The Mystery Girl

“Ho, ho,” he chuckled, “you command me, do you? Now, I haven’t been commanded for something like fifty years.”

“Oh, don’t stop to fuss,” the girl exclaimed, angrily. “Don’t you see I’m cold, hungry and very uncomfortable? You have a boarding house, – I want board, – now, you take me in. Do you hear?”

“Sure I hear, but, miss, we’ve only so many rooms and they’re all occupied or engaged.”

“Some are engaged, but as yet unoccupied?” The dark eyes challenged him, and Adams mumbled, – “Well, that’s about it.”

“Very well, I will occupy one until the engager comes along. Let me get in. No, I can manage my suitcase myself. You get my trunk, – here’s the check. Or will you send for that tomorrow?”

“Why wait? Might’s well get it now – if so be you’re bound to bide. ’Fraid to wait in the sleigh alone?”

“I’m afraid of nothing,” was the disdainful answer, and the girl pulled the fur robes up around her as she sat in the middle of the back seat.

Shortly, old Salt returned with the trunk on his shoulder, and put it in the front with himself, and they started.

“Don’t try to talk,” he called back to her, as the horses began a rapid trot. “I can’t hear you against this wind.”

“I’ve no intention of talking,” the girl replied, but the man couldn’t hear her. The wind blew fiercely. It was snowing a little, and the drifts sent feathery clouds through the air. The trees, coated with ice from a recent sleet storm, broke off crackling bits of ice as they passed. The girl looked about, at first curiously, and then timidly, as if frightened by what she saw.

It was not a long ride, and they stopped before a large house, showing comfortably lighted windows and a broad front door that swung open even as the girl was getting down from the sleigh.

“For the land sake!” exclaimed a brisk feminine voice, “this ain’t Letty! Who in the earth have you got here?”

“I don’t know,” Old Salt Adams replied, truthfully. “Take her along, mother, and give her a night’s lodging.”

“But where is Letty? Didn’t she come?”

“Now can’t you see she didn’t come? Do you s’pose I left her at the station? Or dumped her out along the road? No – since you will have it, she didn’t come. She didn’t come!”

Old Salt drove on toward the barns, and Mrs. Adams bade the girl go into the house.

The landlady followed, and as she saw the strange guest she gazed at her in frank curiosity.

“You want a room, I s’pose,” she began. “But, I’m sorry to say we haven’t one vacant – ”

“Oh, I’ll take Letty’s. She didn’t come, you see, so I can take her room for tonight.”

“Letty wouldn’t like that.”

“But I would. And I’m here and Letty isn’t. Shall we go right up?”

Picking up her small suitcase, the girl started and then stepped back for the woman to lead the way.

“Not quite so fast —if you please. What is your name?”

As the landlady’s tone changed to a sterner inflection, the girl likewise grew dignified.

“My name is Anita Austin,” she said, coldly. “I came here because I was told it was the best house in Corinth.”

“Where are you from?”

“New York City.”

“What address?”

“Plaza Hotel.”

By this time the strange dark eyes had done their work. A steady glance from Anita Austin seemed to compel all the world to do her bidding. At any rate, Mrs. Adams took the suitcase, and without a further word conducted the stranger upstairs.

She took her into an attractive bedroom, presumably made ready for the absent Letty.

“This will do,” Miss Austin said, calmly. “Will you send me up a tray of supper? I don’t want much, and I prefer not to come down to dinner.”

“Land sake, dinner’s over long ago. You want some tea, ’n’ bread, ’n’ butter, ’n’ preserves, ’n’ cake?”

“Yes, thank you, that sounds good. Send it in half an hour.”

To her guest Mrs. Adams showed merely a face of acquiescence, but once outside the door, and released from the spell of those eerie eyes, she remarked to herself, “For the land sake!” with great emphasis.

“Well, what do you know about that!” Old Salt Adams cried, when, after she had started him on his supper, his wife related the episode.

“I can’t make her out,” Mrs. Adams said, thoughtfully. “But I don’t like her. And I won’t keep her. Tomorrow, you take her over to Belton’s.”

“Just as you say. But I thought her kinda interesting looking. You can’t say she isn’t that.”

“Maybe so, to some folks. Not to me. And Letty’ll come tomorrow, so that girl’ll have to get out of the room.”

Meanwhile “that girl” was eagerly peering out of her window.

She tried to discern which were the lights of the college buildings, but through the still lightly falling snow, she could see but little, and after a time, she gave up the effort. She drew her head back into the room just as a tap at the door announced her supper.

“Thank you,” she said to the maid who brought it. “Set it on that stand, please. It looks very nice.”

And then, sitting comfortably in an easy chair, robed in warm dressing gown and slippers, Miss Anita Austin devoted a pleasant half hour to the simple but thoroughly satisfactory meal.

This finished, she wrote some letters. Not many, indeed, but few as they were, the midnight hour struck before she sealed the last envelope and wrote the last address.

Then, prepared for bed, she again looked from the window, and gazed long into the night.

“Corinth,” she whispered, “Oh, Corinth, what do you hold for me? What fortune or misfortune will you bring me? What fortune or misfortune shall I bring to others? Oh, Justice, Justice, what crimes are committed in thy name!”

The next morning Anita appeared in the dining-room at the breakfast hour.

Mrs. Adams scanned her sharply, and looked a little disapprovingly at the short, scant skirt and slim, silken legs of her new boarder.

Anita, her dark eyes scanning her hostess with equal sharpness, seemed to express an equal disapproval of the country-cut gingham and huge white apron.

Not at all obtuse, Mrs. Adams sensed this, and her tone was a little more deferential than she had at first intended to make it.