Rebecca's Promise Part 10

"You won't be a school teacher long," prophesied Richard, reaching over to show her something, and his hand covered hers.

A thread of fire seemed to start from his fingers and run all over Rebecca Mary. She couldn't speak for a second, and when she did speak her voice was not as steady as she wanted it to be.

"Gracious me, I hope not," she stuttered. "Who would want to teach school for ever?"

"You won't do it for ever!" Richard said again, and no seventh daughter of a seventh daughter could have been more emphatic about the future. He smiled at Rebecca Mary as she sat beside him, her cheeks pink, her eyes black with excitement, her hair blowing about her face. She wore another small portion of Aunt Ellen's present, an old rose silk sweater, and it was wonderfully becoming.

"I'd like to do this for ever," she murmured. "I've at last found an occupation which suits me right down to the very ground."

"Would you like to do it for me for ever?" The question did not surprise Rebecca Mary half as much as it did Richard. It was not often that he uttered soft nothings to a girl. He was more accustomed to talk of stocks and bonds, and he thought it was strange that he never wanted to talk of stocks and bonds to Rebecca Mary. "You must have another lesson very soon," he went on in a more matter of fact voice as she did not tell him whether she would like to drive for him for ever. "Practice is the only thing that will make you perfect. You must have a lot of practice."

When Peter heard that Richard was teaching Rebecca Mary to drive his big car he pretended to be vastly indignant.

"Why didn't you tell me you wanted to learn?" he demanded.

"I didn't have to tell Mr. Cabot," she answered triumphantly.

"Great old mind reader, d.i.c.k Cabot is, isn't he? Well, if you're learning to drive his big car you had better let me teach you how to manage a roadster and Granny's small car and the limousine."

"And then I can stop teaching school and open a garage," dimpled Rebecca Mary. "Very well, bring out your roadster."

"You drive very well," Peter was good enough to say when Rebecca Mary had demonstrated what she could do. "A little more practice and you can drive anywhere."

"Really!" Rebecca Mary liked his words so much that she wanted to hear them again.

"Really."

And then Rebecca Mary killed her engine and couldn't remember how to start it again. Peter put his hand on the b.u.t.ton at the same moment she did, and his five fingers closed over Rebecca Mary's five fingers.

Rebecca Mary quivered to her toes, but she tried to be very matter of fact.

"Granny said I might have to drive for her," she said quickly. "Karl is going to leave, and she hasn't found a new chauffeur yet."

That evening she actually did drive Richard through the traffic which surged around the pavilion where the weekly band concert was given. If Peter had been there he would have had to shout "Pirate" several times for Rebecca Mary did scowl yellow brownly, but that was because she was so anxious to drive well.

"Aren't you shaking in your shoes?" she asked when they were held up at a very busy crossing. "No one can question your bravery now. You've certainly earned a medal."

Richard looked at her sparkling eyes, and his staid invulnerable heart gave a flop which startled him, and a flash appeared in his dark eyes.

"I'm a man who always collects what he earns," he told her in a way which made her heart thump a bit, too, although she would not let him know that, not for worlds. "There isn't a better collector in all Waloo than I am."

"My goodness gracious AND my gracious goodness!" Rebecca Mary seemed much impressed by Richard, the bill collector. "But you must not read the future by the past," she cautioned gravely. "I seem to remember that at college I was told that even Napoleon had his Waterloo."

"We are not discussing Napoleon Bonaparte but one Richard Deane Cabot,"

Richard reminded her severely.

"Vice president of the First National Bank of Waloo," she nodded as if to make sure that they were talking of the same Richard Deane Cabot.

"That sounds very important, doesn't it? Important and rich and--and solid. How does it feel?" she asked with a certain gay insouciance which was as new to Rebecca Mary as it was becoming.

He laughed. "Just at present it feels mighty good. I'm very grateful to the First National Bank. I owe my present job as a motor teacher to that same bank."

Rebecca Mary's sober face made a desperate attempt to conceal her amused smile. "That's true," she said, but her voice was as much of a failure as a disguise as her sober face. "The two most important buildings in Waloo are undoubtedly the First National Bank and the Waloo Hotel. At last!" as the traffic policeman gave them the right of way. "I hope I don't do the wrong thing now and mortify my teacher as well as myself.

You never can tell what a pupil will do."

"I'm not afraid of my pupil." Richard was stimulatingly confident.

"I told you that you were a brave man. There!" Rebecca Mary drew a long breath. "We are on our way again." She turned impulsively to Richard and exclaimed from the very depths of her heart: "I can't ever tell you, Mr.

Cabot, how happy you have made me!"

"I'm glad," was all Richard said, but his eyes flashed again. "It doesn't take much to make some little girls happy."

"Don't belittle your own generosity," scolded Rebecca Mary. "You've given me a lot and you know it."

Joan ran out to meet them when they returned.

"Granny is going to let me have a party!" she cried, scarcely able to believe her news herself. "I'm to choose the guests and the dinner and everything. I'm going to have you and the Bingham twins and Mr. Peter.

And I can't think whether to have little pig sausages and waffles like we did the other morning for breakfast or nightingales' tongues like in the story you read me, Miss Wyman. Granny said sausage and waffles didn't belong to dinner, but if we had them for dinner they would, wouldn't they? And she said she was afraid there weren't any nightingales' tongues in the market, and if there were did I think the Bingham twins could eat them. Once at home we had a swan with all its feathers on, and another time, at Echternach, when the kaiser came, we had a boar's head. Do you think you'd like one of those?" doubtfully.

Rebecca Mary looked up quickly to see Richard's face when Joan spoke of the kaiser as a dinner guest at Echternach, but he only looked amused so Rebecca Mary stooped and kissed the flushed little face. "What I should like best would be a little spring chicken," she said.

"Odd little thing, isn't she?" Richard said when Joan had danced away to ask Granny if the three months' old Bingham twins could eat spring chicken. "Have you heard from her father?"

"Not a word. Nor from Mrs. Muldoon. We drove over yesterday, but Mrs.

Lee hadn't heard anything."

"It was mighty good of you to take her in." Richard spoke as if no one in the world but Rebecca Mary would have taken charge of a child who had been left on the door step with a clock, a portrait and a potato masher.

"What else could I do?" Rebecca Mary would like to be told how she could have done anything else. "She was--loaned to me." And she laughed. It was so easy to laugh at the loan now.

"All the same it was mighty good of you." He wished she would laugh again. Like Joan, Richard did admire Rebecca Mary's face when it "broke into little holes." "I don't know many girls who would have taken care of a child who had no claim on them."

"But she did have a claim on me. I was her teacher." And Rebecca Mary did laugh again.

Granny was just hanging up the telephone receiver when Rebecca Mary went into the house.

"I've been talking to Seven Pines," she said. "Is there any reason why we shouldn't drive out there to-morrow, Rebecca Mary? Mrs. Swanson just called me up to tell me that Otillie is going to be married and she wants me to come out and see her wedding things."

"A wedding!" Joan jumped up and down on delighted toes. "You'll take me, Granny Simmons? You'll never leave me in Waloo? You know I've never been to a wedding. I've only been to church and school and a moving picture show."

"Then you certainly shall go to Otillie's wedding. We'll start in the morning and take our time," Granny suggested to Rebecca Mary. "What do you say?"

"I say goody, goody!" exclaimed Rebecca Mary. "You have told me so much about Seven Pines I'm crazy to see it."

That night when she went to her room she nodded merrily at the radiant face of the girl in the big mirror.

"Well, Rebecca Mary Wyman," she murmured joyously. "You certainly have turned over a new leaf--a real four-leaf clover leaf. You're having the time of your young life. You must send Cousin Susan a testimonial for her memory insurance company!" For she remembered to give the credit for her new leaf to where credit was due. "You've had more fun since you took out one of her policies than you ever had before. Gracious, I should think you had!"

She was still looking at the happy face in the mirror and dreamily wondering about the bright new leaf she had turned over when the door opened and there stood Granny Simmons. She wore her hat and her motor coat dragged from her arm. In her hand she held a yellow telegram.