LITMIR.BIZ

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flowers.”

      But Molly was disturbed. “Let’s go back, Spig.”

      “Oh, he’s all right. They were doing fine, I thought.”

      They went on, but just as they got to the sign Molly put her hand quickly on his arm. “No, Spig, I know I’m being difficult. But I’d be a lot happier . . .”

      “Okay.” They went back. The woman at the gate smiled at them cordially.

      “He’s quite all right. I’ve kept my eye on them.”

      And he was all right. He and Miss Fairlie came around the turf between the borders, walking very solemnly. Then Tippy ran to meet them, his eyes shining like brand new stars.

      “Miss Fairlie says she has lots of land and lots of water!” He stopped breathlessly and ran back. “Didn’t you, Miss Fairlie? Didn’t you say that?”

      “Yes, I did,” Miss Fairlie said.

      “I told her we didn’t have very much money. But she said that’s all right. Didn’t you, Miss Fairlie?”

      Spig and Molly stared at them. Miss Fairlie came up, her pale childlike eyes resting on them quite definitely a moment before the far away look came back. She stood there, her white-gloved hands folded in front of her, blinking vaguely a moment before she spoke.

      “Tip said thirty-five hundred dollars. Is that correct?”

      “That’s . . . correct,” Spig said.

      “Then you may have that piece on the other side of the Cove.” She turned and pointed across the gardens. “The house is old and very small. But if you paid me two thousand dollars, you’d have enough left to add on to it. There’s several acres. It goes to those trees you see this side of Mr. Sudley’s tobacco fields. There’s a pleasant piece of beach the children would enjoy, I think.”

      Neither Spig nor Molly could speak. Tippy’s face had no need of words.

      “There’s a great deal of honeysuckle. In fact, it’s completely overgrown, except around the cottage. I’ve kept that clear. You’d have to fix the road, but you could use mine as far as the old wagon trail. I’ve kept the bridge repaired. I don’t think you’ll mind the blood. You can hardly tell it unless you know it’s there.”

      “She says you can hardly see it now, anyway,” Tip said urgently.

      “That’s . . . wonderful, Miss Fairlie. But——”

      “No. Blood disappears. It’s like everything else. Time is all it takes. We can go look now, if you like.”

      “I don’t know. My wife——”

      “We can go through the gardens. It won’t be too much for her.”

      “Let’s go, Daddy! Please, Daddy! Please, Mother!”

      There was a narrow, white bridge at the bottom of the garden.

      “This isn’t the bridge I was talking about,” said Miss Fairlie. “This is my own bridge. The other one is over that way.” She waved vaguely out through the jungle of sassafras and locust, all matted with fox grape and honeysuckle. “The wagon trail is under there.” She indicated the jungle again. “We take this path.”

      A moment later a small whitewashed cottage, windows and doors heavily shuttered, came into view. Through another tangle of vines and swamp myrtle in front of it they could see a glimpse here and there of the shining blue water of the Devon.

      “I let it stay like this to keep fishermen and hunters away,” Miss Fairlie said. “We must go now, I think. You can come back and take the shutters down. There are two rooms. The blood is on the table. I’d like for Tip to live at Eden. I think he’d enjoy it very much. If the price is too high . . .”

      “Oh, no. It’s not high enough. It’s——”

      “But Daddy, it’s what she said. Isn’t it, Miss Fairlie? You do like it, don’t you, Daddy? And you like it, Mother? Don’t you?” Tip’s face was passionately alive with pleading, but his voice still its sober self.

      “Of course, darling. It’s wonderful. But——”

      “Then don’t talk any more,” Miss Fairlie said. She turned and led the way back into the gardens. At the gate she stood, blinking absently for a moment. Then she said, “I must go away now. Good-bye, Tip.”

      She put her hand out as gravely as he took it.

      “Good-bye, Miss Fairlie. Thank you very much for the house and land. I enjoyed the gardens very much, too. You’ll take care of my little ducks till I come back, won’t you?”

      “Yes, I will.”

      She turned and walked down the oyster shell drive, around a circle of boxwood, past the old coloured man, and into the house.

      “She gave me six little ducks,” Tippy said.

      They got to the white-pillared office where the ticket taker was counting her cigar box of money by the door. She smiled at them.

      “There’s a hundred and ten dollars, we made to-day. Everybody came very early in case Miss Fairlie suddenly changed her mind. It’s the first time Eden’s ever been opened.” She looked at Tippy. “I see you got him back. I didn’t mean to alarm you, but Miss Fairlie’s very . . . well, I expect you could see it. She’s quite mad, as mad as a hatter, really, you know. It was all right with David there. He watches out for her. Well, good-bye. Come again, won’t you?”

      “Miss Fairlie wasn’t mad, Mother,” Tippy said, when they were on their way through the shaded lane to the outer gate. “She was glad. She liked us there. She told me so. She said she didn’t let people come in her house because they made a noise and there was a child asleep. But I don’t make a noise when Kitsy’s asleep, do I, Mother?”

      “No, Tippy. She’s asleep now, so why don’t you take a nap too?”

      “Yes, because we’ve had a very hard day,” said Tippy.

      Neither Spig nor Molly said anything till she looked back and saw him sound asleep.

      “I can’t bear it, Spig,” she whispered. “I just can’t. How can we explain to him? It’ll break his heart.”

      “I know. I’m sorry. We should have got out of there when she started talking about the blood. You could see she was bats . . . the look in her eye. Do you want to go to the Camerons’? I don’t.”

      Molly shook her head. When they got to the Devon Manor sign, she said, “No. Somewhere else. Virginia, maybe. I wish we’d never come.”

      She cried herself to sleep that night in Spig’s arms, and he felt like crying himself. He couldn’t get the hurt, completely not-understanding look on Tippy’s face out of his mind. “I’ll go to a real estate agent in the morning,” he said, and he was shaving, getting ready to go, when the phone rang. Molly had taken Kitsy to market, and Tip with with them.

      “Devonport calling Mr. Tipton James O’Leary, Senior.”

      “This is Mr. O’Leary.”

      “Go ahead, Judge,” he heard the operator say, and a dry, precise voice came on.

      “Mr. Tipton James O’Leary, Senior?”

      “Speaking.”

      “This is Judge Nathan Twohey in Devonport. I understand you were at Eden, Miss Celia Fairlie’s place, yesterday.”

      “That’s correct.”

      “I understand you were offered a tract of her land?”

      Judge Nathan Twohey sounded as if O’Leary had not only been offered it but had picked it up and carried it away with him and Judge Twohey wanted it back at once.

      “Right,” said Spig.

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