66 La voici !" he shouted. Cécile sat up and rubbed her eyes. She was very stiff. Jacques strode toward her, and started to help her up. "We have been searching for you all night," he said. "How do you come to be here ?" "That is for me to ask you," said Cécile. "You are in Guérande at the salt fields, and, oh Jacques," as the thoughts of the night before swept over her, "you must not marry Elise, she will make you unhappy all your life." "What do you care about my unhappiness?" said Jacques, almost roughly. "You have told me once. But do not let us speak of that! I will take you to him. Can you walk ?" Cécile stood up. Your father is below. "Where is Elise ?" "How should I know ?" "If you are going to marry her you must know!" "I marry Elise! Impossible! I have not even seen her for weeks." "But the letter-your mother-" "I don't understand. I have never been going to marry Elise." "I am glad it is not true." 66 'Glad, Cécile, do you mean-" "Your mother is a very wise woman. She understands hearts, but she has made me suffer." "Are you going to answer my question now ?" "You may ask it," said Cécile. And the Virgin, who always sympathizes with her people, held the baby close in her arms as Cécile and Jacques walked down the hillside. CANDACE THURBER. SKETCHES IF If your name were Phyllida, Lovingly and sisterly We would laugh and live, Taking what the dawn of day And the dusk might give. We would have a garden green I weed out the sedge! Up against our damp green walls And a purple lilac tree, And a pink-bloomed peach. All the turtle-doves should come Cooing to our hand; All the wild bees poise and hum In our blossom-land. When the starshine pierced the boughs, And the thrush fell still, We would loiter hand in hand Up the dewy hill. Fairy men and fairy maids Fire-fly lantern, herald moth All the court of Fey. No elf-urchin should disturb; We should never meet One least, silly, timid snake Slipping past our feet. We would come to sleep at last, Lying side by side, With a star and thin new moon Hand in hand, and dream in dream, Till the yellow dawn, Till the thrush sang up again Past the hoary lawn. We would dream of nights and days Even as our own, If your name were Phyllida, And you called me Joan! Sister Betty has one chief fault. She is a girl. All the rest of her shortcomings may be put under this main head. In the first place it is because she is a girl, Remedied Retaliations that her influence over her father is so extraordinary, I guess, whereas, in the second, nothing could be more feminine than her view of horses. She considers them in no way beasts of burden, but pleasant rocking chairs to convey pretty ladies through the parks on shady days. It may seem a peculiar combination of characteristics to mention together, the fact that Betty can manipulate father so easily around her little finger, and that to her the horse is a noble beast, never by any chance to be ridden. out of a walk, yet it was just this combination which caused all the trouble. Betty came floating in to breakfast late one morning as usual. She kissed the top of father's bald head, which almost made him upset his coffee cup with his newspaper, but which distinctly gave him pleasure. Then she sat down, all pink silk, lace, and severity. She looked across the table at me sternly. "Jim," she said, "the black was covered with foam when you got in this morning. You'll ride that horse to death yet." "I suppose you'd like to let him out to kids at twenty-five cents an hour to walk half a block," I replied. She ignored this completely. "I looked out of the window on the drive-way and saw you come back," she remarked, paying no attention to her chop, but adjusting her elbow sleeves to a more becoming angle, "and I've never seen such a sight as the dear old black. He might just have come out of the wash-tub, for he looked as if he were covered with soap-suds. I think it's wicked." "Dear sister," I said, and yet, as I recall it my tone was not affectionate, "it is only with an effort that I find it possible to believe that you were wide enough awake when I returned to have any idea that I was doing so, much less to be able to judge of the condition of a sparrow, and far less of a horse." "James," said my father, lowering his paper and gazing at me with the electric sparks in his eyes which sometimes appear when he observes me under certain unpleasing circumstances, "pray don't consider that your going to college in the fall gives you the privilege of addressing your sister in any such way." "He'll kill that black yet, father," said Betty. "This isn't the first time I've spoken of it." For some reason I lacked that morning the peculiar, polite finesse of manner useful in dealing with one's family. Betty was too provokingly the elder sister in all that pink stuff, and father always does side with her, anyway. So I turned in my chair a little and laughed, contemplating them both with an easy air of ridicule, I must confess, as I slowly said, "Would to heaven it were the last time you'd speak of it." My father brought his hand down on the table with an air which he wears sometimes in the court room, when he says to a prisoner, "You are charged with selling liquor without a license. Ten dollars fine or thirty days' imprisonment.' His tone was just as calm, as judicial and impersonal. "Under the circum stances you will not ride the black for the present," he said. "Oh, father!" began Betty. "It will be better so, my dear," said father. Then I walked from that room without another look at either of them, and straight up to my den. I'm no child, and they It made me mad, and had better stop acting as if I was. besides, the black trots faster than any other horse in the country can gallop. I sat contemplating the wall-paper until my mind got all a blank. But after a while an idea came into it. It was when I heard Betty imparting over the phone the information that she'd be in that evening. "Yes, Dalton," she said, and the idea bloomed in my brain! Not that Dalton isn't an all-right fellow. He is that, and a whole sight nicer than some of the men that hang around the He house. Now he's often done some of my algebra for me, while he's been waiting for Betty. I've seen him play ball, too. never takes a base-ball field for a bowling alley, and don't you forget it. He is all right, but it had to be he, because Betty likes him better than any of the others, I think, and the idea was founded on the basic principle, as my Latin teacher says, of making Betty wish I had the black to ride, to give me something to do out of the house. It's one of father's It was That night I went out on the fire-escape. theories that we must have fire-escapes, so there are two, one on each side of the house, and they don't really disfigure it as much as you'd think, because they are all covered with vines and give something the effect of balconies. The one I was on opens from the window on the landing of the stairs. pitch dark in the hall. In New Jersey we don't light many. lights in the summer, that is to say, we don't welcome mosquitoes, even if they should come. I raised the screen, and then sat down on the fire-escape and waited. It was cool there, and not unpleasant. I had with me a heavy sofa cushion with a long silk ruffle, but I was not sitting on it, I had another purpose for it. I merely sat and thought. Father had gone off to play whist somewhere, and Betty was upstairs where she'd been putting the last touches to a fluffy toilette for about an hour. She and Dalton usually sit out on the porch, where there's a light with a red shade on it, which casts a gloomy radiance, admired by Betty. By and by I heard a step on the front porch. Now my voice is very like hers, and I thought I could risk one word, so as the step came nearer the door I said in as high a soprano as I could manage, "Dalton." Of course he walked right in. I reached my arm in the window, dragged the sofa cushion along the hard wood of the landing, where it made the silken swish which in romances indicates the approach of a lady, and then slid it down the stairs. It bumped down several, and then stopped heavily. The effect was better than I had hoped for. The darkness lent an indefinably pleasant horror. Dalton rushed forward. "Betty," he cried anxiously, "are you hurt ?” No answer. "Betty-dear-" then "Ah, my dearest," and he leaned over to pick up-the sofa cushion. After a speaking silence he addressed the stair-case. |