The Lilac Girl Part 5

"Oh, yes, sir," answered Zephania, eagerly. "That's the Walton house, and that's--"

"The--_what_?" asked Wade, sitting up very suddenly in the green rep rocker.

"The Walton house, sir."

"Oh! Hum! And--er--who lives there, Zephania?"

"Miss Walton and Miss Mullett."

"What's this Miss--Miss Walton like? Is she rather stout with quite black hair, Zephania?"

"Oh, no, Mr. Herring! I guess you saw Mrs. Sampson, the dressmaker. She lives over there across the common, in the little yellowish house with the vines; see?"

"Yes, yes, I see. That's where Miss Sampson lives, eh? Well, well! But we were speaking about Miss Walton, weren't we?"

"Yes, sir. Miss Walton's a young lady and as pretty as--as--" Zephania's words failed her and she looked about apparently in search of a simile.

"Now let's see what you call pretty," said Wade. "What color is her hair?"

"It's brown."

"Oh, well, brown hair isn't uncommon."

"No, sir, but hers is kind of wavy and light and I don't believe she ever has to curl it."

"You don't tell me! And her eyes, now? I suppose they're brown too?"

"Blue, sir. She has beautiful eyes, Mr. Herring, just heavenly!

Sometimes I think I'd just give almost anything if my eyes were like hers."

"Really? But you seem to have a very good pair of your own. Don't trouble you, do they?"

"They're black," said Zephania, cheerfully. "Black eyes aren't pretty."

"Oh, I wouldn't go as far as that," murmured Wade, politely.

"No, sir, but Miss Walton's are just as blue as--as the sky up there between those two little white clouds. She's awfully pretty, Mr.

Herring."

"Complexion dark, I suppose."

"No, sir, not dark at all. It's real light. Some folks say she's too pale, but I don't think so. And sometimes she has just lots of pink in her cheeks, like--like a doll I have at home. Folks that think she's too pale ought to have seen her yesterday afternoon."

"Why is that?'"

"'Cause she was just pink all over," answered Zephania. "I took some eggs up to her house and just when I was coming out she came up on the porch. She looked like; she'd been running and her face was just as pink as--as that lamp-mat!"

The object in question was an excruciating magenta, but Wade let it pa.s.s.

"Yesterday was rather a warm day for running, too," observed Wade.

"Yes, sir, and I don't see what made her run, because she had been in the garden. Maybe a bee or a wasp--"

"How did you know she had been in the garden?"

"Why, 'cause she came from there. She hadn't ought to run like that in hot weather, and I told her so. I said 'Miss Eve'--What, sir?"

"Nothing," answered Wade, poking industriously at the tobacco in the bowl of his pipe. "You were saying--"

"I just told her, 'Miss Eve, you hadn't ought to overheat yourself like that, 'cause if you do you'll have a sunstroke.' There was a man over at the Center last summer who--"

"And what did she say?" asked Wade.

"She said she'd remember and not do it again. And then Miss Mullett came out and I went home."

"Who's Miss Mullett, Zephania?"

"She's Miss Walton's friend. They live there together in the Walton house every summer. Folks say Miss Mullett's very poor and Miss Walton looks after her."

"Young, is she?"

"Not so very. She's kind of middle-aged, I guess. She's real pleasant.

Miss Walton thinks a lot of her."

"And they're here only in the summer?"

"Yes, sir. They come in June and stay until September. This is the third summer they've been here. Before that the house was empty for a long, long time; just like this one."

"Very interesting, Zephania. Thank you. Now don't let me keep you from your labors any longer."

"No, sir, but don't you want to hear about any one else?"

"Another time, thanks. We'll do it by degrees. If you tell me too much at once I shan't be able to remember it, you see."

"All right," answered Zephania, cheerfully. "Now I'll wash up the dishes."

After she had gone Wade sat for a long while in the green rep rocker, his eyes on the spray of lilac on the table and his unlighted pipe dangling from his mouth. From the kitchen came a loud clatter of dishes and pans and Zephania's voice raised in song:

"'We shall sleep, but not forever, There will be a glorious dawn; We shall meet to part, no, never, On the resurrection morn!'"

V.

When one has spent six years prospecting and mining in Colorado and the Southwest one has usually ceased to be capable of surprise at any tricks Fate may spring. Nevertheless Wade was forced to wonder at the chain of events which had deposited him here in a green rep rocking chair in Eden Village. That the Western Slope Limited, two hours late and trying to make up time, should have had a hot-box and, perhaps for the first time in months, stopped at the top of Saddle Pa.s.s and presented Evelyn Walton to him was one of Fate's simpler vagaries; but that now, after five years, he should find himself beside her nearly two thousand miles from their first place of meeting was something to think about. First event and last were links in a closely-welded chain of circ.u.mstance. Looking back, he saw that one had followed the other as logically as night follows day. By a set of quite natural, unforced incidents Fate had achieved the amazing.

Wade no longer had any doubt as to the ident.i.ty of the person who had looked in upon him through the window yesterday. The marvellous resemblance to the face he remembered so well, the dropped lilac spray were in themselves inconclusive, but the evidence of her name made the case clear and left but one verdict possible. Chance, Fate, Providence, what you will, had brought them together again.