HAPPY HOUSE

CHAPTER I

THE LETTER

Through the stillness of a drowsy June day broke the intoning of the library bell, chiming the hour.

Three heads lifted quickly to listen. Three pairs of eyes met, the same thought flashed through three minds.

"Won't we miss that bell, though? I've seen grads when they've come back stand perfectly still and listen to it with their eyes all weepy looking. That's the way we'll feel by and by," one of them said slowly.

"And the chimes used to make me dreadfully homesick! Don't those frosh days seem ages ago?"

The third girl slammed the lid of the trunk that occupied the centre of the disordered room. She crossed to the window.

Over the stretch of green between the dormitory and the campus many people were slowly walking. Their fluffy dresses, their gay parasols, the aimlessness of their wandering steps marked them as visitors. The girl in the window frowned as she watched them.

"I always hate it when the campus fills up with gawking, staring people! It ought to be kept—sacred—just for us!"

One of the three laughed merrily in answer.

"How selfish that sounds, Claire! Haven't all those people come to see one of us graduate? This is their day—ours is past." She stopped short. "Did you see Thelma King's sister at the class-day exercises? She's a peach! She's going to enter next fall. She's a leader in everything at the High where she goes. She'll make a good college girl; you could see the right spirit in her face. How I envy her! It's dreadful when you think of new ones—coming—taking our places! I wish I was just beginning my Freshman year—I'd even be willing to endure Freshman math."

The third of the group who had been sitting on, the floor staring out over the tree tops with the dreamy gravity of one who—as long ago as yesterday—graduated from the great University, suddenly interrupted.

"Dear girls, cease your whining! What do those pieces of sheepskin reposing somewhere in the mess on yonder bureau stand for? Remember what that man said yesterday—how we mustn't think this Commencement is the end of anything—it's just the beginning. Why, this new world that's been born out of the frightful war is full of work for our trained minds and hands! We mustn't look back for a minute—we must look ahead!" Thrilled by her own words she leveled a reproachful glance upon her two companions.

Claire sighed. "I never could get the inspiration from things that you always seem to, Anne. I guess I'm not built right! I couldn't make myself listen to half that man said. I can't think of anything right now but what a job it's going to be getting everything into that trunk. Mother was heartless not to stay over and do it for me!"

"Never mind, Claire, we'll help you. Of course you and I can't see things in the big, grand way that Anne can because she's found herself and we haven't. But when our work does come we'll do it! It may not be off in Siberia or China or Africa—like Anne's—but, wherever it is, I guess our Alma Mater won't be ashamed of us!" The girl's eyes softened with the passionate tenderness of the new graduate for her University.

Back in the freshman days a curious chance had drawn these three together. Then, for four years, years of hopeful effort, aspirations and youthful problems, the currents of their young lives had intermingled closely; now each must go its way. The moment brought the pang that comes to youth at such a parting. Their bonds were something closer than friendship. Behind them were months of the sweetest intimacy that youth can know—ahead were the lives they must live apart out in a world that cared nothing for college ideals and inspirations, where each must find her "work" and do it, so that "her Alma Mater might be proud!"

Statistics, even in a university, would be dull if, now and then, Fate did not play a trick with them. Upon the roster of the class of Nineteen-nineteen had been entered two names: "Anne Leavitt, Los Angeles, California; Anne Leavitt, New York City."

When one thinks that in the great world war there was an army of, approximately, seventy-five thousand Smiths alone, and a whole division of John Smiths, one need not marvel that two Anne Leavitts came that October day to the old University. Doubtless, in those first trying days, they passed one another often and did not know, but a week later, when Professor Nevin in First Year French, read slowly from his little leather book: "Miss Anne Leavitt," two girls jumped to their feet and in astonishment, faced one another.

"I am Anne Leavitt!" spoke the larger of the two.

"And I am Anne Leavitt, too!" laughed the smaller.

A snicker ran around the room. Professor Nevin frowned and stared—first at his little worn book and then at the two offending young women. Of course he was powerless to undo what had been done years before! And as he scowled, across the classroom one Anne Leavitt smiled at the other. When the hour ended the recitation they walked away arm in arm, laughing over the ridiculous situation.

At the Library steps they were joined by another girl from the French class. She had run in her eagerness to overtake them.

"Are you really both Anne Leavitts?" she asked breathlessly.

They assured her solemnly that they were and that they didn't know just what to do about it—old Professor Nevin had been so funny and upset. They all three laughed again over it all. And there in the golden warmth of that October day began the friendship of these three—for the third girl was Claire Wallace.

The students in the University found countless ways of distinguishing between the two Anne Leavitts. One was tall and grave with a meditative look in her deep-set eyes; the other, a head shorter, had a lightness about her like an April day, reddish curly hair and an upturned nose. One Anne Leavitt had never been called anything but Anne, the other, since her baby days, had been Nancy. The more intimate of the college girls called them Big Anne and Little Anne. The professors, dignified perforce, read from their rolls, "Miss Anne Leavitt, California—Miss Anne Leavitt, New York."

In name only were the two girls alike. Anne had been born with the legendary "silver spoon" and its mythical fortune. When her father and mother died a friend of her father's, as guardian, had continued the well-regulated indulgence that had marked her childhood. Because she possessed an iron will and early acquired a seriousness and dignity beyond her years, she was always a leader in each of the boarding schools to which she progressed. Whatever Anne wanted to do she always did, and yet, in spite of it, she had reached her college days unspoiled, setting her strong will only for the best and obsessed with a passionate longing for a service that would mean self-sacrifice.

She thought now she had found it! Two weeks from this very day she, would sail for a far-off village in Siberia to teach the peasant children there and bring to the pitiful captivity of Russian ignorance the enlightenment of American ideals. So big and wonderful seemed the adventure that, girl-like, she had paid little heed to the small details. Nancy and Claire Wallace worried more than she!

"You'll never get enough to eat and how will you ever keep your clothes clean," sighed Claire, who loved pretty frocks.

"And we can't send you things, either, for they'd never reach you—some of those awful Bolshevists would be sure to steal them!"

Madame Breshkovsky, the little Grandmother of the Russian Revolution, had made several visits to the University, and Anne, with the others, had listened over and over to her vivid, heartrending stories of the suffering needs of the children of the real Russia. It had been after such an evening that Anne had given herself to the cause. So that, when Nancy and Claire fretted excitedly over the hardships and dangers of the undertaking, she had only looked at them with the question in her grave, dark eyes: "What matters it if perhaps Anne Leavitt does lack a few clothes and food and some silly luxuries if she is doing a little, little bit to help her fellowmen?"

Nancy Leavitt, like the beloved Topsy, had just "growed up." To her chums, in her own spirited way, she had once described how: "Ever since I can remember there were always just Dad and I. When he wanted to go anywhere he used to pick me up like a piece of baggage and off we went. Half the time I didn't go to the same school two years in succession. And he used to teach me, too. Oh, how homesick I was when I came here—without him. We're just like pals!"

Nancy's physical well-being had been watched over by nurses of almost every race and color. She knew a little Hindoo and from the old Hindoo "ayah" she had caught bits of Hindoo mysticism. She had romped and rolled with Japanese babies; she had lived on a ranch in Mexico until bandits had driven them away; she had trudged along behind her father over miles of trail in Alaska. And the only place she had ever called "home" was a tiny flat in New York, where her father kept the pretty furniture that Nancy's mother had bought when a bride. Back to this they would come after long intervals, for a little respite from their wanderings, and for Nancy the homecoming was always an excitingly happy one from the moment she ran down to Mrs. Finnegan's door for the key to the lugging out again of the two little trunks, which meant a sudden departure for some distant land.

College had brought a great change into this gypsy life and a grief at the separation from her "Dad." But as the weeks had passed her letters to him read less and less like a wail of homesickness, and were filled more and more with the college happenings and whole passages devoted to girlish descriptions of her new friends.

For the last two years her father had been overseas as senior newspaper correspondent with the American Expeditionary Force, and it would be weeks before he could return. That thought added now to the lonely ache in Nancy's heart as she stared at her chums and wondered what it would seem like to live day after day without seeing them!

These three had trod together up the Paths of Learning until they were passing now the Gateway of Life; and yet, right at that moment, all of them, even Anne, felt childishly lonely and homesick for the shelter of the University they were leaving.

That was why the chiming of the Library clock, that had marked the passage of happy time for more than one generation of youth, brought a shadow across each of the three young faces.

A little wistfulness crept into Nancy's voice. "Your life's all cut out for you, Anne. It's positively thrilling! Though I'd make an awful mess out of any such undertaking. And Claire has her family. I'll just go to New York and get the key from Mother Finnegan and work like mad on the 'Child.' I want to finish it before Dad comes home. I shall send it, then, to Theodore Hoffman himself—I might as well hitch my wagon to the tiptoppest star—or whatever it is you do! Of course it isn't as grand as going to Russia, but I'm going to work, and some day, maybe, I'll be famous all over the world!"

"Little Anne Leavitt, the great dramatist!" murmured Big Anne fondly.

Claire Wallace, confronting nothing more serious than the squeezing of her belongings into the huge trunk, was stirred with envy. Nancy had her "Child"—not a youngster but a growing pile of manuscript, Anne had her "crusade" among the unfortunate children of Siberia—she had nothing ahead but to join her family at their summer home, an estate that covered hundreds of acres on Long Island.

"I wish you'd come home with me, first, Nancy! You heard mother say how much she wanted you to come and we will have a beautiful time and then you can see Barry."

Nancy frowned sternly. She had several reasons for frowning—she thought. Of course she would really like to go to Merrycliffe with Claire; she loved to frolic, and the last term had been a pretty hard grind, but her whole future depended upon her finishing her play and Claire simply must not coax her! Then the other reason was Barry. Barry was Claire's brother recently returned from long service in France, decorated by each of the allied countries. Toward him Nancy and Anne, quite secretly, felt an unreasonable and growing dislike. Neither of them had ever laid eyes on him but, ignoring the injustice, based their antipathy solely on the fact that "Claire talks of nothing but Barry until you feel like shutting your ears!"

Nancy had, more than once, declared that "she could just see him strutting around with all his medals, letting everyone make a lion of him, and she loathed handsome men, anyway—they lacked character" and Anne said "her heart went out to those boys whose every minute in the trenches had been an unrecognized and unrecorded act of heroism." Of course they both carefully kept their real feelings from little Claire, who was too dear to them to ever hurt in any way, so that, when she talked "Barry," if they were only politely attentive, in her proud enthusiasm, she never noticed.

Now Nancy, instead of saying truthfully that "she wasn't going to spend her summer helping make a parlor pet out of the 'lion,'" simply shook her head and frowned.

"Claire, don't tease me! Of course I know how nice it would be to swim and dance and play tennis and all sorts of things, but I must work!" and she finished with the decided tone that was like Anne's.

Claire looked unhappy. "I don't want to go and dance and swim and play around, though it is nice, but I can't write and I can't go to Russia, so I'll just have to go and do what the others in my crowd all do, and I suppose you'll think I'm a butterfly when I'm really perfectly miserable!"

Nancy controlled a smile. "Bless you, we won't think you're anything but just the apple of our eyes. The world needs butterflies to keep it beautiful and gay. Your adventure, Claire, is waiting for you, maybe, around the corner. That's what Mother Finnegan is always saying! And after my 'Child' is finished I promise I'll come and play with you!"

Claire was only a little cheered.

"But Barry may not be there, then. Mother says he's dreadfully restless. He may be gone now!"

A knock at the door saved Nancy from an answer.

It was old Noah, the porter. He held a letter in his hand.

"It's fer Mis' Anne Leavitt and I'm blessed if I know which one of yez so, I sez, I'll jes' take it to the two of yez and let you toss up fer it!"

It was not unusual for the two girls to find their mail confused. They generally distinguished by the handwriting or the postmarks. But now they both stared at the letter they took from Noah's hand.

It was addressed in a fine, old-fashioned handwriting.

"I can't recognize it," exclaimed one Anne Leavitt.

"I'm sure I never saw it before!" cried the other.

"Isn't this exciting? Let me see the postmark. F-r-e-e-d-o-m!" spelled Nancy. "I never heard of it," she declared.

"I believe it's mine! I have some relatives—or did have—a great aunt or something, who lived near a place like that way up on North Hero Island. I'd forgotten all about them. Open it, Claire, and let's see what it is."'

"You never told us about any aunt on any North Hero Island! It sounds like a romance, Anne," accused Nancy, who thought she knew everything about her friend.

Anne laughed. "I don't wonder you think so. I just barely remember father speaking of her. Read it, Claire!"

Claire had seized the letter and opened it. "It is signed 'Your loving aunt.' Isn't it the most ridiculous mystery? Why couldn't it have been something else besides an aunt!"

"Well, I'm awfully afraid it is for me. We never could both have aunts on North Hero Island. Go on, blessed child—I'm prepared for the worst!"

Claire rose dramatically.

"My dear Niece," she read, adding: "I want you to know, Anne, that she honors you by spelling that with a capital." "Of later years it has been a matter of deep regret to me that though the same blood runs in our veins we are like strangers, and that you have been allowed to grow to womanhood without knowing the home of your forefathers on this historic island. It is for that reason that now, after considerable debate with my conscience, I am writing to you at your college address which I have obtained through a chance article in an Albany newspaper ('that was the Senior Play write-up,' interrupted Nancy, excitedly) to urge you to avail yourself of the earliest opportunity to visit me in the old home.

"I feel the burden and responsibility of my increasing years, and I know that soon I will be called to that land where our forefathers have gone before us. You are, I believe, my nearest of kin—the family, as you must know, is dying out and I would have preferred that you had been a boy—I will tell you frankly that I am considering changing my will and that upon your visit depends whether or not you will be my beneficiary. I would wish to leave the home and my worldly wealth—the wealth of the past Leavitts, to a Leavitt, but before I can do so to the satisfaction of my own conscience, I must know that you are a Leavitt and that you have been brought up with a true knowledge and respect for what being a Leavitt demands of you,

"I await your reply with anxiety. Your visit will give me pleasure and I assure you that you will learn to love the spot on which, for so many generations, your ancestors have lived."

"Your Loving Aunt,
    "SABRINA LEAVITT."

"Well, I'll be——" In all her college vocabulary Anne could not find the word to express her feelings.

"Isn't that rapturous? A great-aunt and a fortune! And will you please tell me why she had to debate with her conscience?" cried Claire.

Nancy was gleeful over Anne's wrath.

"I'm glad she's yours, Annie darling! Dad always said the whole world was my only kin, but I never ran against anyone who wanted to look me over before she left me a fortune! Who ever heard of North Hero Island and where in goodness is it?"

"I remember, now, that her name was awfully queer—Aunt Sa-something or other, and North Hero Island isn't utterly unknown, Nancy, to the can't even remember! I wish it had happened to Lake Champlain. I saw it once on a road-map when I was touring last fall with Professor and Mrs. Scott, and Professor Scott said it was a locality picturesquely historic—I remember."

Claire turned the letter over and over.

"I think it's all awfully thrilling! An aunt you can't even remember! I wish it had happened to me! It would be something so different. It's just like a story. But what a lot she does think of her forefathers!"

"Well, the Leavitts are a very old family and they are a New England family, too, although I was born in California," interrupted Anne with a dignity that would have gladdened the great-aunt's heart.

Nancy was again provoked to merriment.

"Dad always said that the only other Leavitt he knew was a cow-puncher! He could lick anyone on the plains."

Anne ignored this. She was frowning in deep thought.

"The tiresome part is that—if I don't go—if I tell her about going to Russia—she may write to my guardian!"

All three were struck dumb at the thought. Anne had not consulted her guardian before she had impulsively enlisted her services in Madame Breshkovsky's cause. Because she was three months past twenty-one, legally he could not interfere, but being so newly of age she had not had the courage to meet his protest. So she had simply written that she was planning a long trip with friends and would tell him of the details when they had been completed. A letter lay now in her desk which she intended to mail the day before she sailed. It would be too late, then, for him to interfere. If her conscience troubled her a little about this plan, she told herself that the cause justified her action.

And now this Aunt Sa-something might upset everything!

"I wish I could remember more about those relatives up there—father and mother used to laugh whenever they mentioned the old place. I always imagined they were dreadfully poor! She must be a terrible old lady—you can sort of tell by the tone of her letter. Oh, dear!"

"What will you do?" echoed Claire, still thinking it a much more attractive adventure than Russia.

"I have it!" cried Anne. "You shall go in my place, Nancy!"

"I! I should say not! Are you stark crazy, Anne Leavitt?"

Anne seized her excitedly by the shoulder. "You could do it as easy as anything in the world, Nancy. She's never laid eyes on me and I know my father never wrote to her. You'll only have to go there for three or four weeks——"

"And pose as a real Leavitt when I'm a Leavitt that just belongs to Dad! Well, I won't do it!" replied Nancy, stubbornly.

"Nan-cy, please listen! You wouldn't have to do or say a thing—she'd just take it for granted. And you could always make some excuse to go away if——"

"If it looked as though I was going to be found out! Why, it'd be like living on a volcano. And I'd be sure to always say the wrong thing!"

"But you could try it," implored Anne. "It would make everything simple and you'd be doing your bit, then, for Madame Breshkovsky! Think of all she told us of the suffering in Russia. Surely you could do a little thing now to help! And if Aunt did like you and left me her money, it would really be you and we'd give it to the cause!"

"It'd be acting a lie," broke in Nancy.

"Oh, not exactly, Nancy, for you really are Anne Leavitt and, anyway, it's just as though you were my other half. Way back I know we are related. If you don't love me well enough to help me out now—well, I'm disappointed. I'll never forget it!"

Poor Nancy, mindful of the long separation that lay before her and her friend, cried out in protest.

"Oh, Anne, don't say that!"

Claire, her eyes brilliant with excitement, chimed in:

"Nancy, it's a hope-to-die adventure. Maybe you could make up no end of stories and plays out of the things that happen up there! And, anyway, you can finish the 'Child' and come to Merrycliffe that much sooner!"

Claire had advanced the most appealing argument. North Hero Island certainly sounded more inspiring than a stuffy flat in Harlem with six small Finnegans one floor below. And it was an adventure. Anne hastened to take advantage of the yielding she saw in Nancy's face.

"You can stay here with me until I have to go to New York, and we can look up trains and I can tell you all about my forefathers, though I really don't know a single thing. But she won't expect you to know—don't you remember she wrote that she regretted my being brought up without knowing the home of my forefathers. And if you just act as though you wanted more than anything else in the world to learn all about the Leavitts, she'll just love it and she'll tell you everything you have to know!"

"It's the most thrilling romance," sighed Claire, enviously.

"Sounds more to me like a conspiracy, and can't they put people in jail for doing things like that?" demanded Nancy.

"Oh, Nancy, you're so literal—as if she would, way up there on an island next to nowhere! And anyway, think of the boys who perjured themselves to get into the service. Wasn't that justified?"

Nancy, being in an unpleasant mood, started to ask what that had to do with her pretending to be an Anne Leavitt who she wasn't, when Big Anne went on in a hurt tone:

"Well, we won't talk about it any more! I'll have to give up going to Russia and my whole life will be spoiled. And I am disappointed—I thought our friendship meant something to you, Nancy."

"Anne! There isn't a thing I wouldn't do for you! You're next dearest to Dad. For you I'll go to—Freedom or any old place. I'll do my best to be you to the dot and I'll pay homage to your forefathers and will ask not a penny of the legacy—if you get it! It shall all be for the cause!"

Anne read no irony in her tone. Her dignity flown, she caught her friend in a strangling hug. "Oh, Nancy, you darling, will you? I'll never forget it! We'll write to her right away—or you will. From this very minute you are Anne Leavitt!"

"I wish I could go, too," put in Claire. "Perhaps I can coax Barry to motor up that way."

"Don't you dare!" cried Nancy in consternation. "It would spoil it all. I'll write to you every day every thing that happens. Goodness, if I'm as scared when I face your Aunt Sa-something as I am right now when I think about it, she'll know at a glance that I'm just an everyday Leavitt and not the child of her forefathers!"

"Hark!" Claire lifted a silencing finger. "The seniors are singing."

The lines they loved drifted to them.

"Lift the chorus, speed it onward,
Loud her praises tell!"

"Let's join them." Suddenly Claire caught a hand of each. "Girls, think of it—what it means—it's the last time—it's all over!" Her pretty face was tragic.

Big Anne, with a vision of Russia in her heart, set her lips resolutely.

"Don't look back—look ahead!" she cried, grandly.

But in Nancy's mind as, her arms linked with her chums', she hurried off to join the other Seniors in their last sing, the troubling question echoed: "To what?"

CHAPTER II

WEBB

A clatter of departing hoofs, a swirl of dust—and Nancy was left alone on the hot railroad platform of North Hero. Her heart had seemed to fix itself in one painful lump in her throat. She was so very, very close to facing her adventure!

"If you please, can you tell me in what way I can reach Freedom?" Her faltering voice halted the telegraph operator as he was about to turn the corner of the station.

"Freedom? Well, now, old Webb had ought 'a been here for the train. Isn't often Webb misses seein' the engine come in! Just you go in and sit down, Miss, he'll come along," and scarcely had the encouraging words passed the man's lips than a rickety, three-seated, canopied-topped wagon, marked "Freedom Stage" turned the corner.

"Hey, Webb, here's a lady passenger goin' along with you to Freedom! And did you think the express would wait fer you?"

Webb and his dusty, rusty and rickety wagon was a welcome sight to poor Nancy. It had already seemed to her that her journey was endless and that Freedom must be in the farthest corner of the world. For the first few hours she had been absorbed by her grief at parting with Anne. But a night in a funny little hotel in Burlington had given her time to reflect upon her undertaking and it had assumed terrible proportions in her eyes. The courage and confidence she had felt with her chums, back in the room in the dormitory, deserted her now.

"Goin' to Freedom you say, Miss?" the man Webb asked, a great curiosity in his eyes. "Wal, you jes' come along with me! Had an order for Tobiases and it set me late, but we'll git thar. Climb up here, Miss," and with a flourishing aside of his reins he made room for her on the dusty seat he occupied.

Nancy handed him her big bag and climbed easily over the wheel into the seat he had indicated. Then with a loud "get-ap" and a flourish of his whip they rumbled off on the last leg of Nancy's journey.

"Ain't ever been to Freedom before?" he asked as they turned the corner of the maple-shaded street of the little town, and the horses settled down into a steady trot. "Reckon not or old Webb 'ud have known ye—ain't any folks come and go on this here island thet I don't know," he added with pride, dropping his reins for a better study of his passenger.

The air was fragrant with spring odors, the great trees met in a quivery archway overhead, the meadow lands they passed were richly green; Nancy's failing spirits began to soar! She threw a little smile toward the old man.

"I've never been in Freedom before—though I'm a Leavitt," she ventured.

Her words had the desired effect. The man straightened with interest.

"Wal, bless me, are ye one o' Miss Sabriny's folks? And a-goin' to Happy House when ye ain't ever seen it?"

Nancy nodded. "I'm Anne Leavitt," she answered carefully. "And I have never seen my Aunt Sabrina. So I have come up from college for a little visit. And I think everything is lovely," she finished, drawing a long breath, "though, goodness knows, I thought I'd never get here!"

She was uncomfortably conscious that the old man was regarding her with open concern.

"Funny, no one ain't heard a word about it! So ye're Miss Sabriny's great-niece and a-comin' to Happy House from your school fer a visit!"

"Why, yes, why not?"

"Wal, I was jes' thinkin' you'd never seen Happy House. And I guess most folks in Freedom's forgotten Miss Sabriny hed any folks much—count of the trouble!"

"Oh, what trouble, please, Mr. Webb?"

The old man shook his reins vigorously against the horses' backs.

"Webb, you're an old fool—an old, dodderin' fool! Of course this here trouble was a long spell ago, Miss, and don't belong to Leavitts young like you. I s'pose it want much, anyways, and I guess Miss Sabriny herself's forgotten it else you wouldn't be a comin' to Happy House! I'm an old man, missy, and thar ain't been much in Freedom as I don't know about, but an old un'd ought 'a know 'nough to keep his tongue in his head. Only—you come to Webb if anything bothers you and you needn't call me Mr. Webb, either, for though I'm one of Freedom's leadin' cit-zuns and they'd never be a Memorial Day or any kind of Fourth of July doin's in Freedom without me—nobody calls me Mister Webb and you jus' come to me——"

Nancy, forgetful now of the pleasant things about her, frowned.

"You're very nice to me, Webb, and I'm glad to have made a friend so soon! I think the trouble has been forgotten. Anyway, I'm only going to stay a little while."

"And a good thing it'll be fur Miss Milly, too."

"Miss Milly——" asked Nancy.

"It ain't no easy life fur her livin' with Miss Sabriny holdin' the sword of wrath over her poor head, and there's lots of folks think Miss Milly'd be a heap happier in the old graveyard than in Happy House, 'lowin' as how both feet are in the grave anyway. But this ain't no cheerful talk to hand out to you, Miss, only I cal'late you'll make Miss Milly a heap happier—shut up the way she is."

"How far are we from Freedom?" asked Nancy, abruptly, thinking as she did so that, if they were a very long way, she would have an opportunity to learn from her garrulous friend all she needed to know!

"Two mile from the turn yonder by the oak," the old man answered.

For a few moments both maintained a deep silence. Nancy, her thoughts in a tumult, was wondering what question she would ask first—there was so much she wanted to know—the "trouble," "Miss Milly and the sword of wrath" or what he meant by "Happy House." The last post stirred her curiosity; then, too, it did not seem just nice to pry from this old man.

"Why do they call the Leavitt place 'Happy House'?"

"Wal, I guess it ain't because it's exactly happy, and some sez mebbe as how it's been a curse! Folks comes here to Freedom and looks at the old place and there's somethin' printed about it in a little book they sell up at Tobiases in Nor' Hero, only I ain't much on the readin'. B'lindy Guest knows the story by heart, and she can tell you more'n I can."

"Oh, please, Webb, I can't make head or tail out of what you are saying," laughed Nancy pleadingly. "Who called it Happy House first?"

"B'lindy sez the book sez that it was the first Anne Leavitt as come to Nor' Hero called it Happy House and they hed one of these here mantels made out o' marble over in London and fetched across with the letters right in it spellin' Happy House! And she helped fix it up with her own hands she'd kind o' set such store by the idee, right thar in the settin' room and the very next day she slipped off sudden like and died like a poor little flower. And there ain't been much happiness in Happy House from them days since! B'lindy knows the hul story; jes' 'sits written."

"Oh, how thrilling!" cried Nancy, breathing very fast. She had an uncontrollable desire to halt Webb and the Freedom stage right on the spot in order to write to Claire Wallace. But at that moment, around the turn by the old oak galloped a horse and rider. Because it was the first living creature Nancy had seen since leaving North Hero, she was startled.

"Hey there, Webb," the rider cried, whirling out of the path of the old wagon.

And Webb called back in cheery greeting: "Hey, Pete!"

Through the cloud of dust Nancy had caught a glimpse of a pair of merry eyes set deep in a face as brown as the dark shirt the man wore. Turning impulsively in her seat she noticed, with an unexplainable sense of pleasure, that the bare head of the rider was exceptionally well shaped and covered with short curly hair. Then, to her sudden discomfiture, the rider wheeled directly in the road and pulled his horse up short.

It was, of course, because he was the first real person she had seen on this big lonely Island that prompted her to nod ever so slightly in response to his friendly wave! Then she turned discreetly back to Webb.

"Who is he?" she asked, in what she tried to make an indifferent tone.

"Peter Hyde an' as nice a young fellar as ever come to Freedom! Ain't been here much more'n a week and knows everybody. He's old man Judson's hired man and he's goin' to make somethin' of that ten-acre strip of Judson's some day or my name ain't Cyrenus Webb!"

"Judson's hired man!" cried Nancy, chagrined. What would Anne think of her—to have recognized, even in the slightest degree, the impertinence of this fellow! Her face burned at the thought.

"Seems to have a lot of learnin' but he's awful simple like and a hustler. Nobody knows whereabouts he come from—jes' dropped by out of some advertisement old Judson put in the papers up Burlington way."

"Tell me more about Freedom," broke in Nancy with dignity. "Is it a very old place?"

"Wal, it's jest as old as this Island, though I ain't much on readin' or dates. Folks on Nor' Hero's pretty proud of the hul Island and B'lindy sez as how it's printed that folks settled here long 'fore anyone, exceptin' the Indians, ever heard of Manhattan Island whar New York is. Used to be French first round here but they didn't stay long, and then the English come down 'fore the Revolution and the Leavitts with them, I guess. This here Island's named fur Ethan Allen, you know, and folks sez old Jonathan, thet works up at Happy House, is a connection of his. All the folks round here's related some way or other to them pi'neers and I guess if we hed to put up a fight now we'd do it jest as brave as them Green Mountain Boys! The old smithy's been standin' on the four corners for nigh onto one hundred years and the meetin' house facin' the commons, B'lindy sez, is older than the smithy. And up the Leavitt road thar's a tablet these here Daughters of somethin' or other from Montpelier put up for some pi'neers that died fightin' the Indians while their women folks set off in boats for the mainland. I heard B'lindy tell that at the last social down at the meetin' house. I cal'late some of them pi'neers were Leavitts, at that, fur it want long before that the pretty lady came who hed the name built in the mantel. B'lindy knows—she can tell jes' what day the pretty lady come and the very room she died in. B'lindy was born in the old house and she and Miss Sabriny growed up like sisters though B'lindy's a good sight younger and spryer like than Miss Sabriny!"

From the warmth of his tone Nancy guessed that there was a weak spot in Webb's heart for B'lindy.

"Tell me more about B'lindy," she asked, softly.

"Wal, if you jus' take a bit of advice from an old man you be purty nice to B'lindy! Folks sez that Miss Sabriny's high and mightier than the worst Leavitt, and they're a mighty proud lot, but I jus' got a notion that the only person who runs Miss Sabriny is B'lindy and I sort o' think she runs the hul of Happy House! And now here I am a gossipin' so with a pretty passenger that I clean furgot to leave off that chicken wire for Jenkins. Whoa, there, whoa, I say!"

Nancy guessed that the cluster of housetops she glimpsed ahead, almost hidden by the great elms and maples, was Freedom. She stared at them reflectively. Through Webb she seemed suddenly to feel that she had known the little tragedies and joys of Freedom all her life. She was not a bit afraid now to meet Aunt Sabrina or this Miss Milly or B'lindy. And she was eager to see the old, old house and the spot where Leavitts had been massacred as they protected their women! After all, it was going to be very pleasant—this playing at being one of the old Leavitts! She wished Webb would hurry.

When Farmer Jenkins followed Webb to the wheel of the wagon, Nancy knew that Webb had lingered to tell of her coming. She met the farmer's open stare with a pleasant little smile so that, an hour later, he "opined" to the thin, bent-shouldered woman who shared his name and labors, that "if that young gal wouldn't set things stirrin' pretty lively up at Happy House, he'd miss his guess!"

As they approached the outlying houses of the village Webb assumed an important air. "This here's Freedom, Missy, and I'm proud to do the honors for Miss Sabriny's niece! It's not big as places go but its record can't be beat sence Ethan Allen's day. Webb knows, fer I marched away with the boys in blue back in '61, though I was a bare-footed youngster, long 'bout fourteen, and couldn't do nothin' more useful than beat a drum. And thar's our service flag, Missy, and every last one of the six of 'em's come through hul—thanks be to God! And thar's the hotel by the post-office and cross here's the school house which I helped build the winter they wa'n't no call fur the stage. This is the Common and thet's the meetin' house, as anyone could see, fur it ain't a line different from the meetin' houses over at Bend and Cliffsdale and Nor' Hero and all over Vermont, I guess. Funny how they never wanted only one kind o' meetin' houses! And here's the old smithy lookin' like it was older than B'lindy 'lowed, and here's whar we turn to go up the Leavitt road. Seein' how you're sort of a special passenger I'll go right along up to Happy House, though it ain't my custum!"

Nancy was tremendously excited. She stared to right and left at the little old frame and stone houses set squarely in grass-grown yards flanked by flowerbeds, all abloom, and each wearing, because of tightly closed blinds, an appearance of utter desertion. On the wooden "stoop" of the place Webb had dignified by calling a "hotel" were lounging a few men who had scarcely stirred when Webb in salutation had flourished his whip at them. The Commons, hot in the June sun, was deserted save for a few chickens pecking around in the long grass. The green shutters of the meeting house were tightly closed, too. From the gaping door of the smithy came not a sound. Even the great branches of the trees scarcely stirred. Over everything brooded a peaceful quiet.

"Oh, how delicious," thought Nancy. "How very, very old everything is. How I shall love it!" She leaned forward to catch a first glimpse of Happy House.

"Back by the smithy thar's old Dan'l Hopworth's place. Shame to have it on Miss Sabriny's road only I 'low most as long as the Leavitts been here thar's been some of the no-good Hopworths! Poor old Dan'l's 'bout as shiftless as any o' them, B'lindy sez, and his grandchillern ain't any better. And that thar leads down to old man Judson's. His ten acre piece runs right up to Miss Sabriny's. And thar's Happy House."

Through the giant elms Nancy caught her first glimpse of the vine covered old stone walls. Her first feeling was of disappointment; in the square lines of the house there was little claim to beauty. But its ugliness was softened by the wonderful trees that arched over its roof; the gray of its walls and the tightly blinded windows gave a stirring hint of mystery.

The door, built squarely in the middle of the house, opened almost directly upon a stone-flagged path that led in a straight line to the road. There was something sternly formidable about it; Nancy, staring at it with a rapidly beating heart, wondered, when it opened, what might lie in store for her beyond it!

Webb, with much ado, was swinging her big bag over the wheel.

"Wal, we're makin' history, I guess, with another little Anne Leavitt comin' to Happy House! Them horses'll stand and I'll jus' carry this bag up fer you. Come along, Missy, and remember what Webb tells ye—ye make up to B'lindy!"

Nancy followed him up the path to the door. To herself she was whispering, over the quaking of her heart:

"Well, good-by Nancy Leavitt—you're Anne now and don't you forget it for one single minute!"