The S. W. F. Club Part 5

"We'd love to," Pauline answered heartily; "'cross lots, it's not so very far over here from the parsonage, and," she hesitated, "you--you'll be seeing Hilary quite often, while she's at The Maples, perhaps?"

"I hope so. Father's on the lookout for a horse and rig for me, and then she and I can have some drives together. She will know where to find the prettiest roads."

"Oh, she would enjoy that," Pauline said eagerly, and as she drove on, she turned more than once to glance back at the tall, slender figure crossing the field. s.h.i.+rley seemed to walk as if the mere act of walking were in itself a pleasure. Pauline thought she had never before known anyone who appeared so alive from head to foot.

"Go 'long, f.a.n.n.y!" she commanded; she was in a hurry to get home now, with her burden of news. It seemed to her as if she had been away a long while, so much had happened in the meantime.

At the parsonage gate, Pauline found Patience waiting for her. "You have taken your time, Paul Shaw!" the child said, climbing in beside her sister.

"f.a.n.n.y's time, you mean!"

"It hasn't come yet!" Patience said protestingly. "I went for the mail myself this afternoon, so I know!"

"Oh, well, perhaps it will to-morrow," Pauline answered, with so little of real concern in her voice, that Patience wondered. "Suppose you take f.a.n.n.y on to the barn. Mother's home, isn't she?"

Patience glanced at her sharply. "You've got something--particular--to tell mother! O Paul, please wait 'til I come. Is it about--"

"You're getting to look more like an interrogation point every day, Impatience!" Pauline told her, getting down from the gig.

Patience sniffed. "If n.o.body ever asked questions, n.o.body'd ever know anything!" she declared.

"Is mother home?" Pauline asked again.

"Who's asking things now!" Patience drew the reins up tightly and bouncing up and down on the carriage seat, called sharply--"Hi yi! Hi yi!"

It was the one method that never failed to rouse f.a.n.n.y's indignation, producing, for the moment, the desired effect; still, as Pauline said, it was hardly a proceeding that Hilary or she could adopt, or, least of all, their father.

As she trotted briskly off to the barn now, the very tilt of f.a.n.n.y's ears expressed injured dignity. Dignity was f.a.n.n.y's strong point; that, and the ability to cover less ground in an afternoon than any other horse in Winton. The small human being at the other end of those taut reins might have known she would have needed no urging barnwards.

"Maybe you don't like it," Patience observed, "but that makes no difference--'s long's it's for your good. You're a very unchristiany horse, f.a.n.n.y Shaw. And I'll 'hi yi' you every time I get a chance; so now go on."

However Patience was indoors in time to hear all but the very beginning of Pauline's story of her afternoon's experience. "I told you," she broke in, "that I saw a nice girl at church last Sunday--in Mrs.

Dobson's pew; and Mrs. Dobson kept looking at her out of the corner of her eyes all the tune, 'stead of paying attention to what father was saying; and Miranda says, ten to one. Sally Dobson comes out in--"

"That will do, Patience," her mother said, "if you are going to interrupt in this fas.h.i.+on, you must run away."

Patience subsided reluctantly, her blue eyes most expressive.

"Isn't it nice for Hilary, mother? Now she'll be contented to stay a week or two, don't you think?" Pauline said.

"I hope so, dear. Yes, it is very nice."

"She was looking better already, mother; brighter, you know."

"Mummy, is asking a perfectly necessary question 'interrupting'?'"

"Perhaps not, dear, if there is only one," smiled Mrs. Shaw.

"Mayn't I, please, go with Paul and Hilary when they go to call on that girl?"

"On whom, Patience?"

Patience wriggled impatiently; grown people were certainly very trying at times. "On Paul's and Hilary's new friend, mummy."

"Not the first time, Patience; possibly later--"

Patience shrugged. "By and by," she observed, addressing the room at large, "when Paul and Hilary are married, I'll be Miss Shaw! And then--" the thought appeared to give her considerable comfort.

"And maybe, Towser," she confided later, as the two sat together on the side porch, "maybe--some day--you and I'll go to call on them on our own account. I'm not sure it isn't your duty to call on those dogs--you lived here first, and I can't see why it isn't mine--to call on that girl. Father says, we should always hasten to welcome the stranger; and they sound dreadfully interesting."

Towser blinked a sleepy acquiescence. In spite of his years, he still followed blindly where Patience led, though the consequences were frequently disastrous.

It was the next afternoon that Pauline, reading in the garden, heard an eager little voice calling excitedly, "Paul, where are you! It's come!

It's come! I brought it up from the office myself!"

Pauline sprang up. "Here I am, Patience! Hurry!"

"Well, I like that!" Patience said, coming across the lawn. "Hurry!

Haven't I run every inch of the way home!" She waved the letter above her head--"'Miss Pauline A. Shaw!' It's type-written! O Paul, aren't you going to read it out here!"

For Pauline, catching the letter from her, had run into the house, crying--"Mother! O Mother Shaw!"

CHAPTER III

UNCLE PAUL'S ANSWER

"Mother! O mother, where are you!" Pauline cried, and on Mrs. Shaw's answering from her own room, she ran on up-stairs. "O Mother Shaw!

It's come at last!" she announced breathlessly.

"So I thought--when I heard Patience calling just now. Pauline, dear, try not to be too disappointed if--"

"You open it, mother--please! Now it's really come, I'm--afraid to."

Pauline held out her letter.

"No, dear, it is addressed to you," Mrs. Shaw answered quietly.

And Pauline, a good deal sobered by the gravity with which her mother had received the news, sat down on the wide window seat, near her mother's chair, tearing open the envelope. As she spread out the heavy businesslike sheet of paper within, a small folded enclosure fell from it into her lap.

"Oh, mother!" Pauline caught up the narrow blue slip. She had never received a check from anyone before. "Mother! listen!" and she read aloud, "'Pay to the order of Miss Pauline A. Shaw, the sum of twenty-five dollars.'"

Twenty-five dollars! One ought to be able to do a good deal with twenty-five dollars!

"Goodness me!" Patience exclaimed. She had followed her sister up-stairs, after a discreet interval, curling herself up un.o.btrusively in a big chair just inside the doorway. "Can you do what you like with it, Paul?"

But Pauline was bending over the letter, a bright spot of color on each cheek. Presently, she handed it to her mother. "I wish--I'd never written to him! Read it, mother!"