The Key Note. Burnham Clara Louise
have to call the doctor."
"Yes, I'm not really ailing – but I freckle. Isn't it a shame?" She put one hand to her nose which had an upward tilt.
"Oh, that's all right," laughed Philip. "Call 'em beauty spots."
She sat, pensively continuing to cover her nose with her silk-gloved hand.
"Perhaps you're hungry. I ought to have bought you some chocolates," said Philip. "Perhaps there's time still." He looked at his watch.
Veronica smiled. It was a pleasant operation to view and disclosed a dimple. "Did Aunt Priscilla give you money to buy me candy? Don't bother. I have some gum. Would you like some?" As she spoke, she opened her handbag.
Philip bent a dreadful frown upon her. "Do you chew gum?" he asked severely.
"Yes, sometimes, of course. Everybody does."
"Then you deserve to freckle. You deserve all the awful things that can befall a girl."
"Well, for a hired man," said Veronica, her hand pausing in its exploration, "you have the most nerve of any one I ever saw."
She seemed quite heated by this condemnation, and instead of the gum drew out a vanity box and, looking in the mirror, powdered her nose deliberately.
Philip opened his magazine. The whistle blew and the boat began to back out of the slip. Veronica regarded her companion from time to time out of the tail of her eye, and at a moment when his manner indicated absorption in what he was reading, she replaced the vanity case in her bag and when her hand reappeared, it conveyed something to her mouth.
"I wouldn't," said Philip, without looking up. She colored hotly.
"Nobody asked you to," she retorted.
Then all was silence while the steamer, getting its direction, began moving toward the islands that dotted the bay.
The girl suddenly started.
"If there aren't those people!" she ejaculated.
"What people?" asked Philip.
"They came on in the same car with me from Boston. See that dark man over there with a young boy? I couldn't help noticing them on the train. You see how stupid the boy looks. He seemed so helpless, and the man just ignored him when he asked questions, and treated him so mean. I just hate that man."
Philip regarded the couple. They presented a contrast. The man was heavily built with a sallow, dark face, his restless eyes and body continually moving with what seemed an habitual impatience. The boy, perhaps fourteen years of age, had a vacant look, his lips were parted, and his position, slumped down in a camp-chair, indicated a total lack of interest in his surroundings.
"Tell me about Aunt Priscilla," said Veronica suddenly. "I haven't seen her since I was twelve years old. My mother died then. She was Aunt Priscilla's sister and Aunt Pris was willing to take me if Pa wanted her to, but he didn't and we moved away, and I've never seen her since. Of course, she writes sometimes and so do I. Has she many boarders?"
"Only one so far, but then she's a goddess. You've read your mythology, haven't you? This is the goddess Diana."
"Say, you're awfully fresh, do you know that?" remarked Veronica. "You treat me all the time as if I was a baby. I've graduated from high school and very likely I know just as much as you do."
"I shouldn't doubt that," returned Philip. "On the level, you'll see when you get to the Inn that I'm telling the truth. Diana is passing for the present under the title of Miss Wilbur."
"One boarder!" exclaimed Veronica with troubled brow. "Why, Aunt Priscilla doesn't need two helpers like you and me."
"Oh, there are plenty more boarders coming," said Philip. "This boat may be full of them for all we know. She is expecting people to-night. Let's look around and decide who we'll take up there with us."
"I'll tell you one person I'd choose first of all. See that woman with her back to us with a blue motor veil around her shoulders? I noticed her just when I was pointing out that devil and the boy to you."
"You use strong language, Miss Trueman. Couldn't you spare my feelings and call our dark friend Mephisto?"
"Sounds too good for him. I'd like to use me-fist-o on him, I know that." Veronica giggled, and went on: "Do you see her?"
"I do. My vision is excellent."
"Well, she was on the train, too, and once I saw her smile at that poor shy boy and show him how to get a drink of water. We were all in a day car. Chair car crowded. You can't see her face, but she's the sweetest thing." Then with a change of voice: "Oh, wouldn't it jar you! There's fuss-tail. See that dame with the white flower in her hat, looking over the rail? I suppose she's watching to see if the fishes behave themselves. She was on the train, too, and nothing suited her from Boston to Portland. She was too hot, or she felt a draught, or she didn't like the fruit the train-boy brought, or something else was wrong, every minute."
"We won't take her, then," said Philip.
"I should say not. She'd sour the milk. What's the island like?"
"Diana says it resembles Arcadia strikingly, and she ought to know."
"But I never was in Arcadia," objected Veronica.
"Well, it is just a green hill popping right up out of the Atlantic, with plenty of New England rocks in the fields, and drifts of daisies and wild roses for decoration, and huge rocky teeth around the shore that grind the waves into spray and spit it up flying toward the sky."
"What kind of folks? Just folks that come in summer?"
"Not at all. Old families. New England's aristocracy. These islands are the only place where there are no aliens, just the simon-pure descendants of Plymouth Rock. As I say aristocrats. I was born there."
"You were?" returned Veronica curiously.
"I were."
"Well, I was born in Maine, in Bangor. I guess that's just about as good."
"No, it's not as good," said Philip gravely. "Nevertheless, I forgive you."
"Tell me more about the island."
"Well, it has one road."
"Only one street?"
"No, no street. Just one road which has its source in a green field on the south and loses itself in the beach on the north after it has passed the by-path that leads to the haunted farm."
"Oh, go away!" scoffed Veronica.
"I can't. The walking won't be good for another hour."
"Who lives at the farm?"
"The ha'nts."
"Nobody else?"
"No, it isn't likely. It's at the head of Brook Cove where the pirates used to come in at a day when it was laughable to think that passenger boats would ever touch at this island."
Veronica's eyes grew rounder than before.
"Do you suppose there's gold packed in around there if people could only find it?"
"I don't, but a great many people thought there might be. It is much more fun to hunt for pirate gold than to go fishing in squally weather, and it has been hunted for, faithfully."
"And not any found?" said Veronica sympathetically.
"That's the mournful fact."
"But who were the farmers, and why did they stop farming? Was it the ghosts?"
"No, I think it was the rocks. It was found more profitable to farm the sea. You know abandoned farms are fashionable in New England, anyway, so the ghosts have a rather swell residence at the old Dexter place. I spent the first eight years of my life on the island. Then it was an undiscovered Arcadia. Now – why, you will go up to The Wayside Inn in a motor – that is, if I can get hold of Bill Lindsay before somebody else grabs him. Lots of people know a good thing when they see it, and lots of people have seen the island."
The wharf was full of people to welcome the little steamer as it drew in, and there was a grand rush of passengers for the coveted motor. It seemed