The Key Note. Burnham Clara Louise
Inn'?"
"You have my permission," said Philip.
"We do not need anything original, but we do need a name that is lovely. 'The Wayside Inn' is lovely."
"So be it," said Philip.
"And you're not forgettin' what you are goin' to do to-morrow, are you, dear boy?" said Miss Priscilla ingratiatingly.
"Not if it isn't to go again for the plumber," replied Philip. "His wrenches and hammers are too handy; and I'm sure one more call up here would render him dangerous."
"Mr. Buell is a very pleasant man," said Diana. "So is Mr. Blake, the carpenter. I have learned such interesting expressions from them. Mr. Blake was showing me the fault in one of the gables of this house. He said the builder had given the roof a 'too quick yank.' Is not that quaint?"
"Ha, ha, ha," laughed Philip up into the girl's serious face. "Bully for Matt. You may get the vernacular, after all."
"I'm not quick," said Diana. "I'm afraid I should not prove an apt pupil."
"But, Philip," said Miss Priscilla, "about to-morrow. You know you'll have to get the early boat to go to meet Veronica. It's perfectly splendid of you to go, dear boy. I don't know how I could spare the time. I've got to get several rooms ready for to-morrow, and the child is such an utter stranger in this part o' the world."
"Oh, yes, I'll go," said Philip carelessly. "I think the Inn will be relieved that I can get a hair-cut. My tresses are nearly ready to braid now."
Diana smiled pensively. "I think you are very amusing, Mr. Barrison," she said.
Philip vaulted up over the railing and took a seat beside her, regarding his earth-stained hands and then her serene countenance, whose gaze was bent upon him. He shook his head to toss the blond forelock out of his eyes.
"So my voice gives you a thrill, eh?"
"Oh, decidedly," was the devout response.
"That's a good thing. I thought perhaps you couldn't really be roused from your dreaminess before the fourth of July, but I have some tones that in that case will be warranted to set you and the echoes going at the same time."
Diana clasped her hands. "Oh, utter them," she begged.
"Can't," laughed Philip, wiping his warm forehead with his shirt-sleeve. "The stage isn't set."
Diana continued to look imploringly ardent. "'Drink to me only with thine eyes,'" she suggested.
"That's the only way they'll let you do it nowadays," responded Philip, kicking the heels of his sneakers gently against the railing.
Miss Burridge looked over her spectacles at Diana in her beseeching attitude, and her eyes widened still further as the girl went on slowly with her brown gaze fixed on Philip's quizzical countenance:
"How can I bear to leave thee!
One parting kiss I give thee – "
"Dear me," thought Miss Priscilla. "I'd never have believed it of her." And it occurred to her for the first time that Philip Barrison was a handsome man.
"Farewell," went on Diana, with soft fervor. "'Farewell, my own true love – '"
"Farewell," sang Philip, falling into the trap and finishing the phrase. "'Farewe-ell, my own – true – love.'"
"Oh," breathed Diana, and the way her clasped hands fell upon her heart caused Miss Priscilla much embarrassment.
"I can scarcely wait," said the girl slowly, "to hear you sing a real song with a real accompaniment. There is such rare penetrating richness in the quality of your voice."
Miss Burridge cleared her throat. "I shouldn't wonder if Miss Wilbur was a real help to you, Phil," she said. "Young folks need encouragement."
"And soap-suds," added Philip, regarding his earthy hands and glancing merrily up at Diana, who was still standing in her attitude of adoration; but there was no answering merriment in those brown orbs. Her brain might tell her later that Miss Burridge's patronizing remark had been amusing, but she would be obliged to think it over.
Philip jumped off the railing, whistling, and followed Miss Priscilla into the house and to the sink, while Diana, reminiscently humming "The Soldier's Farewell," descended the steps and wandered away.
When, the next day in town, Philip stood in the Union Station waiting for Veronica's train, he wondered how he was to know her, but remembering that Miss Burridge spoke of having instructed her to go the first thing to the transfer office about her trunk, he turned his steps thither as the crowds poured off the train. All Boston seemed to have decided to come to Maine for the summer.
Soon he saw her – he felt at once it was she – looking about undecidedly as she came. She was a short, plump girl of seventeen or eighteen, at present bent a little sideways from the weight of the suitcase she was carrying. Philip strode forward and seized the suitcase with one hand while he lifted his hat with the other.
"Here, you let that alone!" said the girl decidedly, her round eyes snapping.
"Isn't this Miss Trueman?"
"Why, yes, it is," she returned, but she still looked suspicious and clung to her suitcase. Nobody need think she wasn't up to all the tricks. "Did my aunt send you to meet me?"
"She certainly did."
"Then you know her name. What's her name?" The upward look was so childlike in its shrewdness that it stirred the spirit of mischief.
"Why – let me see, Lucilla, isn't it?"
"You give me that suitcase this minute." The girl pulled on the handle with a muscular little hand.
"Why, Veronica," Philip's smile became a laugh. "Santa Veronica, what a very unsaintlike voice and expression you're using."
She laughed, too, then, and relinquished her burden. "You do know me. Who are you?"
"Miss Burridge's man-of-all-work. Name, Philip Barrison."
"So she gave you such a job as this. How did you pick me out?"
"That wild look around for the transfer office." They were now moving toward it.
"It wasn't wild. I didn't need you at all. Aunt Priscilla needn't have bothered. I have a tongue in my head and money in my pocket, and Puppa said that's all anybody needs if she has any brains."
"But I have to do what my employer orders, you see," replied Philip.
Veronica looked him over. Fresh from the barber and in correct summer garb, he was an extremely good-looking object.
"Oh, yes, it isn't your fault," she returned generously, "but is it a swell place Aunt Priscilla's got?" She looked him over again while he stopped at the transfer window and checked her trunk.
"The Wayside Inn," replied Philip with dignity.
"Well, I've come to help her," said the girl. "But I've never done any serving. I haven't any uniform or anything like that."
"It isn't necessary. Look at me. I don't look like a footman – or a butler – or anything like that, do I?"
"No," said Veronica, her round eyes very serious. "You look like a – like a common – gentleman."
"Thank you, Miss Trueman. I'll try to deserve your praise."
Philip took her and her suitcase across town in a cab, and aboard the little steamer, and found the best spot he could for them to sit.
"Puppa says this bay is noted for its picturesqueness," said Veronica, when they were settled.
"Quite right," returned Philip, putting in her lap one of the magazines he had bought on the wharf.
"No, thank you," she returned. "I shan't read. I'm going to look. Puppa'll expect me to tell him all about it. He was delighted at my having a chance to come to the seashore. He thought it would do my health so much good."
Philip regarded her round cheeks, round eyes, and round, rosy mouth.
"Your health? You look to me as though if you felt any better