Happy House

CHAPTER III

HAPPY HOUSE

In the long, dim, high-ceilinged hall of Happy House Nancy felt very small and very much afraid. Though Miss Sabrina was standing very close to her it seemed as though her voice came from a long way off. It was a cold voice, and although Miss Sabrina was without doubt trying to be gracious, there was no warmth in her greeting. She was very tall, with a long Roman nose that gave her entire appearance a forbidding look.

Following her, Nancy stumbled up the long stairs and down an upper hall to a door where Miss Sabrina stopped.

"This is the guest room," she explained, as she opened the door.

Someone had opened one of the blinds so here there was more light. Nancy, looking about, thought that it was the most dreadfully tidy room she had ever seen. It had a starched look—the heavy lace curtains at the window were so stiff that they could have stood quite alone without pole or ring; the stiff-backed cushioned chairs were covered with stiff linen "tidies," edged with stiff lace; the bureau and washstand were likewise protected and a newly starched and ruffled strip, of a sister pattern, protected the wall behind the bowl.

"I think you'll find it comfortable—here. There is a pleasant land breeze at night and it is quiet," Miss Sabrina was saying.

"Quiet!" thought Nancy. Was there any noise anywhere on the whole Island? She gave herself a little mental shake. She must say something to this very tall, very stately woman—she was uncomfortably conscious that a pair of cold gray eyes was closely scrutinizing her.

"Oh, I shall love it," she cried with an enthusiasm she did not feel. "And it is so nice in you—to want me!"

The gray eyes kindled for a moment.

"I wanted you to know us—and to know Happy House. In spite of all that has happened you are a Leavitt and I felt that it was wrong that you should have grown up to womanhood out of touch with the traditions of your forefathers. We are one of the oldest families on this Island—Leavitts have always been foremost in making the history of the state from the days when they fought side by side with Ethan Allen. Any one of them would have laid down his life for the honor of his name and his country. You will want to wash, Anne—the roads are dusty. And no family in all Vermont is held in higher esteem than the Leavitts since the first Leavitt came down from Montreal and settled here in the wilderness. Put on a cooler dress, if you wish, and then come down to the dining-room. We always eat dinner at twelve-thirty, but B'lindy has kept something warm. Yes, if you are a true Leavitt you will soon grow to revere the family pride and honor for which we Leavitts live!" And with stately steps, as measured as her words, Miss Sabrina withdrew from the room.

"Whe-w! Can you just beat it!" Nancy flung at the closed door. She turned a complete circle, taking in with one sweeping glance the heavy walnut furniture, dark and uninviting against the ugly wallpaper and the equally ugly though spotlessly clean carpet; then threw out both hands despairingly.

"Well, Nancy, you are in for it—forefathers and everything—family pride and honor!" she finished with a groan. "So be a sport!" And taking herself thus sternly in hand she went to the wash bowl and fell to scrubbing off the dust as Miss Sabrina had bidden her.

The clean, cool water and a change of dress restored her confidence. At least Aunt Sabrina had accepted her without a question—that ordeal was over. Everything would go easier now. As she opened the door there came up from below a tempting smell of hot food—Nancy suddenly remembered that she had not eaten a crumb since her hasty, early breakfast in Burlington.

The dining-room was as dim and cool as the rest of the house and as quiet. Miss Sabrina herself placed a steaming omelette at Nancy's place. Then she sat down stiffly at the other end of the table. The omelette was very good; Nancy relished, too, eating it from a plate of rare old blue and white china; her quick eyes took in with one appraising glance the beautiful lines of the old mohogany highboy and the spindle-legged chairs which one of the "forefathers" must have brought over from England, years and years ago.

"The meat pie was cold so B'lindy beat up an omelette," Miss Sabrina was saying. "I guess you must be hungry, Anne."

And then, because there had been the slightest tremble in the older woman's voice Nancy realized, in a flash, that Miss Sabrina was as nervous as she! Of course she had dreaded the coming of this strange grand-niece whom she had invited to Happy House merely from her sense of duty to Leavitt traditions. In her relief Nancy wanted more than anything to laugh loudly—instead she flashed a warm smile and said coaxingly:

"I wish you'd call me Nancy! Everyone does and it sounds—oh, jollier."

But Miss Sabrina's long face grew longer. She shook her head disapprovingly. "We've never called Anne Leavitts anything but Anne since the first one and I guess in every generation there's been one Anne Leavitt! My mother gave the name to an older sister who died when she was a baby. My own name is Sabrina Anne. Eat the strawberries! Jonathan says they're the last from the garden."

Rebuked Nancy bent her head over the fruit. "I am ashamed to know so little—of my family! You will forgive me, won't you, when I seem ignorant? I do want to learn." And she said this with all her heart, for unless she could either get Aunt Sabrina quickly away from the beloved subject of family or learn something about them, she was sure to make some dreadful blunder.

Making little patterns on the tablecloth with the end of one thin finger, Miss Sabrina cleared her throat twice, as though she wanted to say something and found it difficult to speak. Her eyes, as she levelled them upon Nancy, turned steely gray with cold little glints in their depths.

"As I wrote to you, I believe, I struggled—for a long time—with my conscience before I took the unwarranted step of inviting you to Happy House. Now I must make one command. Never, while you are here, are you to mention the name of your father or grandfather—and I likewise will refrain from so doing!" She stood up stiffly as she finished her singular words.

Nancy had lifted a round strawberry to her lips. She was so startled that the hand that guided it dropped suddenly and the berry rolled over the cloth, leaving a tiny red trail across the white surface.

Was there ever anything in the world as strange as this? Why shouldn't she mention Anne's father or her grandfather? To be sure, as all she knew about them was the little Anne had told her during the last two weeks, she was not likely to want to say much about them—nevertheless she was immensely curious. Why should Miss Sabrina make such a singular command and why should she be so agitated?

Nancy knew she must say something in reply. "I—I'll be glad to do just—what you want me to do!" she stammered. "I just want to—make you like me—if I can."

Nancy said this so humbly and so sincerely that it won a smile from Miss Sabrina. Nancy did not know, of course, that the old woman had been trying hungrily to find something in Nancy's face that was "like a Leavitt!" And as Nancy had spoken she had suddenly seen an expression cross the young face that, she said to herself, was "all Leavitt!" So her voice was more kindly and she laid an affectionate hand upon the girl's shoulder.

"I am sure I shall grow very fond of you, my dear. Now I must leave you to amuse yourself—this is my rest hour. Make yourself at home and go about as you please!"

Nancy did not move until the last sound of her aunt's footstep died away. A door shut, then the house was perfectly still. She drew a long, quivery breath.

"Thank goodness—she does have to rest! Nancy Leavitt, how are you ever going to stand all that pomposity—for days and days. Wouldn't it be funny if I took to talking to myself in this dreadful stillness? Happy House—Happy, indeed."

It was not at all difficult for Nancy to know what each room, opening from the long hall, was or what it looked like. The parlor opened from one side, the sitting-room from the other; the dining-room was behind the sitting-room and the kitchen in a wing beyond that. The parlor with its old mahogany and walnut furniture, its faded pictures and ugly carpeting was, of course, just like the sitting-room, except that, to give it more of a homey air, in the sitting-room there were some waxed flowers under a glass, a huge old Bible on the marble-topped table, a bunch of peacock feathers in a corner and crocheted tidies on the horsehair chairs—and the old mantel that had come from England, Webb had said, was in the "sittin'-room."

She tip-toed through the hall and opened the door on the right. Accustomed now to the prevailing dimness, her eyes swept immediately to the old fireplace. The marble mantel stood out in all its purity against the dark wall; age had given a mellow lustre to its glossy surface. Nancy, remembering Webb's story about that Anne Leavitt who, ages ago had placed it there, went to it and touched it reverently. "H-a-p-p-y H-o-u-s-e," she spelled softly, her finger tracing the letters graven into the marble. Doubtless it had come across the sea on one of those slow-sailing ships of long ago—that other Anne Leavitt had waited impatiently months and months for it!

Had that Anne Leavitt, like poor old Aunt Sabrina, worried and fussed over Leavitt traditions? Of course not—she had made them.

A curiosity seized Nancy to find B'lindy. Webb had said she knew everything. She must be somewhere beyond that last closed door in the long hallway—the omelette had come from that direction.

Under Nancy's pressure the door opened into a pantry and beyond, in a big, sunny kitchen, shiny in its spotlessness, stood B'lindy before a table, putting the last touches to a pie. She turned at the sound of Nancy's step. Nancy paused in the doorway.

"May I come in?" she asked. "Are you B'lindy?" She imitated Webb's abbreviation.

"Yes," the woman at the table answered shortly. "And you're the niece." She gave Nancy a long, steady look. "Ain't a bit like a Leavitt's I can see! Miss Sabriny would have you come, I hope you'll like it."

"The hateful creature," thought Nancy. Why couldn't some one in Happy House act natural and kind and jolly?

Like Miss Sabrina, B'lindy was tall and almost as old; her forbidding manner came not from a Roman nose but from heavy brows that frowned down over deep-set eyes—eyes that pierced in their keenness. Like Miss Sabrina she had a certain dignity, too, which seemed to set her apart from her fellow creatures—the result, no doubt, as Nancy thought, of having been born in the Leavitt household.

"Of course I'm going to love it. It's so—so quiet! And that omelette you made me was delicious. I was dreadfully hungry. And oh, there is so much I want to know about Happy House. Webb told me—coming here—that you knew everything. I've just gone in and looked at the old fireplace. Tell me all about that Anne Leavitt."

Nancy's coaxing tone covered the fire that was within her heart. To herself she was saying: "The old iceberg—I'll thaw her out now or never!"

B'lindy set her pie down; her voice warmed a little. She rested her hands on her hips and assumed what Webb would have called her "speakin' air."

"Well, now, if it's pryin' B'lindy Guest don't know nothin', but if it's hist'ry—Webb's just about right. Justin Leavitt brought Anne Leavitt down from Montreal 'slong ago as 1740, when there was first a settlement up to Isle la Motte. He bought most this whole Island, I guess, from the Indians and when they wanted a home Anne Leavitt laid her finger on this very spot we're sittin' on. Justin built the house out of the stone they dug from the Island itself. And she planned that there mantel—just set her heart on it and it seems how a Leavitt could have anything—anyways they hed it made in England and brought over here jest's she planned with Happy House spelled on it all carved like 'tis now. And she helped put it up with her own little hands. The house's been changed a lot sence but no one's ever touched that mantel!"

"And then she died," put in Nancy, breathlessly.

"Yes—she was just nothin' more'n a child and delicate at that and wa'n't built to stand them pi'neer hardships, hidin' from the Indians and eatin' corn and roots and the like when she was used to food as good as the king's, for noble blood she had—the book over at North Hero says so! She just seemed to live 'til that there mantel come and she saw it with her very own eyes. She was brave as any man and she hung on spite of everything 'til she'd got that done and then jest 'sif she was tuckered out she laid down and died!"

"In what room, B'lindy?"

"What's now the guest room—so the book says." B'lindy ignored Nancy's stifled, "Oh, goodness me!" "That next year the Indians attacked all the settlers and Justin Leavitt and his brother Remembrance was killed along with a half-dozen other pi'neers beatin' back the red men while Robert's wife and the other women folk escaped in an open boat across the lake and Robert's wife hid little Justin under her cape. Then Happy House was empty 'til little Justin growed up and came back."

"And had the Indians gone then?"

"No, but they were friendly like and a good thing it was for they'd never been worse en'mies than the Yorkers was then. I guess Ethan Allen, and his Green Mountain Boys slept right here many a time, for there wasn't much they did fightin' the Yorkers without consultin' a Leavitt! But here I am rattlin' on and the oven waitin' for them pies."

"Oh, B'lindy—it's like a wonderful story! Will you show me the book that tells all about it? I'm so glad my name is Anne, too. If you're busy I'll run out and look at the garden—and find Jonathan. Webb told me about him, too."

Nancy's spirits were soaring; instinctively she felt that she had won B'lindy! It was a good beginning. She opened the great oak door and stepped out upon the path. At one time the grounds of Happy House must have been pretentious—they were quaintly beautiful now in their age and half-neglect. Flowering perennials had crept out from their old beds and had spread unchecked around among the giant trunks of the trees so that from hedge to hedge there was a riot of color.

Among the gay blossoms Nancy picked her way, skirting the walls of the house to discover what might lie beyond. In the back she found Jonathan pottering among some raspberry bushes that bordered the flagged walk. He was very bent and very old and very wrinkled; his eyes twitched and blinked as he lifted his head to look at her.

"Good afternoon! I am Anne Leavitt," Nancy called blithely. He was such a perfect part of the old, old garden that she loved him on the spot.

"Wal, wal—little Anne Leavitt," and he nodded and blinked at her.

"I wish you'd call me Nancy," Nancy ventured. "Everyone does, and I don't seem nearly big enough to be Anne. I love your flowers and oh, what a lot of berries you are going to have!"

The old man straightened his shoulders—at least he tried to! His flowers were his children.

"In my younger days this here garden was the show of the Island," he answered proudly. "Folks come from all round to look at it! Thirty-two kinds of posies and that want countin' the hollyhocks that grew like trees—taller'n I am. And vines and berries and vegetables. But I can't work like I used to, and Miss Sabriny don't like anyone but me to touch things. So things have to go abit. Miss Nancy, huh! Ye are a little thing." But his smile was kindly. "And I hope ye bring some sunshine to Happy House."

Suddenly Nancy exclaimed: "Oh—the lake! I didn't realize how close we were to it."

Beyond the raspberry patch and the kitchen garden stretched an old orchard. Through the trees Nancy had glimpsed the sapphire blue of Lake Champlain.

"Is that orchard ours?" she asked Jonathan.

"That it is. I helped my father plant those thar trees myself and they're the best bearin' on the hul of Nor' Hero!"

Nancy stood irresolute. She wanted to explore further—to run out among the apple trees to the very cliff of the lake. But she was bursting to write to Claire—there was already so much to tell her.

So with one long, lingering look she retraced her steps back to the house. As she passed slowly under the trees she was startled by the movement of a single slat in one of the upstairs blinds. And instinctively she knew that an eye peeped at her from behind it.

Miss Milly—it must, of course, be the "poor Miss Milly" of whom Webb had spoken!

Nancy closed the front door softly behind her that it might not disturb Miss Sabrina's hour of rest. Then she tiptoed up the long stairway. It took but a moment's calculating to decide which door led to the room where the blind had opened. She stopped before it and tapped gently with one knuckle.

"Come in," a voice answered.

Opening the door, Nancy walked into a room the counterpart of her own, except that a couch was drawn before the blinded windows. And against it half-lay a frail little woman with snow-white hair and tired eyes, shadowing a face that still held a trace of youth.

As Nancy hesitated on the threshold a voice singularly sweet called to her:

"Come in, my dear! I am your Aunt Milly."

CHAPTER IV

AUNT MILLY

"So this is Anne Leavitt!"

But Aunt Milly did not say it at all like Aunt Sabrina, or even crisply, like B'lindy's "so you're the niece," but with a warm, little trill in her voice that made Nancy feel as though she was very, very glad to have her there!

Two frail little hands caught Nancy's and squeezed them in such a human way that Nancy leaned over impulsively and kissed Miss Milly on her cheek.

"I am so very glad to know you." Aunt Milly dashed a tear away from her cheek. "I've counted the hours—after Sabrina told me you were coming. To-day I lay here listening for Webb and then must have fallen asleep, so that when you really came I didn't know it. Wasn't that silly? Sit right down, dear—no, not in that old chair, it's so uncomfortable—pull up that rocker. Let me get a good look at you!"

Nancy did not even dread Miss Milly's "good look"—she was so delightfully human! She pulled the rocker close to the lounge and stretched out in it with a happy little sigh.

"I thought I'd never get here! It seems as though this is way off in the corner of the world. And I'm just tired enough to find the—the quiet downright restful."

Aunt Milly laughed. "I've been worrying over the 'quiet.' It's so dreadfully quiet here—for young folks. I was afraid it would make you homesick. Now tell me all about your trip and your Commencement. I've been going over in my mind just what your Commencement must have been like—ever since Sabrina told me we had a niece who was a Senior in college. It must be wonderful!" she finished, with just the tiniest bit of a sigh.

Suddenly Nancy realized that here was someone hungry to know all that was going on in the world outside of North Hero—not the world of men and women, but her girl's world—that world that had ended Commencement Day. She told a few little things about Senior Week, then, a little homesick for all that had just been left behind, she rattled off one recollection after another with an enthusiasm that kindled an answering fire in Miss Milly's eyes.

"I can't bear to think it's all over—except that life itself is one grand adventure and probably, after a little, I'll look back on the school days and think how empty they were of—real things!" Then Nancy, looking down at the frail white hand that clasped her own, thought with a sort of shock that life was scarcely an adventure for poor Miss Milly. But Miss Milly answered contentedly. "I love to hear all about it. I'm glad you had it, my dear. I hope you'll come in and talk with me often—it's like sunshine hearing your young voice!"

"Oh, I shall like to. You won't think I'm dreadful, will you, if I tell you that Aunt Sabrina frightens me awfully and so does B'lindy—just a little. But you don't seem a bit like them."

Miss Milly laughed outright—a laugh that had a silver tinkle in it. "No, I suppose I'm not—a bit like them."

"So when I'm so frightened I don't know what to do I shall come straight to you. And, please, Aunt Milly, will you call me Nancy? No one has ever called me anything but that and it makes me feel—like someone else—when they call me Anne. Aunt Sabrina was horrified when I asked her."

"Yes—she would be! Of course I shall call you Nancy—or anything that you wish! I can't be much company for you, dear, tied to this couch, but you can bring a great deal of happiness to me."

A wistful gleam in Aunt Milly's eyes made Nancy lean over and kiss her again. At that moment the door opened and Aunt Sabrina walked in. Then it seemed to Nancy as though a shadow crossed Miss Milly's face. The glow in her eyes died completely. She seemed to shrink back among the cushions.

"Oh, you have met our niece," Aunt Sabrina said in her cold voice and with no curiosity as to how it had happened.

Nancy looked at Aunt Milly and Aunt Milly's glance seemed to say: "Please don't tell her I peeked through the blinds." Aloud she answered meekly: "I told her we were glad she had come!"

Aunt Sabrina nodded as though to approve such action. Her eyes turned around the room.

"Is there anything you want done? B'lindy's washed the other covers for your cushions, but they aren't dry enough to iron. The color didn't run a bit—they'll be more sensible than those white ones, for they won't be needing washing all the time, and B'lindy has enough to do!"

"Oh, yes, they'll be more sensible," Miss Milly agreed wearily. "No, I don't want anything."

There were two or three moments of silence. Aunt Sabrina went about the room straightening a picture here, a "tidy" there. Nancy watched her with angry eyes—what was there about her that had killed that precious glow in poor little Miss Milly?

She rose abruptly. "May I go to my room? I want to write a letter." Miss Sabrina said, "Why, of course, Anne," and Miss Milly flashed a little ghost of a smile that entreated: "You see what life is like for me, so please, please come again."

Upon Nancy's face, as she closed her own door behind her, was a mixture of relief, indignation and apprehension. And a little of each of these emotions crept into the lines of the letter that—to give vent to all that was bursting within her—she dashed off to Claire.

"—— You'd just better believe that if I had that precious darling, Anne Leavitt, back in our beloved tower room I'd tell her that all the fortunes in the world and all the suffering Russians wouldn't hire me to spend one more day with her 'family.'

"And yet, Claire, darling, it's so dreadful that it's funny. I just wonder that I haven't been scared pink! Can you picture your little Nancy surrounded by mahogany, so old that it fairly screams at you, that it was brought over on the Mayflower and walls as high as the Library tower (please subtract poetical license) and just oodles of Leavitt traditions—though I'll admit, just being a plain human mortal, I don't know yet quite what the Leavitt traditions are, but believe me, I expect to, very soon, for Aunt Sabrina talks of nothing else!

"Of course, sweet child, you can't make head or tail to all my jibberish, so I'll write lucid English now. The Island is wonderfully beautiful, everything about it seems different from any other part of the world—the trees are bigger and the grass is greener and every now and then you catch a glimpse of Lake Champlain as blue as Anne's sapphire ring and hazy purple mountains beyond. And the whole place is brimming with all kinds of historical stories.

"They call this house Happy House. It was named that by the first Anne Leavitt, and she had a mantel made in England with the letters carved on it, and the day after it was put up she died in the very room I'm writing in! Isn't that tragic and exciting? I can't make a story out of that, though, for it's been all written up in a book they sell at North Hero.

"The house is big and built of stone that was quarried on the Island, and it's all covered with vines and is beautiful—outside. It has trees all around it that meet overhead like a canopy, and instead of a regular garden in beds the ground's all covered with tiger lilies and Sweet William and phlox and lots of flowers I don't know the name of, that look as though they'd spilled out over their gardens and grew everywhere. And there's a darling old gardener who is a descendant of Ethan Allen.

"In fact, everyone I've seen is old and, Webb said, is descended from 'somebody or other.'

"But the inside of the house—oh, horrors! I don't believe a ray of sunshine has gotten into it since the year one, and if it did, it would be shut out mighty fast. Dad would go wild with delight over the old furniture, and the dishes are beautiful, but the wallpaper looks like green lobsters crawling all around, and you walk on brown-red roses as big as cabbages. Does it torture my artistic soul? Oh, ye gods! And my own room! No wonder that other Anne Leavitt died! I never saw so many tidies in my life—I shall never draw a happy breath among them. Oh, I can shut my eyes, right now and see the dear old tower room—you sitting in the middle of the bed (unmade, of course), playing your uke, Anne digging at her French Four on the window seat along with the fudge dishes which I forgot to wash, and a week's muss all around us. Oh, Claire, weren't we happy, though? And to think it's all over.

"Aunt Sabrina is very handsome and very Leavitty. I think Anne, in her manner, when we've done something she doesn't approve of, is like her Aunt Sabrina. She's very tall and parts her hair straight in the middle and has the longest, straightest nose and a way of talking to you that makes you feel like an atom. B'lindy, who is the woman-of-all-work around Happy House, but Somebody, just you believe, is very much like Aunt Sabrina and looks at you as if she could see the littlest thought way back in your mind. And, of course, with me acting a part and feeling as guilty as can be, you can imagine that I don't enjoy B'lindy's searching glance! However, I asked her some questions about the Leavitts and it warmed her up a little.

"But there is an Aunt Milly that Anne didn't seem to know about and, Claire, she is human—the dearest, sweetest, prettiest, timidest little thing. You can't tell, looking at her, whether she is old or not, but being my great-aunt—or Anne's—I suppose she is. But she is an invalid and evidently can't walk. There's something about her that makes you feel dreadfully sorry for her and like taking care of her, and I sort of imagine that for some reason or other Aunt Sabrina treats her horridly. When Aunt Sabrina comes into the room, poor Aunt Milly acts scared to death.

"Just how I'll come out of it all I can't guess. I've got to keep my head and see the thing through for Anne's sake. But—so far—I don't like it a bit. It was easy enough planning it all with Anne back in college, but somehow, now that I'm here, I feel so underhanded, deceiving these people. And Miss Sabrina talks so much about the Leavitt honor that it makes me feel like thirty cents. There is a lot of mystery about the place, but I feel as though I had no right to try and find it out, though I'll admit I'm dreadfully curious. I rode over from North Hero with the funniest old man—his name is Webb and he said he was one of Freedom's 'first citizens.' Modest—yes. Well, with a very little encouragement he would have poured out the entire Leavitt history, only it didn't seem nice to let him talk. But he spoke about a 'Leavitt trouble,' and he said something about Miss Milly being 'happier in the grave.' Isn't that interesting? And the very strangest thing of all is that Aunt Sabrina has forbidden me to ever mention my father—or Anne's father and grandfather! Of course Anne will want to know all about it, and maybe it is my duty to find out why! Anyway, if the chance comes to me, well, I won't shut my ears.

"Speaking of Webb and riding over from North Hero, Claire, I did the most dreadful thing, and if I tell you, you must swear that you won't ever tell Anne, though goodness knows when either of us will see dear old Anne again. We'd driven along for miles and hadn't seen a soul—even the cows in the pastures weren't moving—when suddenly, around a corner, dashed a man on horseback. He went by us like a flash, but I could tell even with all the dust, that he rode well and was very handsome and sort of different from—well, Webb, and the people you'd expect to see on North Hero Island. I was curious—you know, I always am—and I turned around. And what do you think he did—he wheeled that horse around and stopped dead still to stare at us, and caught me turning, of course, though I was just curious because he seemed different. And that isn't all—he had the nerve to wave his hand and here's the confession! I nodded back to him! I always am so impulsive and it seemed so good to see someone that was young. And he did have the grandest eyes even through the dust. But here's the worst—I asked Webb who he was, and Webb said he was 'Judson's hired man!' Oh, Claire, what would Anne have said!

"Well, of course, the fellow had his nerve, and if I ever see him again I shall show him his place and make him understand that I am a dignified, unapproachable young person.

"Oh, Claire, dearest, I wish I was with you at Merrycliffe. You don't know how lucky you are to have a jolly home and a jolly mother who knows how to love! That's the trouble here—they act as though it was a crime to show a spark of affection. Aunt Milly comes the nearest to it, but I don't believe the others know what love is.

"Write to me often, for it will help keep up my courage, and I will keep you posted as to all that happens to poor me—especially about the hired man. I can't wait to see him.

"Once your happy and now your perfectly miserable used-to-be Nancy.

"To be known for the present as,

"ANNE LEAVITT."

CHAPTER V

BIRD'S-NEST

"Joshua Leavitt was Justin's son and he married Abigail Clark over at Isle Le Motte, and they had three sons, Joshua and John and Jacob, all upright, settled young men. Let me see, it was either John or Jacob was killed in the war of 1812, wasn't it, B'lindy?"

Nancy's mind was working faster than the knitting needles in her fingers. For three days now she had sat very close to Aunt Sabrina, learning "all about the Leavitts."

"It's lucky I have a good head for history," she said to herself, nodding to show Aunt Sabrina that she was deeply interested in these Joshuas and Johns and Jacobs. "If I'm here long enough she may get down to the present generation! Joshua—John—Jacob," she repeated softly.

"Dear me, where is B'lindy? My memory isn't as good as it used to be. I'm growing to be an old woman. But the Bible in there tells how either John or Jacob fell at Fort Niagara. The Leavitts have always been brave men—and men of honor!"

At this point Nancy, quite involuntarily, dropped a stitch. The sudden color that flushed her cheeks escaped Aunt Sabrina's notice, for B'lindy's voice came suddenly through the open door.

"Miss Sabriny, if Jon'than don't get that cornstarch from Eaton's there won't be no cornstarch puddin' for dinner. He's worse than no good round the house and a body takes more steps huntin' him than doin' all his chores for him!"

Nancy sprang to her feet. "Oh, please let me find him! I—I'd love to walk around a bit, too. I'll speak very sternly, B'lindy—you just see if he doesn't go at once!" Tossing her red wool into the cushion of the old rocker she had been occupying, Nancy was off before the astonished B'lindy or Aunt Sabrina could utter a protest.

She found Jonathan at his everlasting digging. Nancy shook him playfully by the arm. Jonathan could not guess that her eyes were bright because, for a few moments at least, she had escaped from the oppressiveness of Aunt Sabrina and her ancestors; his old heart warmed to her infectious smile.

"B'lindy's as cross as can be! She must have the cornstarch at once! I hate cornstarch pudding worse than poison, but you must hurry as fast as you can, and please go by the lilac side of the house, because Miss Sabrina is sitting over on the hollyhock porch talking ancestors and I want her to think that it's taking me forever to find you!"

"Cornstarch! Bless my boots!" A hundred wrinkles crossed the weather beaten old face. "I'll go off to Eaton's fast's ever I can, Missy."

"Nice Jonathan," and picking a posy, Nancy stuck it into the buttonhole of the gardener's sweater. "And I'm going fast's ever I can, straight out to the lake."

With a wave of her hand she flew down the path through the row of old apple trees. She wanted to shout and to sing, but as that might startle the entire island, she indulged in a joyous handspring instead!

"Of course, Anne, darling, if you could see me you'd look shocked—you'd say, 'Nancy Leavitt, when are you going to grow up!' But, Annie, if growing up and up and up is going to be to grow like your Aunt Sabrina, sitting all the day long dwelling on the glories that are past and gone—never—never—never!" The girl flung her arms out toward the blue waters of the lake. "If I had a wish I'd wish that I could swim straight out across you—to those purple mountains—over there!"

It was very still in the orchard; cool, too, for the hot June sun only penetrated in spots the outspreading branches of the old trees. Gradually the tumult of longing in Nancy's mind quieted; a sense of delicious quiet inspired her.

"It's heavenly here—just as though I was all alone in the world." She turned slowly around. Not a glimpse of any habitation could be seen, the rows of trees hid even Happy House. And beyond was the stretch of sparkling water, with its rim of hazy, purple hills.

Nancy ran to the apple tree nearest the cliff. It was very old, its branches grew close to the ground. In a moment she had climbed them and had perched herself comfortably upon one with her back resting against another.

"It must be nice to be a bird," she mused, touching lightly the glossy leaves about her. "Playing in tree-tops and when you're bored to death, simply flying off without so much as an excuse! Or a wood-nymph," wistfully. Then her drooping shoulder suddenly straightened, under the stimulation of an idea. She sprang to the ground. "Oh, rapture!" she cried, and raced back toward Happy House.

Half an hour later Jonathan, having made peace with B'lindy, found her in the old carriage house. Two shiny nails protruding from her teeth and a hammer in her hands betrayed that she had found his tool-box. Her face, through smudges of dust, wore a look of determination.

"You've come just in time to help me, Jonathan. I must get the top of this box off and fasten it to that box—so it'll open and shut. Then you must find a piece of leather for hinges and some oil cloth. I think that you have everything on earth hidden in this place—except carriages!"

Because, with Jonathan, it had been love at first sight, he obeyed with only a "well, well, Missy." With the boards of one box he made a snug door for the other box and he found, hidden away, some precious leather that could be cut into strips for hinges, and a square of oil cloth and canvas, too. There were more nails in the tool-box, and though old Jonathan guarded that tool-box like a treasure-chest, he'd give Nancy anything it held!

They labored feverishly, and within an hour Nancy declared their work done.

"Now come with me, Jonathan, and I'll show you my secret." She lifted the box and started toward the orchard, Jonathan trudging after her.

When they reached the last tree near the cliff Nancy set her burden down. She turned to her companion with a solemn face.

"Jonathan, no one is going to know this secret but you and me! I am a dramatist. You don't look as though you knew what that was, but it is something that it's very, very hard to be, and I shall have to work—like everything! Right up on the branch of that tree is where I'm going to work. I want you to take those nails I put in your pocket and fasten this box securely to the trunk of the tree. Then I'm going to keep all my things right in it and fasten it with this padlock I—borrowed—from your tool-box. It'll be just like a nest—and I'll steal out here and work and work and then, some day, when I'm famous, all the newspapers will print a story telling how I wrote my first play in an apple tree and that it was a secret between you and me, and they'll want your picture! Now, right here, Jonathan. I'll hold it and you nail it tight."

Jonathan didn't know what a dramatist was, but he did know that his "little Missy," perched on the old branch, was as pretty as any bird and her eyes as bright as the sunshine that filtered through the leaves of the tree.

"Oh, that's just fine," cried Nancy, springing to the ground to survey their work. "It's as safe as can be and you've helped me a lot, you dear old thing, you. Now we must hurry home or B'lindy's dinner will be cold and remember, cross your heart, this is a solemn, solemn secret!"

She drew her fingers across his worn, gray sweater, and he nodded in acceptance of the mysterious sign. And as he followed her back through the orchard to the house something within his breast seemed to sing the way it did each spring when he found the first crocus peeping up through the frosty earth.

Nancy found it difficult to keep from bolting through her dinner. But a tiny sense of guilt at having left "Joshua and Jacob" so abruptly made her very attentive to Aunt Sabrina's long story of how the blue china was first brought to Happy House.

Scarcely had Miss Sabrina's door closed upon her for her hour of rest, however, than Nancy flew to her own room. She gathered up her precious paper and pencils, a knife and a worn manuscript case, a few favorite books and a tattered dictionary, and started out on tip-toe through the hall toward the stairs. But, though her step was light, its sound caught a certain patient ear nearby.

"Nancy! Oh, Nancy!"

Nancy remembered, then, remorsefully, that not once that day had she run in to see poor little Aunt Milly. With her treasures in her arms she went straight to her. In the smile that greeted her from the couch by the window, there was not one sign to indicate that Aunt Milly had been waiting the whole long morning for her to come.

"I've been so busy," explained Nancy, dropping her load. "I have a mind to tell you, Aunt Milly. I meant it to be a secret, only Jonathan knows, because he had to help me. And I'd like you to know, too. Anyway, a secret's more fun when more of us know it! You see, I'd gotten as far as Jacob in my lessons on Leavitts, and then Aunt Sabrina couldn't remember whether it was he or his brother that was killed in the war of 1812, and B'lindy rudely interrupted just because she had no corn starch! Oh, Aunt Milly, I'm dreadful, but I couldn't have stood it another minute—I could have hugged B'lindy and her pudding! Why, I've sat for three days straight in a horrible stiff chair listening to musty, dusty tales, and I wanted to scream! So I said I'd find Jonathan and I bolted—and I stayed away! And out in the orchard, right close to the bank, the grandest idea came to me. To fix a nest! And Jonathan helped me. We made a little box, all waterproof, and nailed it to the tree to keep my things in—these," indicating the pile at her feet. "And I'm going to hide there—and work! And that's another secret. I'm writing a play! I wrote two in college and the English professor said they were unusual and the Senior class gave one. And I have a real one, almost done. Now you know the secret."

"Oh, Nancy!" said Aunt Milly softly, two bright spots of color on her cheeks.

"You see I can steal out there and sit on that comfy branch and think I'm all alone in the world. Such beautiful thoughts will come to me! It'll be like a bird's nest."

"Oh, Nancy," Aunt Milly said again, with a tragic look in her eyes that the youthful Nancy could not read. "I wish I could see you there—just once! Are the trees big, dear? And is the grass real green?" There was a little tremble in the sweet voice. "Seems to me it used to be ploughed up 'round the apple trees."

Over Nancy rushed the heartbreaking thought that poor Miss Milly had not seen the orchard for years and years. She threw both arms about the frail form. With a torrent of words she pictured the raspberry patch, old Jonathan's lettuce and radishes and beets and beans and slender cornstalks working up through the soft earth, and the giant apple trees beyond, the lake "just like diamonds sprinkled over sapphire blue velvet" and the purple hills in the background. And all the while she talked, Nancy felt little quivers passing through the form she held.

"It—isn't—fair!" she ended, enigmatically. She sat still for a moment, staring at Miss Milly. With her bright color Aunt Milly didn't look at all like a helpless invalid. "Maybe——" began Nancy, then stopped short. She rose abruptly to her feet. "I've got an idea that beats my bird's-nest all to pieces! I can't tell you now because you'd be frightened to death, but it's going to be wonderful! Let me hide this truck under your couch and now be very, very good until I come back. I must find B'lindy at once."

Nancy, fired by her sudden purpose, interrupted B'lindy in the last of her "drying up" and demanded to know where she could find Mr. Webb. When B'lindy "'lowed she wa'n't his keeper, but he's most al'las hangin' 'round the smithy or Eaton's or the post-office or the hotel, 'cept when you wanted him, and then he wa'n't hangin' 'round nowhere," Nancy started off down the path, bareheaded.

Fortune favored her, for Mr. Webb was "hangin' round the smithy and very delighted to see Miss Anne!" He had been wondering a lot about the coming of the girl to Happy House. "Somethin' sure to come of it," he had reflected again and again.

Of course, he assured Nancy, he'd do anything he could for her. And Nancy was sure they might find all that they needed right there in the smithy.

"It must be very comfortable and have some springs—and be safe, too. And if you can find some wheels with rubber tires—off an old baby carriage, they'll run more smoothly. And the seat must be big enough for a lady—but she's a small lady!"

Jonathan thought he "caught her idee. Old Mrs. King, over at North Hero, couldn't walk a step 'count of rheumatism, and she had a rig-up such as Nancy was describing." Yes, Timothy Hopkins at the smithy had most every kind of a thing about and he'd see what he could do, and Miss Anne could run down in the morning, early, before the stage started for North Hero.

"And, Webb," Nancy levelled her sweetest smile, "don't even try to think whom it's for—it's a secret."