"Suppose she did? I think she 's right. She's a remarkably astute lady. When you-" "Widow?" queried Brinton. "Hey? Yes. Why-" "I thought so," said Brinton. "Hey? Oh, say,--" Charley chuckled, -"you don't want to think she 's setting her cap at you. She's like that-awfully frank and friendly with everybody. She's been a music-teacher back in Boston, you know; put Alice through Radcliffe, and laid by quite a little money all by her lonesome. She 's well off, and one of the livest-" A slow light dawned on Charley's face. "Good night, Dad," he said with the utmost good humor, and gently closed the door. The following morning Brinton went. to his office too early to breakfast with the additions to his household. He did not make his customary trip to Grove Street for his noonday meal; the office-boy brought him some pie and coffee from a restaurant. Denying himself to visitors, he employed himself in verifying half a hundred monthly statements of rent due John Brinton. But his heart was not in his work. With the pile half finished, he treated himself to a cigar, leaned far back in his swivel-chair, and cogitated. He continued to cogitate until the growing restlessness of the office-boy informed him that it was time to go home. "I don't care what she is," interrupted Brinton. Charley's start and stare bore witness that such abruptness was not customary between father and son. "You can tell her that if she wants a house out on Cherry Avenue, she can buy it herself. And you can tell her at the same time that I don't believe in young men marrying before they can support their wives. If you marry her daughter, you don't get a cent-understand? You can have a job in my office at twelve a week as long as you 're worth it, and that 's all. Tell her that." Charley's face slowly turned brick-color. There was a new screen-door, behind "This is a trifle sudden," he remarked. "Sudden or not, it goes," snapped Brinton. "If you marry her daughter, you do it on your own hook. Tell her that." He arose, and began removing the studs from his shirt-front. Charley walked as far as the door, and faced about. He seemed to be halfway between perplexity and anger. "If I thought you meant that," he said, "I'd get out to-morrow." As he drew near the dingy little cottage on Grove Street, he became aware of changes. The grass had been cut on the small lawn, and there were two new wicker chairs on the long-chairless front porch. Slowly he passed along the dingy white pickets of the front fence, grimly he surveyed the weather-beaten exterior of his home. In the gateway he paused. "THE RED-WRAPPERED FIGURE OF MRS. MALLET ROSE TO GREET HIM" "The sooner the better. If my house is n't good enough for you and your Boston friends, my money 's too good." which the housedoor stood ajar; the front windows gaped wide open, as though luxuriating in their unexpected chance to get a breath of air, and he caught a glimpse of filmy curtains behind new, green-glistening windowscreens. Hestalked, according to custom, around to the back door and into the kitchen. turned to meet him with the graciousness of an old acquaintance. "You go right into the front room," she said to him. "You 'll find your newspaper on the center-table. I'll be in as soon as I get supper going." Mr. Brinton, after a moment of hesitation, did as he was directed. His carpetcovered rocking-chair, which had worn parallel lines before the dining-room window, was pulled up beside one of the west windows of the front room. He took his newspaper from the center-table and sat down, but he did not look at it. He stared about at the clean, airy sittingroom that had been evolved over-day from his musty, dusty vault of a parlor. His face made no comment on the change; he simply stared. Mrs. Powell rustled in, without her apron, in a white linen gown that made the most of her numerous pleasing curves. "That frightful Mrs. Mallet and I-" she began, then interrupted herself long enough to fetch one of the new wicker chairs from the porch. "We had a disagreement as to the relative amount of dust and fresh air required in a house. I'll fill in me this morning what you said to him last night-about depending on himself for a living, you know. The poor boy was somewhat cut up." The slight thawing that had begun in Brinton's manner stopped abruptly; he pursed his lips. "But I think you 're perfectly right." She turned on him a face fairly dazzling with approbation. with approbation. "Charley's a fine boy, but easy-going, and Drawn by Reginald Birch "AS I REMARKED BEFORE, I THINK YOU'D BE A MIGHTY GOOD INVESTMENT" until we can get some one else." Brinton had tardily risen to help her with the chair. While she permitted him to assist her in setting it down, he measured her impudence with eyes like cold steel. As she met his stare with a frank audacity that turned its point, he noticed that her eyes were nearly on a level with his own. He sat down again, and she sat opposite him. "I've had a perfectly delightful day," she informed him, evidently as a sign that he had nothing more to say about the Mallet matter. "But first, Charley told I've seen too many money, of course Brinton's face expressed absolutely nothing; then the faintest hint of a smile, a wry smile of appreciation, twitched the corners of his mouth. "I never thought much about the use of it," he admitted half to himself; "all that interests me is making it come in." "Well, I think you 've been missing a good deal by thinking only of the one side, although, of course, making it come in must be interesting, too. I 've often wished I'd gone into business; but I had to do what I could. I'm a music-teacher, you know. And that reminds me-" She nodded at him confidentially. "I'm going to open a studio in this town. I saw half a dozen persons about it this morning. Brookfield really needs me." coction. She made a little mound of potatoes beside a generous portion of it, and handed him his plate. He tasted, and, lo! it was his favorite bacon and eggs, ethere"I'm glad you find that 's so," said alized, delicate with additional flavors, the Brinton, civilly. "Do you know Professor Bordman, organist at the Calvary Presbyterian Church? He 's perfectly splendid; gave me all the data I needed. Alice and I are going to sing the offertory there next Sunday. You must come with us. Oh, those potatoes!" She whirled away to the accompaniment of an energetic rustle of starched skirts. Brinton picked up his newspaper and perused half a dozen head-lines. He gave up the attempt presently, went over to the new wicker chair, and sat down to gaze out of his front door. The front of his house seemed amazingly open; he shrank a little whenever any one passed, as though it were guilty of indecent exposure. And yet the smell of the newly cut grass was an improvement on the pervading mustiness that had followed Mrs. Mallet's custom of never opening a window. "I guess we might as well have supper now," said Mrs. Powell, appearing in the doorway. "Everything 's ready, and the Lord only knows when Alice and Charley will get back. They went for a drive out to the National Cemetery." He sat down, staring like a stranger in his own house at the unaccustomed white table-cloth, white napkins, and polished silver plate. Mrs. Powell reappeared, bearing a plate of muffins covered with a napkin, and something on a covered larger plate. The removal of the cover disclosed an oblong mass of a golden-brown color, surrounded by a neat palisade of hashedbrowned potatoes and decorated with a few sprigs of parsley. Brinton's eyes blinked with the acuteness of his interest. "I almost dropped in to see you at your office this afternoon," said the lady, deftly dividing the golden-brown creation. "I needed somebody to drive me round; I hired a livery rig, you know. The more I see of Brookfield, the better I like it." "Glad to hear it," said Brinton, with his eyes on the plate she was preparing for him. At the stroke of the knife a luscious mixture of vegetables and things had oozed from the midst of the golden-brown con apotheosis of bacon and eggs. "What do you call this?" he asked, slowly tasting his first succulent mouthful. "That? Oh, that 's a Spanish omelet,' she replied. she replied. "In consideration of your likes, I added a little crisped bacon, chopped fine. Do you like it?" "Yes," admitted Brinton "I like it— in fact, very much." "Have a muffin," suggested Mrs. Powell; "and there's some butter just beside you. I hope you'll like those muffins; they 're made according to a recipe that 's been in our family for more than a hundred years. Will you have cream in your coffee?" "Cream?" "Yes. I managed to get a milkman by telephone. He's going to leave us milk and cream every morning. Maybe you 'd like to walk over to Professor Bordman's with me after supper. It 's only a dozen blocks or so, and the walk would do you good after your day in the office." "I don't know but I might," said Brinton, considerately helping himself to another muffin. He went to church the next Sunday for the first time in twenty years, and displayed considerable quiet satisfaction in escorting homeward the two ladies who, once more to quote "The Morning Democrat," had accorded Brookfield one of its rarest and most artistic musical treats. When the bills announcing Mrs. Powell's activities came in, he paid them grimly and held his peace. On the credit side of the ledger was the fact that he had had no indigestion since Mrs. Powell's arrival; that she continued, with Alice's assistance, to make a home of his house; and that her keen common sense and good humor were at his service when he felt like conversation. Several times he stopped himself on the verge of discussing his business matters with her. But pungent Brookfield rumors were able to scale even the heights of the new sky-scraper, in the dizzy tower of which, six stories above the street, he had his office. Something in the eyes of his business acquaintances whenever they in quired, were it ever so casually, about Mrs. Powell's good health, reminded him. that Brookfield was waiting to see him with all his worldly goods her endow. "Everybody thinks you 're after my money," he told her frankly one evening, after a good supper had made him expansive; "and I don't know but that you'd be a good investment." For the first time in their acquaintance she appeared taken aback. "Look here, John Brinton," she demanded, "what do you mean?" "Nothing-nothing at all," he assured her earnestly, and hurried away in search of his pipe. But the rebuff set up a barrier between them. He did not see her so often after that; beneath his gruff exterior he was more sensitive than most women. One morning, several days later, she ing glassily by called at his office. "I've come to talk business," she informed him when he went out into the reception-room to meet her. "Take me into your sanctum sanctorum!" He admitted her with the same grave consideration that he would have shown to any business acquaintance, and gave her a chair beside his desk. "I've decided to buy a place out on Cherry Avenue," she announced, "and I want you to manage it for me. They want eighteen thousand; but you must make them do better than that." He did not gasp; he merely asked what place it was. His composure was perfect. "It's the old Gregory place, and it 's just what I've been wanting all my life. I simply fell in love with the walnut wainscoting of the dining-room," she rippled on. "And all the old furniture goes with the house; I shall hardly need to buy a thing. And the fountain-I 've always wanted a fountain! And the lawn. and the stables and the tennis-court! Do you know how to play tennis? You ought to learn; you need the exercise. The executor has consented to let me have a lease for three months to make sure I want it; I'm going to move in right away. It will be just the place to have Alice's wedding; and it's just the place I 've always wanted to live in. The heirs are crazy to sell, and," she concluded firmly, "I'm going to buy it." "I'll see what I can do," said Brinton. He went home rather earlier than usual that evening, and was about to enter, as had become his recent custom, by the front door; but the front door was closed and locked. So were the front windows, starforce of the shades pulled down behind. In some vague agitation of foreboding he made his way around to the kitchen. From beside the kitchen stove, like the grim ghost of his past, the red-wrappered figure of Mrs. Mallet rose to greet him. "Evenin', Mistah Brinton," she said, with the smile of a conquering Ethiopian queen. "Where's Mrs. Powell?" he asked. "Busy movin' in her new house. She ain't comin' back heah no mo'." Mrs. Mallet's cheerfulness increased with the information. "She say to tell you she 'd ax you ovah to suppah, but she 's so much upset, all she kin do is 'tend to Miss Alice and Mistah Chahley. She hopes you kin come Satuhday evenin'; but Ah saydoan' go." A certain insinuation in her voice held Brinton. He waited. "Ef Ah was you, Ah 'd look out for mahself, Mistah Brinton," she continued, rolling her eyes with prophetic fervor. "It 's common talk she 's a-goin' to gouge you to pay foh huh fine new house. I'm a-tellin' you, as yoh frien', them up-an'comin' females is wuth watchin'. day she come heah, when I see how she was headed, I says to huh, 'Miz Powell, my ideas is so fuh from bein' yoh ideas of how a house had ought to be run-'" The Brinton retreated into the dining-room. The red cloth was back on the table, and the carpet rocking-chair stood on its parallel lines before the window. He opened the door of the front room; the curtains were down, the wicker chairs were missing, the air was already tainted with its ancient mustiness. He closed the door. "Have you seen my newspaper?" he called to Mrs. Mallet. "Yes, suh. I was jes lookin' it ovuh when you come in." She brought it to him, and he sat down before the diningroom window to read. It might have been any week-day evening of the last twenty years over again; and yet it was not the same. Nor was the supper of bacon and eggs, fried potatoes, and boiled, creamless coffee the same as it had been before Mrs. Powell invaded his home. The descent from Spanish omelets, hashed-browned potatoes, muffins, and white table-cloths was too abrupt. He went to bed early to escape the vacantness of the house, and slept badly in consequence. Along toward midnight he heard Charley come in, humming a tune, and tramp up the bare flight of stairs to bed. He did not go to Mrs. Powell's house for supper on the following Saturday evening; early in the afternoon he called her up by telephone to say that he would be detained at the office. The woman who answered the telephone said that Mrs. Powell was out, but a message might be left. "Is this Miss Powell?" asked Brinton. "No; this is Mrs. Powell's housekeeper," the voice replied. "Please tell her it will be impossible for me to come out this evening," said Brinton, and hung up the receiver. "Mrs. Powell's housekeeper!" he repeated, still suffering from the shock that had made him forget to give his name. His mood had been morose when he gave up the prospect of a good supper at Mrs. Powell's, and it grew more morose as the afternoon wore on. Gloomily he went home to the house and meal of his arte-Powell days. After supper, while Mrs. Mallet drawled a melancholy strain over her dish-washing, he moped in his rocking-chair before the dining-room window, a deserted, misused man, but proud -too proud to truckle to any one who had misused him. He even disdained to get himself the baking-soda and water that prudence would have prescribed as a precaution against threatened indigestion. After Mrs. Mallet had taken her loosejointed departure, he rebelliously unlocked the front door of his house, dragged the rocking-chair out upon the front porch, and sat down to smoke in the twilight. The afterglow was fading among a raveled mass of cirrus clouds that hung above the tree-covered hills to westward. He puffed his pipe, grim, taciturn, lonely. Some one drove briskly up the street in a little rubber-tired runabout, and drew up before his front gate-some one, a woman, in fact, Mrs. Powell. Brinton, with his external grimness abated only by the sudden quickening of the light in his eyes, went out to meet her. She stepped out as he drew near. "What do you mean by disappointing me at supper?" she demanded. "I 've come to get you to spend the evening, anyway. I want to show you my new house.' She made no effort to find whether he was compliant; she calmly took his compliance for granted. The novelty of the method, as far as John Brinton was concerned, helped to make it effective. "Just look after my horse for a minute," she continued; "he 's my latest investment, by the way. How do you like him? I think I left a pair of scissors—a pet pair, too-in your house when I went away. I'm going to run up-stairs to get them; I'll be back in a minute." Brinton, with amazing docility, gave his attention to the horse. Presently he went as far as the hall to get his hat. He waited a moment, listening to Mrs. Powell overhead, before returning to the buggy; his expression was thoughtful, somewhat chastened, but no longer melancholy. They drove away, Mrs. Powell competently handling the reins. She suggested a little turn out West Street, to enjoy the evening, before going to Cherry Avenue; and guided the horse in the proper direction without waiting for the formality of a reply. She gossiped about her new house and her new housekeeper and her new horse and Alice and Charley. Brinton thawed rapidly, as he usually did when she set herself to thaw him, and was inveigled into making a few remarks on his own account. When they had been gone about three quarters of an hour, she turned to him with a sudden exclamation. "Oh, bother! Do you know what I've done? I left those scissors on your hat-rack. Well, we 'll drive back and get them." Very leisurely, through the gathering |
