The Making of Mary Part 4

"You should ask Mary about her studies," was the severe reply. "We were much pleased with your letters."

"Yes, mawm; Sister Stella was always very good about that; helped me with the big words, and often wrote the whole thing out for me.

Sometimes I had to copy it two or three times before I could please her."

Belle hastily changed the subject. "Let Mr. Gemmell hear that piece you recited to me this morning."

I am no judge of elocution, but the general effect of the young girl standing there in the arch of the veranda, a clematis-wreathed post on either side, and her face, with its delicate coloring, turned toward the golden twilight, was pleasing in the extreme.

"She'll maybe be famous some day," said Belle, when Mary had discreetly retired. "She is far quicker at learning verses off by heart than she is at reading them."

"Still, to be a successful elocutionist nowadays one has to be thoroughly well educated, and Mary is too late in beginning."

"You can't tell. She's got the appearance, and that's half the battle."

"With us, perhaps; but remember, we are not capable critics, even though one of us is a Theosophist."

"Laugh as you like, Dave. Theosophy satisfies me, because it explains some things in my own nature that I never could understand before."

"It may be that you are too soon satisfied. That's the way with all new movements--one story is good till another is told. Your great-granddaughter will smile at the credulity of your ideas on this very subject."

"She can smile, and so can you. We don't pretend to know everything; we only hope that we are on the right road to learn. I, for one, am thankful to think that there are wiser heads than mine puzzling over the problem of our psychic powers. I've always taken impressions from inanimate objects, and it has bothered me. Now I find my sensations a.n.a.lyzed and cla.s.sified under the head of Psychometry, and it is a comfort to know that other people besides myself can discern an _aura_, and are foolishly wise enough to trust the impressions they receive in that way."

"But if I were you, I don't think I'd make a parlor entertainment out of the gift,--if it is a gift,--as I heard you did at the Wades' the other night."

"Who told you? What have you heard?"

"Newspaper men hear everything. You asked Mr. Saxon to hold his handkerchief pressed tightly in his hand for a few minutes, and then to give it to you. You shut your eyes as you held it, and received the impression of his 'aura,' or the atmosphere which surrounds him, or whatever you like to call it, and then the company asked you questions, and you gave him a great old character. He didn't like it a bit, nor did his wife, nor his mother-in-law. You'll make enemies for yourself if you don't watch out."

"It _was_ wrong of me to exercise my powers just to gratify idle curiosity. No good Theosophist would approve of it."

"Say, rather, 'no sensible person would.' The Theosophists haven't a monopoly of common sense. To me they appear slightly deficient in that article, but I dare say they make up for it in uncommon sense."

"You speak more wisely than you know," said Belle solemnly. "If I hadn't taken in some of the Brotherhood ideas I wonder where that pretty, innocent young girl would have been by this time. Would you like me to go back and be as I was in the old days, a rank materialist, caring for nothing but dress, dancing, and having a good time? You know you wouldn't, David. You know as well as I do that Theosophy has been the making of me, and through me it shall be the making of Mary too."

CHAPTER III.

TO the Scotchman or Englishman, with Loch Katrine or Windermere in his fond memory's eye, it is not surprising that the great lakes of America seem howling wildernesses of water, for the sh.o.r.es are mostly low and unpicturesque. There is no changing tide to give variety, no strong smell of seaweed nor salt breeze to brace the wearied nerves, but the wearied nerves are braced nevertheless. The sand is soft and clean to extend one's length upon, and the waves forever rolling up at one's feet are soothing in their monotony. There is no fear of the encroachment of the water, no fear of its leaving a bare mud-flat for nearly a mile; and the unlimited expanse of blue which meets the horizon satisfies the eye, which cares not if the land on the other side be hundreds or thousands of miles away, so long as it be out of sight.

Two young people one evening in July seemed to find Lake Michigan perfectly satisfactory in every respect. The girl sat on a log of driftwood, poking holes in the sand with the pointed toes of her shoes, much too fine for the purpose, while the young man stretched at her feet looked at her instead of the sunset they had come to admire. I could not help thinking what a pretty picture they made, as I strolled along the sh.o.r.e with my pipe, to get cooled off after a very hot day in town.

The family were all at Interlaken, but Margaret was left in Lake City to keep the gra.s.s watered, and to give me my midday dinner. I am unable to decide which occupation she considered the more important. It is not easy to get gra.s.s to grow with us, and anyone who can display a reasonably green patch in July and August gives evidence of considerable perseverance in the matter of lawn sprinkling. I told Margaret she would be ready to enter the Fire Brigade next winter, she was getting to be such an expert with the hose. But to return to the sh.o.r.e of Michigan.

The pair of lovers interested me so much that I gradually edged nearer to them. The species seldom objects to the proximity of a stout little man with a prosaic pipe in his mouth and a pair of light blue eyes, handicapped by spectacles, that seem always to be looking for a sail on the horizon. In fact, I never attract any attention anywhere, unless my wife is along, and then I am only too proud and happy to s.h.i.+ne in her reflection.

So I sat down on a piece of stump, worn white and smooth like a skeleton before being cast up by the waves; but when the two caught sight of me, the man sprang up and came toward me, holding out his hand, while the girl sauntered off in the other direction, and I saw that she was Mary Mason.

"h.e.l.lo, Link?" said I to the young fellow. "Didn't know you were down here."

"I'm at the hotel for a week or two. I've just been making the acquaintance of your adopted daughter."

"My what?"

"You have adopted her, haven't you?"

"Don't know that I have--hadn't considered the matter at all."

"She's a sweet girl, and a beauty too. Anyone would be proud to own her."

"You'd better let Dolly Martin hear you say that."

Abraham Lincoln Todd straightened himself up in the most independent bachelor style.

"She can look after me when we're married, but in the meantime I'm a free man."

He is considered very handsome, tall and dark, a good business man too, and Belle had quite approved of the engagement between him and Dolly Martin, who, though not a pretty girl, was strong and sensible, and the daughter of one of her oldest friends.

Lincoln must be taking advantage of his intimacy with our family to flirt with Mary Mason.

Interlaken is not a fas.h.i.+onable resort. Even the hotel is a homely abode, which the guests seem to run themselves, though they generally prefer to live outdoors and go inside only for meals and beds. Once in a while, on a chilly evening, the young people get up a dance, and some of us older folks are dragged into it too.

Scotchmen love to dance, and I am no exception. I am not up to waltzing or any of the newfangled round dances, but give me a Highland schottische, or a square dance, when there is an inventive genius to call off the figures and prescribe plenty of variety. There was no professional caller-off at Interlaken, but Lincoln Todd did duty for one as he danced. When he tired of it, and led off into a round of waltzes, ripples, jerseys, bon tons, rush polkas, and goodness knows what besides, I remained as a wall-flower.

The reason that I sat there was that I could not take my eyes off Mary Mason. Where she learned to dance I know not, but dance she did, with a grace and _abandon_ that made every other girl in the room a clod-hopper. Lincoln Todd was quite infatuated with her.

Ours is one of the dozen or so of cottages that radiate from the big hotel. Most of the cottagers take dinner and supper at the hotel, being, like ourselves, in a servantless condition. Belle said she could get along perfectly well without Margaret, when she had Mary Mason to help her with the housework, and, indeed, there was not much to be done. The four bedrooms open into one central room that we call the sitting-room, but it is only in wet weather it justifies the name, for, as a rule, we sit in rockers or swing in hammocks on the broad veranda that runs round three sides of the house. The cottages lie so close together that a good jumper can easily spring from one veranda to the next, and the lady proprietors gossip across, and the men too when they come down from business every evening, or from Sat.u.r.day till Monday. My lot is generally the shorter allowance, and one Sunday afternoon I lay in my favorite hammock on the north side of the veranda, sleeping the sleep of the brain-tired editor, till voices roused me.

"Mary, where did you get that new tennis racket?"

"Mr. Todd gave it to me."

"Haven't I told you distinctly that you were not even to take candy from Mr. Todd?"

"He gives things to you and Chrissie."

"That's a very different matter. Chrissie is a child, and he is an old friend of the family."

"I can't help it if he likes to give me presents."

"You can help taking them, especially from an engaged man."

"I don't care if he is engaged. He says he don't care anything at all about Miss Martin. He only went after her for her money. He likes me best, and he says he'll never marry her."

"Mary! I should think you'd know better than to make yourself so cheap.

You give Mr. Todd back that racket right away, and tell him Mrs. Gemmell said you were not to keep it, and the next time he brings you down flowers or chocolates you do the same."