The Mystery Girl

“Will you sit here, please, Miss Austin?” she indicated a chair next herself.

“No, thank you, I’ll sit by my friend,” and the girl slipped into a vacant chair next Saltonstall Adams.

Old Salt gave a furtive glance at his wife, and suppressed a chuckle at her surprise.

“This is Mr. Tyler’s place,” he said to the usurper, “but I expect he’ll let you have it this once.”

“I mean to have it all the time,” and Anita nodded gravely at her host.

“All the time is this one meal only,” crisply put in Mrs. Adams. “I’m sorry, Miss Austin, but we can’t keep you here. I have no vacant room.”

The entrance of some other people gave Anita a chance to speak in an undertone to Mr. Adams, and she said;

“You’ll let me stay till Letty comes, won’t you? I suppose you are boss in your own house.”

As a matter of fact almost any phrase would have described the man better than “boss in his own house,” but the idea tickled his sense of irony, and he chuckled as he replied, “You bet I am! Here you stay – as long as you want to.”

“You’re my friend, then?” and an appealing glance was shot at him from beneath long, curling lashes, that proved the complete undoing of Saltonstall Adams.

“To the death!” he whispered, in mock dramatic manner.

Anita gave a shiver. “What a way to put it!” she cried. “I mean to live forever, sir!”

“Doubtless,” Old Salt returned, placidly. “You’re a freak – aren’t you?”

“That isn’t a very pretty way of expressing it, but I suppose I am,” and a mutinous look passed over the strange little face.

In repose, the face was oval, serene, and regular of feature. But when the girl smiled or spoke or frowned, changes took place, and the mobile countenance grew soft with laughter or hard with scorn.

And scorn was plainly visible when, a moment later, Adams introduced Robert Tyler, a fellow boarder, to Miss Austin.

She gave him first a conventional glance, then, as he dropped into the chair next hers, and said,

“Only too glad to give up my place to a peach,” she turned on him a flashing glance, that, as he expressed it afterward, “wiped him off the face of the earth.”

Nor could he reinstate himself in her good graces. He tried a penitent attitude, bravado, jocularity and indifference, but one and all failed to engage her interest or even attention. She answered his remarks with calm, curt speeches that left him baffled and uncertain whether he wanted to bow down and worship her, or wring her neck.

Old Salt Adams took this all in, his amusement giving way to curiosity and then to wonder. Who was this person, who looked like a young, very young girl, yet who had all the mental powers of an experienced woman? What was she and what her calling?

The other boarders appeared, those nearest Anita were introduced, and most of them considered her merely a pretty, new guest. Her manners were irreproachable, her demeanor quiet and graceful, yet as Adams covertly watched her, he felt as if he were watching an inactive volcano.

The meal over, he detained her a moment in the dining-room.

“Why are you here, Miss Austin?” he said, courteously; “what is your errand in Corinth?”

“I am an artist,” she said, looking at him with her mysterious intent gaze. “Or, perhaps I should say an art student. I’ve been told that there are beautiful bits of winter scenery available for subjects here, and I want to sketch. Please, Mr. Adams, let me stay here until Letty comes.”

A sudden twinkle in her eye startled the old man, and he said quickly, “How do you know she isn’t coming?”

That, in turn, surprised Anita, but she only smiled, and replied, “I saw a telegram handed to Mrs. Adams at breakfast – and then she looked thoughtfully at me, and – oh, well, I just sort of knew it was to say Letty couldn’t come.”

“You witch! You uncanny thing! If I should take you over to Salem, they’d burn you!”

“I’ll ride over on a broomstick some day, and see if they will,” she returned, gleefully.

And then along came Nemesis, in the person of the landlady.

“I’m sorry, Miss Austin,” she began, but the girl interrupted her.

“Please, Mrs. Adams,” she said, pleadingly, “don’t say any thing to make me sorry, too! Now, you want to say you haven’t any room for me – but that isn’t true; so you don’t know what to say to get rid of me. But – why do you want to get rid of me?”

Esther Adams looked at the girl and that look was her undoing.

Such a pathetic face, such pleading eyes, such a wistful curved mouth, the landlady couldn’t resist, and against her will, against her better judgment, she said, “Well, then, stay, you poor little thing. But you must tell me more about yourself. I don’t know who you are.”

“I don’t know, myself,” the strange girl returned. “Do we, any of us know who we are? We go through this world, strangers to each other – don’t we? And also, strangers to ourselves.” Her eyes took on a faraway, mystical look. “If I find out who I am, I’ll let you know.”

Then a dazzling smile broke over her face, they heard a musical ripple of laughter, and she was gone.

They heard her steps, as she ran upstairs to her room, and the two Adamses looked at each other.

“Daffy,” said Mrs. Adams. “A little touched, poor child. I believe she has run away from home or from her keepers. We’ll hear the truth soon. They’ll be looking for her.”

“Perhaps,” said her husband, doubtfully. “But that isn’t the way I size her up. She’s nobody’s fool, that girl. Wish you’d seen her give Bob Tyler his comeuppance!”

“What’d she say?”

“’Twasn’t what she said, so much as the look she gave him! He almost went through the floor. Well, she says she’s a painter of scenery and landscapes. Let her stay a few days, till I size her up.”

“You size her up!” returned his wife, with good-natured contempt. “If she smiles on you or gives you a bit of taffy-talk, you’ll size her up for an angel! I’m not so sure she isn’t quite the opposite!”

Meanwhile the subject of their discussion was arraying herself for a walk. Equipped with storm boots and fur coat, she set out to inspect Corinth. A jaunty fur cap, with one long, red quill feather gave her still more the appearance of an elf or gnome, and many of the Adams house boarders watched the little figure as she set forth to brave the icy streets.

Apparently she had no fixed plan of procedure, for at each corner, she looked about, and chose her course at random. The snow had ceased during the night, and it was very cold, with a clear sunshiny frostiness in the air that made the olive cheeks red and glowing.

Reaching a bridge, she paused and stood looking over the slight railing into the frozen ravine below.

Long she stood, until passers-by began to stare at her. She was unaware of this, absorbed in her thoughts and oblivious to all about her.

Pinckney Payne, coming along, saw her, and, as he would have expressed it, fell for her at once.

“Don’t do it, sister!” he said, pausing beside her. “Don’t end your young life on this glorious day! Suicide is a mess, at best. Take my advice and cut it out!”

She turned, ready to freeze him with a glance more icy even than the landscape, but his frank, roguish smile disarmed her.

“Freshman?” she said, patronizingly, but it didn’t abash him.

“Yep. Pinckney Payne, if you must know. Commonly called Pinky.”