when betty went away i bade her good-by without burdening her with any useless words of advice.
"write to me every week, and remember that you are betty churchill," i said.
betty was standing on the steps above, among her dogs. she came down a step and put her arms about my neck.
"i'll remember that you are my friend and that i must live up to you," she said. "good-by, stephen."
she kissed me two or three times—good, hearty smacks! did i not say she was still a child?—and stood waving her hand to me as i rode away. i looked back at the end of the avenue and saw her standing there, short-skirted and hatless, fronting the lowering sun with those fearless eyes of hers. so i looked my last on the child betty.
that was a lonely year. my occupation was gone and i began to fear that i had outlived my usefulness. life seemed flat, stale, and unprofitable. betty's weekly letters were all that lent it any savor. they were spicy and piquant enough. betty was discovered to have unsuspected talents in the epistolary line. at first she was dolefully homesick, and begged me to let her come home. when i refused—it was amazingly hard to refuse—she sulked through three letters, then cheered up and began to enjoy herself. but it was nearly the end of the year when she wrote:
"i've found out why you sent me here, stephen—and i'm glad you did."
i had to be away from home on unavoidable business the day betty returned to glenby. but the next afternoon i went over. i found betty out and sara in. the latter was beaming. betty was so much improved, she declared delightedly. i would hardly know "the dear child."
this alarmed me terribly. what on earth had they done to betty? i found that she had gone up to the pineland for a walk, and thither i betook myself speedily. when i saw her coming down a long, golden-brown alley i stepped behind a tree to watch her—i wished to see her, myself unseen. as she drew near i gazed at her with pride, and admiration and amazement—and, under it all, a strange, dreadful, heart-sinking, which i could not understand and which i had never in all my life experienced before—no, not even when sara had refused me.
betty was a woman! not by virtue of the simple white dress that clung to her tall, slender figure, revealing lines of exquisite grace and litheness; not by virtue of the glossy masses of dark brown hair heaped high on her head and held there in wonderful shining coils; not by virtue of added softness of curve and daintiness of outline; not because of all these, but because of the dream and wonder and seeking in her eyes. she was a woman, looking, all unconscious of her quest, for love.
the understanding of the change in her came home to me with a shock that must have left me, i think, something white about the lips. i was glad. she was what i had wished her to become. but i wanted the child betty back; this womanly betty seemed far away from me.
i stepped out into the path and she saw me, with a brightening of her whole face. she did not rush forward and fling herself into my arms as she would have done a year ago; but she came towards me swiftly, holding out her hand. i had thought her slightly pale when i had first seen her; but now i concluded i had been mistaken, for there was a wonderful sunrise of color in her face. i took her hand—there were no kisses this time.
"welcome home, betty," i said.
"oh, stephen, it is so good to be back," she breathed, her eyes shining.
she did not say it was good to see me again, as i had hoped she would do. indeed, after the first minute of greeting, she seemed a trifle cool and distant. we walked for an hour in the pine wood and talked. betty was brilliant, witty, self-possessed, altogether charming. i thought her perfect and yet my heart ached. what a glorious young thing she was, in that splendid youth of hers! what a prize for some lucky man—confound the obtrusive thought! no doubt we should soon be overrun at glenby with lovers. i should stumble over some forlorn youth at every step! well, what of it? betty would marry, of course. it would be my duty to see that she got a good husband, worthy of her as men go. i thought i preferred the old duty of superintending her studies. but there, it was all the same thing—merely a post-graduate course in applied knowledge. when she began to learn life's greatest lesson of love, i, the tried and true old family friend and mentor, must be on hand to see that the teacher was what i would have him be, even as i had formerly selected her instructor in french and botany. then, and not until then, would betty's education be complete.
i rode home very soberly. when i reached the maples i did what i had not done for years...looked critically at myself in the mirror. the realization that i had grown older came home to me with a new and unpleasant force. there were marked lines on my lean face, and silver glints in the dark hair over my temples. when betty was ten she had thought me "an old person." now, at eighteen, she probably thought me a veritable ancient of days. pshaw, what did it matter? and yet...i thought of her as i had seen her, standing under the pines, and something cold and painful laid its hand on my heart.
my premonitions as to lovers proved correct. glenby was soon infested with them. heaven knows where they all came from. i had not supposed there was a quarter as many young men in the whole county; but there they were. sara was in the seventh heaven of delight. was not betty at last a belle? as for the proposals...well, betty never counted her scalps in public; but every once in a while a visiting youth dropped out and was seen no more at glenby. one could guess what that meant.
betty apparently enjoyed all this. i grieve to say that she was a bit of a coquette. i tried to cure her of this serious defect, but for once i found that i had undertaken something i could not accomplish. in vain i lectured, betty only laughed; in vain i gravely rebuked, betty only flirted more vivaciously than before. men might come and men might go, but betty went on forever. i endured this sort of thing for a year and then i decided that it was time to interfere seriously. i must find a husband for betty...my fatherly duty would not be fulfilled until i had...nor, indeed, my duty to society. she was not a safe person to have running at large.
none of the men who haunted glenby was good enough for her. i decided that my nephew, frank, would do very well. he was a capital young fellow, handsome, clean-souled, and whole-hearted. from a worldly point of view he was what sara would have termed an excellent match; he had money, social standing and a rising reputation as a clever young lawyer. yes, he should have betty, confound him!
they had never met. i set the wheels going at once. the sooner all the fuss was over the better. i hated fuss and there was bound to be a good deal of it. but i went about the business like an accomplished matchmaker. i invited frank to visit the maples and, before he came, i talked much...but not too much...of him to betty, mingling judicious praise and still more judicious blame together. women never like a paragon. betty heard me with more gravity than she usually accorded to my dissertations on young men. she even condescended to ask several questions about him. this i thought a good sign.
to frank i had said not a word about betty; when he came to the maples i took him over to glenby and, coming upon betty wandering about among the beeches in the sunset, i introduced him without any warning.
he would have been more than mortal if he had not fallen in love with her upon the spot. it was not in the heart of man to resist her...that dainty, alluring bit of womanhood. she was all in white, with flowers in her hair, and, for a moment, i could have murdered frank or any other man who dared to commit the sacrilege of loving her.
then i pulled myself together and left them alone. i might have gone in and talked to sara...two old folks gently reviewing their youth while the young folks courted outside...but i did not. i prowled about the pine wood, and tried to forget how blithe and handsome that curly-headed boy, frank, was, and what a flash had sprung into his eyes when he had seen betty. well, what of it? was not that what i had brought him there for? and was i not pleased at the success of my scheme? certainly i was! delighted!
next day frank went to glenby without even making the poor pretense of asking me to accompany him. i spent the time of his absence overseeing the construction of a new greenhouse i was having built. i was conscientious in my supervision; but i felt no interest in it. the place was intended for roses, and roses made me think of the pale yellow ones betty had worn at her breast one evening the week before, when, all lovers being unaccountably absent, we had wandered together under the pines and talked as in the old days before her young womanhood and my gray hairs had risen up to divide us. she had dropped a rose on the brown floor, and i had sneaked back, after i had left her the house, to get it, before i went home. i had it now in my pocket-book. confound it, mightn't a future uncle cherish a family affection for his prospective niece?
frank's wooing seemed to prosper. the other young sparks, who had haunted glenby, faded away after his advent. betty treated him with most encouraging sweetness; sara smiled on him; i stood in the background, like a benevolent god of the machine, and flattered myself that i pulled the strings.
at the end of a month something went wrong. frank came home from glenby one day in the dumps, and moped for two whole days. i rode down myself on the third. i had not gone much to glenby that month; but, if there were trouble bettyward, it was my duty to make smooth the rough places.
as usual, i found betty in the pineland. i thought she looked rather pale and dull...fretting about frank no doubt. she brightened up when she saw me, evidently expecting that i had come to straighten matters out; but she pretended to be haughty and indifferent.
"i am glad you haven't forgotten us altogether, stephen," she said coolly. "you haven't been down for a week."
"i'm flattered that you noticed it," i said, sitting down on a fallen tree and looking up at her as she stood, tall and lithe, against an old pine, with her eyes averted. "i shouldn't have supposed you'd want an old fogy like myself poking about and spoiling the idyllic moments of love's young dream."
"why do you always speak of yourself as old?" said betty, crossly, ignoring my reference to frank.
"because i am old, my dear. witness these gray hairs."
i pushed up my hat to show them the more recklessly.
betty barely glanced at them.
"you have just enough to give you a distinguished look," she said, "and you are only forty. a man is in his prime at forty. he never has any sense until he is forty—and sometimes he doesn't seem to have any even then," she concluded impertinently.
my heart beat. did betty suspect? was that last sentence meant to inform me that she was aware of my secret folly, and laughed at it?
"i came over to see what has gone wrong between you and frank," i said gravely.
betty bit her lips.
"nothing," she said.
"betty," i said reproachfully, "i brought you up...or endeavored to bring you up...to speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. don't tell me i have failed. i'll give you another chance. have you quarreled with frank?"
"no," said the maddening betty, "he quarreled with me. he went away in a temper and i do not care if he never comes back!"
i shook my head.
"this won't do, betty. as your old family friend i still claim the right to scold you until you have a husband to do the scolding. you mustn't torment frank. he is too fine a fellow. you must marry him, betty."
"must i?" said betty, a dusky red flaming out on her cheek. she turned her eyes on me in a most disconcerting fashion. "do you wish me to marry frank, stephen?"
betty had a wretched habit of emphasizing pronouns in a fashion calculated to rattle anybody.
"yes, i do wish it, because i think it will be best for you," i replied, without looking at her. "you must marry some time, betty, and frank is the only man i know to whom i could trust you. as your guardian, i have an interest in seeing you well and wisely settled for life. you have always taken my advice and obeyed my wishes; and you've always found my way the best, in the long run, haven't you, betty? you won't prove rebellious now, i'm sure. you know quite well that i am advising you for your own good. frank is a splendid young fellow, who loves you with all his heart. marry him, betty. mind, i don't command. i have no right to do that, and you are too old to be ordered about, if i had. but i wish and advise it. isn't that enough, betty?"
i had been looking away from her all the time i was talking, gazing determinedly down a sunlit vista of pines. every word i said seemed to tear my heart, and come from my lips stained with life-blood. yes, betty should marry frank! but, good god, what would become of me!
betty left her station under the pine tree, and walked around me until she got right in front of my face. i couldn't help looking at her, for if i moved my eyes she moved too. there was nothing meek or submissive about her; her head was held high, her eyes were blazing, and her cheeks were crimson. but her words were meek enough.
"i will marry frank if you wish it, stephen," she said. "you are my friend. i have never crossed your wishes, and, as you say, i have never regretted being guided by them. i will do exactly as you wish in this case also, i promise you that. but, in so solemn a question, i must be very certain what you do wish. there must be no doubt in my mind or heart. look me squarely in the eyes, stephen—as you haven't done once to-day, no, nor once since i came home from school—and, so looking, tell me that you wish me to marry frank douglas and i will do it! do you, stephen?"
i had to look her in the eyes, since nothing else would do her; and, as i did so, all the might of manhood in me rose up in hot revolt against the lie i would have told her. that unfaltering, impelling gaze of hers drew the truth from my lips in spite of myself.
"no, i don't wish you to marry frank douglas, a thousand times no!" i said passionately. "i don't wish you to marry any man on earth but myself. i love you—i love you, betty. you are dearer to me than life—dearer to me than my own happiness. it was your happiness i thought of—and so i asked you to marry frank because i believed he would make you a happy woman. that is all!"
betty's defiance went from her like a flame blown out. she turned away and drooped her proud head.
"it could not have made me a happy woman to marry one man, loving another," she said, in a whisper.
i got up and went over to her.
"betty, whom do you love?" i asked, also in a whisper.
"you," she murmured meekly—oh, so meekly, my proud little girl!
"betty," i said brokenly, "i'm old—too old for you—i'm more than twenty years your senior—i'm—"
"oh!" betty wheeled around on me and stamped her foot. "don't mention your age to me again. i don't care if you're as old as methuselah. but i'm not going to coax you to marry me, sir! if you won't, i'll never marry anybody—i'll live and die an old maid. you can please yourself, of course!"
she turned away, half-laughing, half-crying; but i caught her in my arms and crushed her sweet lips against mine.
"betty, i'm the happiest man in the world—and i was the most miserable when i came here."
"you deserved to be," said betty cruelly. "i'm glad you were. any man as stupid as you deserves to be unhappy. what do you think i felt like, loving you with all my heart, and seeing you simply throwing me at another man's head. why, i've always loved you, stephen; but i didn't know it until i went to that detestable school. then i found out—and i thought that was why you had sent me. but, when i came home, you almost broke my heart. that was why i flirted so with all those poor, nice boys—i wanted to hurt you but i never thought i succeeded. you just went on being fatherly. then, when you brought frank here, i almost gave up hope; and i tried to make up my mind to marry him; i should have done it if you had insisted. but i had to have one more try for happiness first. i had just one little hope to inspire me with sufficient boldness. i saw you, that night, when you came back here and picked up my rose! i had come back, myself, to be alone and unhappy."
"it is the most wonderful thing that ever happened—that you should love me," i said.
"it's not—i couldn't help it," said betty, nestling her brown head on my shoulder. "you taught me everything else, stephen, so nobody but you could teach me how to love. you've made a thorough thing of educating me."
"when will you marry me, betty?" i asked.
"as soon as i can fully forgive you for trying to make me marry somebody else," said betty.
it was rather hard lines on frank, when you come to think of it. but, such is the selfishness of human nature that we didn't think much about frank. the young fellow behaved like the douglas he was. went a little white about the lips when i told him, wished me all happiness, and went quietly away, "gentleman unafraid."
he has since married and is, i understand, very happy. not as happy as i am, of course; that is impossible, because there is only one betty in the world, and she is my wife.
