The Open Question Part 57

"What's your objection to scenery?"

"So horrid dull. Not just this--_all_ scenery."

"You think so?"

"Oh, dreadful! And it's just the same with birds and trees, and all the things the poets make such a time about. _I_ can't be bothered."

"Really!" Ethan was laughing at her hara.s.sed, overdone look.

"Oh, do forgive me! I quite forgot you were a poet, too."

"I'll forgive you on condition you tell me what you'd write about if _you_ were a poet."

"Why, people, of course. People are the only things that matter. I _always_ skip the scenery. Everybody does, only they don't tell." She had lowered her voice, as if the very faded gra.s.ses and the sunburnt golden-rod might gossip of the heresy. "It's been rather hard on me that my father, who is so interesting and wonderful to talk to about everything else, should waste so much time on trees and things. I've thought more than once that some day, when he's in better health, I'll just tell him." She nodded portentously.

"H'm! How will you put it?"

"Oh, I should tell him just honestly the beauties of Nature make me sick."

A pause of satisfaction at finally unburdening her soul, and then a little start. She studied Ethan's face with some anxiety.

"I'm forgetting again that you-- Do you mind if I don't care much about--" She made a vindictive gesture towards a small, wry-growing oak-tree clinging desperately to the side of the hill below them. "Do you mind?"

"I don't know that I do."

"Why should you? I don't mind that you hate my jacket--at least, not much. I tell you what, we'll make a compact. I'll never wear velvet or mullein leaves while you're here, and you will never mention the scenery."

"Very well; it's a bargain."

They shook hands. A sudden impulse made him loath to loosen his grasp.

As he did so:

"Now tell me," he said, "what _were_ you looking at with such a rapture of expectation. What interests you in that dirty little town?"

"It's only dirty because it's so enterprising," she said, apologetically. "You can't stop to trouble about your looks if you've got a lot to do."

"Quite true, America. But still, what is there besides enterprise in that dirty little town that makes you--"

"_Little!_ Why, my father says there are 35,000 inhabitants."

"Ah, there's safety in numbers. I fancied from your expression you had forgotten 34,999 of them."

"There's the carriage," said Val, not looking in his face.

"How long is he going to stay, grandma?" asked Emmie, as the two figures came towards them.

"I don't know, my dear."

"I think he means to be here a long while."

"What makes you think so?"

"Well, he said something to Val about hating Christmas, 'cause it always made him miserable. Val said: 'Stay here with us and you won't be miserable.' He said: 'No, I don't think it would be easy to be miserable with you.' And he looked so pleased. Let's ask him to stay."

Mrs. Gano watched the advancing pair with grave eyes. It was rare to see Val with such a heightened color.

It rained the next day, and there was no driving. But Val, in any case, had an old engagement of much importance. Jessie Hornsey, a cousin of Harry Wilbur's, was giving a "tea-fight." Miss Hornsey had "graduated"

that June, and was, in spite of her great age, a particular friend of Val's, who had been much honored by her condescension in the past, and by the special mark of favor in the present invitation. At the last moment came little pink note No. 2, to say that Miss Hornsey had heard that Miss Gano had a cousin staying with her: would she bring him? Val, already dressed and ready to go, precipitated herself down-stairs to find her cousin. He was stretched out comfortably before the parlor fire reading an old battered book.

"Here, read this instead." She spread the blus.h.i.+ng sheet triumphantly over the yellow page.

He looked up, smothering a yawn behind his even white teeth, stirred lazily in the depths of his arm-chair, and then dropped his eyes upon Miss Hornsey's note.

"Well?" asked Val, impatiently.

"Well?"

"What you think?"

"That this is a very handsome proposition."

"Will you come?"

"Ah, that's another matter."

"But do."

"What for?"

"She's awfully nice--she's Harry's cousin--and all the _older_ girls and boys will be there. You'll like it. I should think there'd be hardly anybody else as young as I am."

"Won't you feel your inferiority?"

"I think it's _very_ nice of Jessie Hornsey to ask me."

He could see she had been proud of the distinction.

"Well, you go and tell them I--I've got rheumatism, and have to sit in an arm-chair."

"Oh, do come!"

"Just look at the rain!"

"We can take the horse-cars."

"Ugh!" he shuddered.