LITMIR.BIZ

      Published by Good Press, 2019

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      EAN 4064066162306

      Table of Contents

       CHAPTER II

       CHAPTER III

       CHAPTER IV

       CHAPTER V

       CHAPTER VI

       CHAPTER VII

       CHAPTER VIII

       CHAPTER IX

       CHAPTER X

       CHAPTER XI

       CHAPTER XII

      CHAPTER I

      "I tell you, there's something funny about it, Steve—having the wedding out on that scrap of lawn." It was the florist who was speaking. He was a little man, with a brown beard that lent him a professional air. He gave a jerk of the head toward the high bay-window of the Rectory drawing-room, set down his basket of smilax on the well-cared-for Brussels that, after a disappearing fashion, carpeted the drawing-room floor, and proceeded to select and cut off the end of a cigar.

      "Something wrong," assented Steve. He found and filled a pipe.

      The other now dropped his voice to a whisper. "'Mrs. Milo,' I says to the old lady, 'give me the Church to decorate and I'll make it look like something.' 'My good man,' she come back—you know the way she talks—'the wedding will be in the Close.'"

      "A stylish name for not much of anything," observed Steve. "The Close!

       Why not call it a yard and be done with it?"

      "English," explained the florist. "—Well, I pointed out that this room would be a good place for the ceremony. I could hang the wedding-bell right in the bay-window. But at that, click come the old lady's teeth together. 'The wedding will be in the Close,' she says again, and so I shut my mouth."

      "Temper."

      "Exactly. And why? What's the matter with the Church? and what's the matter with this room?—that they have to go outdoors to marry up the poor youngsters. What's worse, that Close hasn't got the best reputation. For there stands that orphan basket, in plain sight——"

      "It's no place for a wedding!"

      "Of course not!—a yard where of a night poor things come sneaking in——"

      A door at the far end of the long room had opened softly. Now a voice, gentle, well-modulated, and sorrowfully reproving, halted the protesting of the florist, and paralyzed his upraised finger. "That will do," said the voice.

      What had frozen the gesture of his employer only accelerated the movements of Steve. Recollecting that he was in his shirt-sleeves, he snatched the pipe from his mouth, seized upon the smilax basket, and sidled swiftly through the door leading to the Close.

      "Goo—good-morning, Mrs. Milo," stammered the florist, putting his cigar behind his back with one large motion that included a bow. "Good-afternoon. I've just brought the festoons for the wedding-bower." Once more he jerked his head in the direction of the bay-window, and edged his way toward it a step or two, his fluttering eyelids belieing the smile that divided his beard.

      Mrs. Milo, her background the heavy oak door that led to the library, made a charming figure as she looked down the room at him. She was a slender, active woman, who carried her seventy years with grace. Her hair was a silvery white, and so abundant that it often gave rise to justified doubt; now it was dressed with elaborate care. Her eyes were a bright—almost a metallic—blue. Despite her age, her face was silkily smooth, and as fair as a girl's, having none of those sallow spots which so frequently mar the complexions of the old. Her cheeks showed a faint color. Her nose was perhaps too thin, but it was straight and finely cut. Her mouth was small, pretty, and curved by an almost constant smile. Her hands were slender, soft, and young. They were not given to quick movements. Now they hung touching the blue-gray of her morning-dress, which, with ruffles of lace at collar and wrists, had the fresh smartness of a uniform.

      "You are smoking?" she inquired. That habitual smile was on her lips, but her eyes were cold.

      "Just—just a dry smoke,"—with a note of injured innocence.

      "Your cigar is in your mouth," she persisted, "and yet you're not smoking."

      At that, the florist took a forward step. "And my teeth are in my mouth," he answered boldly, "but I'm not eating."

      Another woman might have shrunk from the impudence of his retort, or replied angrily. Mrs. Milo only advanced, with slow elegance, prepared again to put him on the defensive. "Why do I find you in this room?" she demanded.

      "I'm just passing through—to the lawn."

      "Do not pass through again."

      "Well, I'd like to know about that," returned the florist, argumentatively. "When I mentioned passing through the Church, why, the Rector, he says to me——"

      Mrs. Milo lifted a white hand to check him. "Never mind what Mr. Farvel said," she admonished sharply; then, with quick gentleness, "You know that he has lived here only little more than a year."

      "Oh, I know."

      "And I have lived here fifteen years."

      "True," assented the florist. "But I was talking with Miss Susan about passing through the Church, and Miss Susan——"

      The blue eyes flashed. And once more Mrs. Milo advanced. "Never mind what my daughter told you," she commanded, but without raising her voice. "I am compelled to make this Rectory my home because Miss Milo does the secretarial work of the parish. And what kind of a home should I have if I allowed the place to be in continual disorder?"

      There was a pause, the two facing each other. Then the look of the florist fell. "I'll go in by way of the Church, madam," he announced. And turned away with a stiff bow.

      "One moment." The order was curt; but as he brought up, and turned about once more, Mrs. Milo spoke almost confidentially. "As you very well know," she reminded, her face slightly averted, "there is a third entrance to the Close."

      The florist saw his opportunity. "Oh, yes," he declared; "—the little white door where the ladies come of a night to leave their orphans."

      That brought Mrs. Milo about. And the color deepened in her cheeks. It was the red, not only of anger, but of modesty. "The women who desert their infants in that basket," she replied (again that sorrowful intonation), "are not ladies."

      The florist was highly pleased with results. "That may be so," he went on, with renewed boldness; "but for my ladders, and my plants,

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