Blue Ruin (Musaicum Romance Classics). Grace Livingston Hill

      CHAPTER I

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      Lynette went singing around the kitchen like a happy bird let loose, spreading delicate slices of bread, folding them together with mysterious delectable concoctions, cutting them in hearts and stars and diamonds, wrapping them in waxed paper, each fold creased down with firm fingers, gladly, as if the task were joy.

      In the dining room her mother crumbed the breakfast table and set the extra dishes away in the rare old ancestral cupboard. She smiled tenderly and sighed in the same breath. How happy Lynnie was! The dear child! Life’s morning, and the world before her! Would the realization satisfy her anticipations?

      This was Lynette’s first day at home after practically four years away at college. Oh, of course there had been vacations, blessed, blissful respites from the terror of the long, long loneliness without her. But now she was at home, really at home, come to stay. She asserted it with a glad ring to her voice and a light in her eyes that met an answering light from her mother’s eyes whenever she said it. Yet the mother knew in her heart of hearts that she had not really come to stay. This was only another vacation, possibly a few days or weeks longer than the others had been, but really after all just a time to get ready to go forever out of the brightness of her girlhood into the goal of every maiden’s life a home of her own. Out of childhood forever, into a woman’s life.

      The mother’s lips trembled at the thought, even while she smiled. How was she going to stand it when it really came? She had not ever definitely faced the thought even yet, though there had been no lack of reminders in the way of eager admirers among the young men and boys of her daughter’s acquaintance, ever since Lynette’s primary days.

      But Lynette had eyes for only one.

      The mother’s troubled glance went out of the window, down the sunny road toward a large white house set back from the street, with nasturtiums bordering the path to the gate. A young man came out of the door at that moment and went down the path and out the gate. He was coming with steps that were as glad as Lynette’s voice.

      Was Dana Whipple the right mate for Lynette, her pearl of a girl, heart of gold, spirit of fire and dew?

      The trouble grew in the mother’s eyes as she watched the young man swing joyously along toward her door, a fine specimen of manhood, noticeable even at a distance for his grace of carriage and his supple symmetrical form. As he entered the gate he took off his hat and lifted his head with a toss as if he enjoyed the play of the breeze with his heavy, waving crest of dark hair; his well-chiseled features; his great, dark eyes under straight, fine brows; the facile lips that could so lightly curve into a smile and show the perfect white teeth that helped to make his expression so vivid. Yes, there was no fault to find with his appearance. “Perfectly stunning!” one of Lynette’s college friends had called him last summer when she met him.

      Looking at him now, as she had never looked before, with the light of sudden premonition in her heart, Lynette’s mother was forced to admit that he was a young man of great charm. Nor was his charm all of personal appearance. He had a mind of unusual vigor. He had taken high rank in college and come off with more honors than she knew how to name, and in seminary was considered the most promising member of his class. It was generally understood that he was in line for a pretty good thing in his chosen profession as a minister of the Gospel. Indeed he was spoken of everywhere as being something most rare and unusual in these days when so few were choosing to devote their lives to things religious.

      But of course, Lynette’s mother told herself as she watched the oncoming young man, Dana had a reputation to maintain. There was something in the fact that he was named for a grandfather who had been famous as a preacher and orator in his denomination. It was expected of Dana that he would carry on the tradition of the family which went with the name. One must remember that in trying to make a fair estimate of his character. Then as quickly as the thought had come, Lynette’s mother rebuked her own soul.

      Nevertheless,