Phoebe Deane (Romance Classic). Grace Livingston Hill
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as her blessing and be glad over it because her mother and God had sent it to her to help her bear the rest of the days. She lifted her tear-wet face to look around on the golden autumn world, and the sun caught the tears on her lashes and turned them into flashing jewels, till the sweet, sad face looked like a tired flower with the dew upon it.
Then quite suddenly she knew she was not alone.
A young man stood in the shadow of the tallest chestnut- tree, regarding her with troubled gaze. His hat was in his hand and his head slightly bowed in deference, as if in the presence of something holy.
He was tall, well-formed, and his face fine and handsome. His eyes were deep and brown, with lights in them like those on the shadowed depths of a quiet woodland stream. His heavy dark hair was tossed back from a white forehead that had not been exposed to the summer sun of the hay- field, one could see at a glance, and the hand that held the hat was white and smooth also. There was a grace about his attitude that reminded Phoebe of David Spafford, who had seemed to her the ideal of a gentleman. He was dressed in dark brown and his black silk stock set off a finely cut, clean-shaven chin of unusual strength and firmness. If it had not been for the lights in his eyes, and the hint of a smile behind the almost tender strength of the lips, Phoebe would have been afraid of him as she lifted shy, ashamed eyes to the intruder's face.
" I beg your pardon, I did not mean to intrude," he said, apologetically, "but a party of young people are coining up the hill. They will be here in a moment, and I thought perhaps you would not care to meet them. You seem to be in trouble."
" Oh, thank you! " said Phoebe, arising in sudden panic and dropping her mother's letter at her feet. She stooped to pick it up, but the young man had reached it first and their fingers met for one brief instant over the letter of the dead. In her confusion Phoebe did not know what to say but " Thank you," and then felt like a parrot repeating the same phrase.
Voices were distinctly audible now and the girl turned to flee, but ahead and around there seemed nowhere to go for hiding except a dense growth of mountain laurel that still stood green and shining amid the autumn brown. She looked for a way around it, but the young man caught her thought, and reaching forward with a quick motion of his arms he parted the strong branches and made a way for her.
" Here, jump right in there! So nobody will see you. Hurry, they are almost here!" he whispered, kindly.
The girl sprang quickly on the log, paused just an instant to gather her golden draperies about her, and then fluttered into the green hiding-place and settled down like a drift of yellow leaves.
The laurel swung back into place, nodding quite as if it understood the secret. The young man stooped and she saw him deliberately take from his pocket a letter and put it down behind the log that lay across her hiding-place.
The letter settled softly into place and looked at her knowingly as if it, too, were in the secret and were there to help her. For even a letter has an expression if one has but eyes to see and understand.
Up the hill-side came a troop of young people. Phoebe could not see them, for the growth of laurel was very dense, but she could hear their voices.
" Oh, Janet Bristol, how fast you go! I'm all out of breath. Why do you hurry so? The nuts will keep till we get there, and we have all the afternoon before us."
" Go slow as you like, Caroline," said a sweet, imperious voice; " when I start anywhere I like to get there. I wonder where Nathaniel can be. It is fully five minutes since he went out of sight, and he promised to hail us at once and tell us the best way to go."
" Oh, Nathaniel isn't lost," said another girl's voice crossly; "he'll take care of himself likely. Don't hurry so, Janet. Maria is all out of breath."
" Hullo! Nathaniel! Nathaniel Graham, where are you!" called a chorus of male voices.
Then from a few paces in front of the laurel hiding- place came the voice that Phoebe had heard but a moment before:
" Aye, aye, sir! That way! " it called. " There are plenty of nuts up there!" He stood with his back toward her hiding-place, and pointed farther up the hill. Then, laughing, scrambling over slippery leaves and protruding logs the gay company frolicked past, and Phoebe was left, undiscovered, alone with the letter that smiled back at her in a friendly way.
She stooped a little to look at it and read the address, " Nathaniel Graham, Esq.," written in a fine commanding hand, a chirography that gave the impression of honoring the name it wrote.
The girl studied the beautiful name, till every turn of the pen was graven on her mind, the fine, even clearness of the small letters, the bold downward stroke in the capitals. It was unusual writing of an unusual name and the girl felt that it belonged to an unusual man.
Then all of a sudden, while she waited and listened to the happy jingle of voices, like bells of different tones, exclaiming over rich finds in nuts, the barren loneliness of her own life came over her and brought a rush of tears. Why was she here in hiding from those girls and boys that should have been her companions ? Why did she shrink from meeting Janet Bristol, the sweetly haughty beauty of the village? Why was she never invited to their pleasant tea-drinkings, and their berry and nut gatherings? She saw them in church, and that was all. They never seemed to see her. True, she had not been brought up from childhood among them, but she had lived there long enough to have known them intimately if her life had not always been so full of care. Janet Bristol had gone away to school for several years, and was only at home in summer when Phoebe's life was full of farm work—cooking for the hands, and for the harvesters. But Maria Finch and Caroline Penfield had gone to school with Phoebe. She felt a bitterness that they were in these good times and she was not. They were not to blame, perhaps, for she had always avoided them, keeping much to herself and her studies in school, and hurrying home at Emmeline's strict command. They had never attracted her as had the tall, fair Janet, in the few summer glimpses she had had of her. Yet she would never likely know Janet Bristol or come any nearer to her than she was now, hidden behind God's screen of laurel on the hill-side, while the gay company gathered nuts a few rods away. The young man with the beautiful face and the kind ways would forget her and leave her to scramble out of her hiding place as best she could while he helped Janet Bristol over the stile and carried her basket of nuts home for her. He would not cross her path again. Nevertheless she was glad he had met her this once, and she could know there was in the world one so kind and noble; it was a beautiful thing to have come into her life. She would stay here till they were all out of hearing, and then creep out and steal away as she had come. Her sad life and its annoyances, forgotten for the moment, settled down upon her, but with this change. They now seemed possible to bear. She could go back to Albert's house, to Emmeline where she was unwelcome, and work her way twice over. She could doff the golden garments, and take up her daily toil, even patiently perhaps, and bear Emmeline's hateful insinuations, Alma's impudence, the disagreeable attentions of Hank and the hateful presence of Hiram Green, but never again would she be troubled with the horrible thought that perhaps after all she was wrong and ought to accept the home that Hiram Green was offering her. Never, for now she had seen a man, who had looked at her as she felt sure God meant a man to look at a woman, with honor, and respect, and gentle helpfulness, and deference.
All at once she knew that her mother's prayer had been answered and that something beautiful had come into her life. It would not stay and grow as her mother had hoped. This stranger could be nothing to her, but the memory of his helpfulness and the smile of sympathy that had lighted his eyes would remain with her, a beautiful joy, always. It was something that had come to save her at the moment of her utter despair.
Meantime, under the chestnut-trees but a few rods away the baskets were being filled rapidly, for the nuts were many and the squirrels had been idle, thinking they owned them all. Nathaniel Graham helped each girl impartially, and seemed to be especially successful in finding the largest and shiniest nuts. The laughing and joking went on, but Nathaniel said little. Phoebe, from her covert could watch them, and felt that the young man would soon pilot them farther away. She could hear bits of their talk.
" What's the matter with Nathaniel ?" said Caroline Penfield. " He's hardly said a word since we started. What deep subject is your massive mind engaged upon, young