doctor hugh leaned back in his swivel chair and looked anxiously at his mother.
"i don't believe you realize how incessant the noise will be," he urged. "every morning hammering and sawing and the inevitable shouting and argument that seem to attend all building operations, especially when the job is one of alteration, like this."
"i shall not mind the noise, dear," said mrs. willis tranquilly. "let me see the plans again."
she held out her hand for the blue prints and four interested heads immediately bent above them, rosemary being tall enough to look over her mother's shoulder and sarah and shirley pressing close to her side.
"i don't see how anyone can tell a thing from that," rosemary complained. "there's nothing but white lines."
the doctor smiled, but his glance was on the frail, almost transparent hands which held the roll of paper flat on the desk.
"i suppose you thought that carpenters worked from photographs of completed interiors, or illustrations in interior-decoration catalogues," he suggested good-naturedly. "you see before you, rosemary, a most practical conception of two offices and a reception room. mr. greggs will rip out one side of the house and add them on as a wing and when the joining is painted over you'll think those rooms were built when the original house was."
"well—all right," conceded rosemary, "i suppose mr. greggs knows. anyway, it will be fun to have something going on. vacation certainly isn't very exciting."
"i want to see them rip the house," announced sarah with intense satisfaction.
"i think i owe it to mr. greggs almost as much as to mother, to have you at a safe distance before the ripping begins," said doctor hugh a little grimly. "somehow i have the feeling, sarah, that the best-laid plans of architects may go awry when you're about."
"huh!" retorted sarah, abandoning blue prints for her favorite goatskin rug on which she flopped in an attitude more comfortable than graceful.
shirley, too, wearying of the unfamiliar, turned to the delights of the iron wastebasket into which she tried to wedge her plump self with indifferent success and a great crackling of paper.
doctor hugh began to sharpen a pencil with meticulous care, his dark eyes behind their glasses apparently intent on the task in hand. but the more discerning of his patients, and every nurse who had served on his cases, could have told you that doctor willis always saw most when he appeared to be quite absorbed.
even an outsider would have been interested in the group gathered in the young doctor's office that summer afternoon. the little mother (she was no taller than her oldest daughter and came only to her tall son's shoulder) sat at one side of the flat-topped desk, leaning her head on one hand as she studied the plans for the addition to the house. she was very lovely and very appealing, from her wavy dark hair faintly streaked with gray to her little buckled slippers, and there was nothing of the invalid about her. it would have been difficult to say, off-hand, just why she should inspire the conviction, immediate and swift, that those who loved her must be constantly on guard to protect her against physical exhaustion and weakness. difficult, that is, only until one saw her patient, shining eyes and then one knew, what had never been hidden from doctor hugh, that in her body dwelt an unquenchable spirit that would always outrun her strength.
in rosemary, leaning above her mother and studying the blue prints so intently that a little frown gathered between her arched brows, the spirit and strength were united. the effect of rosemary on the most casual beholder, was always one of radiance. the mass of her waving hair was bronze, said her friends; it was red, it was gold, it was all of these. her eyes were like her mother's, a violet blue, but dancing, drenched in tears or black with storm—seldom patient eyes. she lived intensely, did rosemary, and sometimes she hurt herself and sometimes she hurt others. she could be obstinate—wanting her own way with the insistence of a driving force; that was the willis will working in her, winnie said. all the willis children had that trait, winnie said also. rosemary could be sorry and make frank confession. that, sarah always thought, was the hardest thing in the world to do.
the dark and stolid sarah lying on her stomach on the white goatskin rug, was "the queer one" of the family. sarah's nature was as uncompromising as her own square-toed sandals and about as blunt. demonstrations of affection bored her. she tended strictly to her interests and felt small concern in the affairs of her sisters. you could reach sarah—after you had learned the way—and the depths in her were worth reaching. but her one passionate devotion was for animals—she would do anything for her pets, dare anything for them. sometimes doctor hugh wondered if she would not sacrifice anyone to their needs.
if one desired a contrast to sarah, there was shirley. shirley who sat in the wastebasket and beamed upon an approving world. six year old shirley was a born sunbeam and her brief fits of temper only seemed to intensify the normal sunshine of her disposition. she smiled and she coaxed answering smiles from the severest mortal; she dimpled and laughter bubbled up to meet her chuckling mirth. it was impossible to remain cross or ill-tempered when shirley danced into a room and it is to be feared that her gifts of cajolery bought her off from often needed reproofs. it was never easy to scold shirley.
doctor hugh willis, sharpening his pencil so painstakingly, knew all this and more. to his natural endowment of keen-eyed penetration had been recently added the illuminating experience of a year as sole head of the household—a year in which the little mother had been absent in a sanitarium recovering her shattered health and he had been responsible for the welfare of his sisters.
not the least interesting figure of that group—doctor hugh. dark-haired, dark-eyed and tall, his keen, intelligent face could be as expressive as rosemary's. his chin was firm and his mouth could be grim and smiling, by turns. his speaking voice was rather remarkable in the range of its modulations and his manner was incisive as one used to commanding obedience. his patients said "doctor" had a way with him.
"shall i cut the cake, or put it on whole?" inquired someone blandly on the other side of the closed door.
"there's winnie," said mrs. willis, lifting her head and smiling. "open the door, shirley."
five pairs of eyes turned affectionately to the tall, thin woman who stepped into the room as shirley obeyed. this was winnie without whom the willis household would have been lost indeed since for twenty-eight years she had solved every domestic difficulty for them, shrewdly and capably. loyalty and service were beautiful, concrete things in her faithful loving eyes. dear winnie!
"about the cake," she said now, smoothing her immaculate apron and glancing sharply at the circle of rather serious faces.
"bother the cake," answered doctor hugh, secure in the knowledge that whatever he said would receive winnie's unqualified approval. "have you seen the plans for the new office, winnie?"
"that i have not," she replied eagerly and rosemary yielded her place while winnie stared over mrs. willis' shoulder at the mysterious white lines and dots.
"you must be expecting a lot of sick folks, hughie," she commented after a moment's study.
"i'll give up the other office," the doctor explained, "and have all my office hours here."
"when can mr. greggs start work, hugh?" asked his mother, rescuing the elastic bands from shirley and moving the ink well back from the small, exploring fingers.
"next week, he hopes," doctor hugh answered. "there won't be any digging to be done, because we are not going to extend the cellar; but there will be mason work for the foundation and they want to open out the side of the hall as soon as they start."
"it will be messy," said winnie, with unmistakable disapproval of anything "messy."
"it will be messy," agreed the doctor. "worse than that, it will be noisy. i want mother and you to take the girls and go away till it is over. i don't think anyone should be asked to endure the sound of constant hammering in the hot weather; i'll be out of the house so much that i don't count and of course i'll keep the other office till things are in shape here."
he spoke evenly, but his eyes met winnie's across mrs. willis' shapely drooping head.
"i think we ought to get out of mr. greggs' way," declared winnie briskly. "carpenters have small patience with women and their housekeeping habits. they think we're interfering when we only want to keep 'em from driving nails in the mahogany tables. and if they're going to ruin the hall rug with their bricks and mortar i, for one, don't want to be here to see it."
"oh, winnie, you fraud!" mrs. willis spoke merrily. "you are not worrying about the hall rug—i know you too well. you're siding with hugh and you are both conspiring to wreck the household budget a second time. i had all the luxury one woman is entitled to last year in the sanitarium—from now on i intend to consider expenses and a summer away from home isn't to be thought of."
"your health is worth more than dollars and cents," said winnie sagely.
"i'm not going to take music lessons this vacation," offered rosemary. "that ought to help, mother."
"if i can arrange it so you can leave the house while the alterations are being put through and yet keep the living expenses down to your stipulated level—will you go, mother?" said doctor hugh artfully.
"can you come, too?" countered his mother.
"well—part of the time at least," he temporized.
a sudden picture of her orderly quiet home in the hands of the loud-talking, aggressively cheerful town carpenter and his helpers, the gash in the hall letting in dirt and flies, with the attendant bustle and confusion that go with artisan work, flashed across mrs. willis' vision. sarah and shirley must be constantly admonished to keep out of mischief and danger, winnie placated when her domain should be encroached upon. and the noise of hammers and saws and files!
"i have only two objections to going away, hugh," said mrs. willis quietly. "one is leaving you and the other is the expense."
"then it is as good as settled," declared doctor hugh, rolling up the blue prints and snapping an elastic around them as though he snapped his ideas into place with the same deft movement.
rosemary's eyes began to shine.
"oh, hugh, tell us!" she begged. "i know you have some perfectly lovely plan—tell us what it is."
but the doctor's smile was enigmatic and the two words he vouchsafed a conundrum to them all.
"rainbow hill," was the answer he made to every question.
winnie, always an ally of the doctor's, appealed to, could give no help. "if you studied geography more and cats less, sarah," she informed that small girl who insisted on repeated questioning, "you might be able to tell me. i've told you before that i know nothing at all about this rainbow hill."
and rosemary, waylaying her brother with carefully planned nonchalance, fared no more successfully.
"you can't wheedle any news out of me, my dear," announced doctor hugh, his eyes twinkling. "all in good time—and after mother, you'll be the first to be told. patience is a virtue, rosemary."
and then he ducked to escape the porch cushion she sent whirling toward him.
