Nature's Serial Story Part 29

"Your horse is too high for you to dismount in that way," he said, quietly, "and the saddle might fall after you and hurt you. Pardon me;"

and he encircled her with his right arm, and lifted her gently off.

She blushed like the western sky, but he was so grave and apparently solicitous, and his words had made his course seem so essential, that she could not take offence. Indeed, he was now giving his whole attention to the broken girth, and she could only await the result of his examination.

"I think I can mend it with a strap from my bridle so that it will hold until you reach home," he said; "but I am sorry to say that I cannot make it very secure. Will you hold your horse a moment?"

"I am indebted to Mr. Clifford, I think," she began, hesitatingly.

"I am Mr. Clifford, and, believe me, I am wholly at your service. If you had not been so good a horsewoman you might have met with a very serious accident."

"More thanks are due to you, I imagine," she replied; "though I suppose I could have got off in some way."

"There would have been no trouble in your getting off," he said, with one of his frank, contagious smiles; "but then your horse might have run away, or you would have had to lead him some distance, at least. Perhaps it was well that the girth gave way when it did, for it would have broken in a few moments more, in any event. Therefore I hope you will tolerate one not wholly unknown to you, and permit me to be of service."

"Indeed, I have only cause for thanks. I have interfered with your ride, and am putting you to trouble."

"I was only riding for pleasure, and as yet you have had all the trouble."

She did not look excessively annoyed, and in truth was enjoying the adventure quite as much as he was, but she only said: "You have the finest horse there I ever saw. How I should like to ride him!"

"I fear he would be ungallant. He has never been ridden by a lady."

"I should not be afraid so long as the saddle remained firm. What do you call him?"

"Thunder." At the sound of his name the beautiful animal arched his neck and whinnied. "There, be quiet, old fellow, and speak when you are spoken to," Burt said. "He is comparatively gentle with me, but uncontrollable by others. I have now done my best, Miss Hargrove, and I think you may mount in safety, if you are willing to walk your horse quietly home. But I truly think I ought to accompany you, and I will do so gladly, with your permission."

"But it seems asking a great deal of-"

"Of a stranger? I wish I knew how to bring about a formal introduction. I have met your father. Will you not in the emergency defer the introduction until we arrive at your home?"

"I think we may as well dispense with it altogether," she said, laughing.

"It would be too hollow a formality after the hour we must spend together, since you think so slow a pace is essential to safety. Events, not we, are to blame for all failures in etiquette."

"I was coming to call upon you this very week with the ladies of our house," he began.

"Indeed!" she said, lifting her eyebrows.

"I a.s.sure you of the truth of what I say," he continued, earnestly, turning his handsome eyes to hers. Then throwing his head back a little proudly, he added, "Miss Hargrove, you must know that we are farmers, and midsummer brings the harvest and unwonted labors."

With a slight, piquant imitation of his manner, she said: "My father, you must know, Mr. Clifford, is a merchant Is not that an equally respectable calling?"

"Some people regard it as far more so."

"Some people are very silly. There is no higher rank than that of a gentleman, Mr. Clifford."

He took off his hat, and said, laughingly: "I hope it is not presumption to imagine a slight personal bearing in your remark. At least, let me prove that I have some claim to the t.i.tle by seeing you safely home. Will you mount? Put your foot in my hand, and bear your whole weight upon it, and none upon the saddle."

"You don't know how heavy I am."

"No, but I know I can lift you. Try."

Without the least effort she found herself in the saddle. "How strong you are!" she said.

"Yes," he replied, laughing; "I developed my muscle, if not my brains, at college."

In a moment he vaulted lightly upon his horse, that reared proudly, but, at a word from his master, arched his neck and paced as quietly as Miss Hargrove's better-trained animal. Burt's laugh would have thawed Mrs.

Grundy's very self. He was so vital with youth and vigor, and his flow of spirits so irresistible, that Miss Hargrove found her own nerves tingling with pleasure. The episode was novel, unexpected, and promised so much for the future, that in her delightful excitement she cast conventionality to the winds, and yielded to his sportive mood. They had not gone a mile together before one would have thought they had been acquainted for years.

Burt's frank face was like the open page of a book, and the experienced society girl saw nothing in it but abounding good-nature, and an enjoyment as genuine as her own. She was on the alert for traces of provincialism and rusticity, but was agreeably disappointed at their absence. He certainly was unmarked, and, to her taste, unmarred, by the artificial mode of the day, but there was nothing under-bred in his manner or language. He rather fulfilled her ideal of the light-hearted student who had brought away the air of the university without being oppressed by its learning. She saw, with a curious little blending of pique and pleasure, that he was not in the least afraid of her, and that, while claiming to be simply a farmer, he unconsciously a.s.serted by every word and glance that he was her equal. She had the penetration to recognize from the start that she could not patronize him in the slightest degree, that he was as high-spirited as he was frank and easy in manner, and she could well imagine that his mirthful eyes would flash with anger on slight provocation. She had never met just such a type before, and every moment found her more and more interested and amused.

It must be admitted that his sensations kept pace with hers. Many had found Miss Hargrove's eyes singularly effective under ordinary circ.u.mstances, but now her mood gave them an unwonted l.u.s.tre and power.

Her color was high, her talk animated and piquant. Even an enemy, had she had one, would have been forced to admit that she was dazzlingly beautiful, and inflammable Burt could not be indifferent to her charms.

He knew that he was not, but complacently a.s.sured himself that he was a good judge in such matters.

Mr. Hargrove met them at the door, and his daughter laughingly told him of her mishap. She evidently reposed in him the utmost confidence. He justified it by meeting her in like spirit with her own, and he interpreted her unspoken wishes by so cordially pressing Burt to remain to dinner that he was almost constrained to yield. "You will be too late for your own evening meal," he said, "and your kindness to my daughter would be ill-requited, and our reputation for hospitality would suffer, should we let you depart without taking salt with us. After all, Mr.

Clifford, we are neighbors. Why should there be any formality?"

Burt was the last one to have any scruples on such grounds, and he resolved to have his "lark" out, as he mentally characterized it. Mr.

Hargrove had been something of a sportsman in his earlier days, and the young fellow's talk was as interesting to him as it had been to Miss Gertrude. Fred, her younger brother, was quite captivated, and elegant Mrs. Hargrove, like her daughter, watched in vain for mannerisms to criticise in the breezy youth. The evening was half gone before Burt galloped homeward, smiling broadly to himself at the adventure.

His absence had caused little remark in the family. It had been taken for granted that he was at Dr. Marvin's or the parsonage, for the young fellow was a great favorite with their pastor. When he entered the sitting-room, however, there was a suppressed excitement in his manner which suggested an unusual experience. He was not slow in relating all that had happened, for the thought had occurred to him that it might be good policy to awaken a little jealousy in Amy. In this effort he was obliged to admit to himself that he failed signally. Even Webb's searching eyes could not detect a trace of chagrin. She only seemed very much amused, and was laughingly profuse in her congratulations to Burt.

Moreover, she was genuinely interested in Miss Hargrove, and eager to make her acquaintance. "If she is as nice as you say, Burt," she concluded, "she would make a pleasant addition to our little excursions and pleasure parties. Perhaps she's old and bright enough to talk to Webb, and draw him out of his learned preoccupation," she added, with a shy glance toward the one who was growing too remote from her daily life.

Even his bronzed face flushed, but he said, with a laugh: "She is evidently much too bright for me, and would soon regard me as insufferably stupid. I have never found much favor with city dames, or with dames of any description, for that matter."

"So much the worse for the dames, then," she replied, with a piquant nod at him.

"Little sisters are apt to be partial judges--at least, one is," he said, smilingly, as he left the room. He walked out in the moonlight, thinking: "There was not a trace of jealousy in her face. Well, why should there be? Burt's perfect frankness was enough to prevent anything of the kind.

If there had been cause for jealousy, he would have been reticent.

Besides, Amy is too high-toned to yield readily to this vice, and Burt can never be such an idiot as to endanger his prospects."

A scheme, however, was maturing in Burt's busy brain that night, which he thought would be a master-stroke of policy. He was quite aware of the good impression that he had made on Miss Hargrove, and he determined that Amy's wishes should be carried out in a sufficient degree at least to prove to her that a city belle would not be wholly indifferent to his attentions. "I'll teach the coy little beauty that others are not so blind as she is, and I imagine that, with Miss Hargrove's aid, I can disturb her serenity a little before many weeks pa.s.s."

CHAPTER XL

MISS HARGROVE

But a few days elapsed before Mr. Clifford, with Burt, Maggie, and Amy, made the call which would naturally inaugurate an exchange of social visits. Mr. Hargrove was especially interested in the old gentleman, and they were at once deep in rural affairs. Maggie was a little reserved at first with Mrs. Hargrove, but the latter, with all her stateliness, was a zealous housekeeper, and so the two ladies were soon _en rapport._

The young people adjourned to the piazza, and their merry laughter and animated talk proved that if there had been any constraint it was vanis.h.i.+ng rapidly. Amy was naturally a little shy at first, but Miss Hargrove had the tact to put her guests immediately at ease. She proposed to have a good time during the remainder of the summer, and saw in Burt a means to that end, while she instinctively felt that she must propitiate Amy in order to accomplish her purpose. Therefore she was disposed to pay a little court to her on general principles. She had learned that the young girl was a ward of Mr. Clifford's. What Burt was to Amy she did not know, but was sure she could soon find out, and his manner had led to the belief that he was not a committed and acknowledged lover. She made no discoveries, however, for he was not one to display a real preference in public, and indeed, in accordance with his scheme, she received his most marked attentions. Amy also both baffled and interested her. She could not immediately accept of this genuine child of nature, whose very simplicity was puzzling. It might be the perfection of well-bred reserve, such complete art as to appear artless. Miss Hargrove had been in society too long to take anything impulsively on trust. Still, she was charmed with the young girl, and Amy was also genuinely pleased with her new acquaintance. Before they parted a horseback ride was arranged, at Burt's suggestion, for the next afternoon. This was followed by visits that soon lost all formality, boating on the river, other rides, drives, and excursions to points of interest throughout the region. Webb was occasionally led to partic.i.p.ate in these, but he usually had some excuse for remaining at home. He, also, was a new type to Miss Hargrove, "indigenous to the soil," she smilingly said to herself, "and a fine growth too. With his grave face and ways he makes a splendid contrast to his brother." She found him too reticent for good-fellows.h.i.+p, and he gave her the impression also that he knew too much about that which was remote from her life and interests. At the same time, with her riper experience, she speedily divined his secret, to which Amy was blind. "He could almost say his prayers to Amy," she thought, as she returned after an evening spent at the Cliffords', "and she doesn't know it."

With all his frankness, Burt's relations to Amy still baffled her. She sometimes thought she saw his eyes following the young girl with lover-like fondness, and she also thought that he was a little more p.r.o.nounced in his attentions to her in Amy's absence. Acquaintances.h.i.+p ripened into intimacy as plans matured under the waning suns of July, and the girls often spent the night together. Amy was soon beguiled into giving her brief, simple history, omitting, of course, all reference to Bart's pa.s.sionate declaration and his subsequent expectations. As far as she herself was concerned, she had no experiences of this character to relate, and her nature was much too fine to gossip about Burt. Miss Hargrove soon accepted Amy's perfect simplicity as a charming fact, and while the young girl had all the refinement and intelligence of her city friend, the absence of certain phases of experience made her companions.h.i.+p all the more fascinating and refres.h.i.+ng. It was seen that she had grown thus far in secluded and sheltered nooks, and the ignorance that resulted was like morning dew upon a flower. Of one thing her friend thought herself a.s.sured--Burt had never touched Amy's heart, and she was as unconscious of herself as of Webb's well-hidden devotion. The Clifford family interested Miss Gertrude exceedingly, and her innate goodness of heart was proved by the fact that she soon became a favorite with Mr. and Mrs. Clifford. She never came to the house without bringing flowers to the latter--not only beautiful exotics from the florists, but wreaths of clematis, bunches of meadow-rue from her rambles, and water-lilies and cardinal-flowers from boating excursions up the Moodna Creek--and the secluded invalid enjoyed her brilliant beauty and piquant ways as if she had been a rare flower herself.

Burt had entered on his scheme with the deepest interest and with confident expectations. As time pa.s.sed, however, he found that he could not pique Amy in the slightest degree; that she rather regarded his interest in Miss Hargrove as the most natural thing in the world, because she was so interesting. Therefore he at last just let himself drift, and was content with the fact that the summer was pa.s.sing delightfully. That Miss Hargrove's dark eyes sometimes quickened his pulse strangely did not trouble him; it had often been quickened before. When they were alone, and she sang to him in her rich contralto, and he, at her request, added his musical tenor, it seemed perfectly natural that he should bend over her toward the notes in a way that was not the result of near-sightedness.

Burt was amenable to other attractions than that of gravitation.