Sunlight Patch. Credo Fitch Harris
air faster," he nodded, passing unnoticed Lucy's invitation to be caressed and rising into the Colonel's saddle. There was something pathetic in the wistful way she looked after him, whinnying twice or three times in a sudden panic of apprehension. The old gentleman stroked her nose, murmuring:
"I don't think he ought to have done it just that way, old faithful. But if I read the signs correctly you'd better get used to it now. There'll be plenty more times."
Bob called from the gate: "Send Zack over; I want my hair cut!" And the Colonel, understanding, waved his hand as they again cantered away—Dale in advance, and the young planter evidently cautioning him to spare his horse in the noon hour heat.
"Who's Bob's anthropoid friend?" Brent asked, as he and the Colonel now stretched in their chairs.
"A young man from the mountains, violently in search of an education. He will be asking you every question in the range of thought, Brent, and I hope you will have patience with him. It's such a pity to see one so hungry for knowledge—really starving for it—while the whole wide board before him holds more than enough for all!"
"He's welcome to banquet on my feast of reason, but he'll get mighty tired of it. Do you think he's serious?"
The Colonel smiled at this from Brent.
"It has been my observation that believing in people usually brings out their best," he answered, "and so I think he is serious. I hope you will, also."
"You bet I will," Brent cordially agreed, burying his nose in the mint. "He's all right;—I like him!"
After a moment of affectionate contemplation of his own julep, the Colonel said:
"Bob's household will be over to dinner tonight. I trust you can be with us, sir!"
Before he could reply, Miss Liz appeared in the doorway, and both men arose with courtly bows. When Brent had arranged a place for her—and the Colonel had slipped into the house holding the telltale goblet under his coat—this severe lady, balancing on the chair with prim nicety, raised her lorgnette and observed:
"You have come home early!"
It was not hospitably done. Indeed, Miss Liz, sister of the Colonel's angelic wife, inherited few of that departed lady's endearments. While both had passed their girlhood in the Shenandoah, this one alone managed to absorb and retain all the stern qualities from the surroundings of her nativity. Now a spinster of perhaps sixty years, this firmness had become imbedded in her nature as unalterably as the Blue Ridge rock; her eyes and hair were as gray, and her voice—unless she were deeply moved—as hard; also was her sense of duty as unyielding. Before her sister's death she regularly visited Arden, and afterwards the Colonel had insisted upon her making it a permanent home.
He paid the price for this, as he knew he would pay; but without a word, and with as few outward signs as possible. For Miss Liz could not have been termed in sympathy with the easy-going Colonel, nor, in her self-righteous moods, sympathetic with any man. From long practice and research she had at her fingers' tips the measurements of every male transgressor from Cain to Judas Iscariot, and could work up about as unhappy an hour for gay Lotharios as might be found this side of the Spanish Inquisition. At any rate, Miss Liz did come to Arden, finding rest and quiet and peace—not imparting them.
The little darkies never tired of twisting pieces of bale-wire into an imitation of lorgnettes and airily strutting in her wake when she visited the garden—being careful to keep their carousal well away from the danger zone. At the same time, all who had been allowed peeps into her gentler side were gripped with tentacles of affection as firm as was her own relentless adherence to duty. In just one respect might Miss Liz have been rated below par, and this was a hopeless incapacity to see when others were teasing her. She took all in good faith when they looked her straight in the eyes and told the most flagrant absurdities.
Brent now smiled blandly into her face and accepted the implied rebuke a moment in silence.
"Isn't it extraordinary," he said at last, "that I guessed you would be having on that becoming gown, and looking just this cool and attractive?"
In spite of her stiffening shoulders and frown of extreme displeasure, an echo of color crept slowly into her cheeks. For it is a curious fact that, while stern and self-denying people may be found who are impregnable to the fiercest attacks of passion, indifferent to the most insidious lures of avarice, unmoved by the most convincing whispers of jealousy, and impartial in every act toward fellowman—all, all will yield an inch to the smile of flattery.
"Fiddlesticks!" she exclaimed. "I am old enough to be your grandmother!"
The lorgnette never faltered, and Brent's eyes lowered in feigned distress.
"Yes, I suppose so," he quietly admitted. "The fact is, when you come out on the porch this way and begin to talk so pleasantly, I'm always forgetting that you're so—so terribly old as you insist. I'll try to remember, Miss Liz."
"I am not inviting old age," she smiled, with a freezing lack of mirth; but yet she may have yielded the inch, for one of her thin hands went timidly up to the iron gray curls which hung before her ears, and her eyes turned to gaze dreamily over the fields as though in search of some long past, golden memory.
His own eyes took this opportunity to cast another sly look at the tell-tale goblet, hoping to light upon some method of spiriting it away.
"Mr. McElroy," she suddenly exclaimed, "I have been talking to brother John, and have told him my views about you!"
Brent's mouth opened a moment in surprise and then he frankly began to laugh.
"I'm glad I wasn't in hearing distance!"
"You might have heard to your advantage. I told him that I considered marriage to some determined girl your only chance of reformation."
"Marriage!" he almost rose out of his chair. "Heavens, Miss Liz! I've got an alarm clock that does that sort of thing!"
"Alarm clock?" she gasped. "Pray, what do you suppose marriage is?"
"I've never tried to suppose! I don't want to suppose"
She arose with dignity and went toward the door. There was another minute, while he stood making humble apologies to which she seemed indifferent, and then her voice came like the crackling of dry twigs. "I bid you good morning, Mr. McElroy!"
CHAPTER IX
AT THE UNPAINTED HOUSE
Brent sat down and took a deep breath, as men do when they have narrowly escaped disaster. He saw Zack on a mule, heading for the gate, and called him.
"Uncle Zack," he whispered, when the old darky had come hat in hand up the steps, "rustle me another julep!"
"Lawd, Marse Brent," he cast a suspicious glance toward the front hall, "I'se gotter go clar to Marse Bob's an' cut his haih!" But, translating the look, Brent gave a low laugh, saying:
"She won't be out again for awhile. Hustle, Zack! I've just been frozen to death!"
The old man thrust the empty goblet under his coat and quickly returned with another, invitingly frosted.
"Ain' she turr'ble sometimes, Marse Brent?" he asked in a confidential undertone. "She done tol' me yisterday dat I'se gwine git th'owed clar to de bottom of hell, an' den criss-cross all over de coals, ef I don' stop makin' juleps for Marse John an' you! Do you reckon I'se gwine git all dat misery?"
"Betcher life," Brent answered, taking a few swallows and leaning back with a sigh of satisfaction. "That's all coming to you; but d'you want to know what the