CHAPTER VII.

      A STRANGE LOVE STORY

       Table of Contents

      For some reason best known to herself Evelyn Rutherford chose to appear at the breakfast table the next morning.

      She was not expected. Without a word being said, mother and daughter and father too had taken it for granted that their guest would sleep and leave them to breakfast alone with the son and brother.

      But she came in without any apparent hurry just as they were sitting down and the brother, who did not yet understand the state of the case with regard to their guest, hastened to draw out a chair and then looking about for his own seat, exclaimed:

      "Why, Allison, you have counted wrong. You forgot so soon that I had come home. I did not think it of you, sister mine. You have but four plates."

      Allison, whose cheeks were flaming and whose disappointment was great, murmured something about the waffles and that she was not going to sit down, which decision was arrived at on the spur of the moment, and vanished into the kitchen to hide her confusion and dismay. She had not counted on this possibility, and actual tears came into her eyes as she bent over the waffle iron to butter it, while it spluttered at the cool butter in much such a heated way as she would have enjoyed voicing her feelings.

      In the dining room the young man carried the weight of the conversation, and strangely enough it was addressed to the guest almost entirely. He did not realize it, but his whole mind was largely filled with studying this girl with a view to gaining an influence over her for good, or at least finding out whether she needed it. He was not so conceited as to think that of course all people with whom he came into contact needed his help.

      He was conscious of being quite happy. He was once more in his dear home, surrounded by those who loved him and whose smiles and voices could always make glad sunshine for him, and he was being given a chance to redeem the past.

      But the gentle mother was troubled. She had watched her daughter's speaking face and knew the keen disappointment she was suffering, and she was such a mother that she thoroughly suffered with her. She knew Allison's delight in talking freely with her brother, in waiting upon him and asking questions; and she knew that the visitor made a complete bar to all these pleasures, for Allison was shy and reserved beyond most girls. Her daughter's feelings filled her thoughts so entirely as to leave little time to worry about her son; but occasionally, as she caught a bright look on his face and saw the beautiful face of the city girl light up with smiles as she replied, she began to fear that after all Allison was right and there was cause for worry.

      Certainly Evelyn Rutherford was fascinating when she chose to be. She was dressed again in white, with the offending gold buckle, and as the morning had in it a tinge of frost, she had added a scarlet jacket which was exceedingly becoming. The mother could not deny that the vision was beautiful, and yet she had not thought there would be sympathy between these two. Neither could she wonder that the girl wished to please the young man seated opposite to her, as she looked with a mother's admiration on the fine form and strong, noble features of her boy.

      But the boy suddenly became aware that, though the golden-brown waffles and amber syrup were vanishing rapidly and he had done his share of helping them onward, his sister, who came and went with very red cheeks, was not having any. When she came in with the next steaming plateful he suddenly arose and took it from her.

      "Now sit down, Allison," he said, "and I will show you how well I remember my early training in waffle-baking, sister mine."

      He took her, before she was aware of what he was going to do, and placed her in his chair, deftly gathering his own soiled dishes and placing before her a clean plate from the sideboard behind him. But his sister was in no mind to sit before the guest just now and try to eat. Swallow a mouthful she knew she could not and she did not wish the other girl to know it. She resisted her brother, urging several reasons why he must not bake the waffles, and finally followed him to the kitchen, only to be laughingly but persistently brought back and seated again. In a few minutes the young man returned with a plate of rather melancholy waffles, it must be confessed, compared with those which had gone before, but triumph on his face.

      "They burned," he explained, "because I had so much trouble with Allison, but the next will be all right, now I've got my hand in," and he marched back to the kitchen looking very funny in his mother's big check apron he had donned, tied up high under his arms.

      During all this pleasant home play Evelyn Rutherford looked on in amazement. It was as if she caught a glimpse of what her own childhood might have been if she had been blest with a mother and a true home. How pleasant it would be to have a brother who cared for one like that! It was not put on for show, she felt sure as she eyed him keenly. No, she had been positive from her first meeting with him that he was a man from another world than her own. Fancy Dick caring whether she had waffles or not, let alone taking the trouble to bake them for her, if he only had all he wanted for himself. As for baking waffles, either of them would be obliged to starve if it came to that, for they had no more idea than kittens what went into their make-up.

      She began to look at Allison in a new light, with a lingering undertone of envy. True, this other girl had missed much of which her own life was composed; but did she not have some things that made for their loss that were even better, perhaps?

      Allison, meanwhile, was having a very hard time with her breakfast, and her mother, perceiving this, made an excuse to send the rest away from the table as soon as possible. She sent her son from the kitchen, hoping he would go at once to his sister. She told him they must get up some pleasant occupation for them all for the morning, and he, nothing lost, went to the piazza in search of Allison. She had left the breakfast room and he supposed he should find her with her guest. His heart was light at the thought of his cherished sister with this girl, who was a queen in high circles. It was what he could have wished.

      But Allison had fled to her room to let fall the pentup tears, and Miss Rutherford was standing on the piazza alone, fingering a lovely scarlet spray of the vine that covered the porch. He reached up and picked it for her, thinking what a crown it would make in her beautiful black hair. She accepted it pleasantly and fastened it in the gold clasp of her belt, where it well accorded with the crimson coat she wore with its moss-green velvet collar-facing.

      The young man proposed a walk to the post office in the crisp October air, and searched for his sister to accompany them.

      "Allison," he called, "where are you? Come down. We are going to the post office. Get your hat and hurry, dear. It is glorious out of doors."

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