The abandoned farm, and Connie's mistake

“Now then,” Polly said, when the Fling was finished, “the time for action has come. So, heads up, heels together, toes out, shoulders back, and when the gong sounds, forward march, like soldiers going to battle. There she goes!” and she sobered down as the musical gong echoed through the house, and the four girls, with faces not quite straight, marched into the dining-room and took their places, while on the stairs and in the hall there was a rustle of muslin dresses and ribbons and merry laughter, and then the gay company came in, preceded by the head-waiter, a mulatto, who had arrived that morning and whom Mrs. Groves had not dared take in hand.

He knew his business, and gave her to understand that he did, and with great dignity assigned the party their seats. The Marshes were nearest the door, and Polly, who was on the side with Sherry, gave her a comical smirk and wink as Alex. took the chair behind which Sherry was standing. It was to have been Mrs. Marsh’s seat, but as there was a window at her back which would bring her directly in a draught she exchanged with Alex., who started a little when he saw Sherry pulling his chair out for him. Friendliness and familiarity were a part of Alex.’s nature, and neither his mother nor sister could make him understand the distance there was between him and his inferiors. Pleasant words cost nothing, was his theory, and they came naturally to him for every one he met. Had it been Polly behind his chair he might only have nodded to her, and would have recognized her fitness to be there. But Sherry, with her head and chin so high, her grand Duchess manner, and the look in her face as if she thought it a big joke, was different. He had met her before, and something in her eyes made him say, involuntarily, “Hello,” as to an old acquaintance whom he was surprised and pleased to meet again; then, seeing the look of astonishment on Amy’s and his mother’s face, he said, “I hope you are over your fright.”

Sherry inclined her head and passed him the menu for his choice of soup. But her eyes met his with a laugh she could not repress. Her eyes were always betraying her, and they flashed upon Alex. a look which made him feel hot and cold, and wonder again where he had seen her or some one very like her. He might have asked her had they been alone, but the dignity with which his mother straightened herself and the expression on Amy’s face subdued him, and he sat quite still, watching Sherry as she took the orders and went down the long dining-room in the direction of the kitchen.

“Alex.,” Amy exclaimed, “are you crazy, hallooing the waitress and talking to her as if you knew her?”

“I do know her,” Alex. replied. “I may almost say I have had her in my arms.”

“What do you mean?” Amy and Ruth and his mother asked in a breath, and Alex. replied: “My dog nearly knocked her down, and I got to the spot in time to save her, and, by George, neither of you have more an air to the purple born than she has. She is not a common personage, and ought to be sitting with us instead of waiting upon us.”

“Don’t be foolish, nor talk so loud; here she comes,” Amy said, as Sherry appeared with Mrs. Marsh’s soup and then went back for another dish.

“Well, just look at her and see how she carries herself. All the fellows are watching her, and Charlie Reeves, I know, is dying to be at our table,” Alex. said; then, as it was some little time before his soup came to him, he began to wonder at the delay and why the girls all walked as if in a slow drill when he was so hungry, and there was Charlie Reeves eating dry bread he was so famished.

The dinner progressed slowly, as it must if Mrs. Groves’ orders were followed, and Alex.’s impatience increased, and but for his mother he would have gone into the kitchen to see “why they were so infernally slow, and why they couldn’t bring and carry more than one thing at a time.”

“It is hot here as a furnace, and we shan’t get through till dark. I’m going to tell her to hurry anyway,” he said.

“Tell whom?” Amy asked, and he replied, “Why, Miss—what’s her name? You know.”

“You mean No. 1,” Amy said, and Alex. replied: “No. 1 be hanged! That’s no name for a girl. She has another, of course. What is it? She told me. Fanny? Yes, Fanny! Pretty name, too, and there she comes with one plate of salad, where she might have brought two or three, and by George if there isn’t——”

The rest of his sentence was a loud, “Sherry, you wretch! what are you doing here? Go back!”

Every one in the room was startled, and no one as much as Sherry. She had seen the dog looking in at her from the kitchen door, but had no idea he was following her, and Alex.’s sharp outcry, “Sherry, you wretch!” unnerved her completely. She did not think of the dog, or that he was meant. It was herself. She had done something wrong, and every object in the room began to swim before her and the strength in her arms to leave her. There was a crash, and tray and salad were on the floor, with the dog sniffing at them, and Alex. was bending over the débris, his hair once touching Sherry’s as he picked up the tray and she the broken plate.

“What is it?” he asked, looking at her white face.

“I was so stupid,” she said, “and thought you meant me.”

“You!” Alex. exclaimed, in surprise. “Why should you think that? It was the dog. Didn’t you know he was following you?”

“No,” Sherry answered, and the “no” was like a sob, for she was very near crying.

“Alex., do sit down and let the girl attend to her business,” Mrs. Marsh said, a little sharply, and Alex. sat down, while Sherry, more mortified than she had ever been in her life, took out the broken plate and resumed her duties, while a maid from the kitchen was sent to remove the salad from the floor.

In spite of his master’s commands that he should “get out,” the dog stretched himself by the window, watching every move of Sherry, and occasionally putting out his big paw to touch her dress as she passed him, and once making a motion to follow her. But Alex. kept him down, and the long dinner came to an end just as the sun was dipping behind the high hills around Maplehurst, and shedding a few farewell rays on Mount Washington. The guests hurried to find a cool place on the piazzas or under the great maple, where there were seats around the trunk and chairs scattered over the rugs spread upon the ground.

“Now we will have a good time smoking and talking, and by-and-by we will have some iced lemonade, and if anyone wants a drive there are plenty of lazy horses in the stables and lazy grooms to harness them; and there are three or four wheels, if you would like a spin along the road. I’ve had a path scooped pretty smooth for a mile or two.”

Alex. was distributing palm leaf fans as he said this, and bidding his guests have a good time. He was a prince of hosts, and it did one good just to see how happy he was, moving among his guests, who certainly had a good time watching the lights and shadows as the sun went down and the moon came up and threw its silvery rays upon the valley and hills and mountains. And while the party was having its good time in the cool of the early night, the great, kind-hearted Alex. did not forget that there was another party probably not having as good a time at the rear of the house. In his journey to the kitchen, ordering iced lemonade and tea and biscuits, he had heard the clatter of dishes and seen Nos. 1, 2, 3 and 4 hurrying with their work as if they, too, were anxious for the fresh air and the moonlight. Conspicuous among them was Sherry, her face still very pale and with an expression which made Alex. sorry for her. He was apt to be sorry for people not having as good times as he did, and these dish washers certainly were not.

They ought to be out-doors getting some fresh air after such a tramp as they had at the dinner, walking miles, he believed, when half a one would have answered. Fanny wasn’t used to it, he knew, and she was so tired that she dropped her tray.

If Alex. had questioned himself closely he would have found that a great share of his concern was for Fanny, whose white face haunted him, and after revolving matters for a few minutes he came to a decision that dinner should not again be dragged out so long. The guests wanted to get through and the waitresses wanted to be through. They were human,—yes, very human,—and Sherry’s face came before him the most human of all, as it looked up from the débris on the floor, the lips quivering and tears in the great brown eyes.

“I’ll fix it so everybody will have a good time. I’ll see that Groves woman. She is the high cockalorum who orders things, and, by George, I hate to tackle her; there is something in her steel-gray eyes which makes a fellow feel small. I’ll see the chef first. We are here for a good time and not to spend half of it at the table.”

When Alex. reached this decision the fans and tongues were in full sway on the piazzas and under the maple, and the iced lemonade had been brought out and the clatter of dishes had ceased, and he saw one or two white figures flitting towards an old woodbine-covered arbor, which was at a little distance in the rear of the house, and supposed to belong to the help. Nos. 2, 3 and 4 had started for it the moment their work was done, but Sherry lingered behind. She must see Mrs. Groves, who had not yet heard of the accident, as she was not in the kitchen when it happened, and no one had reported it. She had gone to the piazza seldom used by the guests, as it looked towards the stables. Her first dinner had been a great success, and so far as she knew Nos. 1, 2, 3 and 4 had done credit to her training. There had been no confusion or hurry, and it had occupied nearly two hours, as it ought. There had been seven courses, and to-morrow an eighth was to be added. On the whole, she was satisfied. It was better to be matron here than waitress at an eating-house on the Central Railroad, where she once was, and of which she had no very pleasant reminiscences. She was happy and was fanning herself complacently when Sherry appeared, and in a straightforward way told what she had done, but gave no reason for doing it. She dropped the tray and broke the plate and was sorry,—that was all, and she waited for Mrs. Groves to speak, standing very erect, with her hands locked together and the fingers working a little nervously.

Mrs. Groves was both angry and surprised, and she looked at Sherry as if the offence were so great that she could hardly do it justice.

“Broke a salad plate, and one of the best set!” she began at last, in a voice which made Sherry tremble for what might be coming next. “What possessed you to be so careless? Looking at the guests, no doubt, instead of attending to your business. I ought to discharge you, and will if such a thing occurs again. I shall deduct the price of the plate from your wages. Of course you expect to pay for it?”

“Certainly,” Sherry answered, “and for the whole set, too, if you cannot match it.”

“Have you any idea how much the whole set cost?” Mrs. Groves asked, and Sherry replied: “A great deal, I suppose. Fifty dollars, perhaps.”

“Fifty dollars!” and Mrs. Groves’s lips curled in scorn. “The plate was part of a dinner set which cost more than you can earn in several summers. It is not likely you can match it. You can only pay for the plate. I will see Mr. Marsh about it. Hereafter be more careful, and keep your eyes and mind on your business.”

Before Sherry could reply Alex. appeared upon the scene. He had interviewed the cook first and told him there were to be no more dinners two hours long, with his guests waiting half that time for dishes to be brought.

“’Tain’t my fault, sir,” the chef said to him. “Everything is ready to your hand, but Mrs. Groves orders us that only one thing shall go in or out at a time and the girls must walk as if they was attendin’ their own funerals. Lord, sir, the way she’s drilled ’em is enough to kill cattle. You better see her.”

“I will,” Alex. answered, and, with a slight tremor, he started to find the lady who, the chef said, was on the back piazza.

As Alex. reached the corner near which Mrs. Groves was sitting he caught the sound of Sherry’s voice, and, stopping, heard what passed between her and Mrs. Groves, his blood boiling as he listened and all his dread of Mrs. Groves disappearing.

“She will do nothing of the sort,” he said, coming forward. “Excuse me,” he continued, “I was coming to find Mrs. Groves and could not help hearing the conversation. Pay for a broken plate! I hope I am not so small as that.”

Mrs. Groves took off her eye-glasses and looked at the young man, while she said: “But, Mr. Marsh, it was one of the most expensive set, not a Haviland, and the servants ought to pay for what they break. They always did in General Walker’s family, where I lived three years.”

“I don’t care a picayune what they do in General Walker’s family, or whether the plate was Haviland, or Royal Worcester, or Dresden, or what it cost.” Alex. began gathering courage from Sherry’s eyes, which fairly danced and seemed to him to show different colors, a trick they had of doing when she was greatly pleased or excited.

She was both now, and the color came back to her face in bright waves as Alex. went on: “I shall have none of my broken ware paid for by my—” he was going to say “servants,” as Mrs. Groves had put that word into his mind, but a glance at Sherry stopped him, and he said, “By any young lady in my employ.”

Sherry’s eyes were like stars as they beamed upon him, while Mrs. Groves gave a kind of gasp, as if either the heat or the “young lady” were too much for her. With a wave of her hand she adjusted her glasses, and taking it for granted that she was dismissed, Sherry left Alex. to have it out with Mrs. Groves. There was an attempt on her part at an argument that the plate should be paid for as a warning to the other girls; otherwise every dish in the house might be broken or nicked before the season was over.

“Let them be nicked and broken. I can get more,” Alex. said, rather hotly for him, “and another thing I must speak of, I can’t have the dinners so long. Two mortal hours we were at the table to-night, and half that time we were waiting for plates and things to come in and go out one at a time. At this rate the day will be spent at the table.”

“What do you mean?” Mrs. Groves asked.

“Why, it is like this,” Alex. replied. “If four fresh plates are needed don’t bring them one at a time at a snail’s pace. It takes forever.”

“Do you want a big tray piled with dishes, as at a hotel or restaurant?” Mrs. Groves asked, and Alex. replied: “Of course not; there is a medium, and I want to save time as well as steps for these girls, who must have been fagged to death. The one who was just here, Fanny, I believe, is her name, was white as a sheet when she dropped her tray. I thought she was going to faint. Evidently she is not used to the work.”

There was a call for Alex. from one of the guests, and, with a bow, he walked away, feeling uncomfortable, as he always did when he had made anyone else so; but glad that the interview was over and he had taken the dragon by the horns.

Sherry meantime had gone to the summer-house, where she found Nos. 2 and 3 sitting upon the steps, and Polly, lying upon a seat inside, her feet crossed and her hands clasped under her head.

“Hello, No. 1,” she said, as Sherry appeared. “You still live, I see. What did she say? Did she give you the bounce?”

“No, only a promise of it if I offend again,” Sherry replied, as she took a seat upon the steps and began to inhale deep breaths of the cool air from the hills and to fan herself with her apron.

“I was never so dead tired in my life,” Polly began. “I wonder if any of you can guess how far we walked during the dinner. I have a pedometer my brother gave me, and I thought I’d wear it and know. Guess now.”

No. 3 said it seemed ten miles, No. 2 twenty, and Sherry fifty, judging from her feelings when she dropped the salad.

“All wrong, of course,” Polly said, sitting up and producing the pedometer. “It is six rods from the tables through the long dining-room and anteroom to the supplies in the kitchen,” she said, “and we went forward and back, forward and back, like you do in a cotillion, till we walked nearly two and a half miles,—enough to make a minister swear or sweat this hot day.”

“Oh-h!” came simultaneously from the three girls on the steps, each feeling more tired than before, and each thinking with dread of the next day and the miles which lay before her.

Naturally there was a discussion with regard to the guests and the Marshes and Alex., whom Polly pronounced “O. K.” She was the slangy one of the quartette, and kept them amused and laughing until the stable clock struck eleven, when they started for the house, which the chef was beginning to shut up.

When alone in her room, Sherry stood a long time looking out upon the hills and valley bathed in the moonlight, and listening to the voices in front of the house calling good-night as the guests separated to their rooms. Alex. seemed to be everywhere, and the last Sherry heard he was saying to Charley Reeves, “Good-night, old chap, I hope we shall all have a good time. I mean you shall.” In Alex.’s voice there was a richness and a heartiness which always rang true, and Sherry’s last thought as she fell asleep was, “If all the world were like Mr. Marsh there would be no lack of good times.”

The next day was passed much as days in a mountain-house party are usually passed. The weather was perfect. A slight shower in the early morning had cooled the air and freshened the foliage and grass, and the valley lay basking in the glorious sunshine of a summer day. There were drives along the mountain road and wheeling on the smooth path by its side. Three or four of the older guests went to Mount Washington. At four o’clock the tally-ho was brought out, and the Alpine horn went echoing up and down the hills as the gay party swept by. They were certainly having a good time, and were loud in their protestations of delight when they at last met together in the drawing-room waiting for the summons to dinner. Thanks to Alex.’s instructions, this was not more than half as long as the first had been, and Polly’s pedometer registered only a mile and a quarter when it was over. Sherry was not tired at all, but came near forgetting herself once or twice in her absorption in the conversation at the different tables, which she could hear as they were near each other. Some of the party had explored the attic and examined the quaint old furniture, and expressed interest and curiosity in the chest, wondering what it contained.

“I can tell you in part,” Alex. said. “It is the wardrobe of a lady who lived here a hundred years ago, for what I know. She is buried in that little cemetery across the road. My great-uncle, Mr. Marsh, used to air them, Bowles told me, and he talked a good deal about a flowered silk that would stand alone.”

“Oh-h!” and a chorus of voices broke in together. “Just the things for a masquerade, or costume party, or tableaux. Can’t we get into the chest?”

Sherry held her breath as she listened to Alex.’s reply.

“Why, yes. I don’t know where the key is, but we can wrench off the padlock. I suppose the chest belongs to me if the house does.”

“Certainly it does,” his mother said, while Charley Reeves, who sat at the table nearest to Alex., asked:

“Who were the aborigines, anyhow?”

“Crosbys,” Alex. answered. “They owned the place first years and years ago, and if I knew where any of the descendants were living I should feel inclined to send them the old chest, if they cared for it. It seems as if the clothes should belong to them. I have no use for them. There is a relative of the Crosbys in New York,—a woman without sentiment, I should say, who would not care for such old truck. It is young people who go in for relics. Mrs. Pledger seems like one herself. Maybe you have heard of Joel Pledger? Almost every one has, though his name was new to me till recently.”

“Joel Pledger,—old Pledger, the money lender? I rather think I have,” Charley replied. “He helped me through a tight place when I was in college and the governor in Europe. The interest he charged, though, was frightful. But I paid it, or father did. He has been a good Samaritan to a lot of college boys, but always got good interest. They say he is rich as Crœsus. Do you know him?”

“No, I’ve seen him. Drives a queer old rattle-trap in the Park when he might have his carriage, they say. I’ve met Mrs. Pledger, who would have given me the family history if I’d had time to listen,” Alex. said, with a thought of the girl whom Mrs. Pledger called Sherry, and who was now standing by him with his coffee, her hand shaking so that a part of it was spilled in the saucer.

Alex. did not care for the spilled coffee. His thoughts were on the Pledgers, or rather the girl, and he wondered if Charley had ever seen or heard of her. He would finesse and find out, and he said:

“These Pledgers have no children, I believe, or young people, who would like the chest?”

“None that I know of,” Charley answered. “I’ve not the pleasure of Mrs. Pledger’s acquaintance. I was in the house once to see Joel, but she was gone; regular old crow’s-nest, and a maid who hollered up the stairs, ‘Mr. Pledger, here’s a gentleman come to see you in a carriage.’ I did hear, though, a rumor of a deuced pretty girl who visited them once. Maybe she is a Crosby, with a right to the chest.”

“By George! I never thought of that,” Alex. said to himself, beginning to feel unwilling to have the chest opened and its contents appropriated by strangers, and to wonder if he ought not to write to Mrs. Pledger and ask if the girl was a Crosby.

He never dreamed that she was there close to him, her face so white that his mother noticed her at last and asked if she were ill.

“Oh, no,” Sherry answered, pulling herself together and trying to seem natural, as she attended to her duties with her ears strained to catch every word of the conversation concerning the chest.

All the guests were talking of it now, saying they must have it opened and see what ladies wore sixty or seventy years ago. Alex.’s spirits had gone down with thoughts of the girl, but the pressure was so great that he agreed to see what they could do to-morrow, and with this the party left the dining-room.

The next morning was rainy, precluding any outdoor amusements, but just the time for an inspection of old Mrs. Crosby’s wardrobe, some of the young people said, as they gathered at the breakfast table. Sherry, who was at her post, was feeling wretchedly, and could scarcely keep on her feet. The night before, when no one saw her, she had gone to the attic and looked at the chest and tried to move it from the wall, thinking she might find the key, if it was still where Mrs. Pledger had said it was kept years ago. But it was heavy, and she had returned to her room with a feeling that she ought to prevent its contents from being desecrated by stranger hands. Her great-grandmother’s bridal dress was probably there, and Sherry tried to fancy her as she must have looked on that night of the great Crosby party. It was a long time before she could sleep, she was so excited about the chest and what she had heard of the Pledgers, and what Charley Reeves had said of the “deuced pretty girl” who had visited the “old crow’s nest,” where the maid “hollered up the stairs.” She was the girl, no doubt, but the compliment paid her was lost in the sting of the maid and the “crow’s nest,” and she tossed from side to side until at last she fell asleep and dreamed that her grandmother came to her clad in heavy brocade silk, with jewels in her ears and knots of old point lace on her sleeves and at her bosom and on the shoulders, and on her head a white bonnet with pink bows and wide ribbon strings.

“Come,” she had said, beckoning to Sherry, who went with her to the attic, where together they drew the chest a little from the wall, and her grandmother showed her the key to the padlock hanging on a tack which had been driven into the wood, just as Mrs. Pledger had said it was.

Then she woke suddenly, bathed in perspiration, and with a feeling that she had really been to the attic and found the key. She did not try to sleep again and rose early, with a nervous headache, a sense of depression unusual to her and a sensation of trying to recall something which came almost within the grasp of her memory and then eluded it. Her dream was still so vivid that she half resolved on going to the attic to see if the key was really hanging behind the chest. By this time there was a good deal of stir in the house. Servants were moving about. She might be seen and her actions wondered at. She would wait developments, but her nervousness increased and her face grew whiter when at breakfast she heard plans for opening the chest.

“Let’s go and have a look at the old thing. I don’t suppose the party across the road under the sod will care, do you?” Charley Reeves said when breakfast was over, and with Alex. at their head some of the guests were soon climbing the narrow stairs to the attic. “Jolly, what a big room this is! I wonder you don’t have it finished up for a dancing hall,” Charley said.

“What would I do with the trunk?” Alex. asked.

“Sell it at auction. Every article would bring a thundering price if you labelled it a century old, as it must be,” Charley replied, sitting down in a carved chair, the back of which gave way and sent him to the floor amid the jeers of his companions.

Picking himself up, he went with the others to the chest, where Alex. was standing with a puzzled look on his face. When he saw it the day before he was sure it was close against the wall and a little under the rafters, where it would be out of the way. Now one end of it was moved five or six inches. Somebody must have been there, and who? Not one of his guests, surely, and if some one else had a curiosity with regard to its contents, it was time he opened it and saw for himself what it contained. A thought of the pretty girl who had visited the Pledgers had haunted him continually since Charley had spoken of her, and he could not shake off a feeling that if she were a Crosby or a remote connection, she had a better right to the chest than himself and the gay crowd clamoring to have it opened.

“I guess I’ll have to do it,” he thought, taking hold of one end and finding it heavier than he had anticipated.

“Where’s the key?” Charley asked, and Alex. replied:

“Lost or stolen. I must go for something to pry off the padlock.”

Sherry’s room was in the hall from which the stairs led to the attic and only three doors from it. She had gone up to bathe her throbbing head, and as her door was open she heard what Alex. said.

“I have half a mind to tell him to look behind the chest. I believe the key is there, my dream was so vivid,” she thought, and stepped into the hall just as Alex. came down the stairs.

“Oh, Fanny,” he said, “if you are going to the kitchen, won’t you please send Mark up with a wrench, file and screw-driver? I am going to open the chest.”

Sherry’s impulse to speak of the key left her suddenly, as she thought she would probably be questioned as to how she knew it was there, and, bowing to Alex., she went to the kitchen and found the file and wrench, but not Mark, the boy of all work.

“I’ll take them myself,” she said, and, returning with them, she met Amy in the hall just going to the attic and gave them to her.

Her head was still aching, and she had that strange feeling or fatigue she had felt in the early morning.

“I’ll rest a minute,” she thought, sitting down in her room near the open door, where she could hear distinctly what was said in the attic.

Ruth Doane was saying to Amy: “I was right when I thought I heard some one up here last night dragging something on the floor. The chest has been moved from the wall.”

“No!” Amy exclaimed in surprise, while Sherry felt as if a heavy blow had been struck her. Her dream was true in part.

She had not seen her grandmother, but she had been in the attic. The habit of her childhood, which she hoped she had outgrown, had come back, and she knew why she felt so weak and depressed. She had always felt this way after walking in her sleep. She had dreaded these fits of somnambulism, and rejoiced when they left her, and she could not understand why they had returned, unless induced by the unusual strain upon her nerves since coming to Maplehurst and from thinking so much of the chest.

“Yes, it was that,” she said to herself. “It was in my mind when I went to sleep, and that is why I got up. I must have had a great deal of strength to move that chest. But it seems I did it. I was always strong when I was in this sleep. Did I really find the key, and where did I put it if I did? I used to hide things. Oh, this is dreadful!”

In a dazed kind of way she began to look for the key, a cold, clammy sweat breaking out through every pore when she found it in her work-box. For a moment she recoiled from it as from something uncanny, then, picking it up, she whispered: “I must take it to them and tell them, and that it is my great-grandmother’s chest.”

She heard the rasping sound of the file as she began to ascend the stairs, and tried to hurry, when she was suddenly stopped by Alex.’s voice, sounding just as it did in the dining-room when she dropped the salad and saying nearly the same words: “Sherry, go down. You are not wanted here.”

But for the railing on the side of the staircase she would have fallen, she grew so faint and dizzy.

“Yes, I’ll go,” she thought, feeling her way back to her room, where she shank into a chair, with her hands over her eyes and her brain in such a whirl that she did not think of the dog until she felt his paws on her shoulders and his hot breath on her face.

Uncovering her eyes, she saw him looking at her, with an expression so human and full of pity that she put her arms around his neck, and burying her face in his long mane began to cry.

“You dear old dog,” she sobbed; “it was you he meant and not me. I might have known it, but I couldn’t think, I feel so queer.”

The dog’s answer was a low whine as he capered round her with little barks of joy.

“Hush, hush,” she said, trying to quiet him. “They must not know I am here unless I take the key, as I suppose I ought.”

Just then there came to her cries of delight. The chest was opened and the young ladies were going into raptures over its contents, while Charley Reeves was careering around the attic with a white silk bonnet on his head ornamented with pink satin bows and long streamers of wide ribbon for strings. It was Mrs. Crosby’s wedding bonnet of a fashion seventy years back, and the young ladies were wild over it, as they were over everything.

“They do not need the key,” she thought. “I’ll keep it, and before I go away I’ll give it to Mr. Marsh and tell him the truth.”

Dropping it into her work-box, she went downstairs, followed by the dog, who made many ineffectual attempts for her to play with him, as she had often done during her leisure hours.

“Not now, doggie,” she said, patting his head. “I can’t call you Sherry, but next time I hear your master do so I trust I shall have sense enough to know he does not mean me. Three times and out!”

She was beginning to feel better and went about her work with her usual energy, although still depressed when she thought of the return of the somnambulistic habit and what it might lead to.

“What do you think has happened and is going to happen?” Polly said, as they were laying the tables for lunch.

Polly generally managed to know what was going on, and was bursting with her news, which she began to impart. They had opened the old chest, she said, and it was full of brocades and laces and mulls, though she didn’t know what that was,—some kind of muslin, she believed,—and pongees and high-heeled, pointed slippers and jewelry and a fine white gown and piles of bed and table linen. The gowns were spread out in Miss Marsh’s room and smelt like dead folks, and they were all in there screeching with delight, and telling what they meant to do, and trying the length of the gowns to see who they would fit, “and, oh, dear Suz, such times as we are going to have! And, oh, I forgot the queer part. Somebody had moved the chest in the night. Miss Doane heard ’em walking softly, as if in their stocking feet, and heard the scrape on the floor. Mother Groves will be asking us next if we were up there. Let her. I can prove an alibi. Here she comes!”

Polly stopped, silenced by the appearance of Mrs. Groves, who came to look over the tables and see that everything was in order. Since Alex.’s interference with the length of the dinner that lady had subsided a good deal.

If Mr. Marsh was going to run things, he could run them, she confided to the chef, who replied:

“’F I’se you, I’d let him. Girls is a ticklish lot to manage. Better give ’em a long rope.”

And Mrs. Groves had given them quite a length of rope, but kept her eyes pretty close on Sherry, whose chin in the air still annoyed and irritated her. On this occasion she stopped to find fault with some trivial arrangement which she wished changed, and then, as Polly had predicted, said to them: “Young women, someone, I hear, was in the attic last night and moved the cedar chest; for what purpose I don’t know, unless to get into it. I took you all for honest girls, and shall be sorry to find I was mistaken. No. 4, were you in the attic last night?”

“No, ma’am!” and Polly squared her elbows as for a fight.

“No. 3, were you there, or do you know who was?” Mrs. Groves continued, while No. 3’s denial was as prompt as that of No. 4.

“No. 2, what do you know of it? Were you there?” was Mrs. Groves’ next question.

“If I were I did not know it, and went in my sleep,” was the reply of No. 2, for which Sherry blessed her, as it made her answer easy.

She was very white, with a look of defiance in her dark eyes, and another,—a strange, far-off look such as they always had after one of her somnambulistic fits. Mrs. Groves noticed it, and hesitated a little before she said, “Fanny, were you there?”

The Fanny was a great concession,—made Mrs. Groves hardly knew why, except that with all her dislike of the girl she had a kind of respect for her.

“If I were there I was asleep and did not know it,” Fanny answered, with a decided upward tilt of her chin, and a flash in her eyes as she continued fearlessly: “If you and Mr. Marsh think either of us would be guilty of trying to break open a chest which did not belong to us, you should dismiss us at once.”

She looked like a young queen as she stood there with that strange shifting light in her eyes, and for a moment Mrs. Groves herself was quelled.

“Mr. Marsh has said nothing to me about it,” she answered. “My information came from another source, and as matron here it is my duty to inquire into things and keep order if I can.”

Sherry bowed her head, while Mrs. Groves departed, with Polly taking a few mimicking steps behind her.

“Oh, Polly!” Nos. 2 and 3 began, when Mrs. Groves was gone. “How did you hear all the stuff you are telling us? You surely have listened.”

“Not a bit of it,” Polly answered. “I was in my room near the attic stairs, and heard the squeals as they took out the things, and saw them bring ’em down to Miss Marsh’s room, and Mr. Reeves had put on a white bonnet with pink strings and a pair of stays, which looked like a saddle, and I heard ’em say the things were nearly a hundred years old, and belonged to that lady buried across the road. If I’se her, I’d appear to ’em, making fun of my clothes. They are to have a fancy dance and wear her things as far as they go. But, for the land’s sake, what’s the matter?” and she turned to Sherry, whose face was white as the lunch cloth and who was clutching a chair for support.

“Nothing much,” Sherry answered. “I did not sleep well and have a nervous headache. Go on and tell us of the fancy dance. When is it to be?”

Polly didn’t know. “We shall hear about it at lunch,” she said, and they did. The young people were all talking of the chest, wondering who could have moved it, and why, but soon dropping that for the more absorbing topic of the fancy dance to come off within a week, as at the end of that time some of them were to leave. People were to be invited from the different hotels in the vicinity; there was to be a string band from Fabyan’s, and the young ladies were to draw lots as to which should wear the dresses unearthed in the cedar chest, and which were in a good state of preservation. Twice a year they had been aired as long as Amos Marsh lived at Maplehurst, and on the occasion of his last visit there he had had them out, as Alex. remembered having been told by Bowles, who drove him from the station when he first visited the farm. The man had spoken of a “flowered silk,” and when, after lunch, Alex. went to Amy’s room to see the finery, he recognized the “flowered silk” in the heavy brocade at which the girls were looking with eager eyes, each hoping the right to wear it would fall upon herself. The lots were drawn and the brocade fell to Amy.

“Eureka!” she cried, holding the dress at arm’s length and pirouetting around the room. “I am in luck, but it needs a great deal of fixing to fit me, and who can do it?” Then, remembering how handy Sherry had been in helping her on the first night of her arrival, she continued: “I believe that girl who waits on us is just the one. I’ll have her up. Call her, Alex.”

He called her, and Sherry came, wondering why she was sent for, and starting when she saw the display on chairs and tables and the bed, the lovely brocade and the lace trimming, yellow with age, but showing how costly it must have been. The room was full of the sickly odor of clothes which had been long shut from the air, and Sherry felt it and held fast to the brass rod of the bedstead, while Amy explained what was wanted and asked if she could do it. Sherry knew she could, for she and Katy had always made their own dresses, but her first impulse was to decline. Then, remembering that she was there to obey, she signified her willingness to do what she could. “But not to-day, please,” she said. “My head aches; to-morrow I shall feel better.”

“To-morrow, then,” Amy replied; “and, by the way, we shall need you all day, and I will see that No. 4 waits upon us. Her table is next to ours.”

That night Sherry slept a quiet, dreamless sleep, and Miss Doane was not disturbed by noises over her head in the attic where the cedar chest stood open, with piles of things in it as yet untouched. The dresses were what were wanted for the present, and after breakfast Sherry presented herself in Amy’s room and asked what she was to do.

“Make this fit me. It is too big in some places and too small in others,” Amy said, putting on the brocade and examining herself before the mirror.

To Sherry it seemed like a wrong to the dead woman as she pinned and unpinned and ripped and basted and tried on, and when it came to the lace, which Amy said must be cut in two or three places to produce the desired effect, she ventured to say: “Can’t we arrange it in some other way? It seems a pity to cut it, and I keep thinking of the lady who used to wear it.”

Amy looked at her, wondering what possible interest she could have in the lady who used to wear it.

“Oh, she was dust and ashes long ago. She don’t mind,” she said, “and as the dress is now mine I want it as I like. So cut the lace here and here.”

Sherry hesitated a moment, and then her scissors slashed through the expensive material, which had cost a fabulous sum and been the wonder and admiration of the neighborhood. It was a hard day for Sherry, working on the old dresses and listening to the talk in which she could take no part. She was for the time being only a seamstress, whose duty was to be silent. The young ladies were well-bred and kind-hearted, and would not willingly injure the feelings of any one, but reared as they had been they felt there was an immeasurable distance between themselves and the girl who sat all day long in their midst, unnoticed except when wanted for advice or for some change in the dresses. She was very pretty, they thought, and very ladylike, and certainly understood her business.

“You must have worked in a dressmaking establishment, you are so deft with your needle and have such good taste,” one of them said to her, and she replied:

“I have made my own dresses, with my sister’s help.”

Amy, who had felt a good deal puzzled by Sherry, now began to question her.

“You have a sister?”

“Yes.”

“And a mother?”

“Yes.”

“Is your father living?”

“No.”

“And your home is in the country?”

“Yes.”

“Where, if I may ask?”

If Mrs. Groves could have seen Sherry then, she would have thought her head and chin higher than ever in the air. She was resenting being catechised so closely, but answered the last question promptly:

“In Buford, Massachusetts.”

“Buford?” Amy repeated. “Why, the Saltuses’ summer home is in Buford. Did you ever see them, Mr. Craig Saltus and his sister? You must have heard of them.”

“Yes, I have heard of them.”

“Is their place a very fine one?”

“Yes, very fine.”

“Inside as well as out? Perhaps, though, you were never inside. Were you?”

“Yes.”

“And have met Miss Saltus?”

“Yes.”

“I hear that she is very familiar with the country people. Invites them and accepts their invitations.”

As this was not a direct question Sherry did not feel called upon to answer. Her eyes were blazing with scorn at the questioning, which might have gone on if Ruth Doane had not called to her cousin and said: “For Heaven’s sake, Amy, don’t spend any more time talking of the Saltuses when we have so much to do; and I want to know if I can have this lovely scarf. See how it becomes me.”

She was draping around her head and neck a beautiful scarf of Spanish lace which Mrs. Crosby had brought from abroad and which was very becoming to Ruth’s dark style of beauty.

“Yes, you can have it,” Amy said, and as she could learn nothing in particular from Sherry she gave her up, but said to one of her friends: “Rose Saltus and I are great friends, although not at all alike. I hoped she might be here this summer, but she has to stay with her mother. But her brother Craig is coming soon. I hope he will be here for the party, though he can’t dance. What a pity he is so lame!”

Sherry was interested now, and her cheeks burned as she thought of Craig Saltus recognizing her as an acquaintance and friend, as she knew he would. She had heard from Mrs. Groves something about the Saltus family coming, but time had passed and they had not come, nor had she heard of them again until now, when she felt every nerve quiver with apprehension and dread. Rose Saltus had been very kind to her and so had Craig, and she wondered what he would say when he found her there.

“He will think me an impostor, and I begin to feel like one,” she thought, half resolving to leave before Craig Saltus came.

But something kept her, and for three days Polly waited upon her table, while she worked on the costumes, in which she became a good deal interested, especially the brocade which Amy was to wear, and which was made to fit her perfectly, thanks to Sherry’s deft fingers and taste. She had cut out a piece here and added a gore there, and made the waist lower so as to show Amy’s fine neck, and with every swish of her scissors she had felt she was inflicting bodily pain upon the great-grandmother she had never seen or scarcely heard of until recently. When the dress was done, Amy, who was about her size and figure, had asked her to put it on, that she might see how it looked and if there were any changes to be made. And Sherry put it on, and stood as a model while Mrs. Marsh and the young ladies and Alex. and Charley Reeves were called in to see what a beautiful dress it was.

“By George!” was all Alex. said, and then walked out.

He did not think it just the thing for Amy to make a model of Sherry to be gazed at, and when Charley Reeves said to him, “I say, Marsh, No. 1 is a stunner,” he felt for a moment as if he hated Charley for speaking thus of Sherry. What business had he to call her a stunner or speak of her as No. 1? He never did. He always called her Fanny and had a growing conviction that she was out of place as a waitress. When he could get time he’d find out somehow. Just now he was too busy with his preparations for the ball, which was to excel anything ever seen in the neighborhood. He had heard from Bowles, who had it from his grandfather, of the great Crosby party, talked of so long by the people. Just what they did at that party neither he nor Bowles knew.

“It was up to snuff,” Bowles said; “with grandees from all over, and dancing till four in the morning, and some of the grandees rather noisy with too much wine.”

Alex. did not mean to have anything of that sort. Otherwise everything should be first class; and he was busy everywhere and tired to death, he said, when the day came for what he called his “blow out.”

“You will have to help me dress,” Amy said to Sherry on the day of the party, and after dinner, which was served earlier than usual, Sherry found herself acting in the capacity of maid to Amy, whose hair she arranged and whose dress she put on, adjusting a ribbon here and a knot of lace there, fastening a brooch of pearls and rubies at her throat and long pendants in her ears.

“How do I look?” Amy asked, when her toilet was completed.

“I think you will be the belle of the evening,” Sherry answered, and Amy, who was beginning to be strangely drawn towards this girl whom she could not understand, said, next: “You will want to see the dance. There will be a crowd looking in at the windows from the piazza, and if you like come in and sit by the door.”

It was a good deal for Amy to unbend in this way, and she felt chagrined that Sherry did not seem more impressed with the permission to sit by the door.

“Thanks. You are very kind,” was all she said, as she left the room.

“She is an enigma,” Amy thought. “I mean to ask Craig Saltus about the family. He must have heard of them. Let me see,—Sherman is her name, I believe, though I only know her as Fanny, or No. 1. Queer fad of Mrs. Groves to designate them by numbers. This girl is certainly superior to the rest and has done my dress beautifully.”

It was time now for the expected guests to arrive, and pleased with herself, Amy went down to meet them. The night was fine. There was no moon, but the stars were out in full force, and the lanterns on the lawn and the reflectors on the piazza made it almost as light as day on three sides of the house, which presented a fairy scene after the dancing had commenced. As Amy had predicted, there were many lookers on. Young people from the different farmhouses in the neighborhood came to see the sight, and with the servants of the house crowded around the windows, watching the dancers, and occasionally, as the music became more and more exhilarating, taking a few steps themselves. Sherry was not with them, nor in the chair where Amy had told her she could sit and look on. With the first strain of music a wave of homesickness swept over her, and she would have given much to have been with her mother and Katy. It was a mistake coming here as she did. She was feeling it more and more, and had had hard work to keep back her tears ever since the guests began to arrive and she was free to do what she pleased. Going to the far end of the piazza, which looked towards the stables, she sat down in the shadow and listened to the sounds of revelry as they came to her from the other side of the house. If there was one thing she liked more than another it was to dance, and she kept time to the music with her hands and feet, until at last, as the strains of her favorite waltz came floating on the night air, she sprang up and began to whirl round and round half the length of the piazza and back to her chair, where she stopped a moment to take breath and then began her solitary dance again, shutting her eyes as she felt a little dizzy, and seeing nothing until she found herself in the arms of a young man coming from the opposite direction.

Alex. was having a good time, and, satisfied that his “blow out” bade fair to equal the Crosby party and that everybody was having a good time, he had started for the kitchen to tell the chef that refreshments were to be served in half an hour. As he turned on to the side piazza, his nearest route to the kitchen, he caught the notes of the soft-toned, even-timed waltz, which was his favorite as well as Sherry’s, and saw the white figure coming towards him in the half shadows on that side of the house. Thinking it was his cousin Ruth, he began to whirl until he caught the figure in his arms, held it close to him and kept on till he reached a side light and saw that it was Sherry.

Wrenching herself from his arms, while her eyes flashed and her lips quivered, she said, “Mr. Marsh, how dare you insult me?”

“By George!” Alex. exclaimed, holding her hands in spite of her efforts to draw them from him. “I beg your pardon. I thought you were Ruth. You are about the same size, and that waltz got into my head. I meant no disrespect. I hope you will excuse me.”

He was apologizing to her as to a lady, and the angry look in her eyes began to soften and the tears to fill them. She couldn’t keep them back, and as Alex. held her hands they dropped upon her cheeks and stood upon her lashes.

“Fanny,” Alex. said, soothingly. “Don’t cry. You make me feel like a cad. I never insulted a woman in my life. I certainly would not begin with you. Why do you cry?”

“I don’t know, unless I am a little homesick,” Sherry replied, getting her hands free and wiping her tears away, while Alex. thought how beautiful she was, seen under that light.

As she met his look of admiration, which she could not mistake, she stepped back and continued: “I like to dance, and that waltz brought things back and made me think of home.”

“Yes, I see,” Alex. answered. “Of course you like to dance. Suppose we take another turn across the piazza.”

He held out his arms, but Sherry shook her head. She knew what was proper better than he, and said, “I think you’d better go. Your guests will be missing you.”

“Let them miss me,” Alex. said, with a feeling that he would rather stay there and talk to this girl, who fascinated and puzzled him, and whose face grew each moment lovelier as her smiles came and went and her eyes beamed upon him. “Fanny,” he said, impulsively, “haven’t I seen you before?”

Sherry shook her head, and he continued: “Then I have dreamed of you, or some one like you. I have it,” and he snapped his fingers exultingly; “I saw a girl at the opera with old,—I beg your pardon,—with the Pledgers more than a year ago. She was very like you. Queer, isn’t it? Where is your home?”

Before she could answer him there was a loud call for “Alex., Alex., where are you? We want you in the Lancers.”

“I must go, as I have to see the chef. I’d forgotten him entirely. You are sure you have forgiven me? I couldn’t help it, and you waltz as if you had been at it all your life,” Alex. said, offering her his hand, in which for answer she laid hers, blushing and withdrawing it quickly as she felt his fingers closing over it with a warm pressure.

The next moment he was gone, and when Sherry next saw him she, with Nos. 2, 3 and 4, was waiting upon his guests, while her cheeks burned as she recalled the waltz upon the piazza and felt again the pressure of Alex.’s hand and heard the tone of his voice as he called her Fanny and told her not to cry.

It was late before the party broke up, and later still before Alex. fell into a disturbed sleep, in which he dreamed of the lovely face which had looked at him so wistfully that he would liked to have kissed it. Other faces which had been close to his and other forms which had been in his arms, with no attempt to withdraw from them, were also in his dreams, as he lived over the events of the night, but Sherry was always to the front, and he was beginning a second waltz with her when Amy pounded at his door, telling him that breakfast had been over an hour and that some of them were going for a drive.