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Grace Livingston Hill

• Herausgeber: Classica Libris
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

When Alan Monteith decides to help a friend in need by delivering a bottle of medicine to a sick woman, he never imagined being stranded in a blizzard. And he never imagined climbing a mountain on foot. But when his car breaks down in front of the Devereaux’s home, that’s just what he ends up doing. Daryl Devereaux was looking forward to a peaceful holiday until Alan Monteith arrives. As the young stranger and her brother trudge into the storm, Daryl is left to pray for their safe return, never realizing that night will change their lives forever.

Leseprobe

Grace Livingston Hill

THE SUBSTITUTE GUEST

Copyright

First published in 1936

Copyright © 2018 Classica Libris

Chapter 1

Late 1920s

Eastern United States

It was the day before Christmas, and it had been snowing hard all day.

They began in the early morning, shortly after seven, large feathery flakes sliding down as if they were only playing. They soon grew larger, swirling fantastically, like children holding hands, chasing one another through a fairy world, now this way now that, whimsically, with no regular meter or rhythm.

In just no time at all the ground was covered, and then the snow settled down to business, imperceptibly changing into fine stinging grains, slanting down with swift, accelerated measure, beating into every crack and cranny, packing firmly into an impenetrable mass. The wind rose gradually, drifting the falling particles into solid walls of stubborn whiteness. Before noon it became apparent that the intention was something more than just a winter snowstorm.

Children came rollicking out with their sleds, bundled in bright scarlet or green or blue, reveling in the snow, shouting to one another with muted voices that seemed amazingly to have lost their resonance, deadened in this strange, padded atmosphere. Until even their young ardor was baffled by the increasingly bitter cold and the pitiless slant of whiteness that shut them from one another, and one by one they drifted from a suddenly frightening world, into the warmth and brightness of the fireside, to careful mothers who kissed their little cold wet faces, dried their smarting wrists, and folded them in warm garments with comforting embrace.

But the snow went steadily on.

Alan Monteith drove into the first of the storm, wending his way between the largest of the lazy flakes, a bit thrilled at the thought of snow for Christmas. He was still young enough to thrill over snow.

Not that Christmas meant so much to him anymore. Christmas was a home day, and his family was all gone except a married sister who was touring Europe on her wedding trip. Christmas didn’t seem like Christmas in an apartment hotel with only a city office for change. Oh, of course he had friends, and there were plenty of social engagements. He was on his way to one now—a colossal house party in a fabulously expensive home on a vast estate ninety miles or so away. But it didn’t suit Christmas, not in the least, not his inherited traditional Christmas. There would be excitement and hilarity; there would be amusement and a wealth of unique variety. There would be luxury of eating and drinking and apparel, but it would not be Christmas, not real Christmas.

Still, there would be Demeter Cass! Would that make up for the lack of a real Christmas? Demeter with her hair like ripe wheat, her strange sea-green eyes under long golden lashes, and her red, red lips. There was a lure of mystery about Demeter. It was not merely the beauty of the flesh either. She had intellect and an uncanny insight into men’s minds. Was she psychic? A siren without doubt. Yet, couldn’t she be tamed? There was thrill and lure in the thought of taming a beautiful creature like Demeter, sophisticated to the last degree. But could one ever hope to build up a happy future around a girl like Demeter? A future that would have in it an old-fashioned Christmas somewhere? Or were Christmases, the kind that used to be when he was a child, gone forever?

He wove his way among the city traffic skillfully, where late Christmas shoppers were even so early in the morning thronging the streets for a last frantic dash after forgotten gifts. He stopped in front of an office building, parked his car hurriedly, and took the elevator up to the tenth floor, walking down the marble corridor to a door that bore in gold letters the inscription: MALCOLM SARGENT, M.D.

He marched in, past the white-gowned nurse who presided at a desk to guard the noted doctor, greeted her pleasantly, and tapped at the inner door like one privileged.

“Doctor alone?” he asked the nurse casually.

“Yes. It isn’t quite time yet for patients.” She smiled. “And he’s expecting you.”

Monteith was one of the favored few who walked in at all hours and found a welcome.

The door was opened almost instantly.

“Well, you are prompt!” said Dr. Sargent cordially. “Did you get it through all right?”

“Of course!” said Alan. “Didn’t I tell you I would?”

He settled down into the chair offered and pulled out an official-looking envelope from his inner pocket, handing it over to his friend.

“Well, I am relieved!” said the doctor. “When I heard about that uncle on his way back from California who had to sign to make it legal, I thought my plans were all up! Did he get here in time, or what did they do?”

“He arrived yesterday afternoon and was tickled to death to sign. Pleased as punch that they got their price. I tried to get you on the phone to relieve your mind last night but couldn’t. But say, what was the great rush? You’re surely not expecting to move into a new house for Christmas, are you?”

The doctor smiled as he took the document out of the envelope and looked at it delightedly as if it were a treasure long desired.

“Not move in,” he said happily, “but I’m expecting to put this deed in Natalie’s stocking Christmas morning. It’s her Christmas gift. You see, she’s been keen on this house for about two years now, always wanting to drive by it, always saying she would like to build one just like it if we ever got wealthy enough to do it. She hasn’t an idea, either, that it was even for sale, so it will be a complete surprise. A real Christmas gift!”

“Some Christmas gift!” said Monteith with a bit of a sigh and a wistful look in his eyes. “Any woman ought to be contented with that!”

“Well, I know she’ll be delighted,” said the doctor with satisfaction, touching the envelope again as if the mere handling of it gave him delight. “You see,” he went on, “it isn’t as if I were giving her something I wasn’t sure about. She went through the house when they had some club committee meeting there and she raved about it for days afterward, telling me of this and that advantage it had over any other house she’d ever seen.

“Well, Alan, I’m all kinds of grateful to you for getting this deal through before Christmas. It’s going to make my Christmas perfect. You know, being able to hand over the actual deed to an article instead of just telling about it makes all the difference in the world. And besides, I wanted to have something special this year. It’s our tenth anniversary this month. Ten years since we were married and went to live in a four-room cottage on Maple Street! This year means a lot to me!”

“Well, I certainly was glad to be able to help,” said Alan. “Christmas isn’t what it used to be for me. All my folks are gone, you know.”

“I know,” said the doctor sympathetically. “Natalie and I were speaking about it the other day. You were just a kid in college when we were married. If we were only going to be at home we would want to have you with us. But Natalie’s people wanted us to come to them this year. They are still living at the old farm, and I don’t suppose they’ll keep it much longer now. They’re getting too old to stay alone so far away from everywhere. I imagine they’ll come and live with us, now that we have a real house.”

There was a ring in the doctor’s voice as if the anticipation was a pleasant one.

“You’re fond of them, aren’t you?” said Alan wistfully.

“I certainly am,” said the doctor heartily. “They’ve been all the father and mother I ever knew, you know. Mine died when I was too small to remember.”

“It must be great to feel like that about them!” said Alan, trying to speak cheerfully. “You’re leaving soon?”

“Yes, I have just two patients to see after my office hours and I’m taking the noon train. It will get me there a little before midnight. Just in time to fill the stockings. Father will be down with his car to meet me. Natalie and the children have been there for a week. Maybe I haven’t had a hard time arranging things here so I could leave! It seems all the doctors want to get away for Christmas this year. But I’ve got it fixed at last. I wired Natalie last night I was coming. And now having this deed to take along is going to make my Christmas perfect!”

Suddenly the telephone interrupted.

“Just a minute, Alan.” The doctor turned with an annoyed glance and took down the receiver.

Alan watched the keen, sensitive face as the doctor listened.

“Yes! Yes?” His tone growing sharper. “You say she is worse? Broken? What is broken? Oh, the bottle of medicine I brought you last night? You don’t say! That’s bad! Wasn’t there any of it saved? Not even a few drops? What a pity!”

The doctor’s voice had grown exceedingly grave.

“What’s that? Do without it? No! Not on any account! I would not answer for the consequences if you tried that. But isn’t there any of the first bottle left? It wasn’t quite gone when I was there yesterday. Let me speak to the nurse a moment. Hello! Hello! Is that you, nurse? How is the patient? Yes? Yes? Temperature? No! Not on any account. She must have the medicine! How much have you left? Let’s see! That would carry you through till six o’clock! Well, isn’t there someone there you could trust to come down and get it? I don’t see how I could possibly come up. I’m leaving on the noon train, and my man is off on a three-day vacation. Just left. No, you couldn’t get that at the ordinary drugstore, it’s not a common drug. You say you haven’t even a servant to send? Oh, not one who can drive. Where’s the chauffeur? Gone on his vacation, too, has he? That’s bad! Well, I’ll see what I can do. I’ll try to get somebody to go, or I’ll come myself. Yes, you can depend on having it by six o’clock. What do you say? Snowing? Oh, well, I’ll find somebody to come.”

The doctor hung up the receiver and turned dazed, hurt eyes on his friend, the radiant look all gone from his face.

“Now can you beat that?” he said blankly. “I ask you, can you beat it? Everything all planned to go off on the noon train, even that deed here in time, and now this has to happen. I might have known things were going too slick to last. They let a fool pet dog get into the sick room where my patient is desperately ill, and he jumps up on the bed and backs against the bedside table and knocks off a bottle of very important medicine that I took the trouble to go all the way up into the mountains to take to them last night so they would have enough to last while I am away. Isn’t that the limit? And it is absolutely necessary that medicine not be interrupted. They have only enough left from the first bottle to last till six o’clock. And of course I won’t be able to hire anybody for love or money to take some more to them, not today! Not the day before Christmas!”

“Well, but surely you can hire a messenger boy,” said Alan.

“It’s seventy miles away, man, and up a mountain! How would a messenger boy on a bicycle make out? They say it’s snowing up there, too. And the woman is in a critical condition. There isn’t a chance for her life if she doesn’t get the medicine in time. I couldn’t expect anybody I hired to realize that, or care enough to carry them through difficulties.

“The woman is one of my best patients. Why they ever went up to that forsaken place at this time of year is more than I can tell, but her daughter is married and lives up there and they went to visit her three weeks ago. Then Mrs. Watt was taken sick. They let her get pretty sick before they sent for me last Wednesday. They thought she was dying, and the local doctor wasn’t sure what was the matter with her. I’ve been up three times since, was up yesterday evening, got back at two o’clock this morning. It’s some jaunt. I went up to see if it was safe to leave her, and now I suppose instead of carrying out my Christmas plans I’ve got to go up again. That’s what it is to be a doctor! Have to disappoint Natalie and the kids! But I wouldn’t feel happy in my mind if I didn’t go. You can’t trust just everybody with an errand like that, the day before Christmas. Well, perhaps I’ll get back in time to take the midnight train, and reach the farm about ten tomorrow morning.”

He touched the bell on his desk and the nurse appeared capably at the door.

“Miss Rice, prepare another bottle of that prescription I took up yesterday to Mrs. Watt. They’ve broken that one. Put it in one of those foolproof boxes so they can’t break it again. And then get Western Union and wire Mrs. Sargent that I can’t get the noon train. I’ll try to make the midnight if possible.”

“Wait, Mac,” said Alan Monteith, springing up eagerly, “don’t send the message to Natalie! Why can’t I take that medicine for you? I’ll swear on my life that I’ll deliver it in good order before six o’clock. I’ll take it as a sacred trust. I guess you can rely on me, can’t you?”

“Rely? Well, I rather guess yes, but I couldn’t think of letting you upset your plans for this. It’s just all in the day’s work for me, and you were on your way somewhere, I know. I wouldn’t have you go out of your way for anything. No, Alan, it will be all right. Really it will. I’ll get there before the day is over, and that’s all they can expect of a doctor.”

“Look here, Mac. I’ll take it hard if you refuse me. I don’t care a cent for the fool house party I’m going to. It’s the only excuse for a holiday that presented itself, and I wasn’t at all sure I was going until a few minutes before I started.”

“But I can’t have you bearing my burdens and upsetting your plans. There’s probably at least one lady involved in the case who will never forgive you. No, Alan, I can’t have you going off on a trip for me, traveling miles out of your way.”

“There is no lady involved who has a right to care, and I don’t in the least mind a trip. And how do you know it is so far out of my way? Where is it, anyway? Show me!”

Alan pulled out a map from his overcoat pocket and they both bent over it.

“Why, it’s practically on my way!” said the young lawyer, straightening up. “Of course I’ll take that medicine, and you needn’t worry a minute. Get it ready for me, Miss Rice, and I’ll start right away. There is no reason in the world why I shouldn’t have it there early in the afternoon.”

“I’ll have it wrapped in five minutes, Mr. Monteith,” said Miss Rice crisply. Then to the doctor: “Mr. Patterson is waiting, Dr. Sargent.”

“Send him right in!” said the doctor. Then he turned to Alan.

“I’ll never forget this of you, Alan. It’s an even bigger thing than getting the deal through in time, for Natalie had counted so on my coming Christmas Eve. I just know I shouldn’t let you do this, but somehow I can’t resist it. You’re sure you are not spoiling some delightful plan?”

“Not in the least! I haven’t any delightful plans, I told you. I’m not so keen on this party and don’t care when I arrive there. And I’d go twice as far to have you spend the whole of this Christmas with Natalie and the children. I’m glad to have a part in it.”

“Well,” said the doctor, with a suddenly grave face, “you’re having a part in something far more important than that, you know. You’re helping to save a life. I’m serious about that. It is a matter of life and death with my patient. And I may as well tell you the truth about it: there’s scarcely another man I know I would trust at Christmastime to take an important matter like this over. Especially with a snowstorm coming on. Almost anybody would say, ‘Oh, well, I’ve done my best. A few hours won’t matter.’ But I know you will put a thing like this first. Of course, I don’t anticipate any such necessity. I imagine this is only a flurry of snow. However, I’d take all precautions. Have you got chains on your car?”

Alan laughed.

“Oh, that’s not necessary, Mac, it’s only snowing a few lazy flakes. It won’t amount to anything. Just a flurry to give us a white Christmas. The sun will probably come out by noon and melt it off. Anyway, I don’t like chains. I always say if you are careful you make out better without them.”

“I don’t know, Alan. Up there in the mountains the storms come up in a hurry sometimes. Better take your chains along.”

“Well, I can easily get some on the way, if I see it is starting to drift. Goodbye. Give my regards to Natalie.”

There was a quick handclasp, then Alan took the package of medicine and left.

“Remember you are to spend next Christmas with us!” the doctor called and then turned to his patient and closed the door.

Out of the city traffic at last Alan Monteith whirled away into a really white world, for the snow seemed to have been very industrious during his brief stay in the doctor’s office. The ground was already covered with a fine white blanket, and the flakes were settling down with a steady plunk, though still large and frolicsome.

The car dashed briskly on into it. Alan had the road mostly to himself and flew along into the whiteness with a kind of exultant thrill. It was nice to have it snowing. It seemed more like Christmas. How he used to love it when he was a kid!

His thoughts sped on ahead to the Christmas that was before him. So different from the Christmases of the past.

Would Demeter Cass be as alluring as he had found her the two or three times that he had met her? Would there be a sweeter human side to her, perhaps, that he had not learned yet, as well as the worldly side with which she had dazzled him?

He acknowledged to himself that she was his real reason for having accepted the invitation. He had wanted to come into closer contact with her and find out if her charm was real or only superficial. And perhaps he recognized also in a vague way that Demeter had been at the bottom of his invitation, for the people who were giving the house party were only casual acquaintances of his.

Thinking about Demeter Cass, recalling the exact shade of her strange fascinating eyes under those long golden lashes, eyes that were neither blue nor green nor gray but yet had lights of all those colors that she seemed to be able to turn on at will, he drove on through the whiteness and straight past the sign that would have directed him into the way his errand called him. For someone the night before had run into that sign and snapped off the pole that held it, and it was lying facedown on the ground entirely snowed over. There was not a sign of even the broken stump of the pole.

On he swept up the mountainside, and out a wide road that would have overlooked a valley if the air had not been so filled with whiteness that the valley was obliterated.

After he had gone up and up the gradual ascent, he noticed that there were very few dwellings now, only long stretches of woodland well blanketed with snow. The silence all around him was almost appalling. One could imagine he heard the snowflakes whispering. At first he had been engrossed with thoughts, but presently he began to grow uneasy. The silence was almost sinister. He had not been watching the mileage but it seemed a long time since he had seen a route sign. Surely he would soon come to a road branching off to the left as he had been directed! Was it possible he had missed it? His windshield wiper was working away but keeping only a small space of clear vision ahead.

When at last he emerged from the woods and looked across the world it seemed made of great mountains of snow, with an atmosphere of feathers everywhere. There was no sign of the sun coming to pierce the thickness of it and guide him on his way, and the road seemed too narrow to turn around. He must go on.

At last he came to a sign, a crude, weather beaten affair, capped and veiled in snow. He got out, wiped the snow off, and peering close managed to make out the name of a town of which he had never heard, announced to be fourteen miles away.

He stumbled back into his car to study his map, but could not find the town mentioned on the sign.

The road was narrow here, with an abrupt, sheer descent off to the left. He dared not try to turn around here or to back down the mountain in this weather. He must go on until he came to a crossroad or a service station. What a fool he had been not to take the doctor’s suggestion and get his chains before leaving the city! He had a strong conviction that he had missed his turn and was now going in the opposite direction from his destination. If the house party were his only goal it didn’t matter what time he got there, nor if he ever arrived perhaps, but that medicine must get to the patient as soon as possible and set the family at rest about it! Yet he must run no risks.

About two miles farther on, he came to a house with a gasoline pump in the front. There seemed to be nothing else in sight, but the snow was so dense it was impossible to tell whether there were more dwellings.

The desolate old man who came out to wait on him informed him that he had no chains to fit his car, no chains to fit any car, and only three gallons of gasoline left, with no likelihood of any more arriving today.

Alan took two of the gallons of gasoline, which was all the old man would sell him. He said someone might come along without any, and one gallon would take him to the next service pump.

The old man, however, could tell him where he was, and gave him very clear directions how to find his turn when he reached the foot of the mountain.

He had come forty miles out of his way! Forty miles to retrace before he could make any progress! The whole expedition took on a serious aspect. However, what was forty miles? He could at least turn around here.

So he turned and went slowly down the mountain, going cautiously, for the visibility was even worse than when he had come up. The snow had subdued itself into finer grains, but a wind had come up and the road was drifted in places so that the car wallowed and rocked as it crept on. Alan realized that he had something far more important to attend to than strangely changing green-gray eyes under golden lashes. This was a serious journey and a determined storm. Life and death hung upon his arriving, and he must press on as cautiously as possible.

It seemed hours that he was creeping down that mountain, watching the gauge anxiously to see if he was going to have gas enough to get to the next service station, but at last he came to the foot and recognized under its burden of snow the old tumbled-down shanty that marked the crossing where he was to turn. He drew a breath of relief, glanced at the clock on his dashboard and plunged into the new road. The next filling station was four or five miles from this turn, the old man had said. Could he make it on so little gas? There was nothing to do but go on as long as it lasted.

At last he recognized a pump ahead and a village street with houses.

It was half past two when he left the brief shelter of that filling station, and still with no chains, wallowed on.

It was half past three when at last he reached the village of Collamer to which he had been told to come to get directions for the house on the mountainside where the medicine was needed.

Chains? Yes, they had chains here. They had oil and water and gasoline and air and advice. They advised him by no means to attempt to climb that mountain today. They told him of a drift between the village and the regular mountain road that made it impassable. They said the only possible way was to go on twenty miles and return by another road that took the back way up to the mountain home which was his destination. Of course even that road might be closed by now! They wouldn’t go if they were in his place.

Alan shut his lips grimly and said it was a matter of life and death and he was going. So they put on his chains for him and shook their heads after him before they turned to succor the next floundering car.

It was more than a mile out of sight of the village that the engine suddenly coughed and sent out a series of weird rappings, clack, clack, clack! An alarming sound in the white stillness, with that garage so far away and the snow in many places now almost two feet deep. How on earth had so much snow fallen in so short a day?

In dismay Alan drove on, but the clacking grew louder and more insistent, and suddenly with a great pounding sound that seemed to echo Alan’s groan, the car stopped short with an awful shudder like something that had suddenly died, and slumped in its tracks.

Alan looked around him. A perfect mountain of snow rose on both sides and ahead of him. The steady, persistent fall of the snow was slantwise now, in little fine even lines, impenetrable as if they were opaque. Now and again a gust of wild wind would snap at the snow, and toss it hither and yon, clearing a space here and there for a second, and flinging blinding whiteness in great eddies.

With a sinking heart he looked around him, wondering if he would have to go on foot all the way back to that garage to get help. He was no mechanic, and if he had been, no one could work on a car in that blinding storm and cold. It would have to be towed back to the garage for repairs probably. If there were only some place he could go to telephone for a man to come and get him! He must get on with that medicine. It was quarter to four now, and at six the medicine would be needed. Death would be waiting to snatch its victim, the woman whom he had pledged his honor to save!

He opened the car door and stepped out into the depth of snow, trying to peer around. There was a house on his left. He could make out the outline of a long low roof capped deeply with snow, an old farmhouse. Lights! There were lights in the house. Colored lights! A Christmas tree! His heart leaped up with joy. People who had a lighted Christmas tree might have a telephone. But first perhaps he would look at his engine and get a general idea of what might be the mater.

He wallowed forward and lifted the hood, peering helplessly down as the snow gleefully hurried inside, but his inexperienced eyes could not tell what might have happened. Neither his expensive education nor his inherited legal mind could help him in this predicament. He closed the hood quickly and turned toward the house. He was suddenly aware that his shoes were wet, and the snow was inside them, making quick work with his ankles and feet, and that the wind was icy and biting. His hands were already numb with cold, for he had foolishly taken off his gloves when he looked at the engine. How quickly cold could get in its work, even through an imported overcoat! How cruelly the snow stung his face and tangled in his lashes so he could not see.

But the house was there, and he was headed toward it. There must be a front walk somewhere, though his uncertain feet could not find it, but with head down against the wind he struggled on, and now as he ventured to look up again he saw the door ahead, and a girl’s face pressed close to the snow-rimmed window, looking out.

The wind tore the breath from him as he groped toward the door, but then just as he came blunderingly up to the porch the door was opened and a strong arm reached out and pulled him into sudden warmth and light and cheer! It seemed like stepping out of horror into paradise!

Chapter 2

The Devereaux family had been up since before dawn.

Of course dawn in December did not break early, but it seemed exceedingly early to them all, they were so filled with excitement, almost as if all four of them, father, mother, son, and daughter, were just four children.

It was to be a special Christmas, the first since the children had finished college and come home to stay, the parents fondly supposed. They were all thrilled with the joy of it. Not even a sullen sky, which the day reluctantly parted to let in a somber gloom, could dampen their ardor.

“It looks as if it were going to snow!” said Father Devereaux hopefully as he wound the warm woolen muffler over his ears and around his throat, and buttoned his big coat to the chin.

“It sure does!” echoed Lance, stamping his feet into his galoshes and stooping to fasten them. “It wouldn’t seem like a real Christmas without snow!”

“Wouldn’t it be just perfect to have a white Christmas!” flashed Daryl. “Oh, suppose it should snow enough for sledding! How grand that would be!”

“It may,” said the father with another glance at the drabness out the window. “A few flakes can do a good deal in twenty-four hours if they really get down to business. And that sky looks like business, or I miss my guess!”

“Well, you’d better get going then,” admonished Mother Devereaux. “It will be a lot easier lugging a big tree home before the snow gets started. A blinding snowstorm doesn’t make pleasant traveling.”

“Oh, we’ll get home before that, Mother!” the son said, laughing. “We’re only going up on Pine Ridge. It’s not so far.”

“Oh, that’s good,” said the mother, drawing a sigh of relief. “Your father said you might be going up on the far mountain.”

“That was only in case we don’t find the right tree on Pine Ridge, Mother,” said the father, twinkling. “Daryl has given her specifications for height and width and we’re not coming back till we can fill them.” He gave a loving smile toward the daughter.

“Yes,” said the son, “we’re going to have the swellest tree we can find. But don’t you worry. I’m sure there are plenty of trees on Pine Ridge. I’ve had my eye on one ever since fall, if some other fellow hasn’t beaten me to it. But if we should be late don’t you worry. We’re going to be tasty in our selection.”

He gave his mother a resounding kiss as he took the package of sandwiches she gave him and stuffed them in his pocket. “We ought to be back in good shape around noon, or maybe before.”

They started out into the penetrating gloom, and the two women stood at the door and watched them away, then turned back to the bright kitchen and attacked the mountain of work they had planned for the day.

“Well,” said the mother briskly, “we can get a lot of work done with our men out of the way and be ready to enjoy them when they get back. You do the breakfast dishes, Daryl, while I mix up the doughnuts, and then you can fry them while I roll out the crust for the pies. I think we ought to have plenty of pies, don’t you? Young folks always like pies.” She drew a deep breath and set her lips firmly in a pleasant line. “Will mince and pumpkin be enough or would you think an apple pie would be good to have on hand, too? In this weather they keep indefinitely, of course.”

If her daughter had been watching her closely she might have sensed that there was something a bit forced in the very pleasantness of her smile, as she brought out the memory that there were to be guests before the day was over. But Daryl was absorbed in her own thoughts. There were starry points of happiness in her sweet eyes as she lifted them to meet her mother’s.

“Mince and pumpkin will be plenty, I’m sure,” she answered. “Don’t the new curtains in the living room look beautiful from here!”

She stood in the dining room door looking across toward the living room windows, and her mother came to stand beside her for an instant, feeling the thrill of joy at the sweet companionship of the day.

“Yes,” she assented. “They are lovely and sheer. I was afraid they were going to look cheap, but they don’t. I like the way you’ve looped them back with just that broad band of the fabric; and that spray of holly nestling in gives the right festive touch. The mantel looks lovely, too, with that bank of holly and laurel. Why, Lance laid the fire in the fireplace, didn’t he? I don’t see when he had time.”

“He did that while I was pouring his coffee,” the sister said with a laugh. “He didn’t intend to have anything weighing on his conscience to keep him back when he is ready to go to the village for Ruth Lattimer.”

The mother smiled indulgently. There was nothing troubling in the thought of Ruth. She was a dear girl whom they all knew and loved. It was going to be nice to have Ruth with them. But then the shadow crept into her eyes again as she hurried back to the kitchen to do her mixing.

The two flew around at their work in a pleasant silence until Daryl had the dishes marshaled into the kitchen and was making short work of them. The fat was beginning to sizzle in the kettle, the dough was lying in a soft, puffy mass on the molding board, and a bright cutter was forming it into rings ready for frying.

Daryl hung up her dish towel, carried the pile of plates and cups to the pantry, and came over to test a bit of the dough to see if the fat was hot enough for the frying.

The mother looked up and smiled, with that little pool of worry back in the depths of her brown eyes. She thought the smile covered the worry, but it hovered out in her voice, too, as she spoke.

“What time is Mr. Warner coming?” There was something formal in her voice, and the girl felt it and looked up.

“Why won’t you call him Harold, Mother? He wants you to. You don’t need to hold him at arm’s length that way.”

The mother flushed.

“Well, I can’t seem to get used to it. I’ve seen him so little,” she apologized quickly. “You know in my day people didn’t call each other by their first names until they were well acquainted. But what time is he coming? Will it be before lunch? I don’t think you told me.”

“Oh, no,” said the girl, “he has to stay in the office till noon, and then it’s quite a drive.”

“Driving, is he? I didn’t know he had a car.”

“No, he hasn’t, but the company is lending him one. At least he had one for his work, and he said they wouldn’t care if he used it on off days.”

There was a silence for a moment while the mother considered this.

“I wouldn’t think it would be wise to do that without asking,” she said, speaking her thoughts aloud, and then wishing she hadn’t. “Suppose something should happen to it while he had it out for pleasure.”

“Why, he’ll probably ask, of course,” said Daryl a bit loftily. Then after a brief tense silence: “You don’t like him, do you, Mother?” Her voice was brittle, reproachful, as if the edge of her joy had suddenly broken off.

“Why! I never said that, Daryl!” said the mother quickly, shocked at being suspected in her innermost soul. “Why child! What have I done that should make you think that? I don’t really know him well enough to be sure whether I like him or not. I’m sure I never suggested such a thing as that I didn’t like him.”

“No, but you don’t!” said Daryl, with tears in her voice. “I felt it the minute you first looked at him. I’ve felt it both times he was here. And I can’t understand it! Everybody likes him! Simply everybody! And he’s so good-looking!” Her voice was almost a sob.

“Yes, he’s good-looking,” admitted Mrs. Devereaux, “he’s very good-looking. Perhaps that’s the trouble. He’s almost too good-looking to be true!” She tried to turn it off with a laugh, for after all she mustn’t say anything she would have to live down, but her voice faltered, and the depths of trouble shone out clearly from her eyes.

“Now, Mother!” said Daryl in a vexed tone, her own eyes suddenly filling and making them look like great blue lakes. “You would find something to worry about in that. The very idea of you not liking Harold because he is too good-looking. How perfectly silly!”

“I know,” said the mother, turning her troubled gaze on her child again, “it wasn’t that, of course. It was just that I love you so, dear child, and I want to be sure your friends are—all right!”

“But why shouldn’t he be all right? What is there about him, Mother, that made you think he wasn’t?”

“Nothing!” said her mother, feeling the look of trouble and indignation in her girl’s eyes, “nothing whatever! I just felt as if he wasn’t—quite—our kind!”

“What do you mean, our kind?” flashed the girl, on the defensive at once.

“Well—I don’t know—” said Mrs. Devereaux. “I rather got the idea, I guess, from some things he said when he was talking with Father, that he was out in social life a lot, and that his business threw him among a rather fast lot of men. Daryl, he doesn’t drink, does he?”

The girl’s face flushed suddenly red, and a flash almost of fear went shivering through the blue of her eyes.

“Why no, of course not!” she said haughtily. “At least, I know he has taken it occasionally out at a dinner or somewhere that he thought he had to, but he doesn’t care for it at all, and he never accepts it when he is out with me!” she added proudly. “He just doesn’t order it. He says I’ve been very good for him, Mother! You needn’t be in the least afraid of anything like that. He understands perfectly how I feel about drinking, and he says it’s nothing to him at all, whether he drinks or whether he doesn’t drink! He says that he never wants to do anything to worry me.”

A misty look came into Daryl’s eyes as she remembered the look in the young man’s eyes when he had told her this.

The mother watched her, more fearful than ever, yet saw and understood that misty look, too, and felt for her child again.

“Dear Father in heaven! Grant that it may be so!” her heart breathed.

“Oh, Mother! You are just spoiling this perfectly wonderful Christmastime!” Daryl suddenly said with a quiver of her young lips.

“There now, child! Put this all away!” the mother said quickly. “You got it all up out of whole cloth! And of course I’ll like him if he’s all right. And of course he’s all right or you wouldn’t like him. I’ll be very fond of him when I know him better. Don’t I always like your friends? And besides, why make such a fuss about it? You’re not engaged to him or anything, not yet anyway! You’re just friends!”

“Yes, of course,” said Daryl, relief beginning to overspread her face, “just friends!” But there was a twinkle in the corner of her mouth where a dimple lurked.

“But awfully good friends!” she added with the starry look coming back into her eyes.

“Yes, of course!” said the mother, suddenly drawing her girl into her arms and smothering a sigh in her sweet young neck as she kissed her cheek tenderly.

And just at that moment the fat got itself ready to boil over, and the experimental doughnut came to the top as black as a doughnut could possibly be. The ensuing rescue diverted the conversation for the time being, and when calm had been restored the two loving women dared not broach the subject again.

Daryl, at least, forgot it, and her joy bubbled over in song now and again as she sifted powdered sugar over the big platter of beautifully brown crisp doughnuts, while she cleaned the fine old family silver, and got out the best long tablecloth to look it over for possible breaks, counted out the napkins, and arranged everything in order in the sideboard so that the dinner tomorrow would be assembled with the least possible effort. And now and again she would drop into the living room for a minute to ripple out some notes on the piano, and trill a bit of a song, some favorite of her mother’s or a snatch of something she had learned out in the world. It was all one joyous Christmas medley of happiness, and the wonderful Christmas wasn’t spoiled after all.

So Daryl went back to the kitchen to assist in the solemn ceremony of stuffing the big turkey. It was the one that Father had raised with such care, until it almost seemed a part of the family.

As they worked they planned out what things should be done at what hours so that the necessary work in the kitchen should not hinder the joy and good fellowship in the living room.