Nobody Part 33

"He doesn't know that," said Lenox, laughing. "I will tell you, Miss Lothrop--if I can. A Puritan is a person so much better than the ordinary run of mortals, that she is not afraid to let Nature and Solitude speak to her--dares to look roses in the face, in fact;--has no charity for the crooked ways of the world or for the people entangled in them; a person who can bear truth and has no need of falsehood, and who is thereby lifted above the mult.i.tudes of this world's population, and stands as it were alone."

"I'll report that speech to Julia," said Tom, laughing.

"But that is not what a 'Puritan' generally means, is it?" said Lois.

They both laughed now at the quain't simplicity with which this was spoken.

"That is what it _is_," Tom answered.

"I do not think the term is complimentary," Lois went on, shaking her head, "however Mr. Lenox's explanation may be. Isn't it ten o'clock?"

"Near eleven."

"Then I must go in."

The two gentlemen accompanied her, making themselves very pleasant by the way. Lenox asked her about flowers; and Tom, who was some thing of a naturalist, told her about mosses and lichens, more than she knew; and the walk was too short for Lois. But on reaching the hotel she went straight to her own room and stayed there. So also after dinner, which of course brought her to the company, she went back to her solitude and her work. She must write home, she said. Yet writing was not Lois's sole reason for shutting herself up.

She would keep herself out of the way, she reasoned. Probably this company of city people with city tastes would not stay long at Appledore; while they were there she had better be seen as little as possible. For she felt that the sight of Tom Caruthers' handsome face had been a pleasure; and she felt--and what woman does not?--that there is a certain very sweet charm in being liked, independently of the question how much you like in return. And Lois knew, though she hardly in her modesty acknowledged it to herself, that Mr. Caruthers liked her. Eyes and smiles and manner showed it; she could not mistake it; nay, engaged man though he was, Mr. Lenox liked her too. She did not quite understand him or his manner; with the keen intuition of a true woman she felt vaguely what she did not clearly discern, and was not sure of the colour of his liking, as she was sure of Tom's. Tom's--it might not be deep, but it was true, and it was pleasant; and Lois remembered her promise to her grandmother. She even, when her letter was done, took out her Bible and opened it at that well-known place in 2nd Corinthians; "Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers"--and she looked hard at the familiar words. Then, said Lois to herself, it is best to keep at a distance from temptation. For these people were unbelievers. They could not understand one word of Christian hope or joy, if she spoke them. What had she and they in common?

Yet Lois drew rather a long breath once or twice in the course of her meditations. These "unbelievers" were so pleasant. Yes, it was an undoubted fact; they were pleasant people to be with and to talk to.

They might not think with her, or comprehend her even, in the great questions of life and duty; in the lesser matters of everyday experience they were well versed. They understood the world and the things in the world, and the men; and they were skilled and deft and graceful in the arts of society. Lois knew no young men,--nor old, for that matter,--who were, as gentlemen, as social companions, to be compared with these and others their a.s.sociates in graces of person and manner, and interest of conversation. She went over again and again in memory the interview and the talk of that morning; and not without a secret thrill of gratification, although also not without a vague half perception of something in Mr. Lenox's manner that she could not quite read and did not quite trust. What did he mean? He was Miss Caruthers'

property; how came he to busy himself at all with her own insignificant self? Lois was too innocent to guess; at the same time too finely gifted as a woman to be entirely hoodwinked. She rose at last with a third little sigh, as she concluded that her best way was to keep as well away as she could from this pleasant companions.h.i.+p.

But she could not stay in-doors. For once in her life she was at Appledore; she must not miss her chance. The afternoon was half gone; the house all still; probably everybody was in his room, and she could slip out safely. She went down on soft feet; she found n.o.body on the piazza, not a creature in sight; she was glad; and yet, she would not have been sorry to see Tom Caruthers' genial face, which was always so very genial towards her. Inconsistent!--but who is not inconsistent?

Lois thought herself free, and had half descended the steps from the verandah, when she heard a voice and her own name. She paused and looked round.

"Miss Lothrop!--are you going for a walk? may I come with you?"--and therewith emerged the form of Miss Julia from the house. "Are you going for a walk? will you let me go along?"

"Certainly," said Lois.

"I am regularly cast away here," said the young lady, joining her. "I don't know what to do with myself. _Is_ there anything to do or to see in this place?"

"I think so. Plenty."

"Then do show me what you have found. Where are you going?"

"I am going down to the sh.o.r.e somewhere. I have only begun to find things yet; but I never in my life saw a place where there was so much to find."

"What, pray? I cannot imagine. I see a little wild bit of ground, and that is all I see; except the sea beating on the rocks. It is the forlornest place of amus.e.m.e.nt I ever heard of in my life!"

"Are you fond of flowers, Miss Caruthers?"

"Flowers? No, not very. O, I like them to dress a dinner table, or to make rooms look pretty, of course; but I am not what you call 'fond' of them. That means, loving to dig in the dirt, don't it?"

Lois presently stooped and gathered a flower or two.

"Did yon ever see such lovely white violets?" she said; "and is not that eyebright delicate, with its edging of colour? There are quant.i.ties of flowers here. And have you noticed how deep and rich the colours are? No, you have not been here long enough perhaps; but they are finer than any I ever saw of their kinds."

"What do you find down at the sh.o.r.e?" said Miss Caruthers, looking very disparagingly at the slight beauties in Lois's fingers. "There are no flowers there, I suppose?"

"I can hardly get away from the sh.o.r.e, every time I go to it," said Lois. "O, I have only begun to explore yet. Over on that end of Appledore there are the old remains of a village, where the people used to live, once upon a time. I want to go and see that, but I haven't got there yet. Now take care of your footing, Miss Caruthers--"

They descended the rocks to one of the small coves of the island. Out of sight now of all save rocks and sea and the tiny bottom of the cove filled with mud and sand. Even the low bushes which grow so thick on Appledore were out of sight, huckleberry and bayberry and others; the wildness and solitude of the spot were perfect. Miss Caruthers found a dry seat on a rock. Lois began to look carefully about in the mud and sand.

"What are you looking for?" her companion asked, somewhat scornfully.

"Anything I can find!"

"What can you find in that mud?"

"_This_ is gravel, where I am looking now."

"Well, what is in the gravel?"

"I don't know," said Lois, in the dreamy tone of rapt enjoyment. "I don't know yet. Plenty of broken sh.e.l.ls."

"Broken sh.e.l.ls!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the other. "Are you collecting broken sh.e.l.ls?"

"Look," said Lois, coming to her and displaying her palm full of sea treasures. "See the colours of those bits of sh.e.l.l--that's a bit of a mussel; and that is a piece of a snail sh.e.l.l, I think; and aren't those little stones lovely?"

"That is because they are wet!" said the other in disgust. "They will be nothing when they are dry."

Lois laughed and went back to her search; and Miss Julia waited awhile with impatience for some change in the programme.

"Do you enjoy this, Miss Lothrop?"

"Very much! More than I can in any way tell you!" cried Lois, stopping and turning to look at her questioner. Her face answered for her; it was all flushed and bright with delight and the spirit of discovery; a pretty creature indeed she looked as she stood there on the wet gravel of the cove; but her face lost brightness for a moment, as Lois discerned Tom's head above the herbs and gra.s.ses that bordered the bank above the cove. Julia saw the change, and then the cause of it.

"Tom!" said she, "what brought you here?"

"What brought you, I suppose," said Mr. Tom, springing down the bank.

"Miss Lothrop, what can you be doing?" Pa.s.sing his sister he went to the other girl's side. And now there were _two_ searching and peering into the mud and gravel which the tide had left wet and bare; and Miss Caruthers, sitting on a rock a little above them, looked on; much marvelling at the follies men will be guilty of when a pretty face draws them on.

"Tom--Tom!--what do you expect to find?" she cried after awhile. But Tom was too busy to heed her. And then appeared Mr. Lenox upon the scene.

"You too!" said Miss Caruthers. "Now you have only to go down into the mud like the others and complete the situation. Look at Tom! Poking about to see if he can find a whole snail sh.e.l.l in the wet stuff there.

Look at him! George, a brother is the most vexatious thing to take care of in the world. Look at Tom!"

Mr. Lenox did, with an amused expression of feature.

"Bad job, Julia," he said.

"It is in one way, but it isn't in another, for I am not going to be baffled. He shall not make a fool of himself with that girl."

"She isn't a fool."

"What then?" said Julia sharply.

"Nothing. I was only thinking of the materials upon which your judgment is made up."