Lotta Embury's Career

CHAPTER ONE

THE PEOPLE LOTTA KNEW

WHEN you opened the Emburys' front door and stepped into the living–room, the first thing you noticed was the sweet smell of apples. All houses have their odors; not merely their fleeting odors, but those that remain and welcome the returning wanderer in a way that stirs his deepest memories.

The Emburys' brown–shingled, story–and–a–half cottage, with its sloping roof, stood in the midst of as fine an apple orchard as could be found in Iowa. Furthermore, in the white–washed cellar were bins upon bins of apples. Oddly, too, the Emburys themselves were in a way suggestive of apples. Lotta and her father might easily remind you of fine red–cheeked Baldwin. Mrs. Embury and her sister, Miss Summerville, — Aunt Cathy, Lotta called her, — might, if you were imaginative, remind you of pale, golden bell–flowers. The Emburys were wholesome, simple, village–bred people of pioneer descent, who had come out from New England, and who took naturally to orchards and gardens.

Not that Paul Embury, Lotta's father, dreamed of going back to the farm. He was content with his life in the little village of Maitland, to which he had come as a fatherless boy to make a way for himself. The only hardware store in the town belonged to him. With its low, attractive building, its faded awnings, and its benches before the door, it looked as inviting as an inn. Mrs. Embury frequently brought her sewing and sat in the store in the low rocking–chair that her husband kept there for her.

From the rear door of the shop a path ran through a lot where the Embury cow grazed, and then ambled on through a part of the orchard, under the apple trees and up to the summer kitchen of the Embury house. So direct was the path that Mr. Embury had only to put his nose out of the shop to learn — if the wind was in the right direction — what was cooking for dinner. It was pretty sure to be something good, for Mrs. Embury and her sister had won a well–deserved reputation all over the county for their special receipts and their excellent cooking.

In their quiet way, the Emburys enjoyed life; the youngest, Carlotta, or Lotta as she was called, enjoyed it superlatively. She was the only child, and she was loved out of proportion to her merits, as she would have been the first to say. It sometimes seemed to her as if every one were working for her, thinking of her, and sacrificing for her. In return, she gave all she could in the way of love and service; but she was handicapped by the embarrassing fact that she could not seem to do much more than merely to attend to her own affairs.

She realized that fact on the day before the last of the summer term of school, when she learned that she had finished her examinations with credit, and so had completed in a satisfactory manner her second year at high school. She had been distrustful of her French and English, and had compelled her family to worry with her over the result. And so, with the good news fairly jumping out of her mouth, she ran hatless down the street, carrying her new green silk parasol unopened in her hand.

"Oh, my goodness!" said her mother to her aunt. "Here comes Lotta running down the street in the sun! What do you suppose can be the matter with the child?"

"In this heat, too!" cried Catherine Summerville, "How foolish! Besides, she's getting too grown up to run like that. It is n't proper. She's taller than I am this minute."

"She would n't have to be very tall for that," said Jenny Lind Embury, looking at her little elder sister, as the two worked together on the shaded side porch, where the breeze blew in pleasantly. Lotta's aunt was ironing the dress of India lawn that Lotta was to wear the following day at the school exercises, and her mother was beating up the frosting, inch thick and firm, that was to lie on the ceremonial cake.

"I have my marks," Lotta called before she was within the gate, "and they're ripping!"

"But why did n't you walk home?" asked her mother, rejoicing at the good news, but intent on her reproof. "We could have waited five minutes for the news. Anyway, you should have put up your parasol."

"`Ripping' conveys nothing to my mind," said her aunt severely, although her eyes were shining with satisfaction. "In my day we had good marks and bad marks, but not 'ripping' marks."

"Oh, you frauds! Don't you think I can see through you? I should say they were ripping. Ninety–two in physiology, ninety–four in history, eighty–two in French, eighty–six in English, and" — she paused for dramatic effect — "one hundred in mathematics."

"No!" cried Aunt Cathy.

"Very good, indeed," said Mrs. Embury, still pretending to be calm.

"Ripping!" insisted Lotta, and she bounded up the steps to hug first one and then the other, and threw herself down in a wicker chair.

"But your violin," said her aunt. "Why did n't you bring that home with you? You might have practiced a bit this noon."

"No, I could n't, dear," said Lotta. "I'm too tired and hot."

Then she took in for the first time the tasks upon which they were engaged.

"Me talking about being hot! she cried. "I'm not so hot as either of you at this minute. You're both slaving for me as usual. Why don't you leave something for me to do once in a while? I could n't have made a cake like that, but I might have ironed the dress."

Cathy Summerville turned a hurt look on her niece as she held up the diaphanous frock, pressed without crease.

"Do you mean to say that you could have done a piece of ironing like that? If you can, you've hidden your talent, Carlotta."

Lotta laughed easily.

"Vain thing," she said affectionately, as she brushed by her aunt and went into the house.

She had a secret fear that luncheon might have been forgotten in the performance of more interesting tasks, and this was the day of all days when she wished to eat quickly and hasten back to school; but the sight of the old walnut table in the shaded dining room reassured her. She saw the fresh raspberries in the green glass dish, the milk, the rich butter, the cold chicken, the golden drop cookies; and she thought what a lucky girl she was to be surrounded with so much love and bounty. It was all home produce — that good food. Those two women working for her out on the porch had supplied it.

She was glad she was Lotta Embury; glad she had just the particular, identical home that she had; glad that her own father and mother and aunt had fallen to her share. She often told them that if she had picked them out of all the fathers, mothers, and aunts in the world, she could have done no better. She loved her school, loved the sweet summer weather; loved to be herself. She hoped nothing would change, at least not for a long, long time.

When she came out from her room, ready for her last afternoon's work at school, she saw her new frock pinned to the screen that stood before the living–room door. Aunt Cathy had taken every stitch in it with her magic needle; and now she had brought out the flowered ribbons that were to be worn with it, and had tossed them over the dress to try the effect of the soft–hued roses above the drifting white. From her place at the luncheon table, Lotta could see the dress swaying in the breeze.

"What a pity you have your back to it!" she said to her aunt. "Don't you want to change seats?"

But her aunt did not answer. She was staring down at her plate in the brooding way she sometimes had. It exasperated Lotta. She hit on her glass with her spoon.

"Breakfast time! Wake up, Aunt Cathy!"

But the next moment she was ashamed. The eyes that her aunt had lifted to her own had tears in them. "Don't tease, dear," said her aunt, wearily.

Lotta darted an inquiring look at her mother. Was her aunt ill? Oddly enough, her mother avoided her gaze, and that was not at all pleasant. Why would people act like that when everything was going just as it should? There must be some secret they were keeping from her. She was glad to see her father walking along the path through the orchard. He was a few moments late; some customer had kept him, no doubt. Lotta's mind went on a little excursion as she watched him coming on with his down–right tread; his loose linen garments fluttered about him as he walked, and his broad hat with its green lining shaded his face. She thought how the front door to the shop would be looking, with its pasteboard sign dangling from the latch to inform all passers–by that the master had gone to dinner, but would be back soon.

Paul Embury was a cheerful man; he usually came in noisily and seated himself with much joking about what was on the table — or what was not on it; but to–day he said little. He sat down rather heavily, and looked at the tempting food as if he had no inclination for it.

"Oh dear!" thought Lotta. "Something really is the matter!"

She had to be excused from the table, for the noon recess was brief; and then, as she stood a little apart looking at the three faces that made up the best part of her world, she became convinced that there was some sort of shadow over them. She put her hand on her father's shoulder.

"You're keeping something from me," she said, reproachfully. "There is something troubling all of you, and you're not telling me. That is n't fair."

Mr. Embury stirred uneasily. The women looked at their plates.

"Go along to school, Lotta," said her father, after a moment's uncomfortable silence. "You'll be late, and break your record. There's no trouble — not what you could rightly call trouble. Go along to school."

He looked at her affectionately, seeming both to promise and to withhold something. She knew she must go, and kissing him on the forehead, sped away.

Her aunt sat where she could watch the green parasol fluttering down the street. Then a sob escaped her. Her brother–in–law turned on her sharply.

"If you feel so bad about it," he asked, "why didn't you leave things as they were ?"

Cathy Summerville looked at him through her tears. "I wasn't thinking of myself when I made the plan," she said, sadly, "or of you, Paul, or of Jenny Lind."

"Of course she wasn't," agreed Mrs. Embury. "She was thinking of Lotta, Paul, and you know it. We all want to do what's best for her."

Mr. Embury pushed back his chair.

"I'm glad you feel perfectly sure that you know what's best for her!" he muttered. "I'm not so sure myself."

"Paul!" cried his sister–in–law. "With her talent!"

Lotta's father found his hat, and looked down into its green lining.

"Talent?" he repeated, slowly. "Yes, she's talented, no doubt. Every one says so. But what's the use of letting a talent break up a home? We've been so happy here, Cathy, and now you've spoiled it all. It will never be the same again — never."

"Now's the time to train Lotta if she's ever to be trained," Cathy said. "You don't want her to grow up to be like—" She let her sentence hang in the air, and fixed a sad gaze on her brother–in–law.

"Like?" he questioned.

"Like me," she ended, bitterly.

"Might do worse, might n't she, Jenny?" said Paul Embury in his old hearty manner.

He left the house. The women were upset, he said to himself, as he went through his shop to take the weather–beaten placard off the front door. But to his astonishment it was not there. For the first time in years he had forgotten to inform an anxious public that he had gone to dinner, but would soon be back.

"Tush!" he said, in disgust. He opened his ledger, but he did not work. It was only at the cottage that the Embury industry was in evidence that afternoon. The two sisters were working furiously, unwilling to give themselves time to think.

As for Lotta, she was wondering and wondering, and finding it very hard indeed to fix her mind on the theme that she was expected to finish that afternoon. She looked over at her best friend, Polly Root, who, grave, concentrated, and well–pleased to be set a hard task, was as alert as if this were the first of the term instead of the fagging, tedious last of it. She wanted to talk to Polly — wanted to walk straight across the room, and say, "Come out into the grove. Let's be free for once. Let's do what we please. I've got to talk."

But she had to keep to her work. Three o'clock came, and she had not finished.

"Better stay, Carlotta," said Mr. Root, the superintendent of the school — and incidentally the father of Polly. "Never mind if you are tired. We're all tired, I feel sure. Finish up your work, and go home with a clear conscience."

So Lotta settled down to the theme. Later, when she left the schoolhouse and wondered why the interest seemed to have departed from everything, she found Polly waiting for her on the bench beside the door. "You're to come right home with me," said Polly, "and have something to eat. Mother said I was to bring you. She knew you'd be starved. She says she does n't see why father keeps any one when the weather 's so warm.

"Almost vacation," Polly went on, happily, slipping her arm through that of her friend, "and then what fun we'll have! Roland will be home in a few days, too. He wants mother to take us all on a camping trip."

"Really?" cried Lotta. "Do you think she will? And does that include me?"

Polly laughed teasingly.

"Of whom do you suppose brother was thinking if not you? He could see father and mother and me at home, could n't he? He thinks you're the best camper he ever knew. There's mother waving to us. You can telephone home and let them know where you are. We're to eat in the garden. Oh, I 'm so glad summer has come, and that we can eat in the garden! Don't you love to eat out of doors? Does n't it make you feel care free?"

Polly, with her gentle face, her blue eyes, and long honey–colored braids, looked like a proper, home–keeping maiden, but Lotta was quite aware that her friend had her gypsy moods — wild ones they were, too, sometimes. The drowsing afternoon hour went by in a dream of warmth, and flowers and confidences, and was, for some reason which neither of the girls could have made plain, always to remain happily in their memories.

Lotta had always thought that Polly was beautiful, but she was sure of it the following afternoon when, toiling up three flights of stairs to the assembly room for the last–day exercises, she saw Polly at the head of the stairs, in her blue–flowered lawn, with pale blue ribbons about her charming head. She was waiting for Lotta, of course, — she seemed to spend much of her time waiting for Lotta, — and she drew her away from her father and mother and her Aunt Summerville, and took her up to the seats occupied by the class.

Every one was excited, and gay, and restless, and those who were to take part in the exercises were tremulous of lips and inclined to tap the floor with impatient feet. Only Lotta was calm. And that was partly because she was confident. Had not Mr. Rand, her instructor, told her that she was as nearly perfect as he could hope any pupil to be in the violin solo that she was to play? Did not every one look to her to put the cap upon the entertainment? Did she not herself, amiably and innocently, think that her solo would be the best event of the evening?

It was natural enough, therefore, that when her turn came she should go forward without fear. She stood calmly before the audience, lifted her little brown violin to her shoulder, and with all the good will in the world played for them Dvorák's "Humoresque."

But as she played, the face of her beloved friend Polly, instead of brightening, became rather serious. Polly looked about the audience, and was gratified to see every one intent upon the player, and apparently pleased with what she was doing. Polly blushed unseen — blushed because she thought that Lotta was not doing justice to the composition or to herself. After all, there was great satisfaction in feeling that Lotta never would forget what she had learned, that she would not suffer from stage fright, and that she could be trusted to go on in that vigorous, good–natured way to the end of the piece.

And yet once at a concert in Chicago, Polly had heard a great musician play that music, and as he played she had seemed to hear elfish laughter and fairy glee. She had closed her eyes, and a vision had come of little brown creatures dashing from a grove, whirling about on the sun–baked grass, chuckling in their wicked wee throats, and then scampering again into the wood. Tree toads and squirrels had answered them; birds had taunted them; they had accepted the challenge, flung out again into the ring, had danced, and called, and shouted, and then were off again, and the delicate staccato echo of their voices had died away.

Was that the same piece that her dearest Lotta was playing? What was the matter, anyway? But how pleased the people were! It showed not only in the applause they gave her then, but in all the warm compliments that Polly heard them paying her later, when the cake and lemonade were being passed. Polly fluttered about Lotta to listen to what was said, and to try to be as glad as she ought to be at her friend's triumph.

Lotta's arms were filled with flowers, which she would not resign to her father, who had to content himself with walking beside her. He had not been permitted to carry the violin, either. Aunt Cathy — who had sold her mother's watch and diamond brooch to buy it — undertook the responsibility of that. Aunt Cathy looked worn, as if with the burden of Lotta's triumph and the secret she held. She kept it back until the evening, and then, when Mr. and Mrs. Embury and Lotta were all together on the porch with her, she felt that the great moment had arrived.

"There's something to be told you to-night, Lotta," she began. "Something that you're not to feel bad about, even if it does seem a little upsetting at first, because it's really a splendid thing for you, no matter how it may look just at first."

"I've been feeling the storm in the air for two days," said Lotta, moving a little closer to her father and slipping her hand into his. "Let it burst, Aunt Cathy."

"It's no storm. It's merely that it has been decided that you are to — to go to Chicago, my dear, to study the violin."

The words were simple enough, but they seemed to quiver upon the air. No one spoke. Paul Embury's hand tightened upon his daughter's.

"Mr. Rand," Aunt Cathy continued, "says he can teach you nothing more." Her voice trembled with pride and excitement. "He recommends me to take you to the great Herr Gunnar Heegard, the famous Danish violinist. He can teach you as much as any one in Europe."

"And not go back to school?" cried Lotta. "Why, I'm only half through high school!"

"It would be all very well for you to spend your time in high school, Lotta," said her mother gently, and almost as if she were repeating a lesson she had learned, "if it were not for your talent."

"That is it, Lotta," said her aunt. "To have a talent is to have something sacred. Suppose you did put in two years more on mathematics and history. What good would it do you or any one else? You would soon forget them. But if you cultivate your talent, what you learn will stay with you always."

"But lessons with that violinist will be terribly expensive," protested Lotta.

"I have sold a piece of my orchard land. Your father could n't spare any of his, of course, because it is needed for the family living. But I could spare mine—"

"I don't know whether you could or not," broke in Paul Embury. "My own idea is that you've been very foolish."

"Oh, I'm afraid you have, Aunt Cathy!" cried Lotta, rising and standing by the porch pillar. "And then I don't want to leave home. Never mind about my talent, please. It will take care of itself."

"It won't — it can't!" declared Catherine Summerville, shrilly. "Had n't I talent in my girlhood? But no one helped me — no one. They held me back, and all my power left me, and now I'm what you see, Lotta, a little plain old maid with no accomplishments. That would n't matter if I were happy, but I'm not happy, for I can't get over my regrets. There's a kind of shame takes hold of me when I realize that I have n't made the most of the gifts God gave me. I suffer from that shame Lotta, and shall as long as I live. And that's what I want to save you from, can't you understand?"

Her voice broke in a sob.

"Oh, don't, Aunt Cathy!" Lotta cried, in distress. "I'll do anything you want me to do. To think of your selling the orchard! She ought n't to have done it, ought she, father?"

"Don't ask him!" pleaded Aunt Cathy. "He thinks only of keeping you with him. He may not believe it, but it's harder for me to part with you than it is for him to do it — or your mother, either," she added, with an anguished defiance. "O Lotta, go, go! Study as hard as you can, and bring credit to all of us. Become what I might have been if only I'd had my chance! You see, I'm giving the chance to you, Lotta. If you want to repay me for what I've done, make a great musician of yourself. Say you will!"

Lotta wondered why her parents did not speak. She could hear her mother sobbing very softly; her father was silent. She kissed her Aunt Catherine full upon the mouth.

"I will try my best," she said. Then she hurried to her room.

CHAPTER TWO

AUNT CATHY HAS HER WAY

IT was long before Lotta slept that night. She lay on her bed on the little porch, listening to the sounds of the night and watching the stars through the vines.

So she was to leave home and go to the city to study the violin, because a talent was something sacred, something for which sacrifices were to be made. The idea weighed upon her as if it had been a blanket of sorrow. Fighting against the stifled feeling at her throat, she sat up and brushed back her hair with nervous hands. Nor was it alone the idea of leaving home that distressed her. She could not keep out of her mind the thought of the endless labor that was before her. Visions arose before her of the long hours when, restless, eager for talking, walking, playing, she must keep to her bow and her instrument. How tired she was of those words: "supple wrist!" It sometimes seemed to her that her aunt attached more importance to a supple wrist than she did to a trained mind. She felt her indignation growing within her, and wanted to argue the question out with some one. So she was gratified when a glimpse of white fluttering at the doorway caught her eye.

"Mother!" she called.

"No, it's Aunt Cathy." Aunt Cathy moved forward, and sank into a low chair near Lotta's cot.

"Can't you sleep, either?" whispered Lotta. "But no wonder; it's been such an exciting day."

"It has been an exciting day," her aunt admitted. "But many of my days are exciting."

"Why, Aunt Cathy, I don't see how."

She thought of the patient, monotonous days of her aunt's life, of her quiet pleasures — the having of a few neighbors in to tea, the little journeys to the country to visit old school friends.

"It is n't always what you do that makes life exciting," returned her aunt. "It's the inner life that really matters."

"Is it?" asked Lotta, vaguely.

"Oh, yes," said her aunt, with an earnestness that made Lotta wonder. "You can't tell by looking at the outside of a person what is going on in the mind, my dear. To me my life always has been exciting."

She rose to close the door and window, in order that her whispered tones might not reach the sleepers within. When she returned, she drew her chair closer to her niece and bent forward, with her small hands clasped in her lap. "You see," she said, "I began by having a great belief in myself. For I, too, had a talent — a talent for singing."

"For singing?" gasped Lotta. "Why, Aunt Cathy, I don't believe I ever so much as heard you hum a tune."

"No, you never did, Lotta. And that's my story—that's what I want to tell you about—how I could sing once, and how for years I never, never have."

"Oh!" Lotta piled her pillows against the wall, in order that she might listen better. Her aunt, wrapped in her white robe, looked strange and weird. Her voice, constrained and tense, was strange, too.

"I was only a very little girl," she said, "when I first began to sing in public. Every one thought that I would make a great singer some day. Then when I was about fourteen, Mrs. Harrington, who was a concert singer, asked me to travel with her, and at last my parents permitted me to go. Mrs. Harrington gave concerts for churches and for charity, and took a part of the proceeds, and my songs filled in the intermissions between hers. She taught me every day, too, and read to me from the lives of musicians. I was just beginning to understand something of what a musician's life meant when my little sister, your mother, was born, and I was called home because my mother was broken down in health and needed me. I was only a child, but I had to come home and take a big responsibility on my shoulders. If there was drudgery to be done, the daughter of the house must do it. It was her duty. That ended the matter."

Lotta drew in her breath. She had no idea her aunt could use such bitter accents.

"I baked and scrubbed and sewed and waited on mother. I was so tired at night that my feet ached. I never so much as went to district school after that, or was given any sort of lesson. If it had n't been that your mother was such a dear little baby, I don't know how I could have stood it. It was I who named her Jenny Lind, for the great singer. I taught her to talk and walk, and she was more my child in some ways than she was mother's."

Her voice had grown more natural; for a moment she swayed back and forth in her chair. Then she went on:

"And then, when I was about nineteen, a man fell in love with me. He was a traveling salesman who came here every few weeks and whom I used to meet at the church sociables and the picnics. He was light–hearted and fond of joking, and the sober neighbors hereabouts didn't approve of him, though they liked him. My parents would n't consent to our marriage. He wanted me to marry him anyway, but I couldn't. Mother wasn 't strong, and Jenny Lind and I loved each other so! He waited for me three years; then he married some one else."

Lotta said nothing. After a moment Aunt Cathy resumed: "His wife is a sweet woman, they say, and I hear that they are happy. After a time he was taken into the firm for which he had been a salesman, and now he is prosperous. He became just the sort of man my parents would have liked; but they could n 't allow for his youth, Lotta."

"O Aunt Cathy!" sighed Lotta, almost impatiently. "Should n't you have decided for yourself? Was n't it wrong to give up like that? But of course I can see it was hard, having to choose between your people and — and him. Still—"

"If mother had n't been so delicate, perhaps—" Aunt Cathy let the words trail into silence. Then she took up her story again:

"After father and mother died, I was left with a little money, and then I began to study singing. I asked for a place in the choir, and was given it."

"That was nice."

"No, it was n 't. It was terrible!"

"How could it be terrible?"

"Because my voice was gone. It was n't a singing voice at all, and I did n 't realize it; but I kept on singing, while the people were secretly laughing at me—"

"O Aunt Cathy, I don't believe they were."

"Oh, yes, they were, Lotta. I learned all about it afterward, and how they talked over the best way of getting rid of me. You see, the choir fell off steadily, and I could n't imagine why. Then one day I overheard a conversation — and I found out."

"You poor darling!"

"So then I broke right off. I left town, and studied nursing in Dubuque, but it almost broke me down. I was n't strong enough, and I had no call for it. And then, just as I thought I could n 't go on any longer, your mother married Paul Embury, and they invited me to live with them. I did n't think it fair to them, but I was desperate by that time, and so I accepted. I had money enough of my own to live on in a home like that, and so I have n't been a burden to them."

"I should think you had n't! But now you've gone and sold a part of your property for me."

"No, Lotta, I've done it for myself. I've done it so that you might make a true musician of yourself, such as I hoped to be. From the time when Mr. Rand came to town, and said you had the face of a musician, I've been determined that you should have every chance. Such a hope had been in the back of my mind all along, but as you did n't sing, and your mother had never cared to have you take piano lessons, — wanted you to be out playing, instead of tied to a piano stool, — I'd half given up. But as soon as Mr. Rand recognized your ability I bought your violin—

"And sold grandmother's watch and brooch to do it!"

"And now you're going on to victory, my dear. Some day I shall be sitting in a great hall, listening to you play; and when you are done, I shall hear the people applauding till—"

"Oh, don't, Aunt Cathy! You make me so afraid of failing. I wish you would n't expect so much of me. Why not let me stay at home and be just the usual kind of girl? Truly, I believe it will be better for us all."

"That's your father speaking in you, Carlotta Embury. He's a good man, but he has n't an ambitious hair in his head."

"He's just the kind of father I'd pick out, if you come to that," said Lotta, in a little flare of angry loyalty. Her aunt smiled.

"That was match to tinder, was n't it? Well, you're right about it, too; he's a good father. You 're tired to death, child, and I 'll leave you to find your sleep!"

She stooped swiftly and dropped a kiss on Lotta's forehead. Then she hastened away like a little, uneasy wraith. Lotta slid down into her bed, shivering a little. Had the wind risen, she wondered? Was the night growing cold ? She had an empty, frightened feeling new to her. It was not until later that she came to recognize this feeling very well, and to call it by its true name of homesickness.

The next morning, as soon as the house was put in order, Lotta ran over to report to Polly Root what was happening in her world. Of course she did not tell — she meant never to tell — the confidences that her aunt had given her. While she ran along the orchard path she could not help chuckling to herself to think how delighted Polly would be, for Polly was always imagining adventures for one or the other of them. Polly had not found much good to say of Mr. Rand. Mr. Root had thought his musical taste very poor — had said, indeed, that he knew less than nothing about music. So there would be a certain satisfaction in proving to Polly that the "professor" was worth something, after all, since he could prepare a girl to study the violin with a distinguished master.

Lotta found Polly in her room, that large, odd apartment with its dormer windows, its old lithographs, its open bookcase with the volumes of the color of old violins, and its great painted sea chest. Lotta admired that room as she admired no other that she had ever seen. From the clock, with the ships rocking on a blue-green sea, to the four-post bed, with its curtains and valances, it stood to her for romance. The rest of Polly's house was modem enough, but in that one room the old, curious things produced an atmosphere of other days.

Polly was quite as excited as Lotta had wished her to be.

"We must have a party for you, Lotta," she declared. "It must be a gift party, so that you can carry away a little remembrance from each of your friends."

It was so like Polly to think of something sentimental like that!

"Then you ought to make a public appearance before you go. Every one will be wanting to hear you now, so that when you become a fine musician they can say, 'Oh, yes, you were speaking of Miss Carlotta Embury. I knew her quite well as a girl — heard her make her farewell just before going to study with Heegard."

Lotta laughed tremulously.

"Such a girl!" she sighed.

"But when are you going, Lotta?"

"Very soon. I've all the clothes I need. Aunt Cathy has been making ready for this all the spring, though I did n't realize it, of course."

"She's a regular fairy godmother, is n't she? Oh, I suppose you'll be gone years and years, Lotta."

"Why should I, Polly? I'll go to Chicago and take a course in the violin, and come home again. It will be like going away to school."

"A course in the violin! Why, Lotta, musicians never get through studying — not really! More likely you'll be going abroad."

"Why should I ? I don't want to leave my own country."

"It would put the final touch on your work, Lotta. Then you would appear in concert in some great city, and we should all go to hear you."

"O Polly, come back to earth! Let's plan what we are to do these next two weeks. Leaving home is n't so fine as you seem to suppose. Here you'll all be together, and you'll go off camping, and I shall be among strangers, spending the summer sawing away with that old bow."

Some one was whistling below stairs, and Lotta lifted her head very slightly, listening. A little glint of anticipation came into her eyes.

"Roland," said Polly. "He got home last night."

She called him, half jealously; when he was about, Lotta sometimes seemed to prefer listening to him. He came bounding up the stairs; his dark hair and eyes were in vivid contrast to the blonde coloring of his sister. He greeted Lotta almost as if she were a sister.

"Going camping with us, Lotta?" he asked.

"No, I'm not," said Lotta.

"Afraid of getting freckled?"

"Tell him, Polly." Lotta could not quite trust her own voice. She only knew that never had home seemed sweeter.

"She really is to be congratulated," said Polly. "She's had such a piece of luck, Roland, and that's how she takes it."

Then she told him. He looked grave. In fact, after Polly had finished outlining the plan that had seemed so shining to Aunt Cathy, neither Roland nor Lotta had anything to say.

Roland and Polly walked home with Lotta, silent and subdued. Mrs. Root had sent word by them that she would call on Mrs. Embury and ask whether she might give a good–bye party to Lotta.

When the party was given, Mr. and Mrs. Root and Mr. and Mrs. Embury and Miss Summerville received the young people on the lawn, presided over the games, and sat in state at the table. The young paid tribute to their elders, and every one complimented Lotta.

Mr. Root made a little speech when the repast was over, and Lotta was induced to bring out her violin. Standing beneath a bronze maple tree, she played that tender cradle song that Godard wrote for his "Jocelyn." She would have preferred something livelier, but Polly insisted on the cradle song.

"You must think," she whispered, as she handed Lotta her violin, "of a little darling baby swaying, swaying, in its cradle. Perhaps it is twilight, and the wind is blowing in the trees outside. It is growing cold, but the baby is warm and so sleepy. When I hear that piece played, I feel as if nothing in the world were so sweet as a little tired baby falling asleep with its mother there to keep it safe."

Lotta's eyes widened. Tears came into them. "I shall never find any one like you, Polly," she said, as she linked arms with her chum.

Her heart was aching with tenderness for the friends from whom she was parting; the homesickness that was to be seemed to sob in her. She played as she had never played before.

"You are to be congratulated, Miss Summerville," Mr. Root said, taking Aunt Cathy's hand. "The sacrifices you have made for your niece will not be in vain."

Lotta, walking home with gift–laden arms, heard much the same sentiment from Roland — phrased after his own fashion.

The night before Lotta's departure she played to an audience composed of virtually all Maitland. On a platform trimmed with June flowers from the neighbors' gardens, Lotta, in that treasured gown of her Aunt Cathy's making, stood and played through her little repertoire. She was so glad to be doing it for these old friends that she hardly suffered at all from nervousness. She could pick out the familiar faces as she played — could see Mr. Rand, complacent and bland; her father, proud, yet with pressed lips that told of sorrow; her mother, shyer than Lotta, although she was sitting there safe in her seat; her aunt, with shining eyes that saw and yet did not see — or perhaps saw something beyond what was there in the little shabby "opera house." And there was young Samuel Quigley. He reported for the Maitland "Weekly Bee," and she knew how he would "write up" this "auspicious occasion," at which "the elite of Maitland gathered to do honor to one of the most talented daughters of the town." And there were the faces of the good Roots shining up at her, and she knew it would be Roland's hands that would lead the applause.

It seemed like a dream. To think that she should be the core and cause of all this friendly excitement! She really could not make it out, and she said so to her father the morning that she left home. They werein the shop together, in that little pleasant corner where he kept his ledgers, and where her mother's rocking–chair was.

"Well, talent's a fine thing, Lotta," he answered. "I'm sure I'm glad and proud that you have it. But there are other valuable things besides talent in this world. Don't ever forget that. There's truth, for example, and there's common sense. Don't get to riding the clouds — don't ever get to pretending that things are otherwise than as they are. To enjoy life as you go along, you have to take it as you find it — you have to face it. Keep your feet on the earth." And he smiled as he looked into Lotta's eyes.

"O dad," Lotta said, brushing her cheek against his coat sleeve in the way she had done since she was a baby, "you trust Lotta. And don't you dare forget that she's your girl."

She shook him by the shoulders and beat him on the chest with her fists, and altogether illtreated him as he liked to have her do. When it came to the last moment, she gave him one swift, laughing kiss, and ran from him. He had hardly felt her lips on his cheek. She treated her mother in similar fashion; and her mother would not look her in the eyes. But they understood each other perfectly.

Aunt Cathy was fine and trim for the journey — for it was she who was to establish Lotta with Herr Gunnar Heegard, the violin master, and to settle her in the Anna Louisa Home for Self–Supporting Women. As for Lotta, although she was not quite self–supporting, she felt that she would presently be needing a home. The only one she had known thus far was slipping from her.

She could see it as the train pulled out — could see it through a mist of tears. And there on the platform were her schoolmates, and the Roots, and Mr. Rand, and ever so many others. They were waving to her. Roland was standing on a baggage truck, shaking out something that looked rather more like a sheet than a handkerchief. It was really a luncheon cloth, and he was making his last effort to raise Lotta's spirits and to carry off the situation.

Lotta feared she was going to sob, and she was determined not to. It was her aunt's great hour, and she meant not to mar it. She set her teeth together and pressed her sheaf of roses close against her breast until she felt — and was glad to feel — the cruel little thorns.

CHAPTER THREE

LOTTA'S CAREER SUFFERS A CHANGE

SOON Lotta Embury and her aunt were settled in their little bare room in the Anna Louisa Home, and although they knew no more than most of the other inmates who Anna Louisa may have been, they were grateful for the comfort provided in her name at a price that a "self–supporting" girl could afford to pay.

They had slept amid the strangeness and the noise of the city. The "toof–toofing" of the automobiles late into the night, the clatter of milk carts at dawn, the clang of bells and the blowing of whistles had not been enough to keep them awake. And now, having breakfasted, they were starting out to keep their appointment with the great Herr Gunnar Heegard.

Lotta was as eager for the new adventure as Polly would have been. The roar of the great town coming in at her window was a challenge, and she wanted to go out where the fall of her foot on the pavement and the sound of her voice as she talked would be added to that great vibration. She looked at herself again and again in the glass, seeing the reflection of the red–cheeked, shining eyed country girl, in a gray summer dress and the little blue toque. She was glad she had tan Oxfords and tan street gloves. They were quite "smart," she thought, selecting the word a fashionably dressed woman had used on the train. As for Aunt Cathy, she was a dear — delicate of face and sweet and quaint in appearance, all that a little wonderful aunt should be.

They walked down the three flights of stairs — they were timid about the elevator, which they would have had to run themselves — and came out on the street. At the farther end of it they caught a glimpse of Lake Michigan, blue and sparkling.

It was the first time that Lotta had looked into shop windows where rich jewels or fine paintings were displayed. She saw beautiful gowns in the windows, too, and curious foreign wares. At each store she wished to stop. Indeed, she would have asked nothing better than to pass the morning watching the gay crowd. She had not known that people could look so gallant and care–free. But her aunt would not let her pause.

"I'm so glad I'm not frightened," said Lotta, cheerfully. "I was n't afraid the night of the concert, either. Is n't it curious?"

"Yes, it is," her aunt agreed. "I have heard of musicians who became very great and who never got over being timid before an audience, although I don't see why they should be. I should be very grateful if I could give pleasure of that sort to others."

"Yes, it is a pleasure," said Lotta, light–heartedly.

They reached the great building in which Herr Heegard had his office, and were lifted up and up in a curious square tower, through the windows of which they could at last look down on the roofs of the buildings below. Lotta thought how Polly would have enjoyed the experience, and how she would be wondering about Herr Heegard.

Their names were presently taken in to him, and while they waited in an anteroom, Lotta looked at the cabinets with their curious musical instruments. She wondered who had played upon those beautifully shaped, antique–looking violas and violins, and if they had loved the instruments very, very dearly. She had often wondered about that intense love of the musician for his instrument. For her part, she was proud of her violin. It was a fine, modern one, for which Aunt Cathy had paid a round sum. But Lotta had to confess that she had no tremendous affection for it. She would have been quite willing to exchange it for another instrument, equally good. Presently she and her aunt were called into the inner room. For a moment Lotta could see only a low, square-shouldered figure against the light; then, as Herr Heegard moved toward her, she became aware of his great head and his deep-set, luminous dark eyes.

"So!" he said, in a voice that reminded Lotta of a church bell on a rainy morning. "So! You are my young musician, I take it. And this is Miss Summerville?"

He motioned them to chairs, and turned to Lotta, whom he had placed so that the light would shine upon her face.

"So you wish to devote yourself to music, Miss—"

"Lotta Embury is my name, sir. Yes, my aunt thinks I should, and I like music very much."

"Better than anything in the world, Miss Lotta Embury?"

"I don't know enough about it yet, sir, to be able to say."

"That's an honest answer," said Herr Heegard. "You have brought your violin, I see. Please let me hear you play."

He was so simple and so kind, so like some one whom she had always known, that she felt no fear. She lifted her violin to her shoulder, and at Aunt Cathy's suggestion played a whimsical, melodious piece of Mozart's. It suited her happy mood, and although her bowing was rather stiff, the master seemed not ill pleased.

"You may play something else, please," he said, slowly, at the conclusion of the piece.

"Massenet's Élégie,'" whispered Aunt Cathy, trying to read the master's deep eyes.

Lotta liked the "Elegie," although she did not understand it. Mr. Rand had particularly commended her playing of it. Now, when she had finished it, she turned to Herr Heegard for approval. She was accustomed to praise, and innocently and without egotism she waited for the commendatory words; but they did not come.

"He is sentimental, that Massenet," said Herr Heegard, "but, after all, he can write. At your age it is natural to like the picturesque. Let me take your violin in my hand. It is really a very nice little instrument, though it is of modern manufacture. Yes, our Massenet has his points — oh, undoubtedly."

He drew his bow across the strings, and with a note as sorrowful as that made by an autumn wind among dead leaves there broke on the air the first sigh of Massenet's exquisite plaint. Lotta sat strangely rebuked, completely spellbound. The sorrows she had not yet experienced rested upon her; the rich, dark memories that the future might bring her seemed to hover about her like birds in the night. She could have put none of her feelings into words, however; curiously enough, she sat there thinking how Polly would have loved it.

Herr Heegard handed back the violin.

"Come to–morrow at the same hour of the day. Play for me again the little thing of Mozart's, and play lighter, lighter — as if a butterfly were lighting on the strings. And this sad piece, play that for me again, also. Now let us talk for a moment, if you please."

He began to question with delicacy until he had gathered Lotta's and Aunt Cathy's story; and as he talked and listened, his great, deep eyes turned from one to the other. At last he rose. "To–morrow," he said.

"What does he mean?" asked Lotta of her aunt, when they were on the street. "Does he think I am not far enough advanced to study with him?"

"I can't make it out," replied Aunt Cathy, in a troubled voice. "We shall know to-morrow. But now let us enjoy ourselves."

Lotta could hardly realize that this was her quiet Aunt Cathy — this eager little woman who bought flowers for their belts, who took her to luncheon at the smart little chocolate shop, who stopped before windows, and even ventured into the shops. But presently Aunt Cathy remembered her duty. She took Lotta back to their room, and shutting her in, left her to practice.

They dined that night at the commons of the Anna Louisa Home, and were conducted down the length of the crowded dining room to a little table at which sat a solitary person, a young girl with dull yellow hair. She was dressed in green, and was so quick of motion, so brilliant of eye and so alert that she suggested an intelligent and sociable humming bird. She was engaged in making a salad.

"It's a pity that you are n't ready for your salad," she said to Lotta. "Then I could have mixed the dressing for you; though perhaps you insist on mixing your own dressing."

"Oh, no, I don't. I've never thought much about it one way or the other. Are there a great many ways of mixing salad dressing?"

"Almost as many ways as there are salad eaters."

"Where I come from, we take our fresh vegetables without thinking much about them."

The other girl looked up sharply. Was this newcomer trying to put her in the wrong? But no, in her kind, wholesome face there was nothing except frankness and simplicity.

"Do you know, I'm not very particular, either," said the girl. "But I am homesick — homesick as I can be. I've had some pleasant girls here at the table with me, but they're gone, and now I've nothing to do but sit here and think about my people at home."

"Are you far away from them?" asked Aunt Cathy.

"Oh, yes, I'm a good way from them. I can see them only two or three times a year. You see, my sister is ill, and mother has to nurse her. I dare n't bring them here to this town; so I stay here and make the money, and they stay there and do the best they can."

A sympathetic little silence fell. The girl could see a question in Aunt Cathy's face.

"Oh, you're wondering how I make my money. Well, I get out the advertising pamphlets for Hart & Payne, wholesale milliners. At least, that's my present job. When I've finished their work I do similar things for others. I have to work like mad, but it's splendid pay. Yes, good pay, dry work, no future. Take my advice and never do it."

"It's drawing that you do, is n't it?" asked Lotta.

"Yes, I draw the fine French model hats and pictures of lace neck gear and lingerie. I started out to be an artist — thought I was going to lead the higher life." She smiled brightly. "But I could n't wait. Art was longer than I thought it would be, and mother and sister needed food."

"What is your name, please?" asked Aunt Cathy. "I am Miss Summerville. This is my niece, Lotta Embury."

"Thank you, Miss Summerville. I am Mary Blossom — usually called May. Do you intend to stay here?"

So Catherine Summerville told May Blossom her story and Lotta's. After dinner they went together to the drawing–room. May introduced some of her acquaintances to Lotta and her aunt, and the evening passed pleasantly.

The next morning, to Lotta's dismay, her aunt was stricken with one of the headaches that frequently made her miserable.

"Of all times to have one of the things!" Aunt Cathy groaned. "How can you go alone to that studio, Lotta?"

"If I 'm to take lessons from Herr Heegard for the next few years I shall have to get pretty well used to going alone. It seems to me that's a queer thing to worry about."

Whether Lotta's going alone was the subject of Aunt Cathy's worry or not, there was no doubt that she was disturbed about something. She lay on the bed with her face in her hands, more unhappy than Lotta ever remembered to have seen her; she declared that she could not lift her head from the pillow.

Lotta flooded the room with fresh air, then softened the light with drawn shades. She saw that her aunt wished to be alone.

"I'm going out into the garden," she said, softly. "Perhaps the housekeeper will let me feed the doves."

She went thoughtfully down the stairs. Something was going wrong. Now that she came to think of it, all the preceding evening her aunt had been preoccupied. While Lotta crumbled some bread and coaxed the pigeons to come fluttering about her, she tried to find some explanation of her aunt's distress.

"We shall get very well acquainted," she said to the doves, and dropped crumbs upon her shoulders, so that they would alight there. "We shall be friends and I shall feed you every day, and that will be a great comfort to all of us."

A small golden head was thrust from an upper window.

"What a perfectly lovely cover design you'd make!" called May Blossom. "Just play with those birds a few moments more, will you, and I'll bring down my sketch–book!"

Lotta laughed. "If you're going to sketch us, hurry up, or these greedy things will be horribly overfed."

A moment later May Blossom appeared with her sketching pad. She had brought her paints instead of her pencil, and with splashes and wild strokes was "making notes" of Lotta, in her pale green gingham flecked with yellow sunlight and wreathed with gray and white birds. Behind her was the gray brick wall, and above was gray–blue sky. The little "commercial artist" declared that she had made "the hit of her life."

"And now," she said, when she had finished the hasty sketch, "what can I do for you?"

"Why," said Lotta, with sudden inspiration, "you can come with me to Herr Heegard's" studio, for auntie is ill. Have you the time, May?"

They had agreed to call each other by their first names.

"Of course I can. What fun it will be to be present at your triumph!"

If Lotta had enjoyed her walk the day before, she was exhilarated by it to–day. The flower venders were out on the street, the people were dressed for sunshine, and Lotta, thrilling with the joy of it all, no longer felt that she was a mere onlooker. It made her feel initiated to be walking along on happy terms with a girl who was brilliantly earning her own living, and who now and then nodded to a passer–by and spoke of the smart shops in the same casual tone in which Lotta mentioned the little stores back in Maitland.

She was glowing when she entered Herr Heegard's inner room.

"I am sorry your good aunt is not here," he said in a rather distressed tone. "I particularly wanted your good aunt to be here."

He talked to her for a moment or two, spoke to her of her bowing, encouraged her as best he knew how, and told her to play. She had the comfortable feeling of one who had learned her lesson, and she began to play with bright confidence. First came the blithe notes of the Mozart theme; then followed the sorrowful ones of Massenet. She finished with the manner of a good child and stood before the silent master. Seconds passed and he did not speak. Lotta, wondering, turned to May Blossom, who sat on a high hassock, crouched in an elfish attitude. What could be the matter, Lotta mused. Then Herr Heegard spoke, and his words held Lotta transfixed.

"Miss Embury, you are not a musician. You never will be a musician if you live to be a hundred and practice every day of your life. Musicians have to be both born and made. You were not born one and cannot be made into one. You lack feeling, ear, sensitiveness, time, temperament. You have n 't the faintest idea of what music means. Miss Summerville has made a mistake. It is not a grievous mistake, because music is only one room in the house of life, and you can be very happy as an occasional guest in that room. You are a girl of fine qualities. You are cheerful, friendly, respectful, industrious, brave. I believe you will make a success in life, but not as a musician — never, never, never!

"Look at your hands, my girl. They are shapely hands, but not those of a musician. Look in the mirror at your kind, rosy, practical face. That is not the face of a musician. Look into your own eyes. Are they haunted eyes, eyes haunted with visions that others do not see, with dreams more real than realities, are they far gazing eyes, eyes filled with sorrows and joys not yet experienced? No, they are sensible eyes, the eyes of a stead–fast, unimaginative person. They are the eyes of a good girl,—the usual girl, if I may say so,—and there is plenty upon which to congratulate the possessor of them."

Lotta had not moved. Her violin hung at her side. She still faced the master bravely, following all that he said. She did not mind that May was there, for in the crashing of her world about her ears mere shame could play no part.

"I could trump up an excuse for not accepting you as a pupil," continued Herr Heegard, "and pass you on to some one who would take your money gladly enough. But you have come up here, my dear young lady, with very high hopes. Your aunt has staked her happiness on it — or so she thinks. I cannot use her money and your time, and bring you to defeat, nor can I let you blunder into trouble elsewhere."

Lotta sat down and laid her violin very gently upon the table. Herr Heegard, looking at her, gave a soft exclamation of pity. He opened a window, brought a glass of water, and stood ill at ease.

"The blow fell heavier than I thought it would," he said aside to May Blossom.

"It's her aunt she's thinking about," May replied, under her breath.

A little time passed; the red began to come back to Lotta's cheeks. She rose and held out her hand to Herr Heegard. "What you did was right, sir," she said, so gently that it brought the tears to the musician's eyes. "Thank you. Shall we go, May?"

"I said you were a brave girl!" Herr Heegard cried.

His tone was too sympathetic, and Lotta's fortitude threatened to give way. She had a moment's panic in which she thought she was going to burst into tears. May perceived it.

"Come!" she commanded. She snatched Lotta's violin from her, thrust it into its case, and sped with Lotta to the elevator.

The two girls made straight for the Anna Louisa Home.

"Let's have it over with," said May.

"But she's lying ill," said Lotta. "Ought n't I to keep it from her? Do you realize that I am going to shatter the dream of her life ?"

"Let's have it over with," repeated May. She wasted no time in consolations. She took it for granted that the girl beside her had courage and could take misfortune when it came. They did not doubt for a moment the justice of Herr Heegard's verdict. They had seen the tears in his eyes, and knew what it had cost him to speak.

"Go in alone," whispered May, when they reached Miss Summerville's door. "And, if you want me, call."

Lotta let May keep the violin. She was glad not to have it in her hand when she opened the door. She went straight to her aunt, who was sitting propped up with pillows. The older woman held out a shaking hand, as if she already suspected the truth.

Lotta sank on her knees beside the bed.

"Dearest," she said, "you must try as hard as you can to stand a trouble."

"Yes—" Aunt Cathy's eyes widened.

"Remember, it's only a trouble to you—not to me. It's only for you I mind, dear little auntie. But I can't play. Herr Heegard says so. I was n't born a musician and nobody can make me one. It's all a mistake."

Aunt Cathy took Lotta's hand.

"In the night," she said, quietly, "it all came to me. Perhaps I began to understand there in the studio when I heard him play. But I would n't let myself realize; I made allowance for all the differences between a young student just beginning and a famous master. And then, Lotta, suddenly it came to me — what I ought to have known long ago—

"What a miserable ninny I am not to be able to do what you want me to do!" began Lotta. But her aunt, lifting her trembling hand, went on: —

"I am the one who has been unfair, Lotta, and you must try to forgive me. You were willing to play, and I thought you were enthusiastic. I see now, my dear, that you were only obedient and eager to please. It is true that I realized that your music lacked expression; but that day at Polly's I felt reassured, for you played just as I wanted you to."

"Oh, Polly was responsible for my playing that day. She told me at the last moment how that cradle song seemed to her; and all my friends were there to say good–bye. I wanted to cry, and I did n't dare do that; so I played."

"But would n't other inspirations come to you?" asked her aunt, with a fresh leap of hope. "Might n't—"

But Lotta rose to her feet.

"No, no, I could n't go round waiting for some one else to bolster me up, Aunt Cathy. I've got to be myself. No, miserable as it makes me to disappoint you, the truth is I'm glad about being free. I did n't realize that I dreaded the study and the practicing. I thought I felt badly because I was leaving home; but now I know it was more than that. Think of working for years and years, of living away from home all for the sake of playing the violin! I know now that it never did seem worth while to me."

Aunt Cathy's hot eyes, shining in her pale face, regarded the protesting girl before her.

"But, Lotta, Lotta, how will you go back and face the people at home? After all they expected of you — and the party — and the concert — and the piece in the paper—" She could not finish. Maitland was her world; she knew no other.

Lotta suddenly grew white; she clasped her hands together. She, too, saw it all — the smothered laughter, the gossip, the pity, the everlasting retelling of the pitiful little tale. She knew what it would mean for her, and how much more misery it would mean for her little, shivering, cringing aunt.

"I'm not going back," she said, finally. "I am going to stay here."

"Oh!" sobbed Aunt Cathy, breaking down completely and burying her face in her hands. "But what will you do, poor child?"

"I don't know what I shall do," answered Lotta, heavily. "But I'm not going home."

CHAPTER FOUR

LOTTA TAKES THINGS IN HER OWN HANDS

"IT's the third day that she's been lying there in bed," said Lotta to May Blossom one morning at breakfast. "She is n't ill, but she has n 't the courage to go home. It's terrible to think I'm the one who broke her down like that!"

Lotta could not get Aunt Cathy's white little face out of her mind. Every letter from home, every morning when she awoke to the distressing memory, seemed to plunge Catherine Summerville deeper and deeper into gloom.

"When the disappointment about my own voice came to me," she had said to Lotta, "I was still young. I had courage. But now it is different. I've been called queer and looked on as a silly dreamer with my head in the clouds for so many years that I can't bear to have them find out I'm the fool they said I was."

"Who do you mean by 'them'?" Lotta had asked. "No one in Maitland is so unkind, I know."

"But you don't know!" her aunt had cried, petulantly. "You're too young and you've been too happy to know. Of course every one is kind to you. Why should n't they be kind to a red–cheeked, good–natured girl? Go back now and see the difference. They'll never get over telling this story about you — about how your silly old aunt made you think you were a great musician, and how she sold her property and took you up to the city, after you had made a farewell appearance, and how you came back with all the nonsense taken out of you. Went up like a rocket and came down like a stick! I can hear them saying it. But it's me they'll blame the most and laugh at the most. I had nothing left, Lotta, but my self–respect, and now that's gone. I'm a silly old fool, just as they said."

"Talking of nonsense, what you are saying now seems to me to fill the bill. You don't act like Aunt Cathy at all — not the Aunt Cathy I've always known."

When the disappointment had first come to her, Catherine Summerville had put the blame where it belonged — upon herself. But three sleepless nights, three days of tortured reflection, broke down her judgment. She began to feel irritated at Lotta, who might, it seemed to her, have somehow acquired a talent at need, or put up a pretense of having one.

"You say you're going to stay here," she had complained to the bewildered girl, "but what are you going to do? Tell me that."

"I've made ever so many plans, Aunt Cathy," was Lotta's reply, "and you did n't like any of them. I'm sure I don't know what to do, but I'm strong and willing to do anything, and I believe there must be some place for me. Let me write home to father and find out what he thinks."

At that Aunt Cathy sat up in bed, wild–eyed and white–faced.

"Don't dream of such a thing, Lotta Embury!" she commanded. "Your father never has thought I knew anything. He did n't want you to leave home. You know well enough what he'll do. He'll come up here and get us and take us both home. And I could n't bear it, I tell you. No, I forbid you to write to your father."

Lotta's face had changed during these days of trial. There were dark rings under her eyes and she wore an unaccustomed look of strain and trouble. It seemed very strange to her thus to be shut out of her Aunt Cathy's regard. Forbidden to confide in those at home and thrust beyond loving intimacy by her aunt, — or rather, by her aunt's tormented nerves, — she suffered keenly. Doubts and worries assailed her; as she had said, she had suggested plan after plan, but her aunt had approved none of them.

"I don't know what I'm to do," she said to May Blossom when the two sat together in their corner of the dining–room. "I'm nearly wild trying to find some way out of the snarl."

"Your aunt's too sick to know what she wants," May Blossom said, in her abrupt manner. "See here, Lotta, what would you do if you had your way?"

"Sell my violin and take a course at a business college. I have n't an idea that I should like to be a stenographer, but it's a practical thing, anyway. I should get right down to work and fit myself for a place as soon as I could. Then I should save my money and return every cent to Aunt Cathy that she has spent for me."

"Good idea," said May. "All you need to do now is to act on it. Take your violin and go downtown and sell it. While you're downtown arrange for a course at a business college. I know of a good one. Perhaps they'll get a position for you after you've finished your course. Come on, drink your coffee and start. If you stop to think or go up to talk with your aunt you'll get into a muddle again."

"O May," sighed Lotta, "if I could only do something, I should get along very well! It's this waiting and worrying that's so terrible."

"Breakfast's over," declared May. "Your violin is in my room. I'll bring it down."

"Aunt's breakfast has been sent up to her," said Lotta. "But ought I to go out without letting her know?"

"Say you're going for a walk. You've got to take things into your own hands. Don't fumble about it."

No, she must not "fumble"; she could see that. Back in Maitland they had rather a habit of "fumbling." They looked on every side of a question, weighed this possibility against that, and finally did nothing at all. But such a course of action had no place in May Blossom's scheme of life. In her odd little green costume, she awaited Lotta, who came hesitatingly down the stairs.

"Any one would think you were going to commit a crime!" May exclaimed, in an effort to cheer her depressed companion. "Here's the violin. Carry it yourself."

"O May, I know you think I'm weak–kneed!" sighed Lotta. "But you've been deciding things for yourself for a long time, and I've never done anything important without asking permission. Just think how father and mother would feel if they knew what a state of mind Aunt Cathy and I are in! And then here am I—I who couldn't bear the idea of leaving home—making arrangements to stay away from it for a long time. I could stand the thought as long as I was supposed to have a talent. I could see that a person with a talent ought to be willing to make sacrifices for it. But now that I know I have nothing of the kind, how illogical it seems still to be making plans to live away from home."

"What makes you go over and over the ground like that?" asked May, impatiently. "Here's your aunt, who loves you and you alone; who has nothing much in her life except you ; who is almost out of her head because you are n't the wonder child she thought you; and who will not let you go home, where all the neighbors can point at you and say, 'See the child phenomenon — nit!' May Blossom gave a saucy twist to her little face. "Very well, then, you spare your aunt the pain of it. You stay in the city. You don't want to, but you do it because you are not an executioner. Naturally, you must study something. You have decided that it shall be something that will fit you for earning your own living and that will give you a chance to pay back your aunt. You're doing the right thing, Lotta. Now stop worrying."

Lotta was silenced. She hastened along the street beside her friend. And now, as she looked at the faces of those who passed, she began to see that they were not the carefree faces they had seemed that first day. In other eyes she saw an anxiety like her own; in pale faces she read the tale of work and struggle. Girls and boys younger than herself were hastening along the street, tense and quiet.

"The people did n't look like this to me at first," she said to May. "What has become of all those bright people I saw at first?"

"Not up yet — or eating their breakfast now, perhaps. These are the workers, my dear. You and I belong with these. Don't you like them as well as the others?"

They were waiting at the street corner with a crowd, held there by the policeman's upraised hand while a string of motor trucks, automobiles, and street cars passed. Lotta looked at her friend. She felt the crowd pressing close about her and timidly looked into their faces. An old man was near her. His face was delicate and in a way beautiful; his eyes were sad; his clothing was shabby.

"He's lucky to have a job," whispered May to Lotta. "Old men have n't much chance nowadays."

"How do you know he has a job?"

"From the way he looked. Wait till you see the jobless ones!"

Did she like these busy, burdened people as well as the bright ones of the boulevard? Lotta repeated, the question to herself and did not answer it. Her heart was not light that morning, and the pounding, shrieking city bewildered her. She felt afraid of it. She began to understand that it could be very cruel, and was indescribably grateful to the little valiant figure by her side for providing her with companionship.

"I suppose it will be best for you to take your violin to a music store," said May. "Go to a good one, — there are two or three places on Wabash Avenue, — and they'll pay you what it is worth, I feel quite sure."

They had reached the Art Institute whither May went three times a week to study, and they paused a moment by one of the great bronze lions that guarded the stairway. Lotta had hoped that May was coming with her, but the hour had arrived for May's class.

"Go one block west, and walk south till you come to a music store. Don't be discouraged if you fail to sell the thing to–day. The music dealers may take it and keep it a while. But whatever happens, you're making a move in the right direction."

Left alone, Lotta made her way along the boulevard. Unconsciously her feet carried her over the same path she had walked that first day when she and her aunt had trod the streets as if they were going to a festival — as if life itself had been an enduring festival. How the face of everything had changed! Yet had it? Or was it her own power of seeing things that had altered? Had the other been a fantasy born of her own high spirits, and was this gray town with its moving mass of workers the real city? She knew that it was. These people about her were in the struggle. Out of their needs and the labors of such as they the great city had been built. They began to look brave to Lotta, these men and women who were hurrying in at the doors of the great buildings. People were pouring from the suburban stations, streaming down from the platforms of the elevated trains; surface cars were emptying them out. They were the workers—those who did things, whose hands and brains were creating and conducting.

Suddenly she thrilled to it. She drew back into a doorway to watch them for a moment. Why had she thought them hopeless? They were not any more hopeless than they were eager. They were merely doing their day's work sanely, quietly, faithfully. The realization of it put new power into her. She felt, suddenly, and rather sadly, like a comrade to these brave bearers of burdens; and now she became desirous of taking up her own burden — of moving on at once, definitely, in the course of action upon which she had decided.

One block west to Wabash Avenue and there would be the music stores, May had said. Lotta left her doorway and stood face to face with the low, square–shouldered figure and dark, kind face of Herr Heegard.

As he lifted his hat he saw that Lotta had her violin with her.

"Are you going to try it, after all, Miss Embury?" he asked. "Could n't you take an old musician's word?"

"Oh, I could — I did," said Lotta, surprised at the comfort that came to her at the sight of his face. "I want to sell my violin, Herr Heegard. Could you tell me where to go?"

"It's a very good little instrument," said the Dane. "I will go with you. I will recommend it to a man I know at the music store; that is, if you wish me to do so."

"Oh, if you please!" cried Lotta, relieved. "It seems ridiculous for me to dread going about alone. I hope to get over all that in a few days."

"You are staying in the city?"

Lotta told him of her aunt's illness and of her decision not to go home.

"Too bad, too bad!" he said. "That good Miss Summerville ! Her little house of cards all shattered. Too bad, too bad!"

"And to think I was the person to do it!"

"But you did n't do it. Don't ever think that. Don't be morbid. You are too wise. I like you, Miss Embury. You will be a sensible woman — a wise woman. It is the great service that women render — to be wise. When they have quiet eyes like yours and —" He searched her with a glance and did not finish his sentence. "They are the blessing of the world, those quiet, wise women," he concluded. Then, as they walked on together, he said, "You must send your aunt home at once. She will recover when she is among old scenes. I will go with you to that business college, Miss Embury. All shall be arranged for you. Then you will continue to live at the Anna Louisa Home, which is an excellent place for a young girl. You will have your little friend. She has understanding and gayety. I saw it. I liked her. And on Sundays sometimes you will honor my wife and me by taking your dinner with us. Is it so?"

"O Herr Heegard, are you sure you want to know a stupid girl like me ? You are very kind, but you must know so many, many people!"

"I ask you because I want you," said the Dane, quietly. "Will you deny Mrs. Heegard and me the pleasure of knowing a young, unspoiled girl? We have the memory of such as you back in our own country. We once had one in our own home who might have been like you."

"Your daughter?"

He nodded. Lotta asked no other question. She realized that the little daughter was dead.

The violin, which had been bought in the days when Aunt Cathy's new hope was first awake, sold for a good price. After that Lotta was registered at the Duplessis Business College. She was to start in with the summer classes, which were already under way. The thought nerved her to tell her aunt.

"To–morrow, dear," she said that afternoon, sitting beside her aunt's bed, "you must start for home."

"Very well," said Cathy Summerville, quietly. "Just as you say, Lotta."

"You'll be strong enough to go, won't you?"

"Oh, I've the strength to go. My lying in bed, Lotta, has only meant that—"

"That there was n't anything worth getting up for?" Lotta interrupted her.

Aunt Cathy's eyes filled with tears. "I suppose that's what it comes to."

But now Lotta was bent on inspiriting her, and May Blossom seconded her efforts. Between them they packed Aunt Cathy's little trunk, dressed her, and induced her to eat. During the rest of the day she made her plans for going home and thought of what she would say and do when she got there.

"Just tell every one that I preferred a business life," said Lotta, valiantly.

Her aunt looked at her with wistful eyes. "I'll do my best," she said. "But how am I to get them to believe that you'd rather be a stenographer — a mere common stenographer — than a violinist?"

"Tell them," Lotta said, "that it suits my temperament better."

"Bosh!" said Aunt Cathy, angrily.

She was fairly fit for travel the next day, and although her face was still white and her eyes shadowy, she managed to wave a cheerful good–bye to Lotta and May from the car window.

"And now," said May, "right–about face — ready — march!"

She took Lotta's arm and hurried her from the station.

Lotta was ready for her campaign. She was determined to take life as it came. As Polly Root's mother often said, you had to live only one hour at a time. In this next hour she would go home, settle her room to suit herself and get her clothes ready. For the next day would see her at the Duplessis Business College, one of the endless procession of young girls starting to make their way in a practical manner. No dreams in this — no mystery — no expectation. The face of life looked plain, but it was wholesome and not unkind.

"Is n't it odd," said Lotta to May that night at dinner, "but I never seem able to be discouraged? In spite of everything I can do I keep right on enjoying myself."

May laughed merrily. "That's why every one enjoys you," she said.

But in the night Lotta was stung into wakefulness by certain thoughts. Aunt Cathy would be home by now and her story told, and back there in the little orchard house they would know all about her failure. And to–morrow the neighbors would know; Polly would know, and Roland, and all the others.

"Heard about Lotta Embury?" they would call across the street to one another. Then there would be laughter — a sigh or two also, perhaps. Oh! Oh! For a moment Lotta was enraged at the situation in which destiny had placed her. So absurd as it all was! She could not blame people for laughing. Some day she would probably be laughing about it herself. But not now — oh, not yet! And poor Aunt Cathy! How her lips would tremble when she told them all — how the bitterness of it would torment her!

The sun had sent its first shafts of rosy light over the sky and touched the gray eaves with a soft glamour before Lotta fell asleep. But for May Blossom she might have overslept, and that, since it was her first day at the business college, would have been unfortunate. But May was a good person at guessing what went on behind locked doors, at least if those she cared for were behind them. She cared "a lot" for Lotta, and meant to "see her through." So she knocked, and got the white–faced girl out of bed, helped her to decide upon the appropriate clothes to wear, and all through break-fast and all during the walk downtown she kept her in that cheerful and commonplace atmosphere that seemed to May to be the best thing, considering the circumstances.

They were kind and efficient at the college. Lotta was soon put in her proper classes, and she was given some work to do at home that would enable her to make up the lessons she had missed. The day was busy but interesting. She hardly identified any one — learned no names and formed no associations. She had gathered a little of May Blossom's idea that it was not necessary to know all about your next–door neighbor or to tell the neighbor about yourself.

"Keep going," May had advised. "Don't get in the way of other people and you'll come out all right."

Yes, that was the idea. Play the game fairly and you would get satisfaction even if you did not win. By now they would all — those she cared for back in Maitland — know the truth about her. And then, when the worst was known, those who loved her would take her on the same good old honest basis. Anyway, there would be no sailing under false colors. Perhaps some of them — Polly, or maybe Roland — would write to her. Tired but content she made her way home.

The housemother, Mrs. McMinn, met her at the door.

"There's a telegram for you, Miss Embury," she said. Lotta had never before received a telegram, and anxiety for her aunt gripped her. But she steadied herself and opened the envelope.

Please write no letters home till you hear from me.

CATHERINE SUMMERVILLE.

Lotta read the message three times. She went to bed wondering, but she slept for all her wonder. And it was not until the following evening that Aunt Cathy's letter reached her. With some difficulty Lotta succeeded in deciphering her aunt's nervous scrawl. This was the letter:—

MY DEAR, DEAR LOTTA: — I can't tell them. I've lied to them. They think you are studying with Herr Heegard. They met me — your father and mother — at the station; they looked so proud and happy, and they were so sure of you. Perhaps I might have managed to tell them if we could have got home before meeting any one. But that young reporter, Sam Quigley, was at the station, and he ran up to me calling out so that every one could hear him, "How's our young violinist?" Then I met Nina Bently, that red–haired girl who goes to everything. "Was n't that teacher delighted with Lotta?" she asked. "Did n't he think her immense?" No, no, I could n't tell. I don't know what you'll think of me. I wish I had brought you home, after all, and that we'd told it together and stood together and never minded what people thought. But it's too late. You'll have to keep up the pretense.

Have mercy on me, Lotta. I'm terribly, terribly unhappy. I wish I were through with the whole thing and at rest. But oh, don't betray me! You're still the brilliant young musician, preparing yourself for the concert stage. That's what they all think. At moments it is what I think, too. I can't seem to realize that it was a dream — and that I've been so cowardly as to lie to the people I like best. Lovingly — miserably,

AUNT CATHY.

Lotta looked about her, wild–eyed. She felt like a creature that finds itself in a snare. She had an impulse to run to May with the letter. Then she knew that she must not. How could she betray her poor, broken Aunt Cathy to any one — least of all to so new a friend? No, she must hide this strange, new, painful thing. She must have a secret and a shame. She hated it. And she did not join May at dinner.

CHAPTER FIVE

A CROOKED PATH

BEFORE long May Blossom felt disappointed in her new friend. She began to fear that Lotta lacked pluck. Else why was she growing so absent–minded ? Why was her appetite falling off? Why was she so indifferent to matters that would rouse enthusiasm in any normal girl?

For example, May had taken Lotta to a concert on Saturday night. Mrs. McMinn, the housemother, had gone with a number of the girls of the A. L. H., — as they called the Anna Louisa Home, — and May had induced Lotta to go with her. It had been very good fun altogether — so all the girls voted. It gave them a chance to wear their pretty frocks, the concert was delightful, and afterward Mrs. McMinn had lemonade and cake for them in the dining room. Lotta admired more than she could say the interest they all took in each other. Though they were such little, unrecognized entities in that great town, they had no intention of losing their personality. They were making the best of things. Every one was particularly attentive to Lotta. They all knew what it was to start out in the world away from your people.

But Lotta remained strangely quiet.

"I thought she had no end of yeast in her," May said to herself, "but she certainly is dumpy just now."

Sunday morning, however, Lotta brightened a little.

"I'm to have dinner with Herr Heegard and his wife," she said to May — although indeed she had told her that two or three times before. "That's something to look forward to, is n't it ?"

At noon May came into Lotta's room to button her into her pretty frock of figured muslin.

"Did you go to church this morning, Lotta?" she asked.

Lotta shook her head.

"Are there churches near here? I have n't seen any."

"There are churches that can be reached if you want to reach them."

"You might have called for me."

"Well," said May, "I'd go to church for a fact if I had any one to go with me, Lotta. But you see how it is: a girl comes up to the city and drops her old habits. It's lonesome going to a church where you don't know any one. And then, too, we get pretty tired, we girls who work all of the week. We're glad to take a part of Sunday resting, and we manage to get our clothes in order a bit. Then by the time we've had a little outing the day is gone."

Lotta sighed softly. "What homesickness! O May, if only there were ways of measuring homesickness, — like rainfall, for instance, — what a precipitation there would be in a city like this!"

May softened toward her friend. She had expected too much of the child; of course she was homesick.

"I suppose you spent all your morning writing letters home," she said.

She was astonished to see Lotta's face flame scarlet. The two looked at each other with embarrassment.

"Did n 't you write?" May asked, in spite of herself.

Lotta shook her head, and the tears came into her eyes.

"I could n't," she said. "It — it was impossible."

"Do you mean that you feel as badly as that? Oh, come, Lotta, that is n't reasonable. There's something wrong—"

Lotta's face confessed that there was; something was very wrong. May stood for a moment thinking.

"What has your Aunt Cathy done?" she demanded. "Or — or what has n't she done? Lotta, you don't mean that she's tied you up in some sort of a mess?"

Lotta said nothing. She felt that she had betrayed her aunt, weakly and ridiculously. May would never have blundered like that; if May had wished to keep anything hidden she would have succeeded.

"O Lotta!" May cried. "You don't mean that the poor woman got frightened and could n't tell the people at home what has happened? You don't mean that she wants you to conspire with her—"

Lotta sank into a chair and dropped her head upon the table; her tears, trickling through her fingers, splashed on her freshly ironed frock.

"Stop putting little wet polka dots on your dress," commanded May. "Come, it's time to start. Wash your face. Then I'll start you on your way if you like. Do you know, I thought maybe I was n't going to like you as — as hard as I intended. But I am. You're just the kind I do like. Say you like me, Lotta, and let's stand by each other in the years to come."

Lotta, with flushed face, looked up; then she held out her arms to her friend, and in the swift, half–laughing, half–tearful embrace, they vowed eternal friendship.

"You're very sweet," said May, with approval. "To kiss you is like kissing a rose. I'm such a scrawny, miserable sparrow, with hands like claws and a complexion the color of cheese."

"Nothing of the kind!" cried Lotta, indignantly. "You haven't such a silly, apple look as I have, but—"

"Now we'll stop tossing these nosegays at each other and start for the Heegards'," said May. "What do they mean by living so near town? You'd think Herr Heegard would be the very one to love the country!"

Lotta had no need to take a street car. May led her up this street, and down the next, solid with apartment buildings or old mansions that had been converted into lodging houses, and presently they were at the great apartment building in which the violinist lived. Then May ran off, with teasing farewells, and left Lotta to find out how she was to break into this great fortress with its locked doors. It took the country girl several minutes to make out that she was to ring the bell beside the name plate — one of two long rows — and wait for some sign. The sign came in the clicking of the great closed door, and Lotta, happily inspired to understand the meaning of the sound, dashed for the door and pushed her way through while the lock was released. There was no elevator; she heard a friendly voice far above her calling:—

"Come on! Way to the top, and take your time!"

She sped along with eager feet. For a moment her troubles dropped from her. She was a friendly kind of person; she loved to be a guest or to entertain a guest; and this was her first visit, alone, to strangers. And such interesting hosts as they would be! She could not quite understand how a blundering country girl like herself, who had failed in the one thing in which she had hoped to succeed, should have the good fortune to be invited to the home of so distinguished a man. Then she recollected that she was probably being invited because he was sorry for her. Scarlet flew into her face, and for three seconds she wished she had not accepted. The next instant she saw Herr Heegard's dark face with its deep eyes looking out of the door, smiling a welcome. He held out both hands.

"It is a happy day when a young girl crosses the threshold of old people like us," he said, drawing her in. "Wife! Here is Miss Lotta Embury."

Down a narrow passageway on which opened a series of rooms came a motherly figure, uttering little ejaculations of pleasure. Lotta found herself greeted like an old friend.

"I hope," said a kind voice, "that you had no trouble in finding the place. Here is my little guest–room, Miss Embury. Pray take off your hat. We are quite informal, I assure you."

Lotta puzzled over the words. Why should she not take off her hat? What were you expected to do when you went out to a meal? Bewildered, she laid her parasol and her hat on a spotless bed and turned to her hostess.

"We hope to have a little surprise for you, Miss Embury," said Fru Heegard, in her friendly, almost intimate way. "Do you see that flight of narrow iron steps? You must climb it. Heegard is awaiting you at the head of them. He wanted to be there when you came up."

While Lotta climbed the stairs, which were barely wide enough for one person, she had glimpses of the plain, rather dark rooms of the apartment — of large, imposing articles of furniture, heavy portraits, and rich rugs. The next moment brought her to the head of the stairs. She stood in a tiny room with an open door. She passed through the door and was in a new world.

She was on the roof of the building, and all about her bloomed flowering shrubs. The city sent up its murmur, but of its streets she could see nothing. Only a maze of roofs was visible, and afar the lake, indigo beneath the rich blue sky. In the midst of the blooming things a table was spread, and round it were four chairs.

Herr Heegard stood a little apart, enjoying her delight; and by his side was a young man, smiling, too, although Lotta, after the first glance, felt that were she in his case she never would have the fortitude to smile, for although he was so young, he was a twisted, bowed, crippled creature. His eyes, his mouth, his brow, all the curious intensity of his face and manner, so like that of the man beside him, told Lotta that this was Gunnar Heegard's son. She went forward, trying with all her power to hide her pity.

"This is my son, Christian, Miss Embury," said the elder man, tenderly. "Like his father, he is a musician."

"Is n't that lovely for both of you?" said Lotta, giving her hand to the young man. "Would n't it have been horrid if he had been a stupid like me?"

"It could n't have been horrid to be like you," said the younger Heegard, smilingly.

"You don't know!" cried Lotta. "Did your father tell you—"

"He told me that you were brave and fortunate."

"How am I fortunate?"

"Oh, in being what you are, I suppose. He says you have a kind of zest for life the way people do in the old country."

"Have you lived in the old country?"

"Oh, yes, yes, I have lived there much! But I like this country, too. We are very happy here."

"Yes," said the elder man, "we are very happy here. At first Christian thought he could not get things to bloom where there is so much smoke, but you see it is not so. Never have we had a finer garden. It is not all flowers, either. Yonder is a little salad patch. Do you see?"

Fru Heegard came up the stairs, and asking Lotta to come to her aid, opened a little casement in the wall of the inclosed room. Lotta saw a dumb–waiter laden with an attractive dinner.

"Oh!" she cried, running forward to help, "that looks like the Sunday dinners we have at home!"

They laughed, and together they put the dinner on the table.

"I have told my maid we shall not need her," said Fru Heegard. "Why should we be waited on? The girl is anxious to go to her own people. I thought we should be well pleased to be alone."

They were all well pleased — no doubt about that. Lotta was never to forget that meal. The Heegards strove to make her enjoy herself; the conversation flowed smoothly; they listened to what she had to say and commented on it with interest. But the conversation could not stay in so small a focus, and in the talk that followed, Lotta for the first time in her life got beyond the merely neighborhood point of view. She appreciated that the world was wide, yet everywhere friendly; that there were many tongues, yet in a sense only one tongue. Chicago, which had seemed to her so amazing, so complete, so elegant, appeared crude and experimental to these people. Yet they liked it.

"It gives you a feeling of adventure," said Herr Heegard.

"That's what my friend, Polly Root, would say!" cried Lotta. They asked about Polly, and heard all that Lotta could tell them.

It appeared that the Heegards had thought Chicago an excellent place for Christian to start in his career as an instructor in the violin.

"He has been offered a place with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra," said Herr Heegard, proudly. "But he prefers not to appear in public."

It was said in the most matter–of–fact way. Christian accepted the remark without the slightest embarrassment. Lotta perceived that here was some attitude toward life, some kind of fortitude that she did not understand.

There was music after dinner—wonderful music. Down in the dark drawing–room, among the great carved pieces of furniture, Herr Heegard and his son played upon the violin and the 'cello, and Fru Heegard accompanied them at the piano. Ah, such music as it was! The four walls of the room disappeared from Lotta's gaze, and she saw the elm–shaded streets of Maitland and her own front gate swinging open and the path borders of iris blooming in purple and yellow. Figures moved about within the house — the thrush sang by the well. Her heart ached from remembering—

The music ceased.

"Of what were you thinking, Miss Lotta Embury?" asked the master.

"Of home," said Lotta. They looked at her and laughed softly.

"You see," said Herr Heegard, "this is an honest–hearted maiden. She pretends to nothing that she does not feel."

Should she have been thinking of something else, she wondered, something grander? Fru Heegard was closing the sheets of music, and on the outside she read "Symphonie Pathátique–Tschaikowsky." She wondered and wondered what it was that she should have thought of.

That night as she lay in her bed she was still wondering. But this she knew: she was a very ignorant, limited girl. A new kind of shame assailed her. She found herself longing to move at ease in that spacious realm of knowledge in which the Heegards were so at home, and she decided to take advice from Fru Heegard upon the subject. She would study, read, listen to music — do anything that this unpretentious but accomplished lady suggested. Meanwhile — meanwhile, if she was to go to her lessons in the morning, it behooved her to sleep. She closed her eyes, and again she saw the elm–shaded street, the swinging gate, the blooming iris that bordered the walk to her own little home. She tried not to think how they would be watching for the letter she had not yet written — tried to forget why it was that she could not write. But of what was actually going on in that house she had little notion until the following evening when, returning from school, she found a letter awaiting her from Polly Root.

"DEAREST LOTTA:—We are missing you pretty badly. We tried to go ahead and pretend that your not being here did n't matter particularly. But the truth is, whenever we start to do anything and realize that you are gone, it takes the spirit out of us. Roland and I mind it the worst, though. We have a lot of plans we want to talk over with you. But I suppose you are too wrapped up in your music to think of us.

"I went up to see your mother yesterday, and found things going queerly at your house. Your aunt had such a headache that she could n't see me, and your mother said she'd been ailing ever since she got home. It's too bad, is n't it? I suppose it's because she is n't used to the city. I was dreadfully disappointed, for I did so want to talk things over with her. I had made up my mind that she should tell me everything — all about what Herr Heegard said, and just what you were to study, and what sort of a place you were living in, and all.

"We think you're mean not to write. Yes, Roland thinks so, too. Why in the world don't you? I asked your mother if you had written, and she said no. She looked hurt when she said it, too, though of course she made excuses for you. It is n't like you to act this way. If you don't look out, some of us will come up there to see what the matter is—"

There was more — chat about this and that. But Lotta did not read it. She went to her desk and wrote:—

"I am working rather hard, and am interested in my lessons, of course. I have no friends at school yet, but there is a girl here at the Anna Louisa Home that I see a lot of and like. Her name is May Blossom, and she's as sweet as she sounds — though saucier. You never know what she's going to say or do next. Don't worry about me. I'll get to be a decent correspondent in time. I might have written Sunday, but I had dinner with Mr. and Mrs. Heegard and their son. It was all new and wonderful, and I want to tell you about it sometime."

To her Aunt Cathy she wrote :

"I hear that you are sick. Oh, I know what ails you, and I think you are making a dreadful mistake. You can't do such a thing as you are doing now without having to pay for it dreadfully. It is n't in you. It does n't belong to you. You've made me very unhappy, too. Perhaps I ought not to say that when you are having so much trouble, but I can't help it. I feel all mixed up, and every morning the thing rushes into my mind as soon as ever I wake up. O Aunt Cathy, please, please straighten things out! Let every one know the truth. We thought we were too proud to have them learn how I had failed, but we're really too proud to deceive them all. I keep thinking, 'What if some one I know from Maitland were to come across me here and find out how I'd been lying?' For that is what it amounts to, is n't it?"

A week later the thing Lotta had been fearing happened. She came out of the Anna Louisa Home in the morning with her short–hand books under her arm, and was confronted by a familiar face. There stood Roland Root.

CHAPTER SIX

A FRIEND FROM HOME

"ROLAND!" gasped Lotta.

That young man sprang forward and held out his hand, then hesitated and looked at her in surprise.

"Why, Lotta, are n't you glad to see me?"

"Of course I am. Would n't I always be? When did you come?"

"I left last night — got here some time before dawn. I thought perhaps you'd be leaving early, and so I came round at once."

"Is Polly with you now?"

"I'm alone. I came up to get a new camping outfit. We Roots are such vagabonds that we've completely worn out our old stuff. I'm going to get the neatest outfit to be found in the city. But first of all, I've come to see if you'll not change your mind and come with us. I'm sure we could get your mother to say yes if she thought you really wanted to go. Your music will be here when you come back."

Lotta gave a little gasp.

"What is it?" asked Roland.

"There's no music at all, Roland! There never has been. Oh, I can't have you making any mistakes about me — I just can't!"

"You've got me guessing," said Roland, bluntly. "What do you mean?"

"I'm studying stenography and book–keeping, that's what I mean, and I'm not doing it from choice, but because Herr Heegard told me I never had been and never would be a musician. And he was quite right. I realize it myself now."

"Then why in the name of goodness did n't you turn right round and come back home?"

"After the people had given me a farewell party and I'd made a last appearance?"

The boy stood before her knitting his brows.

"Oh, I say, it is tough, is n't it? But have n't you made a mess of it by doing as you have—won't it be harder to explain by and by than it would have been at first? And have n't you given the impression—"

He paused. He could not accuse of deceit this girl with the frank eyes and the kind face, so full of sympathy and earnestness.

Lotta made no reply. It was against her nature to say, "Aunt Cathy forced me to do it." So she faced him and said nothing.

"There's something you have n't told me," Roland said.

"I've told you enough, Roland. And I must be getting to school now."

"I'll walk with you, if I may. But, Lotta, what is the sense of your slaving here all through the hot summer learning stenography and bookkeeping? It is n't as if you had to earn your own living. There's more reason than ever why you should come with us."

"There's more reason than ever why I should make a success of the thing I've undertaken," Lotta retorted fiercely. "You need n't think that because I've made a failure of one thing that I'm going to flunk in everything I try. No, I'm going to make a success as a stenographer. I'm going to read, and study, and live, and by the time I'm ready to go to work I shall be able to take literary dictation, as well as business letters. Maybe I shall be private secretary to some interesting or famous person. You say I don't have to work, but really I do. I want to be independent. Girls can't do as they used to. They would be ashamed nowadays to sit round waiting for some one to feed them."

Roland flushed hotly. "You'd do a lot of sitting round of that sort! And your home is empty without you! Why, your Aunt Cathy is simply pining away! She has n't been herself at all since you left — just keeps to herself and does n't want to talk with any one—"

As he spoke them, the words seemed to strike him with a new meaning.

"Lotta Embury, she was the one who could n't get the courage to tell! That's what's the matter with her. She's living a lie — poor little honest Aunt Cathy!"

His tone was tender. By some miracle he understood. Lotta turned to him, with her eyes swimming in tears.

"O Roland!" she cried. "I'll never, never forget that of you! To think you could understand her! You know how honest she is. I believe it's devouring her — this poor, shabby little secret. Oh, how glad I am that you found out! Now you'll help me think what to do. I don't want to go back on Aunt Cathy, but I'm unhappy with this deceit between me and father and mother—"

"What? Don't they know?"

"No one knows — except May Blossom, my friend here in the city."

"You are n't going to get friends you like any better than your Maitland friends, are you? Better than — than Polly and me?"

"Stupid! Of course I won't. How Polly would laugh at you! She knows I'll always like you — Polly and you — best."

"I wonder! What other friends have you?"

Lotta laughed lightly.

"You're not inquisitive at all, are you? Why, I have Herr Heegard, and Fru Heegard, and their son Christian."

"But how does it come that you are friends with them when—"

"When I turned out to be such a stupid in the matter of the music? Oh, they don't mind. They know musicians are n't the only interesting people in the world."

"But they must meet so many young girls. Do they make friends of them all?"

Lotta frowned a little. "Please don't be, surprised because they like me, Roland. They saw I needed friends, perhaps."

But the bewildered look did not quite leave Roland's face.

"May I call for you at noon?" he asked. "Will you go out with me to luncheon?"

"I don't go out to luncheon. See, I carry my luncheon in this little box. Auntie did n't wish me to go out to the restaurants."

Roland let out a hearty laugh.

"What a queer mouse you are, Lotta! But your aunt certainly did n't mean you to snub your old Maitland friends. I'll be there at twelve — unless you'd really rather not."

"Oh, I'd love to, of course, and I suppose it would n't matter this once, would it?"

So Lotta agreed and went back to her work, although it was hard to keep her mind on it.

Roland's familiar face and voice had at once comforted and distressed her. Home–sickness rolled over her in waves. She could see the familiar houses of Maitland, the shaded streets, the churches with their modest spires. The scent of the gardens and the sound of the creek came back to her. Polly Root had been obliged to supply Lotta with imagination more than once in their friendship, and Lotta knew it. Yet was not this imagination — this power to see the things invisible?

"But it's because I love these things,", Lotta decided.

All her life she was to find that true. Wherever her heart was concerned, there she had imagination. She saw the world through her sympathies, and her clear, sensible mind was able — quite apart from the matter of sympathy — to set the right value upon many things. Yet the qualities that brought Polly Root her dreams and May Blossom her vivacity and Christian his power, she did not have.

She tried to tell Roland something of this while they sat at luncheon together.

"I don't think of myself as a failure," she explained. "I simply won't think of myself that way. I believe in being just to yourself as well as to other people, don't you?"

"Don't think about it at all, Lotta. You're all right, of course you are."

"But I must think about my life, Roland. It's taken a curious turn — been swept out of its channel the way the Missouri is sometimes. To think over a thing is n't to worry about it."

"You're growing too serious, Lotta, that's what I think. You need to come on our camping trip with us. I feel sure of that."

Lotta leaned back in her chair and looked at him with a discouraged air. He seemed dense — unable to understand. She hated to admit that she was disappointed in him. Were boys always slow to understand?

Just at that moment Christian Heegard entered the restaurant, carrying his violin. His face looked sadder and paler than usual. He walked very rapidly, and Lotta was astonished to see him join the group of musicians who provided the music during the noon meal. She had been watching these people and thinking how little she would like to play in such a place. She could not imagine that the musicians enjoyed it; nor would she have supposed that Herr Heegard would consent to let his son do such a thing. She saw the musicians give Christian a warm greeting, and then stand aside to allow him to go to the front of the dais. It was evident that he was to play a solo. Several of the patrons of the place recognized him, and applauded. Conversation was hushed. There was a prelude on the piano, and then Christian began to play the reckless interlude that follows the third act of "The Jewels of the Madonna."

Roland listened restlessly.

"I don't like that music," he said when the number was finished. "It gives me a wild, dare–devil feeling. And what a queer–looking duck that is who played it!"

Lotta flushed. "That's Christian Heegard. That's Herr Heegard's son," she explained.

"Why did n't you say so at first? If that had been my friend I'd have spoken right out."

"So would I," said Lotta stoutly, "if you had n't been—"

"Been what?"

"Oh, I don't know—strange."

"It's you that are strange. Back at Maitland I used to know just what you would say and do. Now you are different. How could you manage to change in so short a time?"

Lotta did not answer. She knew that she had changed. She knew that she had been dull back in Maitland. Roland was quite right — any one could have counted on what she would say and do next. But since she had left there she had learned something of sorrow and disappointment; she had found out that even a person who means always to do right may seem to be a wrongdoer. She had made new friends; the Heegards and May Blossom and her many new acquaintances at the Anna Louisa Home and at the school had, perhaps, given her a sort of education.

"I'm not ashamed of Christian Heegard, you may be sure," she said. "Far from it. I was only afraid you would n't like him, Roland."

"What makes him play in a place like this?" asked Roland. "I thought your friends were such great musicians."

Christian was playing again, and Lotta turned away without answering. She had never known Roland to be so disagreeable, and it was with difficulty that she kept her tears back. She sat silent until Christian had finished, and then, rising suddenly, she hastened forward toward the little dais on which he had stood. He saw her, and came down to meet her, holding out his hand. Lotta was oblivious to the people watching her. She had no idea that she was doing an unusual thing. She wished to speak to him, and she took the simplest way of doing it.

"Come," she said. "I have a friend here from home. You must meet him."

She was determined not to be governed by Roland's ill nature.

Roland rose as they joined him, and when Lotta had introduced Christian, the two young men shook hands.

"We each have a good friend in Miss Embury," said Christian, "so we should be friends, too."

"Won't you sit down and have luncheon with us?" asked Roland, forcing himself to be polite.

"Thank you, I should be glad to, but I lack the time. I play again in a few minutes."

A curious look crossed his face — Lotta thought that it was a look of pain.

"Do you enjoy playing in — in restaurants?" asked Roland, bluntly.

The crippled boy looked at the other for a moment in silence.

"No," he said, finally — and Lotta did not know that his voice could be so deep. "I do not enjoy it. I — I suffer — horribly."

Roland, suddenly ashamed, was silent.

"You wonder why, then, I do it? I must tell Miss Embury that my parents do not know I am here. They would forbid it. I" — he hesitated and his voice quivered— "I am here to expose myself to the very thing from which my good parents have protected me from the day I became a cripple. I am here to learn to — to endure. I want to be able to have the people look at me, to know they are pitying me for my miserable appearance, and still to be able to play. In time I wish to play my best at such moments, because I am suffering. Do you understand?"

His dark eyes glowed, his pale face grew more luminously pale.

"But do you need to do it?" asked Lotta. "Is it necessary?"

"Yes, it is necessary. It is necessary because I mean to play as well as my father — yes, better, better. I mean to console myself for all I lack by possessing something that others do not have."

Lotta turned her eyes almost timidly to Roland. Would he dare to frown at this?

"That's sportsmanlike," said Roland. He held out his hand, and as Christian grasped it, continued, "You'll do what you set out to do, I feel sure of it."

"Oh, I must get back to school," said Lotta, with a sigh. "I wish I could hear you play again, Mr. Heegard."

"Do not call me that. Let me be the friend to you two. I have no friends of my own age. Perhaps you think I am much older than you, but I am not — only a little older. It is my trouble that makes my face look old. Call me Christian, please. It will give me happiness."

"Let me see you again," said Roland. "I shall be here only a day or two. Can it be to–night?"

"We will go to a roof garden that will be good. My father and mother will go with us. Then Miss—"

"Lotta, you mean," said the girl.

"Then Lotta will join us."

They parted on that, and Lotta and Roland left the restaurant before Christian had begun to play his concluding pieces.

"He has pluck," said Roland. "I believe I could like that fellow."

"You did n't look as if you were going to at first."

"Oh, that's my — my ill nature. You don't quite know me, Lotta."

She left him at the school, but he was awaiting her when she came out in the afternoon, and he walked home with her. As Lotta had anticipated, there were messages for them from the Heegards. They were to dine on the roof garden "by lantern light" and afterward go to a summer garden for music.

"It's different from Maitland, is n't it?" said Lotta, happily, as she excused herself and ran to make ready for her evening of pleasure. She came down quickly, looking very charming in her light blue frock, and almost dancing in her eagerness to be on her way. Roland was still puzzled. He could not make out what had caused the change in her.

"When you have friends here, my dear child," said Fru Heegard to her as she helped Lotta to take off her hat, "you must let me know. You have the innocent country ways, and I love you for them. But you must not go to restaurants alone with young men."

"Oh, the people from home are different!"

"Permit me to be the judge of the proprieties," said Fru Heegard. "You have a simple and genial way, and you will make many friends. You must therefore accept the standards of the world. Remember, I have no daughter. Cannot you use me as an understudy for your good mother?"

With a swift gesture Lotta put her cheek against that of the kind woman.

"I'm an untaught barbarian," she sighed. "Please be patient with me. I'll do whatever you say — really I will."

"Oh, my dear," cried Fru Heegard, "you are a treasure! An old head on such young shoulders would be a pity."

The evening passed happily. The night was beautiful. Balmy air blew from the lake and the stars were golden. The Heegards and their guests ate on the housetop by lantern light, and afterward sat in a leafy garden and listened to music. The young people talked together. Herr Heegard and his wife looked on with satisfaction.

"Ah," said Herr Heegard to Lotta, "the friendships of my youth! I shall never forget them. I had one friend who walked with me the paths of our great forests, and sailed with me along our mysterious Scandinavian fiords! What secrets we told each other! I laid my soul bare to him. In this land you are not like that. You are too hard, too matter–of–fact. I have lamented that my poor Christian was not likely to have such pleasures. Yet to–night he seems happy with your friend, Miss Lotta."

"I would do anything to make him happy!" said Lotta, ardently. But Christian's father shook his head.

"He must find his own happiness. It will depend on himself whether he is a happy man."

Lotta wondered whether he dreamed of the inner life of this son at whom he was looking with the eyes of deep affection. Did he know of the ordeal through which the boy was compelling himself to pass day after day? She felt sure that he knew nothing of it. To be sure, Christian had mentioned meeting her in a restaurant, but he had left it to be inferred that he was lunching there.

When, later, Roland took her home, she spoke of that, and shook her head over it.

"There's Christian getting into a tangle, too," she said. "I'm sure he'll only bring trouble on himself. The only comfort I have when I think of the horrid mix–up I'm in is that I did n't bring it on myself."

"You can't get out of it that way, Lotta," said Roland. "Aunt Cathy is making it hard for you, I know, but after all, the thing for you to do is to come out and tell the truth. Never mind the consequences. Consequences are a sort of bugaboo. People are always being afraid of them and then finding out that they are n't so terrible, after all. I'm going to say now and here that I don't intend to be a party to this silly secret of yours. When I go home I mean to tell the truth. I don't say I'll hurl it about like an anarchist's bomb, but if any one asks me about you I'm not going to lie."

"You'll do just as you please, of course," said Lotta, rather coldly. "I'd be the last one to ask you to tell any sort of lie for me. But I will say this: if you tell, you'll put me in a very queer light. Don't you think you'd better leave me to get out of my trouble in my own way? I can't see why it should always be the people I think the most of who get me into the worst trouble."

"Then, if I'm not to be allowed to tell the truth, I won't go home at all. I'll go straight to the woods and get the camp ready for the family. If I go back to Maitland, I'm sure to be blurting out the facts."

A silence fell. They stood before the door of the Anna Louisa Home, with the light shining out on them. Lotta fumbled with her latchkey and wondered whether Roland thought that being truthful and direct was as easy as his manner indicated.

"It's a great pity the truth is so embarrassing," he said.

"O Roland," sighed Lotta, "I can't depend on you any more! You seem to want to be on the opposite side."

"I wonder why? Just think it over a while and see if you can find out."

They did not shake hands. Lotta, with a feeling of aching loneliness, went up to her room.

"He's right," she admitted to herself, bitterly. "But how am I ever to straighten things out? I suppose he thinks I'm a contemptible, cowardly girl. No doubt every one back home will agree with him. I wish I could run away where no one I know would ever see me again." She was so unhappy over her false position that she cried herself to sleep.

It was not Roland's way to cry, but for long hours he lay awake. He wondered whether he had really quarreled with Lotta. He could not remember that they had used angry words, but he was very sure that he was miserable.

CHAPTER SEVEN

AN INTERRUPTION

DISCIPLINE, discipline, discipline ! That was what the next few weeks taught Lotta Embury.

She rose at seven o'clock; breakfasted at half past seven; left the house at eight; walked by roundabout ways — thus getting her exercise — until nearly nine. At nine the classes at the Duplessis Business College were at work. At twelve they were dismissed. Lotta ate her luncheon from her little basket, and then ran out for a few moments. Sometimes she did a little necessary shopping at that time, but oftener she hastened to the Art Institute, where she would find May Blossom waiting for her beside the great bronze lions at the entrance steps. Then the two would walk for a few moments on the boulevard. At one o'clock Lotta was back at her work. At half past two she was walking homeward. Then she had sewing to do and letters to write; and sometimes she read to an elderly lady, almost blind, a friend of Mrs. McMinn, the housemother at the Anna Louisa Home. On Sunday she went to church, and then usually to dinner at the Heegard's, and took a walk in the park afterward. Sometimes Christian accompanied her on these walks, and she tried not to mind when people looked after them pityingly. She was glad she could help him to endure all that this pity made him suffer.

Her letters home were brief and, as she knew very well, unsatisfactory.

"I should n 't be surprised any day to see my dear old dad coming up here," she said to May Blossom. "I'm not fooling him one little bit. He knows there's something wrong. Dad's always been able to see through me as if I were made of glass. Rather than write letters that mean nothing he's stopped writing altogether, and I don't blame him at all."

"I don't see why he does n't come if he thinks something is wrong," said May.

"Down in Maitland it's hard to move us. We're terribly afraid of wasting money, and still more afraid of doing something useless."

Polly Root sent gay, friendly little letters from the woods. It was wonderfully beautiful there, she wrote. They were on a high point of land jutting into one of the pine–fringed lakes of Wisconsin, and the air made her feel that she could live forever. She and Roland often went out in their canoe before sunrise. It only needed Lotta to make it perfect.

"Roland and I are always so much happier when you are round, you queer Lotta," she wrote. "Why are n't you here with your violin? No doubt you are beginning to play beautifully now. I wish I could float here on this lovely lake and hear you playing as you did that time at our house."

So Roland had not told! The vision of the white tents beside the lake, of the tossing, singing pines, of the gay little meals cooked over the camp fire, tormented Lotta. How she longed for the coolness and the freedom! But for her there was only the little bedroom, the hot, unrefreshing nights in the city, and the days of concentrated work.

More than once she was tempted to bring her lessons to an end and take the first train for the woods. If her studies had held any vital significance for her, the temptation would not have assailed her as it did. But the thought would arise:—

"After I have finished at this school what is before me? Work in some tiresome office! Perhaps I shall never get back to Maitland to live. I shall be kept away from home by the mere need of proving that I can make something of myself."

It seemed, after all, such a poor and unsatisfactory thing to prove. Lotta felt that to her, "business" could never mean anything except monotonous work, a small salary, and a homesick life.

Still, something held her to her post. No matter how much her mind roamed, she was faithful to her work. She gained the reputation in her classes of being particularly thorough. Others in the class were quicker. Lotta nearly always fell short where the intuitions had to come into play; she could not jump at conclusions. But she could listen and she could think clearly. What she learned she remembered, and she had a careful way of tying her knowledge together, of bringing this and that subject into their proper relations.

"I shall be able to recommend you highly when you leave us, Miss Embury," the instructor said to her. "You will never make a very swift worker, but neither will you leave undone what you are expected to do. With experience you will be able to attend to the details of an office without supervision."

Lotta wondered why this praise did not gratify her more. And yet deep in her heart she knew why. She was a desperately homesick girl, and nothing except home could stop her craving.

Perhaps, however, in fighting this tugging homesickness she failed to appreciate the pleasures and compensations that she had. When May Blossom left for a vacation and the Heegards went to Colorado for a month, she had an opportunity to find out how lonely the city could be.

"But I must n't mope," she declared. "I simply must not."

She went oftener than ever to read to Mrs. McMinn's friend; she helped the other girls to arrange charades and little dramatic "skits"; but it was very lonely, for all that. The clothes with which Aunt Cathy had provided her had not all proved durable. Some were getting shabby, and Lotta had no way in which to replace them. It never occurred to her to draw on that pathetic fund of Aunt Cathy's for anything not absolutely necessary. Then, to add to her discontent, on every side those about her were talking of vacations.

"But there's no vacation for me," thought Lotta. "Once through school, I must find that wretched situation. Then I shall settle down and work the rest of my life, no doubt. Polly will have a fascinating time and Roland will go off adventuring. Christian will become a great musician and May will be a famous artist, while I go tip–tapping away year in and year out in some office, going and coming at the push of a bell, and my dear old dad will be living along without me. What a mix–up!"

But such thoughts were only occasional. On the whole, she was cheerful and determined. She studied hard, and the prospects were that she would leave school with excellent credentials.

Then one afternoon, dragging herself home in the intense heat of August, dusty and jaded, she saw in her letter box a telegram.

"It's Aunt Cathy," she thought. "She's broken down — could n't stand it any longer."

But the message was not about Aunt Cathy; it was from Lotta's mother, and it said:—

"Your father very ill. Come home at once."

Lotta stood in the hallway reading the message over and over, strangely unable to realize its meaning. For a few moments it seemed to her that panic would overtake her; that she would give herself up to her fears — fears that were like those in a dream, vague, unreal, horrible.

Then the discipline of the past few weeks began to tell on her. It was not the classroom bell to which she was responding now. It was not the hour for study, but the hour for action. She straightened herself, and went in search of Mrs. McMinn.

An hour later she had packed her trunk and written a note to the business college to explain her absence. With her little bag in her hand, she stood at the door of the Anna Louisa Home.

"You've been brave and sensible, my dear," said Mrs. McMinn. "Now don't imagine that things are worse than they are. Very likely your father is already better. Write to me, won't you ? Good–bye — and good luck, Lotta!"

"Good–bye and good luck!" The words rang in Lotta's ears as she made her way to the station. She had not ventured before upon any journey alone, and now for the first time she had all the responsibilities of traveling; but although inside her raged a tumult of love and fear, she met them calmly and quietly.

She had expected the ride home to seem very long, but so absorbing was the storm of emotion within her that she was actually surprised when the train stopped at the familiar station. She had hardly moved a hand since she got on the train; cramped and dull, she made her way out on the platform. It was one o'clock at night, but there were some people about. She could see the station agent bending over the telegraph key. Peter Bond, the old cabman, was there, and he called to her:—

"Jump into my wagon, Lotta! Your pa's pretty sick, and they're wanting you bad. I told 'em I'd be on the watch for you. They were n't sure you'd get here to–night."

"Oh, thank you, Mr. Bond! What's the matter with father, do you know?"

"A stroke. Paralysis. Can't move or talk."

"Oh!" gasped Lotta. "You'll drive fast, won't you, Mr. Bond?"

How sweet were the odors rising from the old garden! And there to greet her were the ripening apples, sending out their unmistakable odor.

She took out her little purse.

"How much, Mr. Bond?"

"Nothing, Lotta. Run into the house quick."

She stood for a second longer, looking up into the old cabman's face.

"Thank you, Mr. Bond."

He stretched down his hardened hand, and she took it.

"Don't be afraid, Lotta. Trouble comes to us all. I have had much trouble in my day — lost my two sons and my daughter. Just me and my old wife left. But I'm still liking life. It takes trouble as well as happiness to make up life. Don't you lose heart, Lotta."

Oh, the little familiar path! Her feet knew each turn of it, each whitewashed side stone. And now she was up the steps and in the sitting room. She heard a heavy breathing, and knew it for her father's. She put down her bag, tossed her hat upon it, and hastened noiselessly to the door of the side room. Two white faces looked at her from beside the bed. Another face, changed, almost unrecognizable, lay on the pillow.

"O my poor dears!" said Lotta. She went in and kissed them all. At last she knew the satisfaction of being where she was needed.

The women looked at her with yearning faces. They were very tired — very broken. Aunt Cathy seemed to have grown small. Her eyelids twitched as she talked, and she had her little cold hands clasped together. Mrs. Embury was braver and more capable.

"I've had a terrible shock, Lotta," she said. "Two of them, in fact. First your father's stroke. Then Cathy told me — about you. She said she could n't go round with a secret like that any longer. Seeing your father struck down that way was a warning to her. O Lotta, why could n't you have told your own mother?"

Aunt Cathy had left them, and the two stood outside the door of the sick room.

"You are my child, are n't you?" demanded Mrs. Embury, almost fiercely. "I don't want to find fault with you, Lotta, but why did you shut me out that way? I don't believe children ever understand how much it hurts parents to be shut out."

She stood looking at Lotta in misery, and the girl realized that what her mother had said was true. Little Aunt Cathy, with her determined will, had somehow taken the right of way in that house. Yes, Lotta saw it now, and knew that she had shared her aunt's fault. Her foolish pride, her weak tolerance of her aunt's mistaken position, her unconscious aloofness from her mother, all appeared before her now as they were. She gathered her mother into her arms and sobbed upon her neck.

"Everything you say is true," she whispered. "It's all as you say. But I'm just your girl, really, really I am. I know now you never did have quite your share in anything. Oh, you dear, patient, sweet thing! If you'd complained I'd have seen it sooner; but you never did complain."

"I suppose I was too proud," her mother admitted, weeping softly. "I did n't want anything that did n't come to me freely. Perhaps I was wrong, too. I ought to have taken my place in my house and in your life, Lotta. It would have been better for us all if I had."

"After this we'll keep close together, won't we?" Lotta murmured.

They went back into the room, and there they sat hand in hand beside that tragic sick bed. Lotta knew that this hour of sympathy and understanding was what they both needed — was, indeed, what unconsciously she her-self had been longing for these many years.

At last the sky began to whiten and the leaves of the shrubbery to stir. Lotta saw that her mother was sleeping, with her head resting against the back of the old rocking–chair. A great wave of tenderness for this diffident, loving, shy woman came rushing over her.

"I'll do my best to keep trouble away from her," she declared. She leaned over the bed. Her father's eyes were open, and he was looking at her with perfect comprehension. She seized his helpless hands in hers.

"Lotta has come home, dad," she whispered, "and she'll not leave you again — not for anything or any one. You'll get well, dad, won't you? Make up your mind to get well. Try, dad, try! I'll pray for you, too, dad, and you must pray for yourself. Praying helps, don't you think it does? There must be some Power that hears and helps."

Great tears welled up in her father's eyes, and she wiped them away.

"We're happy to be together again, are n't we?" she asked. "No matter what has happened, we're glad to be together."

Her mother slept on. Lotta sat holding her father's stricken hands and gazing at him. The dawn came in rich beauty, flooding the room with rose, and then with gold. The glory passed, and a new day was at hand.

Presently Lotta was startled by a shrill whisper. "Come out, Lotta!" came the voice of her aunt. "Breakfast is ready."

Lotta straightened herself up painfully and tiptoeing by her mother, followed the little figure of her aunt into the summer kitchen.

It was a little, homely room, which in the winter was used for a wash room. The woodshed opened off it, and the odor of the pine, piled high for fuel, was very pleasant. Breakfast was set on a pine table spread with a dark blue cloth.

"O Aunt Cathy," sighed Lotta, "all these things are just the same, but poor father—" She could not go on.

"Yes, it's terrible — terrible," said her aunt. "There has been plenty of trouble in this house lately, Lotta."

"Some of it was of our own making, was n't it?" asked Lotta. Her voice quivered a little. "If you and I had told the truth, Aunt Cathy, like good soldiers, we should have saved ourselves most of it."

Aunt Cathy's sallow little face, curiously shrunken and aged, flushed.

"It's easy enough for you to say that, Lotta. But if you had only been here—"

"If I had been here, it never would have occurred to me to tell anything except the truth. Anyway, I'm going to tell it now."

Her aunt caught her by the hand.

"No, no, Lotta,—not now—not when we've so much else to worry about!" Her loosely knotted hair was falling about her brow, and Lotta saw that it had turned from pale gold to silver. There was misery in her eyes and she was shivering. The girl felt compassion for her. She longed to comfort and soothe her little aunt, but she knew that if she did, it would mean giving way to her as every one in that house always had given way. She let Aunt Cathy retain her almost frantic hold upon her hand, but she shook her head.

"Don't worry, Aunt Cathy. I shan't do anything dramatic. There will be nothing in the way of a confession, if that's what you're afraid of; but the first person who asks me about my life in Chicago shall have the facts."

Aunt Cathy flung her niece's hand from her.

"You are cruel and ungrateful," she said, turning white again. Her pale eyes had something more than suffering in them, and Lotta saw that they blazed with anger. Suddenly she felt much older than her poor little aunt. She reached out her arms to her.

"Don't, Aunt Cathy! Don't be angry, please! It wears you out so dreadfully!" she cried.

"I gave up almost everything I had for you! I gave you every chance, and now—"

"You've tried to make me over into something that I never could be," said Lotta, tense but quiet, "and I've suffered as well as you. You made me seem like a double–dealer, so that my friends will have very hard work to overlook it in me. Yes, you've done good things for me, Aunt Cathy, — lots of them, — but you've done bad things to me, too. We may as well look at the matter as it is."

"Oh!" gasped Aunt Cathy, beating her thin little hands together. "Oh, I could n't have believed it of you, Lotta!"

"It's not I, it's facts," said Lotta, firmly, although she was in anguish.

"But there's other trouble!" cried Aunt Cathy. "Trouble you know nothing about!"

"What?"

"The store — your father's store. It has n't been going well. He's been losing money all the year. We've been getting poorer and poorer. Money we expected has n't come in. It looks as if we'd be on the county yet. Your father never was any manager, Lotta. I've always said he'd bring us to ruin."

"We'll not worry about anything like that. It's absurd to be talking about the county house! You're just trying to make yourself miserable, Aunt Cathy. To my mind we've only one real trouble, and that's my dear old dad's sickness—"

She put her hands to her eyes with a swift, childish gesture, and sobbed.

Her aunt softened somewhat. "There, there," she said, "come and eat, anyway. After breakfast we'll talk things over again."

Lotta wiped her eyes and sat down opposite her aunt at the table.

"We'll not talk of our foolish old secret," she said. "I've made up my mind about that once and for all. As for the store, Aunt Cathy, I shall take charge of that myself."

"You — a hardware store! Don't be a goose. It takes a strong man to do that."

"I can hire muscle," said Lotta. "But I shall supply whatever else is needed— till father gets round again."

"He'll not do that," said her aunt. "You need n't expect that, Lotta."

"Look here, Aunt Cathy," cried Lotta, "what are you trying to do to me? Do you want to make me as miserable as you are? Well, I'm not going to let you do it. I never did love any one better than you, but you've always tried to make other people think and feel just the way you did. Now you must n't do that. I'm going to be the one who plans and works for a while. I must be, don't you see that? Mother's got all she can stand. So you leave me alone, won't you, dear? I'm going to believe that father will get well. Don't you say a word to the contrary. Understand?"

"You're as fierce as a tiger," said her aunt, with an exasperated sigh. She looked at Lotta accusingly; but the determined face of the girl showed her that no apology would be forthcoming. "Have your own way, then!" she said, sharply, and turned away from her niece.

CHAPTER EIGHT

FAIR FIELD AND NO FAVOR

STANDING in front of her father's store, Lotta tried to look at it as if she were a stranger. She did her best not to let her affection for it influence her in judging its appearance. She saw a low, weather–beaten building, an outer stairway mounting to the second story, a faded and tattered awning, and two dusty show windows, in which was a motley array of household utensils. True, the place had a certain village charm about it. It looked friendly, would, indeed, have succeeded in seeming familiar even to the chance passer–by; there was an almost human benevolence, and patience, and amiable down–at–heelness in its aspect. It was kind and helpless, like an old man who is out of the running. It made her think of her father, and that brought the little sharp stinging into her eyes with which she was becoming too familiar. She put the old-fashioned brass key — it must have been five inches long — into the keyhole and unlocked the door. The deserted room was very close from having been shut for several days, and two bluebottle flies were buzzing horribly. Lotta drove them out, threw open the doors and looked about her.

Had she changed, or was it the place?

It had once seemed to her a well–supplied store. Now it looked pathetic. Dust was everywhere; some of the stock was rusted. There were little piles of odds and ends; almost nothing was properly arranged. Lotta, accustomed now to the nice precision of fine shops, stared in dismay at the pitiful little stock. She wondered what May Blossom would say if she could see it.

"What an odd lot of old junk, my dear!" she would probably say. "I can't imagine what you'll do with it!" Lotta could almost hear the crisp light tones of her friend.

Well, for her part, she was glad that May could not see it — the dear, preposterous old place. How pathetic that her father should have thought he could make a living for four persons out of it! Yet what other way was there for him to earn a living? She felt sure that the shop had not always looked like this. Things had been running down; her poor father himself had been "running down," had been needing her — and she had been away, hiding with her silly, shabby secret!

As she stood there in that depleted, neglected little store, the last remnant of her vanity and selfish anxiety melted away. She went to the front door and took from it the sign announcing that the shop was closed. Then she noticed that the bluebottle flies were back again.

"The first thing I shall do," she said aloud, "is to mend the screen."

It was comforting to have something to do. She was of little use in the solemn house, where the neighbors, many of whom were experienced in nursing, came and went, all eager to help. After that first night her mother had forbidden Lotta to stay long in the sick room.

"It can do no good," she had said, compassionately. "And why should you be there, my dear? We don't want you breaking down. Keep just as bright and cheerful as you can, Lotta."

Something in the tones of her voice had touched Lotta deeply. Her mother was now speaking out as she felt, and the curious restraint that had enchained her for years was disappearing. For the first time since Lotta had become a grown girl, her mother was revealing her tenderness for her without embarrassment or shyness. It made Lotta very happy. Yes, in spite of her father's severe illness and of the bad condition of affairs at the store, she was happy.

There in the quiet of the store she had an opportunity to think things over. While she mended the screen, swept the floor and dusted the counters, she was thinking of all that the last few days had brought her. It was true that her little–girlhood seemed now to have dropped behind. But that did not sadden her. She was ready for what was to come — fit for the fight, as Roland would have put it.

"I shall like it," she said aloud. "It will be worth doing."

"What will be worth doing?" asked a voice.

She looked round to see the face of Sam Quigley, the reporter for the Maitland Weekly Bee, who stood outside the threshold. He pushed open the screen door and entered.

"It's mighty fine to see you again, Lotta," he said. "I 'm sorry that it was trouble that brought you home, though."

"Oh, thank you!" said Lotta, holding out her hand. "It 's terrible, is n't it, Sam? But I 'm beginning to see that no one can get away from sorrow. Sooner or later it comes."

"That's so, of course. It seems a great pity, though, that it should have come to you just now when you were pushing ahead with your music. It won't keep you from going on with your violin, will it?"

Lotta gave a little start. She had been so deeply absorbed in thoughts of what she would do in the store that she had almost forgotten the old tangle.

"Sam, sit down," she said. The boy dropped into the sagging splint seat of Mr. Embury's armchair. "You 're the very person I want to see — though I did n't realize it till this minute. I want you to do me a service — to print something in the Bee."

"You've come to the right man. It's my business to write for the Bee and my pleasure to serve you, Lotta. What is it?"

Then Lotta told her story. She did it with emphasis, detail, and exactness.

"I want every one to know about it," she said when she had finished. "Above all, it must be made clear to them how far Aunt Cathy was from meaning to do any wrong. It 's a pity that a psychological explanation can't go with every startling news paragraph, is n't it? But it can't, and so I'll have to trust to the kindness of our old friends to remember that it has been the dream of Aunt Cathy's life that I should be a musician, and how tempted she was. The miserable little deceit has almost killed her, Sam."

"I can see that," said Quigley, sympathetically. "I knew that something besides ill health was the matter with her, because she did n't want to talk with any of her old friends, and she used to be the most sociable person in Maitland. But don't you worry about the way the people will treat her, Lotta. Here in Maitland we understand each other pretty well. I might even say that your Aunt Cathy is better understood by those outside the family than by those who live with her."

"Perhaps so," sighed Lotta. "I know I've only just begun to see through certain things. You won't gloss the truth over, so far as I am concerned, will you, Sam? I want everything to be made plain — no more secrets."

"Trust me," said Sam; he rose and held out his hand.

Lotta went back to her work. She had decided to get up early the following morning and clean the windows before any one was about. Meanwhile there were the shelves to clean, the show cases to fit up and the stock to rearrange. It would take her several days.

A woman, seeing the door open, entered to make a small purchase. She was a stranger to Lotta, — a newcomer in the town, — but apparently she wanted to be neighborly.

"Are you going to take your pa's place while he's ailing?" she asked sympathetically.

"Maybe," said Lotta. "Do you think I could — if I had some one to help me?"

"Of course you could," responded the woman heartily. "Why, we'd all just love to help you! Is this star–shaped cooky cutter the only kind you have? I like to make all sorts of queer–shaped cookies for the children. Have n't you any fishes or bunnies?"

"Oh, I 'm afraid not," said Lotta, regretfully. Then she had a sudden thought. "But I'll send a post card to the city this morning if you like. Perhaps I could get the cutters by day after to–morrow. Would that be time enough?"

"You'll do," said the woman. "Now, your pa is as good a man as there is. Every one who speaks of him says that; but I don't believe he ever offered to rush an order through the way you have just now. Yes, day after to–morrow will be time enough. I want them for a birthday party."

"I'll do what I can," said Lotta.

She could almost hear her father's kind, quiet voice saying:—

"It is n't worth while, daughter. You won't make ten cents' profit on the transaction."

But Lotta was not interested in immediate profits. It was a part of "the game" to do the work promptly and well. She could not help thinking what genuine fun it would be to run the store if only her poor father were not lying in tragic helplessness in his darkened room. But after all, it was because he was there, unable to do anything for himself or for others, that the "game" was necessary. That fact made her work in the store of real importance. She was not "playing store"; she was a storekeeper in sincerity and truth.

She thought that out as she dusted, and rearranged, and polished.

"To–night," she decided, "I shall come over here and look at the ledgers. What a fortunate thing it is that I can understand them! If I'd been spending my time with my violin I should n't have an idea about book–keeping. As it is, maybe I shall be able to straighten out the books. Aunt Cathy said they were in a terrible muddle. I suppose collections have been slow. Dad would n't like to dun his old neighbors; but it will be a question of good bookkeeping with me, and neighborliness will have nothing to do with the case. I'll send out statements for every cent owing. They'll pay up now when they realize how much we need the money." She smiled a little at having caught herself in an inconsistency. "I suppose you never do get away from neighborliness, after all," she reflected. "Oh, yes, it's easy enough to see why dad was so lenient with his old friends. But just the same, I'll send them all statements." She was quite sure that there would be plenty of statements to send out. All her life she had heard her mother and her aunt reproaching him about his "slackness" with his customers.

She stopped on her way through the orchard to look at the ripening apples. It would soon be time to harvest them. She must ask Aunt Cathy — no, no, ask her mother — whom they had better get to help gather the fruit. Then it must be shipped. Fortunately, their apple crop was arranged for. The same firm of commission merchants had purchased the apples for many years.

The zinnia bed was like a Persian carpet of dull, rich colors; she picked a handful of the flowers and carried them to the house with her. All was silent in the dim rooms. She could see Aunt Cathy in the shade of the porch, shelling peas, and through the open bedroom door her mother, rocking back and forth and back and forth beside the sick bed.

"May I come in a moment, mother?" Lotta asked. "Let me sit beside father a while, please."

"I don't like you to, really, my dear child," said her mother's tired voice. "It 's so dreadful."

"Yes," said Lotta, softly, "in a way it is. But do you know, dad could n't ever seem very dreadful to me. He 's in trouble, that 's all, and I should like to stay near him."

"Well, sit here a little while, then," said her mother, rising and making way for her. "But I can't have you breaking down, Lotta."

Lotta shook her head courageously. She had not the remotest intention of breaking down; that would be like running away at the opening of the battle. She went up to her father and bending over him, held the flowers where he could see them.

"Zinnias, darling dear," she said, softly. "Do you see them? Are n't they sweet? Oh, daughter loves you so much! You 'll get well, won't you — for daughter? I've been over in the store, dear heart, straightening things up a bit, and I 'm going to open it up for trade at once. Don't you be afraid for us; we'll get on all right. You have n't been feeling well for a long time, have you? You needed Lotta at home to help you. Of course you did. Well, she 's here, and she 's going to do what she can."

Did he understand? He seemed to, indeed. A comforted expression, childlike and dependent, appeared to creep into those distressed and anxious eyes.

"Have you been awake a long time, dear?" she asked. "Let Lotta sing to you."

But first she washed the poor twisted face with cool water, rubbing it with her soft hands, brushing back the hair, closing the tired eyes and kissing them. As she worked she softly sang fragments of the old hymn tunes that he loved.

Finally she sat beside him, holding his inert hands in her strong grasp. He relaxed at last; his eyes closed, and he slept. "He 's got to get well," she declared over and over. "He must — he must."

Indeed, when the doctor came that day he gave her very good hope.

"There's a chance," he said. "I don't say that it's quite half a chance, but it's a fractional one. He's not an old man yet, and there's a lot of resistance in him."

She felt very tenderly toward Aunt Cathy, too. As she saw her early and late, working patiently about the house, doing all that she could do to ease a difficult situation, and thought how uncongenial a life of domestic monotony always had been to her, and that she had dreamed great dreams, first for herself and then for her niece, it was impossible not to forgive her.

Lotta went further than that — she tried to hearten her. But that, she foresaw, would be a rather difficult matter with the Maitland Bee conveying to all the town and county the truth about Lotta's absence from home.

"We regret to say," the article read, "that the condition of our valued citizen, Mr. Paul Embury, remains unimproved. Mr. Embury was stricken with paralysis a little over a week ago, and though he appears to be conscious of all that is going on round him, he is completely helpless; even speech is denied him.

"His daughter, Miss Lotta Embury, is at home; she was called to the bedside of her father just before the completion of her course at the Duplessis Business College in Chicago. Miss Embury went to Chicago with the expectation of studying the violin, but at the advice of Herr Heegard, the distinguished virtuoso, she resigned her plan, convinced that she lacked any great talent in the direction of music. Miss Embury has reopened her father's hardware store, and will conduct the business for her father until his recovery. All Mr. Embury's townsmen unite, we feel sure, in hoping that this will be soon."

"So much," thought Lotta, "for the Bee. Sam Quigley has done the thing just as I wished it done. Now it's for the neighbors to do the rest. I only wish it were possible for poor Aunt Cathy to go away till people get through wondering and exclaiming."

Lotta took the paper to her aunt.

"We can see the white of the enemies' eyes," she said, with assumed cheerfulness. "The fight's on."

Aunt Cathy showed unexpected valor.

"I'm glad of it," she said. "The sooner we know what we have to deal with, the better. I could n't have done it alone, Lotta, but with you here to help me I can go through with it. But if they won't let us hold up our heads again, then—"

"Then we'll go somewhere else," said Lotta, decidedly. "I'll tell you right now I would n't stay round, snubbed and wretched, trying to 'live down' a fault. I don't believe in that kind of thing. I'm going to be happy somehow or other, and I 'm going to have the people I love happy, too."

"Happy?" said Aunt Cathy, turning her pinched face toward Lotta. "Do you think I expect to be happy, Lotta? Why, I 'm going to lose all my old friends! You'll see."

"All right, then," said Lotta, "we 'll go somewhere else and make new friends."

"You talk like a child. How could we go anywhere? Where else could we make a living.

"I could make a living for the two of us this blessed minute, Aunt Cathy. Maitland is n't the only place in the world."

"No, but it 's our home," retorted her aunt, with conviction. "It's where our friends are and our investments."

"We'll see if it is where our friends are," Lotta replied. "As for investments, we 'd never be martyrs for the sake of a few thousand dollars."

"Oh, yes, you can talk that way, Lotta, but you don't know the value of money yet."

"No, I don't know all that. But I do know that I 'm going to walk down to the post office for the mail."

"You 're not going out to–day—not with that piece in the paper fresh in every one's mind!"

"I'm going right down into the midst of them," declared Lotta. "I can stand that better than staying here in the dark and writhing like a crushed worm. I want to be there when the crowd is the thickest."

Her aunt looked at her almost timidly, and turned with a dragging step to the kitchen.

Lotta, in her fresh white dress, bareheaded and with her treasured green parasol in her hand, made her way through the orchard path and out upon Main Street. The glory of summer was yielding to the splendor of autumn, and the elms had begun to shed their leaves. Lotta walked through a soft golden rain of them. There should be nothing in her manner to suggest bravado, but she meant to face the whole town if she had the opportunity. She anticipated nothing very distressing, yet she was quivering a little. She had read often enough of the cruelty of small towns, and although she had personally seen little or nothing of that quality in Maitland, she was not quite sure what might happen.

She met no one on her way to the post office, but as she turned to go up the steps of the building, she came full upon three men, all friends of her father's.

Their hats were off and their hands extended almost before Lotta could recognize them. They inquired for her father, and said that they were glad she was back among them. Was it true she was going to open the store? She must come to them for any advice they could give.

Lotta thanked them rather brokenly. After all, she was not finding herself quite firm; but she mustered up courage to go on into the office. A group of girls stood near the window, laughing and chatting as they called for their mail or opened their boxes. When they saw Lotta they stopped. Then she heard one of them whisper: "It's Lotta — here! Did you ever?"

After a moment, however, one of them came forward — little Morena Fuller, a cousin of Sam Quigley's.

She shook hands and then stood on tiptoe to kiss Lotta.

"I'm so sorry you 've had trouble," she said. The other girls came then, and one said:—

"We're coming round to the store to see you. May we?"

They were all a little embarrassed, for they knew better than the men how much Lotta's going away had meant to her, with the party, and the public concert, and the article in the paper about "Maitland's talented daughter." They attached more importance, too, to Aunt Cathy's secretiveness and misrepresentation. Lotta knew as she looked at them that they would be telling that story about her for years to come — perhaps as long as she lived. There was only one way to put the incident in its proper place, and that was to make such a success of the thing she had undertaken that her failure would not matter.

But the girls were friendly. They waited until she had got her mail, and then offered to walk home with her. Lotta had to shake hands with Mr. Barstow, the pastor of her father's church, and with several ladies, She could feel that they were thinking about her aunt and herself, but they spoke only of her father.

"They 're going to give me a chance," Lotta decided. "I can't ask more than that. But I suppose it will be harder for Aunt Cathy. They will blame her far more than they will me. Poor Aunt Cathy!"

She went to the store to open her letters. One was from Polly Root. Lotta drew it first out of the bundle and slit the envelope.

"We are hastening home, dear Lotta," Polly wrote. "We all want to be near you while your father is so ill. Roland has told me about your other difficulties, too. You must n't worry about them. Every one will understand why Aunt Cathy did as she did. We want to be home with you, too, while the nine days' wonder is raging about your change of programme — giving up your music for business, I mean. Roland thinks you are fine. He 's wild to get home and tell you so. He says he was n't a bit nice to you when he was in Chicago. He was distressed for you, that was all, but he 's always blundering, I tell him, and acting as if he were angry when he 's only unhappy. We 're packing up, and will be with you a day or two after you receive this letter."

Lotta laid the letter down on the desk and looked about her with a sense that in spite of all, the world was a fine old place.

CHAPTER NINE

FRESH IDEAS AND NEW HOPES

THE face of everything seemed changed now that the Roots were coming home. They were the only people in Maitland, Lotta thought, who would always understand her and who would always be able to forgive. Even Roland, who had been so churlish in Chicago, would understand. And she knew now that it was she who would have to understand and forgive Roland. She began to see why he had been severe with her; it had been because she was not living up to what was best in her. He had wanted her to belong to herself and not to another — not to her aunt, not to any one. He had been right, of course. Her life was her own, to enjoy, to use for growth, and no one except herself must ever be the captain of her soul.

When the Roots arrived in Maitland, they came at once to the store.

"I want," Lotta said, "to improve things here. The place needs a new coat of paint. The old awnings ought to come down, and new ones should be put up. I want my floor painted; I must improve the stock."

Mr. Root smiled at her anxious face.

"Very well," he said; "why not do these things? I agree with you that they are all needed. You speak of paint — your father used to carry paint in stock, but he 's let it run out, so that it 's worse than useless for a person to try to get anything of the sort here in the store. Yet he ought to carry paints — it 's the logical thing for a store of this sort. Now I happen to know of a manufacturer who will put his paint in here, — a full, fine stock, — and let you sell it on commission."

"That's a good idea," said Lotta. "I have n't any money just now except—"

She hesitated.

"Except what?"

"The remains of what Aunt Cathy gave me for my education. I feel that it is sacred to that purpose, and that I ought n't to use it for anything else."

"Not without her permission, of course, but I believe she'll let you use it here. Why, Lotta, it 's this shop that 's going to give you your real education!"

"Anyway," said Lotta, "I mean to return auntie's money some day, with interest."

"Oh, do, Lotta!" cried Mrs. Root. "That will give you something definite to work for."

So Lotta approached her aunt on the subject.

"Use the money for anything you like, my dear," Aunt Cathy said. "I 've tried to have my way a little too much, I 'm afraid. Now you have your way, Lotta. As for paying me back, that 's just as you decide. If the time ever comes when you can, why, you may, for I 'm beyond my earning days."

"No, you are n't, auntie. You 're capable of earning a good deal of money. There are ever so many ways in which women may earn money nowadays, and for my part I think they're a great deal happier when they 're doing it. Shall I be thinking out some plan?"

"Yes, do. I want to put myself right with this community again. It 's outrageous for people to be thinking of me as a woman too weak to keep to the right path! You know I always mean to do right — you know I do!"

Her gaze grew fierce, and she clenched her thin hands. Lotta put her arm round the bitter woman.

"Dearest Aunt Cathy," she said, "what 's the use in being dramatic? You were just too weak to face disagreeable consequences. What of it ? So are many lovely people. Don't think of yourself as strong when you 're weak. I believe it 's that sort of thing that muddles up life all the time. Think of yourself as weak and try to grow strong. It 's the truth, is n't it? At least, it 's the truth about me, and I 'm much better satisfied facing it than turning my back on it."

Aunt Cathy drew away from her.

"I did n't think I 'd ever let any young person talk to me like that," she said. "But you don't mean it for me in particular, do you, Lotta? I mean, you don't want to hurt me. You 're just stating the facts."

She let her sewing fall in her lap and rocked back and forth slowly. Lotta bent over and gave her a resounding kiss.

"You 're my own auntie, and no one will ever take your place with me —— no one."

"But how can you love me when—"

"Could anything make you stop loving me? Anything? You know it could n't. Well, then!" And Lotta smiled triumphantly.

Roland still had several days of vacation left before going back to college, and he devoted them to Lotta. Under his supervision the shabby old store was painted a warm brown color. The old, tattered awnings were burned; as it was late in the season, new ones were not necessary. Lotta made some judicious additions to the stock, and arranged everything in the store to the best advantage. She hired a strong–armed boy to open and sweep the store each morning, to build the fire when a fire was needed, and to handle the heavier goods, and to deliver packages after school every night.

"I hope you observe," she said to Polly, "that my kitchen ware is the very prettiest shade of blue that can be found. I know women — they'll buy twice as many necessaries, if only they can be made to look like luxuries. And those pumpkin yellow china candlesticks are going off like hot cakes."

"A hardware store certainly is an odd place in which to try out your aesthetic ideas," Polly remarked, "but I must admit that they are taking the fancy of the people — of the women, particularly."

Polly and Roland spent the greater part of their time with Lotta during the fortnight after their return. Polly made a specialty of things that children would be tempted to buy, and one counter, placed near the door, was devoted to the tastes of what Polly called "the penny–spending young." As for Roland, he concerned himself with the stock that men would demand. Under his direction the finest and most improved tools were purchased and arranged in an effective manner; the nail bins were heaped high, and catalogues of household hardware were placed on the counter. From these, selections could be made and orders placed.

"Everything is as shipshape as it can be made now, Lotta," Roland said the day he left town. "I feel like a sneak, going off and leaving you to work alone like this, and I would n't do it if father and mother did n't count so much on my finishing at the university. They want me to get through as soon as I can, so that Polly may have her chance."

Lotta said nothing to all that. She sat in the rocking–chair; Roland was perched on a high ledger stool, from which he looked down at her. He seemed to be thinking of many things that he could not bring himself to say. Suddenly he leaped from his high seat and stood before the girl.

"It's an outrage," he cried, "my going away to college, and Polly's planning for more schooling, while you, Lotta, are bound down to this shop, with all your chances slipping by! If it were only a question of your way's being paid at college, I might get father to raise the money for you, but there 's your family to care for. I suppose you must stay right here and keep your nose to the grindstone. I've thought and thought, and I can't find any way out."

"I don't want to have any way out found for me, Roland," Lotta replied, looking up at him with her clear eyes. "Do I look discontented? I 'm not, at all. You can't think how interesting it is to have something real to do — something that must be done."

Roland kept his eyes fixed upon her. "You're wonderful," he said at last. "Strong and brave, and never thinking of yourself."

"Falderal!" exclaimed Lotta. "I 'm nothing of the sort. Don't wrap me all up in pink malines like that, Roland. You know me — little old Lotta Embury."

"Yes, I know you," he said, earnestly. "I know you are the truest—"

Lotta winced. "Have you forgotten?" she asked. "I've been anything but `true' this past year, Roland."

"No, you have n't," he declared stoutly, forgetting all his former opinion on that subject. "You were true to your little aunt just as you 'd be true to any one you cared for."

"Oh, well," she began, but Roland broke in:-

"You see, Lotta, I 'm going back to college to finish up in the best shape I can. I've been specializing in geology, and I've a fair chance for a good position the moment I get out of the state university. Of course a good position for a geologist means going off into some wild part of the country, but that doesn't trouble me a bit. I 'm happiest when I 'm in the wilderness. Why, I may go to the Andes — I may go anywhere."

He stood before her, glowing with enthusiasm. Then in a lower, almost wistful voice, he went on: "You'd like that kind of life, too, would n't you, Lotta ? You 'd like to live in a little shack up on the mountain side and to wake in the morning hanging over the sunrise? Think of having your horse and saddle, your spring of cold water, your wild trail and—"

The door of the shop opened and a little woman looked in — the wife of a farmer, apparently. She looked tired and worn, and in her arms she carried a little child.

"Dear me!" the woman said. "I 'm sure I don't want to trouble you, but I 'm so tired I don't know how to stand, and there is n't a place in the whole town for a woman to rest. You know what the hotel parlor is, — three chairs and a mirror, — and the stores are plumb full on Saturdays. I declare, if I had my way, I would n't come to town from year's end to year's end, but of course I have to do some trading now and then."

"Take this rocking–chair," Lotta said, cordially. "And give the little one to me. There 's a couch back there behind the nail barrels where my father used to take a nap now and then when trade was slack."

She put the heavy child on the couch and returned to its mother.

"You certainly do look tired," she said. "Have n't you had any lunch?"

"No. Meals cost so much at the hotel, and every stool at the lunch counter was occupied. Anyhow, Rosemary was so sleepy I could n't have done a thing with her."

"I 'm going to get you a cup of tea!" cried Lotta impulsively. "Roland, won't you keep shop while I run over for it?" Roland looked at her in amazement. She seemed curiously excited. Was it the result of what he had been saying to her? Did her dreams, like his, leap into the future, shaping forth a valiant, free life that they two would share together?

But Lotta's thoughts as she sped along the orchard path were of a much more material nature. "It is outrageous," she said to herself, "that the shopkeepers don't provide any rest room for the women customers. But since no one else has done it, I don't see why I should n't. I—why, I could put Aunt Cathy in it! She 'd preside over it like a mother! What an idea—what a perfectly lovely idea!"

She sped on across the orchard and into the summer kitchen of the little house. The kettle was boiling, and Lotta, moving swiftly and as noiselessly as possible, soon had her tray ready with its little pot of tea, sugar, milk, bread and butter and cookies.

"And a glass of milk for the baby," she said aloud, as an afterthought.

"What baby?" asked Aunt Cathy, who came into the kitchen at that moment.

"Why, our baby. I'll tell you all about it to–night."

The woman in the shop had evidently been telling Roland as much of the story of her life as she could crowd into a short space of time. Amiable but slightly bewildered, he sat on his high stool listening to her and keeping one eye upon the grassy path beneath the apple trees down which Lotta had sped.

"Dear me!" sighed the woman with satisfaction, taking the tray from Lotta's hands. "You 're just as kind as you are spry, and that 's saying a good deal. You have n't an idea how beat I am."

While the woman was eating, Lotta went to the shop door with Roland.

"It 's just as I said," he resumed, in the same tone in which he had last spoken to her, "you make every one round you happy. You 're like my mother — like the best women, the women men love to work for and —"

"Roland," said Lotta, "please stop talking about how marvelous I am. Run along home and don't come near this place till ten minutes before you take the train for college."

"You are n't angry with me, Lotta?"

"Not a bit, Roland. How could I be? But what 's the use in talking to me the way you've been doing? It is n't the time for it, you know it is n't. You go back to college and study. I'll stay here and do my work. Life takes care of itself, mother says, and I believe her."

"You have to help it along. You have to pick out the road you want."

"We've got quite a stretch laid out for us at present, Roland. Mind, you 're not to call again till just before train time. If you think I 'm so wonderful, pay some attention to my advice."

Roland Root stood for a moment or two bareheaded in the hot September sun. After a moment he turned to the girl beside him.

"I 'm not coming back at all this time," he said, gently. "I'll take your advice and add a little self-denial of my own. So it's good–bye — till Christmas time; and good luck, Lotta."

"Thank you, Roland. And you 're not — not offended? You don't think me ungrateful after all you've done to help me?"

"I 'm not offended," he answered. "I like you better than ever, Lotta. Everything you say and do seems right. Good–bye!"

They did not shake hands. The boy walked on down the sunny street, with his hat in his hand, and Lotta went back to her guest.

"You must let me pay you, miss," said the woman.

"No, I don't want any pay this time. It was a pleasure to help you. But now you can do something for me if you will."

"Well, I 'm glad to hear it. Just speak right out and let me know what it is."

"You can give me some advice, if you please. Do you think it would pay me to start a rest room for the farmers' wives? I've three good rooms above this shop that I could fit up. I could have running water carried up there, you know, and have stoves put in, and I could serve a little luncheon such as I brought you. Would the women be willing to pay for such conveniences, do you think?"

"You just make up your mind they would!" declared the woman. "Why, I've read of places just like that, with cribs for babies, and easy chairs and papers and magazines, and a chance to wash the dust off. Pay! Indeed they 'd pay! Of course we women have to count the pennies, but we 'd pass on a few for such accommodation and never grudge them."

Lotta sat down at her father's high old desk with the sloping cover and put paper before her. Then she poised her pencil in air.

"Please tell me everything you can think of that would be needed in such a place."

Lotta's face was very wistful and earnest. The woman brought her chair over beside the girl.

"Why, so I will," she said. "Now let me see—"

It was two hours later when their talk closed.

But there was more than one reason why that was to be a day never to be forgotten. Lotta had closed the shop,—after a very good day's business,—had eaten her supper, done some mending, read a little while, and was about to go to her room, when she heard a stirring within her father's chamber. She knew that her mother and her aunt were down by the gate talking with a neighbor, and she listened incredulously. With her little bed lamp in her hand, she paused.

There was no doubt of it. Something had moved. Could it have been a field mouse that had found its way into the room? Or a bird fluttering at the window? Again the sound came, and this time she tried to say that it was the rustling of leaves. She drew nearer to the door of her father's room, fascinated, fearful of some joy she dared not name. She crept into the room, seeking that white face on the pillow, hoping with a hope as deep as prayer.

A new sound greeted her ears — a hoarse sound, as if some one were trying to speak. She leaned over her father. His eyes had a new gleam in them, and she knew that in them was a hope that answered hers.

"Father," she whispered, "did you move? Did you speak? Father!"

Again came that hoarse sound, and this time she caught the word:—

"Daughter."

The hand that held the lamp began to tremble; she set the lamp on the table and put a hand upon each of her father's shoulders.

"Say it again, father, say it again. You can. Try — try!"

She heard the word again, and thrilled to it as if it were a miracle.

"And you moved, did n't you, dear? I heard you. Try again, oh, do, do!"

She tried to pour her will into his, to eke out his terrible effort with her own, to break the spell of silence and inertness that rested upon him. And she saw him lift first one hand, then the other, slowly, as if they were weighted with terrible burdens.

"You 're doing it, father," she cried. "Don't give up! God will help you, father. He will. Oh, keep trying, won't you?"

She gathered those piteous, striving hands in her own and held them to her breast.

"Rest now," she whispered. "Rest, dear darling. In the morning we will try again."

She sank beside the bed on her knees, and wept silently.

That night she would not leave him. "I've got to sleep near him to–night," she declared. She did not tell the others why, but they let her do as she wished. Sleepless but very happy, she lay on the cot near at hand, and sometimes through the night she caught him waking, too, and flashed back a glance to him, thrilling at thought of their miraculous secret. But she would not let him make any further test of his strength. "Rest," she would whisper to him. "Sleep."

CHAPTER TEN

MARCHING — WITH BANNERS

THE morning brought fresh hope. A deep determination had formed in Paul Embury's heart, and he fought his fight with high courage. Each day saw a little more power return to his body, a little more coherence to his speech; and when the golden days of October came, with the orchard russet and bronze, Lotta wheeled him out on the porch to receive the congratulations of his neighbors.

He still had to receive much more than he could give, and he quickly tired, but he was unspeakably happy when his old friends talked or read aloud to him. But the core of his happiness was Lotta. He sat at the west-ern end of the porch, in order that he might watch her goings and comings. Moreover, he loved to keep an eye upon the rear entrance of the store, for at almost any moment she might appear there and wave to him.

It was to him that Lotta came flying with her letter from Christian Heegard, telling her that at last he was to play with the great orchestra in Chicago.

"The concertmeister has heard me," he wrote, "and he will have me to play in the fifth programme of the season. I am in rehearsal now, and I know that to play that great composition of Sarasate's with the music of the orchestra rising behind me will seem to me like heaven. I 'm not afraid now of what the people will think of me. All my fears and all my pride are down under my feet. My body is of no consequence to me now. My soul shall speak to the people through my violin, and they will forget to pity me.

"But I must tell you this: my happy hour will lack half its glory if you are not there to hear me, and my dear mother begs that you will accept from her the so slight favor of the railway ticket. To have you as our guest again will be a joy to us.

"I can never be as other men. I can never have a sweetheart, except my violin. I realized it first that day when you and Roland Root sat together in the restaurant and heard me play. But now I no longer suffer, but claim you forever as one to whom I may report my failures, my triumphs, and my dreams. You must not refuse me this. How could you? It is the demand that an unfortunate yet very happy friend makes."

Lotta wept when she read the letter to her father. He wept a little, too, for tears came easily to him in those days. But her mother said:—

"Your friend will have a fine life, Lotta. Don't feel too sorry for him. His worst disappointments came early in life, and now he's found the little path that climbs to happiness."

But the time for going up to Chicago was still far away.

"So much the better," said Lotta to Polly. "I don't want to think of a thing but that tea–room for a while. What color shall we have it in? Not red, not yellow—"

"Blue," decided Polly, "and I'll let you use some of our blue and white hand–woven counterpanes."

"Sam Quigley's mother has offered me a perfectly darling old settee, and two easy chairs. She says it hurts their feelings dreadfully to be kept in an attic year in and year out."

"And mother says you can have one of our sea–chests for your linen."

"Not really? But you prize them so — and they really are the quaintest things."

"Could n't be put to a better use."

"There 's one thing I must have new, Polly, — new and beautiful, — and that is dishes. I saw some in Chicago with a conventionalized water–lily pattern."

"Expensive?"

"Not at all."

"Write May. She 'll get them for you."

"I want to show these nice, plain women who think they have n't time to fuss over a table, what a really pretty table and well–served tea can do for one."

"That's it," cried Polly, "you'll be preaching the religion of beautiful little meals! And Aunt Cathy is just the one to carry out your ideas."

"Aunt Cathy has plenty of ideas of her own, thank you," laughed Lotta. "Though I will say that she shows herself willing and eager to carry out mine. Of course, what I like best about the whole thing is that it 's going to give Aunt Cathy some proper authority. She needs it."

Polly agreed that she did. She knew that, in a sense, Aunt Cathy had been deposed in the Root house. She was reduced to the ranks, so to speak, as was quite right and proper. But there was no reason why she should not have authority elsewhere. It was easy to imagine the concentration of her interest upon these rest rooms, in which her artistic instincts could find expression, and at which the sociable farm and village women would gather, with their many demands upon her sympathy and understanding.

There followed days of hard work — harder work than Lotta had ever experienced. She had known what it was to patiently plod at tasks. But now she must plan, select, organize, order. A multiplicity of things demanded her attention, and she sometimes declared that she could literally hear her brains whirr.

But at last all was done. A new sign hung above the freshly painted door of the old store, and swinging from the iron stairway that led to the charming and hospitable rest rooms was the announcement that comfort and refreshment for women and children were to be had at the "Summerville Rest Rooms."

In November Lotta went up to the city to hear Christian play. She reached town only a short time before the performance; Fru Heegard, with trembling hands, helped her into her evening frock. May Blossom was there, too, radiant. She was making a great success of things; she had done an important mural design for the assembly hall in one of the public schools, and was under contract to do more such work.

"I 'm so happy, Lotta–bird!" she declared. "Do you know, I can hardly understand how any one can be anything but an artist — not necessarily in painting, of course, but in some way."

"What's the use," asked Lotta, "in trying to be an artist if you have no talent?"

May Blossom flushed.

"Every one has a talent for something," she declared. "Now you've a talent for life. People always get enthusiastic about you. I do, myself. I think about you when I 'm working — I wonder if you'd like what I 'm doing, and my idea of a beautiful time will always be coming to tell you of what I've done. I don't know how to describe it, but seeing you is like getting home. Christian feels just the way that I do about it."

With her golden hair and her pale gold complexion, May Blossom was wonderful in a gown of peachblow silk, with chrysanthemums at her belt, and a little necklace of pinkish yellow opals. Lotta, in her simple blue frock, felt plain beside her. But Lotta's glowing color, her deep, clear eyes, the gloss of her plaited hair, her fresh and healthy appearance, made her very attractive.

The Symphony Hall looked like a beautiful shell as it arched up over them, iridescent as abalone. The bright audience rustled and fluttered in, and listened with accustomed courtesy to the two introductory numbers.

Then came Christian's turn. Fru Heegard drew a little closer to her husband's side, and Lotta could feel her quivering. A side door opened and the conductor emerged. Leaning on his arm was Christian, a head shorter, limping even more than usual. The audience broke into applause. Christian, standing before them on the dais, lifted his violin as he bowed.

Every one sat very still. Lotta did not see how so large an audience could sit so still. Then the orchestra began to play. When it concluded its phrase, some wood wind held a connecting note as faint as the call of a bird, and Christian, drawing his firm, deliberate bow, began to answer. He answered as the hermit thrush answers the evening wind, greeted the listening souls there as the thrush greets the first star. So fine, so soft, so pure was it that Lotta — with the others — held her breath to listen. At first she had a strange happiness in the thought that he was playing to her, was telling her a thousand things he would never have told her by word of mouth; but as the shining stream of sound broadened to a nobly flowing river, she knew that he had lost sight of her and was thinking of the eternal things.

She was grateful that she knew him; that, in a way, her soul and his were related, and that he would always want to bring her his stories of what life had done for him. And her friend beside her, so gracious to the eye, so light and swift of spirit, destined, like Christian, for some shining fate — she, too, would always love her. Both of them in the years to come would turn from their triumphs and travel down to little homely Maitland, and to the queer, homelike store over which Lotta presided, to report upon their adventures. They would rest there and be strengthened for more work.

They said she had something to give them! It must be just those simple things, loyalty and understanding. Yes, since she was so quiet, so usual, so marked with the simple ways and thoughts of her family and of Maitland, it must be merely those things that drew them to her.

So, with the lifting music for an accompaniment, her thoughts ran. Indeed, they went much further, picturing many things, many scenes, all simple and busy. Always she was at home or at the store, happy in the regained strength of her father, rejoicing in her mother's love and in her Aunt Cathy's contentment. So much could she see. If glistening mountain peaks lifted before her dreaming eyes, with the long trail winding down to the valley where many men worked, if a figure moved along that trail, familiar to her and seeming to be set apart from all others for her to mark, was that, too, the magic of the music?

Christian had limped out again, for the audience was recalling him. He came forth painfully, bowing very low. Again and again they called him. Finally, halfway to the dais, he paused and played with the perfection of simple beauty a lyric he often had played for Lotta. But he was very weary — almost spent. The people saw it, and did not insist upon his playing more.

Lotta slept only a little at a time that night, but she was rather pleased than otherwise that it was so. "I can sleep any night," she reflected. "Just now I have pleasanter things to do."

She was, indeed, building air castles for her friends. It hardly seemed worth while to build them for herself; the way before her seemed so plain.

The next morning she arose late — a mistake, obviously, since there was May Blossom's new studio to visit, and luncheon to help prepare for the guests that May had invited to meet her. Lotta found her pulses beating quite merrily again, almost in the old, care–free way of a year ago. She dressed, trying not to think that last spring's suit looked a trifle inappropriate for autumn. She had new boots, fresh gloves, and a becoming hat, and she had once heard May remark that a girl who had those things need not worry about her appearance.

May's studio was in the top story of a great tower that looked over Michigan Avenue. Eastward stretched the lake, dark blue on this windy day. There came to Lotta memories of her first days in Chicago, and she asked herself whether she would have foregone all the experiences of the past summer for the sake of her old–time contentment. She decided that she would not, that she would not cast disappointment and sorrow out of her life even if she could. She had often heard May talk of "contrasts" and "values" in her painting, and she knew that Christian sought for them in his music. Yes, there must be shadow as well as sun, storm as well as calm, both in art and in life, if either was to attain significance. Lotta decided that she was willing to meet life upon its own terms — to take whatever destiny offered and make it over "to her heart's desire."

What a day it was! There was May's new work to see — work that had brought her a letter of commendation from the superintendent of the Art Institute. The mural design was to be placed permanently on the walls of a fine assembly hall. Then there were many sketches and studies that revealed the fascinating mind of Lotta's always exhilarating friend.

At luncheon, Fru Heegard acted as chaperon; there were nine other guests, including Christian, who was the hero of the happy hour. Such a gay, careless time! Such delightful things to eat! And afterward the matinee, followed by dinner at the Heegards'; and then, at midnight, Lotta in her berth in the sleeping car, excited, happy, and glad to rest her head on her pillow.

It was sweet to be home again, however. She liked the friendly streets and the look of her own little shop; she liked the brown path through the orchard and the motherly look of her own home.

Moreover, her mother in very truth was there to greet her.

"A beautiful time, Lotta?" she asked.

"Everything all right here?" asked Lotta.

"It never seems quite all right with you away," her mother replied. "But if you 're thinking about your father, I 'm sure he shows improvement every day. My opinion is that another month will see him walking over to the store."

Lotta flushed a little.

"O mother," she said, "what do you suppose he 'll think of it when he finds it so changed?"

"I think he '11 be surprised, Lotta, but he 'll probably come to see that what you've done is for the best. You've a real genius for selling; that's what I think. I confess it made me rather downhearted when you took down the old sign, but I will say that the new sign seems to take."

"Yes; there was n't sale enough for hardware to keep things going, but when I put up `The Embury Household Supply Store,' it caught the people. It seemed to imply that you could get anything there you wanted to make your home comfortable."

"So you can, nearly. I don't see how you found out about a lot of the things you've got in, Lotta. I declare, you keep me in a perpetual state of astonishment. There, sit down to your breakfast."

"Sit down with me and eat, then," commanded Lotta. "It seems to me you never eat anything — at least not quietly and properly. You 're always waiting on some one else. Oh, do take care of yourself for my sake, mamma."

Mrs. Embury drew near her daughter almost shyly, but her voice was eager when she asked, "You need me, do you, dear? I 'm not just a part of the burden you must carry?"

"Need you! How dare you ask me such a question? Does n't every girl need her mother?"

"No. Some mothers are a drawback to their children. I don't want to be anything but a help to you, Lotta, though I know that all of us seem to have combined to hinder you."

"You have n't hindered me!" cried Lotta, fiercely. "You've given me my chance, that 's what you've done. Don't you know that I enjoy the store more than anything that ever came to me? I'll tell you a secret: when I set out to sell any particular thing to a special person I can do it almost every time. You ask how I have found out about a lot of the odd things I've put in stock. Partly by listening to the conversation of the people that come to the Rest Rooms. The women talk over this and that. They wish they had something — sometimes it 's an old–fashioned thing and sometimes a newfangled one. But if I can get that thing before those women come in again, I do it. Then you know how I study the illustrated catalogues the wholesale houses send out. I was telling May Blossom that they were pretty nearly my only literature just now. I've read them till midnight more than once when you thought I was sleeping. I even look out for things that will strike the fancy of this or that person. You see, I know personally a large number of my customers, and I can sometimes tell beforehand what will attract them. It 's such fun trying out my theories, too."

"It 's such fun being young," supplemented Mrs. Embury, with a little sigh. "I think a large part of your success comes from your show windows. Changing them all the time and getting such odd and pretty effects certainly has entertained people. A woman stopped me in the post office only yesterday and spoke to me about it. She said it was as good as going to the county fair to drop in at your place. That plan of yours of having demonstrations helps, too, especially when there's a little good food thrown in."

Mrs. Embury laughed as she regarded the capable young merchant whose novel ideas were accomplishing so much.

"There is something always going on at the place," Lotta said, with satisfaction. "Of course Aunt Cathy contributes immensely to the success of the whole thing. Those Rest Rooms upstairs with the couches and easy chairs, the fire and the tea, and Aunt Cathy's wonderful house plants, areas pleasant as any private house in town."

"Cathy's done well," said Mrs. Embury. "I think my sister has been brave."

"People have forgiven her. And it 's been a pleasure for them to do it. What 's more, Aunt Cathy has such a horror of misjudging people that she 'll not permit one scrap of gossip in the rooms. It's a point of honor to say only kind and pleasant things in our Rest Rooms."

"The store was jammed on Saturday evening," commented Mrs. Embury. "Advertising those dishwashers brought many, I suppose. But they wanted you there to demonstrate them. Several of the visitors told me they weren't especially interested in the look of the things, but they supposed they 'd be after them hotfooted when you got to showing off their fine points. I must say, though, that I don't like the idea of keeping open in the evening."

"It 's only one evening a week, mamma. They look on my queer little store as they would on a place of amusement. You see, there 's almost no place in Maitland where you can go when you want to have a good time."

"But ought you to undertake so much?"

Lotta had finished her breakfast; she rose now, and pushed back her chair rather impatiently.

"Anything is right for me but vegetating. I've got to live — really live. Somehow everything has slipped from me, except the business and you three dears here in the house. I 'm young, I know, but not much younger than Roland and Christian — no younger than Polly and May. Well, they 're all going to do something fine, and I've determined to do something for myself. I 'm going to stir up Maitland — I 'm going to keep myself stirred up. I'll make money, and spend it — give it away, I hope, sometimes. I feel I've a sort of talent, too, and I want to use it. I want to make the most of myself; I want to wipe out the failure I made at the beginning. Do you see?"

Mrs. Embury looked at her with understanding eyes. "I see," she said.

It would have been easy even for a stranger to believe in this wholesome and glowing girl, and her mother, naturally, found it comforting to place her whole trust in her. She only prayed that she might not come to depend upon her too much. Yet Lotta seemed fit for responsibility. The " little girl look" had quite left her. She had grown to her full stature during the past year, and an aspect of competence and authority had come to her.

"Your father will be wanting to see you," said her mother, at the end of a little silence in which the thoughts of each had been racing happily along. "Talk with him. He loves you so, Lotta."

Lotta laughed, flung her arms about her mother's neck, and held her closely.

"I know you all love me, but you can't get ahead of me when it comes to that! And I must tell you, I have a new secret, all my own."

"Have you, dear? What is it?"

"You 'll never tell?"

"Never."

"Well, at first I thought that when I had money to give away I'd start a library and put up a fountain. But first of all—"

She hesitated and held her mother off a little.

"Yes?"

"I'll offer a musical scholarship to poor students and name it after Aunt Cathy. I don't know just where I'll place it. I'll be thinking out the details while I make the money. But I do know that somehow or other I mean to make Aunt Cathy's dreams come true."

"That 's right. That 's as it should be. Dreams of lovely things ought to come true. If you can make poor Cathy's—"

"Oh, I believe I can, mamma. I believe life is going to be glorious — our life, I mean, here in this nice old town."

"So you think it nice? I was afraid at one time that it might be very cruel to my girl."

"I thought it might be, too. I suspected it of being just a little mean town. But it has n't been. It — it did n't dare to be. If I'd tagged along, apologizing and getting out of the way, it would have been, perhaps. But I 'm going to march in front, with banners."

She ran into her father's room and seized the hands he held out to her.

"What's that about banners?" he asked, quite distinctly.

"The bright banners of success," she answered, still laughing. "We're going to wave them from the battlements."

Her father looked at her earnestly. He knew of her struggle for courage. He guessed at the tears she had shed. He had been young and now was old, but he had not forgotten the eager dreams of youth.

"I heard what you were saying to your mother," he said, "and I believe you can carry your ideas through. You must have help in the store, Lotta. You mean to make Embury a better–known name than it ever has been, and I think you'll do it in the best and most practical ways. Only—"

He looked at her with his sad, kind, penetrating eyes.

"Yes, dad?"

"The name — you'll change it for another some time. That is the way with girls."

Lotta flushed swiftly.

"False one!" she cried. "How can you say such a thing? As for leaving here, where should I go?"

Her father did not answer, and she sat beside him in happy silence. She was seeing a mountain side with a cabin on it. Round about rose vast snow–capped peaks, and down the long trail that wound to the blossoming valley, rode one whom she knew.

It was only a daydream, very vague, very distant, never, perhaps, to be realized at all; but it stayed with her all that day. It was with her when, early Monday morning, she hastened to The Embury Household Supply Store.

"But that's only something to dream of," mused Lotta. "And here is something to do."

She flung wide her shutters, and stepping into the street, surveyed her windows with a critical eye.

"I must give them something this week," she reflected, "that will bring them flocking like bears to a honey tree."

THE END

1915,

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