Miss Ri with prophetic vision.

"I don't see what more could happen," rejoined Linda.

What could happen was made very obvious as they stepped from the train at Boxford, for they had hardly alighted before Berkley Matthews rushed up to them. "Here you are," he cried, as if it were quite to be expected that he would meet them. "It has been a pretty bad storm and I didn't know whether you would venture or not, but I thought I'd be on the safe side. Now – "

But he had not finished his sentence when another figure loomed up in the doorway of the dimly lighted waiting-room, and who should come forward but Wyatt Jeffreys. The two men looked at one another and each gave a little embarrassed laugh. "I didn't know you were here, Jeffreys," said Berkley.

"Nor did I know you were," was the reply. "How long since you came?"

"Oh, half an hour or so. When did you get in?"

"Just at this moment. I suppose I don't know the road quite as well as you do."

"Linda, will you give me the pleasure of taking you to Sandbridge in my buggy," broke in Berkley with visible haste.

Miss Ri chuckled. "Go with him, Linda, and I'll give Mr. Jeffreys the inestimable privilege of taking me, that is, if he intends going back to-night. Perhaps you were going on by train, Mr. Jeffreys?"

"Oh, no, I came up – I came up," he was not so ready to announce his purpose as Berkley. "I thought you ladies might not be provided against the storm," he continued, "and it seemed to me that I might perhaps be of use in some way."

"And you were quite right," Miss Ri returned. "It saves me the bother of hunting up a team from the stables, or of deciding upon the other alternative of spending the night in Boxford, something I would much prefer not to do. Where is your buggy? I know the road perfectly." So Mr. Jeffreys was forced to hide whatever disappointment he might feel while Berkley bore off Linda to where his buggy, well provided with rain-proof covers, stood under shelter of the station's shed.

Well protected from the weather Linda and her escort drove off hidden behind the oilcloth curtains on which the rain pattered steadily. The lights of the buggy sent long beams over the wet shell road, the air had a mingled odor of salt marsh and moist, fallen autumn leaves. From the clouds rolling off overhead, once in a while rumbled muffled peals of thunder. Berk's horse responded to his master's slightest word, and on a worse night and over worse roads could be depended upon, so Berkley assured his companion.

"So you've been to see the old judge," said the young man by way of beginning conversation. "Isn't he a fine old fellow?"

"He is the dearest old man I ever saw," returned Linda enthusiastically. "He has such a beautiful head, and if one wanted to meet the very pattern of an old time courtly gentleman he would have to go no further than Judge Goldsborough."

"I quite agree with you, and I wish I could ever hope to become anything like him, but nature has not endowed me with his fine presence nor with his brains."

"But you can hope to be J. S. D., you know."

"I don't know. The some day seems a very far cry, just now." He was silent a moment before he asked: "What did the judge have to say to you, Linda?"

"Miss Ri asked him about the Talbot estates and he appeared quite sure that there could be no complications as regards Talbot's Angles, at least. He said he had some old papers which might give him some points about the other places."

"He ought to know if anyone does," returned Berkley. "Suppose there should be complications, Linda, and suppose it should be Talbot's Angles that Jeffreys lays claim to, and that he proved a legitimate claim, what then?"

"I'd not be much worse off than I am now."

"Oh, yes, you would. There is the chance of your sister-in-law marrying again."

"Which I don't think she is liable to do. I don't know that I would mind Mr. Jeffreys' having it any more than I do that Grace should. He, at least, is of the Talbot blood."

"There is something in that. I wish it were all yours; I can't bear the idea of your wearing yourself out teaching, Linda." The words came with caressing concern.

"I am more fortunate than most. Think of my having a home with Miss Ri, and among my own people. I suppose it actually isn't so much that the teaching is difficult as that I am so constituted that I can't really love it. It is a great thing to make one's living in the way one likes best; that seems to me to be half the battle."

"And what is it you like best?"

"To scribble."

"Have you sent out any more of your work?"

"No, but I intend to."

"And I hope you will finally meet such success that you can give yourself up to that kind of work. I agree with you that one ought to discover what are his best powers and make the best use of them he possibly can; if he would be happy."

"You are happy in your work, Berk, aren't you?"

"Yes, I love it, thank fortune, and I am beginning to see glimpses of a future."

"That is good," returned Linda with satisfaction. "You deserve success, Berk."

"No more than others."

"Much more than most others. Was ever a better son, or brother, if it comes to that?"

"Oh, nonsense, it is no sacrifice to do things for those you love; in fact, I've been rather selfish in pleasing myself, indulging my love of bestowing. It is really no credit to give because one enjoys it."