'Smiles' Part 20

"'But they weren't, Phil,' I answered. 'I was a poor little city waif, who had lost her parents and didn't know where she came from, or even her name.' And then I told him the story which Big Jerry told you that first night on the mountain.

"And then, Donald, then it was my turn to be surprised, for Philip grasped my arm until he hurt me, and cried, 'I can't believe it, Rose. I won't believe it!'

"I didn't know what to say, and somehow I felt both hurt and a little angry that it should make any difference in his love--yes, I did, in spite of the fact that I couldn't marry him anyway. Yet, at the same time, I had an impression that it wasn't that, but something quite different, which was troubling his heart. So I said, 'What is it, Philip? I do not understand why you are acting so strangely.'

"His only reply was to ask me, in an odd voice, when it happened; how long ago.

"I told him 'eighteen years, when I was a baby about three years old.' Don, I can't tell you how I felt then, for he looked so peculiar--almost as though he were stunned. And he could not seem to say anything. I was frightened. I begged him to speak to me, and told him that he looked as though he had seen a ghost. 'I have ... at least I have if my suspicion is true. But it can't be; oh, it is unbelievable, impossible,' he broke out.

"I didn't know what to say or do, he looked almost as though he were ... were not in his right mind; and, when I put my hand on his arm and begged him to tell me what the trouble was, he shook it off, and began to speak ... oh, I cannot tell you how. It sounded as though some one else were speaking, and uttering the words hesitatingly.

"'Try and remember, Smiles. Call on your memory of the long ago, if there is a single spark of it still lingering in your mind. Oh, it means so much, dear, so much that I am almost afraid to ask the question, but I have got to, I have got to!'

"He waited until I thought I should go mad, Don, and then said, in little more than a whisper, 'Did you ever, back in your babyhood, hear the name, Anna Rose Young? Think, Smiles, think hard.'

"Perhaps you will not believe it; but it seemed as though something long forgotten were actually stirring in my heart, and as though it were groping blindly in the mists of memory. I could not be sure, yet something forced me to answer, uncertainly, 'Yes, I think, I believe that I do remember that name; but I don't know where I could have heard it. What do you mean, Philip?'

"His answer surprised me as much as the first question, for he said, 'Was it in ... Louisville?'

"'Louisville? I have never been there, Philip. And yet....' There was the strange stir in my memory again. Oh, it was all so puzzling.

"'Anna Rose Young,' he repeated insistently. 'They called her Rose, because ... because her mother's name was the same.'

"'They called her ... Philip, I do remember, now. It's my own name! Oh, Philip, you know who I am! But how, Phil?' I was clinging to him as though I must draw the truth from him physically; but he went on, almost mechanically, and his breath came hard, I could feel him tremble, Don."

Now her own low voice was trembling excitedly.

"'A tall, slender man, who stooped a little, Smiles,' he said. 'His face was thoughtful and kindly. He had a close-clipped, pointed beard, and wore gold-rimmed spectacles, and his eyes were very blue, as blue as your own, Rose. Tell me, does the picture mean anything to you?'

"I tried to visualize it, Don, and I could, as though it were some one far, far off whom I could see through the mist.

"'My daddy, Philip,' I whispered; I could hardly speak at all, for my throat was aching and I was crying."

She was crying, now, but did not realize it.

"'A sweet-faced woman, with wavy brown hair in which were golden glints like yours,' he went on, monotonously; but this time I could not answer at all."

Smiles stopped, and, for an instant, sobbed without restraint, with her head against Donald's arm, and he ran his hand tenderly and unsteadily over her hair.

Then she lifted her face, bathed in tears, and whispered, "You understand, don't you, Don? After all the years, to remember, ever so vaguely; but, still, to remember my former life, and to know my own name! Oh, I can't help it ... I couldn't when he told me."

"Yes, yes. I understand, dearest."

"Philip went on, desperately, it seemed to me. 'Another picture, Smiles. Can you see a spindle-legged, mischievous boy of ten, who loved his little sister dearly; but teased her from morning until night. His name was ...'

"'Tilly! Oh, I remember. At least, that was what baby Rose called him.'

"'Yes, she called him Tilly. She called him that because ... because she couldn't say ... "Philip." Oh, little Rose, don't you understand? I came to find a wife, and I have found ... a sister!'"

"But, his name ..." interrupted Donald.

"I know. I will tell you. But first, Donald, my poor father and mother. I thought that perhaps I was to find them, too; but G.o.d willed otherwise. Big Jerry was right. They ... they were both drowned."

Eager as he was to hear the rest of the story, the man could not but keep silent, in understanding sympathy, until she was ready to proceed of her own accord. It was once more as Smiles herself had written in her letter to him, after Big Jerry's death. Happiness was tinged with grief, for the night's strange disclosures had re-opened an old wound, long since closed.

Finally she went on.

"I won't try to tell you the explanation in Philip's words; but it seems that we used to live in Louisville. Philip's own father was a well-to-do physician, named, of course, Dr. Bentley. He died when Phil was a baby, and, when he was seven years old, mother married Mr. Robert Young, a mining engineer. I was born a year later--I am really his half-sister, you see."

"But," interrupted Donald, "I should think that the name Philip Bentley might have stirred a responsive chord in your memory before this--no, I don't suppose that it would have, after all, for you were so small that you didn't remember your own last name."

"Yes, and not only that, but Philip was always called 'Young'--when he was a boy, anyway. Well, it seems that, when he was ten, and I was three, he was sent all alone to visit an uncle, a brother of his own father, who lived in Richmond. It was while he was away for the summer that my dear father was sent into the c.u.mberland Mountains between Kentucky and Virginia, prospecting for coal on behalf of the company in the employ of which he was. He took mother and me with him for a camping vacation, and ... and you know as much as I about the tragedy which separated us, and made such changes in our lives."

Rose paused again, a prey to memory.

"And then?" prompted Donald, gently.

"Then, Philip said, when no word came from his parents for several weeks, his uncle left no stone unturned to find them, and at length the Federal Revenue authorities located the bodies of my dear mother and father, and part of their wrecked canoe, in the swift river, almost at the foot of the mountains. Of course every one a.s.sumed that I had ... had been drowned, too."

"Oh, thank G.o.d that you were not, my dear," breathed Donald, so softly that she could not hear him.

"Then Philip went to live permanently with his uncle, who raised and educated him as one of his own sons. Of course he took his real name again. Oh, Donald, isn't it too wonderful?"

"Yes, dear heart, wonderful, indeed." There was a long silence. Then Donald asked, softly, "And Philip? How does he feel?"

"He ... he is happy, too," came her reply, somewhat haltingly. "Of course, just at first ... oh, please don't ask me, Don. But now he is content, for he knows that I ... I couldn't ever have been anything else to him, because I loved ano.... I loved you."

"He knows that? Rose, you didn't tell him?"

"Yes, I did," she answered, bravely. "And let me tell you, sir, that it is lucky for you that ... that you asked me; for, if you hadn't, you would have had my big brother to deal with!"

And what the cricket heard then, has nothing to do with this story.

CHAPTER x.x.xV.

THE HALLOWED MOON.

They were to be married early in September--just a month from the day when Smiles so nearly gave her life to save another's.

During the days which must pa.s.s before she became Donald's in the full trinity of body, mind and soul, his family kept her at Manchester-by-the-Sea and each hour bound her more closely to the heart of each.

For her, Ethel planned and purchased, sewed and supervised, putting as much loving thought into the making of her simple outfit as though it was she herself who was to be wedded. The days were busy ones, the evening hours rich in love and contentment, for Donald came down from the city each night, and the two learned the way to many a secret chamber in each other's heart.

Early in the week which was to bring to a close the separate stories of the man and maid, and write the first chapter in the single history of man and wife, Donald left them to make a brief, but important, trip which, he said, could not be postponed; and oh, how empty life seemed to Smiles during those few days.

But they were ended at last, and the marriage evening came,--still and mellow, with the voices of both sh.o.r.e and sea tuned to soft night melodies.

Below in the hall, hidden within a bower of palms, an orchestra of Boston Symphony players drew whispering harmonies from the strings of violins, harp and cello, and, at the signal, swept into the dreamy, enchanted notes of Mendelssohn's marriage song.

Little Don, very proud and important--and somewhat frightened--picked up the train which he was to bear as page, and down the winding stairway, by the side of her new-found brother, moved Rose, gowned in traditional white, made with befitting simplicity, her s.h.i.+mmering hair no longer crowned with the square of a nurse cap, but by a floating, misty veil and the orange-blossom wreath of a bride. Never had her warm coloring been so delicate and changeful, her expressive eyes so deep, or the fleeting sweetness of her translucent smile so wonderful.

At the foot of the stairs stood Muriel, and three other girl companions, each with a woven sweetgra.s.s basket--made years ago by little Smiles herself--filled with rose petals to be strewn in her path, and the bride's lowered eyes rested tenderly for a moment upon the child that she so loved. Then she started, and paused. One of them, as tall as Muriel and more slender, had hair of spun gold, and she was looking up with an eagerness which she could hardly restrain.

With a low, surprised cry, Smiles hurried downward, drawing her hand from Philip's arm and extending both her own.

"Little Lou. Can it really be you? Oh, my dear."

And, heedless of the cl.u.s.ter of waiting friends beyond, she caught the flus.h.i.+ng, bashful, happy child into her arms.

"Oh, Smiles, haint hit all too wonderful. Hit's like dreamy-land, an' I'm plumb erfeered thet I'll wake up an' find hit haint real. But yo're real, my Smiles, an' oh, how I loves ye."

There was a suspicious moisture in more eyes than those of Rose, as she released the child and moved forward again, following the flower girls into the room where waited the man who was all in all to her.

Donald stood just to one side of a canopied altar made of white roses and interwoven ferns, and before it was a tall, slender man in the vestments of the Episcopal Church, whose thin, saintlike face was topped by hair of the purest silver-white.

Smiles felt her heart swelling almost painfully with a great new happiness; her lips parted, and she wanted to draw her hand across her eyes and brush away the sudden tears which she knew were there. For the rector was her own dear Mr. Talmadge.

Now Donald was at her side, and his strong fingers were returning the grateful, loving pressure of her own. He understood how full of grat.i.tude was her heart, and was repaid.

The low, clear voice, tuned to the winds of the forest, began the words of the beautiful service. It was, indeed, all a dream, and she felt the unreality of it until the benediction had been spoken, and the hidden orchestra struck the first joyous chords of the triumphant march from Lohengrin. Then, from her husband's arms she turned to the embrace of the mountain minister, and of Philip, and little Lou, and Gertrude Merriman, and Dorothy Roberts, and of all those other friends, old and new, who were so dear to her.

No explanations were possible for many minutes to come; but at length she heard the story of the secret trip "which could not be postponed," of how "the reverend"--now well and strong at last--had gladly consented to leave his beloved mountain home, for the first time in many, many years, and come north on this sacredest of missions; of how Judd had yielded to the request that Lou accompany them, too; and finally of how her mountain lover of the old days was now himself married--to none other than the youngest daughter of the kindly agent at Fayville.

And when this news was told, Donald cried, "Why, Smiles, for shame! I actually believe that you are jealous," and she replied, "Of course I am ... horribly." Whereupon every one laughed at her, and her husband punished her with a kiss.

It was ended at last, the lights, merry voices and laughter; and, as the two ran the ancient gantlet, the orchestra, prompted thereto by Mr. MacDonald, struck up a lively popular air, and the guests caught up the words.

They paused a moment on the path below the veranda, to quiet their hurried breathing, and look into each other's happy eyes.

"Where do we go from here?" They knew. There had been but one spot in all the world whose name both their hearts had spoken, when Donald first mentioned the honeymoon to be.

Evening again--twilight on the c.u.mberland mountains. The moon had not yet risen; but, through the black lacework of the forest trees which stretched above Big Jerry's cabin to the mountain's summit, shone the beaming radiance of the evening star.

Within the soft shadow of the doorway stood two figures, close together--one tall, broad of shoulder and heavily built, the other of medium height, slender and very graceful--and their arms were about each other's waists. A man and a woman,--as it was in the beginning.

For a long time they stood thus, without speaking,--there was no need of speech, for their thoughts were one.

"So old and well remembered; yet so new and strangely beautiful," whispered the woman, as she let her gaze travel over the broken, far-stretching skyline of the forest-clad mountain side, now fading into the sky, where a memory of the sunset's afterglow still lingered, as though loath to depart and leave the world to darkness.

"Like love: as old as the hills, yet ever new," answered the other.

"Yes. I cannot yet understand, Don, how this new life can be so strangely natural to me. We have been married only three all-too-short days, yet I can scarcely think of the other life as real. Some people speak of their honeymoon as a golden dream. To me it is the sweet reality, and all that went before the dream. Isn't it odd?"

"All of nature's laws are inexplicable, dear heart. But we should not forget that the Almighty's plan for the world did not deal with man and woman as separate ent.i.ties, but man and woman as counterparts of a single unit, in which His laws should find full expression, if the two were truly mated--not merely married. You remember what Mr. Talmadge said that night."

"I know. We have found, not each other, but the other part of ourselves--ourself. Dear, when did you first realize that it was so?"

"My mind, not until it was free to face the truth; my subconscious soul the first moment that I saw you, I think."

"I know I loved you from that moment too," she answered simply, lifting her lips for his kiss.

There followed another spell of enchanted silence, broken only by the low lullaby of the night wind in the trees, and then the man spoke again.

"Smiles, are you still greatly afraid of the sea?"

"No, dear, I should not be, if you were with me. It is strange; but I lost most of the old, unreasoning fear the moment that I made up my mind to jump into it that afternoon. But, why do you ask that now, Donald?" He did not reply at once, and she continued, "I think that I know, and the same thought was in my own mind. Is it that you want to go to France again, to renew the saving work there,--and want me with you?"

He nodded slowly.

"If you hadn't suggested it, I should have, Don; for now I am doubly prepared for the work I began to long to do, so many years ago. I am not only trained for it, but I have you beside me, to comfort and strengthen me, always.

"Yes, dear," she went on softly. "Some day, G.o.d grant, we shall have little ones of our own to care for; but, until that beautiful time comes, there are no less precious babies throughout all the world--and there, especially--crying for us to help them. We must give of our best to them, for, weak, tender and helpless as they are, the hope of the world is in its babies."

Through the dark tree-tops the new-born moon appeared on the breast of night, around it a misty halo like that about the head of the Infant who came nineteen centuries ago, typifying the hope of all mankind.

"Look," said Donald. "Our honeymoon wears a halo."

"Because it is a hallowed moon," answered Rose.

The soft white radiance floated in, flooding the little porch and illuminating the wife's sweet face as she lifted it again, now touched with a smile, more meaningful and more ethereal than ever before.

For, to the smile of courage, hope and love, had been added the quality of rich, deep contentment.

THE END - MARK GRAY'S HERITAGE A Romance By Eliot Harlow Robinson Author of "Smiles: A Rose of the c.u.mberlands," "Smiling Pa.s.s," "The Maid of Mirabelle," etc.

Cloth, 12mo, ill.u.s.trated, $1.90 "What is bred in the bone will never come out of the flesh."

Mr. Robinson's distinguished success came with the acclaim accredited to his novel, SMILES, "The Best-Loved Book of the Year," and its sequel, SMILING Pa.s.s. With delicate humor and a sincere faith in the beautiful side of human nature, Mr. Robinson has created for himself a host of enthusiastic admirers. In his new book he chooses a theme, suggested perhaps by the old proverb quoted above ("Pilpay's Fables"). His setting is a Quaker village, his theme the conflict between grave Quaker ideals and the strength and hot blood of impulsive Mark Gray.

Here is a book that is worthy of the reception accorded SMILES by all readers who appreciate a story of deep significance, simply yet powerfully built upon fundamental pa.s.sions, wrought with a philosophy that always sees the best in troubled times.

The enthusiastic editor who pa.s.sed on MARK GRAY'S HERITAGE calls it--hardly too emphatically--"A mighty good story with plenty of entertainment for those who like action (there is more of that in it than in any other of Mr. Robinson's novels). The reading public will unquestionably call it another courage book'--which they called the SMILES books, you know. The language is both strong and smooth. The story has a punch!"

POLLY THE PAGAN Her Lost Love Letters By Isabel Anderson With an appreciative Foreword by Basil King Cloth decorative, 12mo, ill.u.s.trated, $1.90 Isabel Anderson, who heretofore has confined her literary talents to writing of presidents and diplomats and fascinating foreign lands, contributes to our list her first novel, POLLY THE PAGAN, a story of European life and "high society." The story is unfolded in the lively letters of a gay and vivacious American girl traveling in Europe, and tells of the men whom she meets in Paris, in London or Rome, her flirtations (and they are many and varied!) and exciting experiences. Among the letters written to her are slangy ones from an American college boy and some in broken English from a fascinated Russian Prince (or was he disillusioned, when after dining at a smart Parisian cafe with the adorable Polly he was trapped by secret police?); but the chief interest, so far as Polly's affaires d'amour are concerned, centers around the letters from a young American, in the diplomatic service in Rome, who is in a position to give intimate descriptions of smart life and Italian society.

The character drawing is clever, and the suspense as to whom the fascinating Polly will marry, if indeed the mysterious young lady will marry anybody, is admirably sustained.