all the morning she had been busy in the craig's backyard garden, clipping, training, loosening the earth around lilac, honeysuckle, and rose of sharon. the little german florist on the corner had sent in two loads of richly fertilised soil and a barrel of forest mould. these she sweetened with lime, mixed in her small pan, and applied judiciously to the peach-tree by the grape-arbour, to the thickets of pearl-gray iris, to the beloved roses, prairie climber, baltimore bell, and general jacqueminot. a neighbour's cat, war-scarred and bold, traversing the fences in search of single combat, halted to watch her; an early bee, with no blossoms yet to rummage, passed and repassed, buzzing distractedly.
the craig's next-door neighbour, camilla lent, came out on her back veranda and looked down with a sleepy nod of recognition and good-morning, stretching her pretty arms luxuriously in the sunshine.
"you look very sweet down there, ailsa, in your pink gingham apron and garden gloves."
"and you look very sweet up there, camilla, in your muslin frock and satin skin! and every time you yawn you resemble a plump, white magnolia bud opening just enough to show the pink inside!"
"it's mean to call me plump!" returned camilla reproachfully. "anyway, anybody would yawn with the captain keeping the entire household awake all night. i vow, i haven't slept one wink since that wretched news from charleston. he thinks he's a battery of horse artillery now; that's the very latest development; and i shed tears and the chandeliers shed prisms every time he manoeuvres."
"the dear old thing," said mrs. paige, smiling as she moved among the shrubs. for a full minute her sensitive lips remained tenderly curved as she stood considering the agricultural problems before her. then she settled down again, naively—like a child on its haunches—and continued to mix nourishment for the roses.
camilla, lounging sideways on her own veranda window sill, rested her head against the frame, alternately blinking down at the pretty widow through sleepy eyes, and patting her lips to control the persistent yawns that tormented her.
"i had a horrid dream, too," she said, "about the 'seven sisters.' i was pluto to your diavoline, and philip berkley was a phantom that grinned at everybody and rattled the bones; and i waked in a dreadful fright to hear uncle's spurred boots overhead, and that horrid noisy old sabre of his banging the best furniture.
"then this morning just before sunrise he came into my bedroom, hair and moustache on end, and in full uniform, and attempted to read the declaration of independence to me—or maybe it was the constitution—i don't remember—but i began to cry, and that always sends him off."
ailsa's quick laugh and the tenderness of her expression were her only comments upon the doings of josiah lent, lately captain, united states dragoons.
camilla yawned again, rose, and, arranging her spreading white skirts, seated herself on her veranda steps in full sunshine.
"we did have a nice party, didn't we, ailsa?" she said, leaning a little sideways so that she could see over the fence and down into the craig's backyard garden.
"i had such a good time," responded ailsa, looking up radiantly.
"so did i. billy cortlandt is the most divine dancer. isn't
evelyn estcourt pretty?"
"she is growing up to be very beautiful some day. stephen paid her a great deal of attention. did you notice it?"
"really? i didn't notice it," replied camilla without enthusiasm. "but," she added, "i did notice you and phil berkley on the stairs. it didn't take you long, did it?"
ailsa's colour rose a trifle.
"we exchanged scarcely a dozen words," she observed sedately.
camilla laughed.
"it didn't take you long," she repeated, "either of you. it was the swiftest case of fascination that i ever saw."
"you are absurd, camilla."
"but isn't he perfectly fascinating? i think he is the most romantic-looking creature i ever saw. however," she added, folding her slender hands in resignation, "there is nothing else to him. he's accustomed to being adored; there's no heart left in him. i think it's dead."
mrs. paige stood looking up at her, trowel hanging loosely in her gloved hand.
"did anything—kill it?" she asked carelessly.
"i don't think it ever lived very long. anyway there is something missing in the man; something blank in him. a girl's time is wasted in wondering what is going on behind those adorable eyes of his. because there is nothing going on—it's all on the surface—the charm, the man's engaging ways and manners—all surface. . . . i thought i'd better tell you, ailsa."
"there was no necessity," said ailsa calmly. "we scarcely exchanged a dozen words."
as she spoke she became aware of a shape behind the veranda windows, a man's upright figure passing and repassing. and now, at the open window, it suddenly emerged into full sunlight, a spare, sinewy, active gentleman of fifty, hair and moustache thickly white, a deep seam furrowing his forehead from the left ear to the roots of the hair above the right temple.
the most engaging of smiles parted the young widow's lips.
"good morning, captain lent," she cried gaily. "you have neglected me dreadfully of late."
the captain came to a rigid salute.
"april eleventh, eighteen-sixty-one!" he said with clean-cut precision. "good morning, mrs. paige! how does your garden blow? blow—blow ye wintry winds! ahem! how have the roses wintered—the rose of yesterday?"
"oh, i don't know, sir. i am afraid my sister's roses have not wintered very well. i'm really a little worried about them."
"i am worried about nothing in heaven, on earth, or in hell," said the captain briskly. "god's will is doing night and day, mrs. paige. has your brother-in-law gone to business?"
"oh, yes. he and stephen went at eight this morning."
"is your sister-in-law well. god bless her!" shouted the captain.
"uncle, you mustn't shout," remonstrated camilla gently.
"i'm only exercising my voice,"—and to ailsa:
"i neglect nothing, mental, physical, spiritual, that may be of the slightest advantage to my country in the hour when every respiration, every pulse beat, every waking thought shall belong to the government which i again shall have the honour of serving."
he bowed stiffly from the waist, to ailsa, to his niece, turned right about, and marched off into the house, his white moustache bristling, his hair on end.
"oh, dear," sighed camilla patiently, "isn't it disheartening?"
"he is a dear," said ailsa. "i adore him."
"yes—if he'd only sleep at night. i am very selfish i suppose to complain; he is so happy and so interested these days—only—i am wondering—if there ever should be a war—would it break his poor old heart if he couldn't go? they'll never let him, you know."
ailsa looked up, troubled:
"you mean—because!" she said in a low voice.
"well i don't consider him anything more than delightfully eccentric."
"neither do i. but all this is worrying me ill. his heart is so entirely wrapped up in it; he writes a letter to washington every day, and nobody ever replies. ailsa, it almost terrifies me to think what might happen—and he be left out!"
"nothing will happen. the world is too civilised, dear."
"but the papers talk about nothing else! and uncle takes every paper in new york and brooklyn, and he wants to have the editor of the herald arrested, and he is very anxious to hang the entire staff of the daily news. it's all well enough to stand there laughing, but i believe there'll be a war, and then my troubles will begin!"
ailsa, down on her knees again, dabbled thoughtfully in the soil, exploring the masses of matted spider-wort for new shoots.
camilla looked on, resignedly, her fingers playing with the loosened masses of her glossy black hair. each was following in silence the idle drift of thought which led camilla back to her birthday party.
"twenty!" she said still more resignedly—"four years younger than you are, ailsa paige! oh dear—and here i am, absolutely unmarried. that is not a very maidenly thought, i suppose, is it ailsa?"
"you always were a romantic child," observed ailsa, digging vigorously in the track of a vanishing may beetle. but when she disinterred him her heart failed her and she let him scramble away.
"there! he'll probably chew up everything," she said. "what a sentimental goose i am!"
"the first trace of real sentiment i ever saw you display," began
camilla reflectively, "was the night of my party."
ailsa dug with energy. "that is absurd! and not even funny."
"you were sentimental!"
"i—well there is no use in answering you," concluded ailsa.
"no, there isn't. i've seen women look at men, and men look back again—the way he did!"
"dear, please don't say such things!"
"i'm going to say 'em," insisted camilla with malicious satisfaction. "you've jeered at me because i'm tender-hearted about men. now my chance has come!"
ailsa began patiently: "there were scarcely a dozen words spoken——"
camilla, delighted, shook her dark curls.
"you've said that before," she laughed. "oh, you pretty minx!—you and your dozen words!"
ailsa paige arose in wrath and stretched out a warning arm among her leafless roses; but camilla placed both hands on the fence top and leaned swiftly down from the veranda steps,
"forgive me, dear," she said penitently. "i was only trying to torment you. kiss me and make up. i know you too well to believe that you could care for a man of that kind."
ailsa's face was very serious, but she lifted herself on tiptoe and they exchanged an amicable salute across the fence.
after a moment she said: "what did you mean by 'a man of that kind'?"
camilla's shrug was expressive. "there are stories about him."
ailsa looked thoughtfully into space. "well you won't say such things to me again, about any man—will you, dear?"
"you never minded them before. you used to laugh."
"but this time," said ailsa paige, "it is not the least bit funny.
we scarcely exchanged——"
she checked herself, flushing with annoyance. camilla, leaning on the garden fence, had suddenly buried her face in both arms. in feminine plumpness, when young, there is usually something left of the schoolgirl giggler.
the pretty girl below remained disdainfully indifferent. she dug, she clipped, she explored, inhaling, with little thrills, the faint mounting odour of forest loam and sappy stems.
"i really must go back to new york and start my own garden," she said, not noticing camilla's mischief. "london terrace will be green in another week."
"how long do you stay with the craigs, ailsa?"
"until the workmen finish painting my house and installing the new plumbing. colonel arran is good enough to look after it."
camilla, her light head always ringing with gossip, watched ailsa curiously.
"it's odd," she observed, "that colonel arran and the craigs never exchange civilities."
"mrs. craig doesn't like him," said ailsa simply.
"you do, don't you?"
"naturally. he was my guardian."
"my uncle likes him. to me he has a hard face."
"he has a sad face," said ailsa paige.
