Talbot's Angles

"Don't ask her anything till after dinner," put in Mr. Matthews. "Things will assume an entirely different aspect when she has had something to eat. Just now the shooting of the young idea is not a pleasant process to contemplate, in the eyes of Miss Linda. We'll talk about something else. Where did you get these oysters, Miss Ri? I never tasted such a pie."

"Of course you didn't, for you never ate one made by such a cook. The oysters came from the usual place, but I'm in high feather, Berk, for I have the best cook in town. I have Linda's Phebe."

"You don't want another boarder?"

"Not I. Linda is adopted; she is not to be classed with common boarders, and I certainly don't want to spoil my ideal household by taking in a – "

"Mere man," interrupted Berkley. "Very well, I will find an excuse to come in every day about meal time. What are you going to have for supper?"

"Cold cornbread, dried apples and chipped beef," replied Miss Ri with gravity.

"That's mean. Well, I'll come around with the papers to-morrow."

"We're going to have the remains of the chipped beef and dried apples for dinner."

"Then I'll come about supper time; they can't last over three meals."

"You don't know the surviving qualities of those articles of diet; they may last a week with proper care."

"I'll come and find out. I can go in the back way and ask Phebe, or I might bribe her to throw the stuff over the fence to Miss Parthy's chickens."

"Don't you be up to any of your lawyer's tricks, Berk Matthews. I warn you, not a meal in my house shall you eat, if I hear of any shenannyging on your part."

"I'll be good then, but I'd like a piece of that pie, a nice big piece."

While all this nonsense was going on, Linda kept silence. She was really hungry and the light foolish talk was a relief, as the others intended it should be. In consequence, she went back to school in better spirits and the afternoon passed more satisfactorily.

True to his threat, Berkley Matthews did appear with some papers just before supper time, but refused to stay, telling Miss Ri with great glee that Miss Parthy had invited him to her house and that she was going to cook the supper herself, while he and her other guest, Wyatt Jeffreys, were going to help.

"Wyatt Jeffreys, Wyatt Jeffreys," repeated Linda. "That name sounds very familiar. I wonder where I have heard it. Where is he from, Miss Ri?"

"From Connecticut, I believe. Any more light on the case, Berk?"

"No. Nothing can be done till he shows up his papers, and they seem to be lost irrevocably. It's pretty hard on the poor chap, if there is really anything in the claim. Good-by, Miss Linda. I must be going, Miss Ri; you can't wheedle me into staying this time."

"Wheedle you!" cried Miss Ri in pretended indignation. "I can scarcely get rid of such a persistent beggar. Go along and don't come back."

"I'll have to," cried he. "You must sign those papers at once, this very evening."

"I'll bring them to your office to-morrow morning," Miss Ri called after him, but he only waved his hand with a parting "Shan't be there," and Miss Ri turned to Linda, laughing. "We always have it back and forth this way. He attends to my business, you know, and runs in often. Now that his mother and sister have left town, he boards at the hotel, and likes the home feeling of coming here to a meal. Nice boy, Berk is."

Linda had known Berkley Matthews all her life. As a little stocky boy he had come to play with her in Miss Ri's garden on some of the occasions when she was brought from Talbot's Angles to spend the day. Later he had gone to boarding-school, then to college, and she had seen little of him during late years.

"He'll be back," said Miss Ri nodding, "just to get the better of me. But to tell you the truth, Verlinda, he certainly is a comfort, for he looks out for my interest every time. I wouldn't have a house nor a field left by this time, if it had depended upon my kin folks. Don't be an old maid, Verlinda. When their very nearest and dearest are gone, old maids seem to be regarded, by the world in general, as things so detached as to have no rights whatever; their possessions appear to be regarded as so many threads hanging from them; whoever comes along in need of a needleful, makes a grab, possesses himself of such a length and makes off with it, never stopping to see that it leaves a gaping rent behind."

Linda laughed. Miss Ri's grievances were not many, but were generally those caused by her stepbrother's family, who lived not far away and made raids upon her whenever they came to town.

"Oh, well, you may laugh," Miss Ri went on, "but it is quite true. Why, only the last time Becky was here she carried off a little mirror that had belonged to my great-grandmother."

"Why did you let her have it? Your great-grandmother was no relation of hers."

"I know that; but she talked so much, I had to let her take it to get rid of the incessant buzzing. You know what a talker Becky is."

"But you like Mrs. Becky; I've often heard you say so."

"Oh, yes, I like her well enough. She is entertaining when she is talking about other people's affairs and not mine," remarked Miss Ri with a droll smile. "That is the way it generally is, I suppose. Well, anyhow, Berk Matthews keeps my business together, and I'm sure I am satisfied to have him run in when he chooses, if only to keep me in a good humor."

"I thought you were always so, and that you never got mad with fools."

"I don't; but Becky is no fool, my dear."

They turned into the big drawing-room, a room charming enough in itself, without the addition of the fine old Chippendale chairs and tables, the carved davenport, the big inlaid piano, and the portraits representing beauties of a departed time. Linda knew them all. The beautiful girl in white, holding a rose, was Miss Ri's grandmother, for whom she was named and who was a famous belle in her day. The gentleman in red hunting-coat was a great-grandfather and his wife the lady with powdered hair and robed in blue satin. The man with the sword was another great-grandfather, and so on. One must go up a step to reach the embrasured windows which looked riverward, but at the others, which faced the lawn, hung heavy damask curtains. Linda had always liked the smaller windows, and when she was a little child had preferred to play on the platform before them to going anywhere else. There was such a sense of security in being thus raised above the floor. She liked, too, the little writing-room and the tiny boudoir which led from the larger room, though these were closed, except in summer, as so large a house was hard to heat comfortably.

A freshly-burning fire in the fireplace sent glancing lights over the tall candlesticks and sought out the brightest spots on the old picture-frames. It picked out the brass beading on the yellow-keyed piano, and flickered across Chinese curios on the spindle-legged tables. Miss Ri's grandfather had been an admiral in the navy and many were the treasures which were tucked away here, out of sight there, or more happily, brought forth to take the place of some more modern gift which had come to grief in the hands of careless servants.

"It is a dear old room," said Linda, sitting down at the piano and touching softly the yellowed keys, which gave forth a tinkling response.

"I ought to have a new piano," said Miss Ri, "and now you have come, it will be an excuse to get one. I'll see what I can do next time I go to town. I remember that you have a nice voice."

"Nothing to boast of."

"Not very powerful, perhaps, but sweet and true. I wish you'd sing for me, Verlinda, if you are not too tired."

"I will, if you will first play for me some of those things I used to love when I was a child. You would play till I grew drowsy, and then you would carry me off to bed."

"Oh, my dear, I don't play nowadays, and on that old tinkling piano."

"But it is just because it is the old piano that I want the old tunes."

"Then pick out what you like, and I will try."

Linda turned over a pile of music to find such obsolete titles as "Twilight Dews," "Departed Days," "Showers of Pearl," and the like. She selected one and set it on the rack. "Here is one I used to like the best," she said. "It suggested all sorts of things to my childish mind; deep woods, fairy calls, growling giants; I don't know what all."

"'Departed Days.' Very fitly named, isn't it? for it is at least fifteen years ago, and it was an old thing then. Well, I will try; but you mustn't criticise when I stumble." She sat down to the piano, a stout, fresh-colored, grey-haired woman with a large mouth, whose sweet expression betokened the kindly nature better than did the humorous twinkling eyes. She played with little style, but sympathetically, though the thin tinkling notes might have jarred upon the ears of one who had no tender associations with the commonplace melody. To Linda it was a voice from out of her long-ago, and she listened with a wistful smile till suddenly the door opened and the music ended with a false chord. Miss Ri shut the piano with a bang, and turned to greet the young man who entered.

CHAPTER V

THE ALARM

"Have I interrupted a musicale?" asked Berkley jauntily.

"You are just in time to hear Verlinda sing," responded Miss Ri with ready tact and in order to cover her own confusion.

"Ah, that's good," cried he, though "Oh, Miss Ri," came in protest from Linda.

"Didn't you promise to sing for me, if I played for you?" queried Miss Ri.

"Yes, – but – only for you."