"Words fail me in an effort at description, but will it suffice to say that I am perfectly satisfied to gaze at her all day long, day in and day out? This surely must convey something to you who knew me well of old and will remember that I was ever most critical, having the idea then that my bent was artistic.
"I could hardly believe in my own good fortune, Miss Eliza, when she said she would have me. I asked her all over again, immediately, just to make sure. So now the former Miss Elinor Harvey is Mrs. Ross Worthington.
"To make a long story short, I have told her about Arethusa, and she is most anxious to know her new daughter. As she is possessed of considerably more of this world's goods than is your humble servant—the one thing I have against her—she has insisted upon herself enclosing a check for our daughter's immediate needs, and this daughter is to come as soon as you and Miss Letitia can get her ready. Don't be sparing with this check; I am instructed to add, more will be sent if necessary.
"My wife—I do love to write that word, Miss Eliza—says that she will write, herself, very shortly. She is most busy at present, turning her house upside down from garret to cellar, but she says that when it is finished it will be a most beautiful house.
"Give my love to Miss Letitia and my darling daughter, Arethusa, and my most knightly devotion always to Miss Asenath, bless her! My wife joins me in all kind wishes for your household.
"Yours affectionately,
"Ross Worthington."
Arethusa hugged herself ecstatically and then pressed her lips to the Letter until the ink smudged. It was a wonderful Letter!
And the whole of the situation revealed in it appealed to her. The Romance (a love story brought even nearer home than Miss Asenath's, for it was her own dearest father who was living it right now); the Beauty of the bride, so plainly stated, and Arethusa loved beauty with all the fire of her romantic young soul; and the bride's Wealth, undoubtedly intimated, which gave the necessary touch of luxury to the picture, for Arethusa loved the fleshpots also, if an innocent liking for silks and satins and baronial halls could be called "love of the fleshpots,"—it was as perfect a situation as any created by any one of her favorite novelists. She was visioning a Rarely Handsome Couple, hand in hand, moving with slow and stately grace through the vast halts of a Mansion.
"Elinor" was a beautiful name; far more beautiful than any other name she knew.
In short, being constitutionally unable to do anything by halves, Arethusa fell most completely in love with the newcomer into the family, when she might have had other feelings about her, perhaps just as strong. But there was not the slightest trace of anything resembling resentment in the daughter's heart that a strange woman had taken the first place with her father; she would not have understood if anyone had suggested to her that it might be permissible under the circumstances. There was only a very deep gratitude that flooded her whole being. She realised quite plainly from the Letter that it was owing a great deal to the "New Wife" that her dream of so many years was coming true. She had brought Ross back to America, so much nearer to his daughter, and she had sent her, Arethusa, (sent it herself because it was positively so stated) the money whereby she was to make reality that long anticipated meeting.
But she did not waste much time in speculation as to the spending of that "check for her immediate needs"; such would have been truly idle dreaming. Miss Eliza would spend it. She would attend to the providing of a wardrobe for the visit, and that wardrobe would be utilitarian first and foremost, and durable. All of Miss Eliza's purchases had the virtue of durability. For best, perhaps, Arethusa might have a silk dress (her Sunday silk of the season before was almost worn out), but it would be a dark blue one, undoubtedly; and one was convinced before it was even bought that it would be a sensible dress.
Had Arethusa had the spending of the money her outfit might present a very different appearance.
She had been so absorbed in her Letter that she had not noticed that the storm had begun to increase in violence. The wind was rising again and the rain was beginning to come rapidly through the leaves.
Suddenly, with a roar like the approach of some vast army across the fields, it came from the northwest in a blinding sheet, and in just a moment she was drenched. She scrambled hastily to her feet and thrust the Letter far down in the hollow of the tree to keep it dry, and then, flattened herself against the trunk to watch, as much protected as she could be, and with the intensest admiration, this masterpiece of the Storm King. She was not in the least bit frightened of the vivid lightning that played almost incessantly about her, or of the rolling and crashing thunder. She lifted up her face to feel the rain upon it, and smiled in sheer joy of the wonderful beauty of the graceful long sweep of that failing rain.
But with a crack of thunder which Miss Letitia would have said was "near," most certainly, for it sounded as though the heavens themselves were fallen, Arethusa's eyes closed involuntarily.
CHAPTER IV
Timothy Jarvis was making preparations to salt the cattle down in the "V" lot on his place (so-called because a wedge of the Redfield property carved out a bit of its very centre) when those angry black clouds began piling up.
He was not very weather wise as yet, this sturdy boy farmer, Timothy, and so his study of the brooding sky did not help him as much, in his prognostication of what it would bring forth, as it might have helped older folk more acquainted with the vagaries of weather. Mandy or Miss Eliza or Blish could have told him that black clouds in the north west always meant a bad storm, and one that came quickly. But Timothy thought of his sleek red cattle, of which he was so proud, which were needing salt so dreadfully, and he decided that he had plenty of time in which to go on ahead and finish his job before the storm should really break. He hated to leave them until every last one had had a chance at the coarse salt he spread out for them on the rocks by the Branch. And the clouds would probably go on piling up that way for some hours.
So sure was he that this prediction was correct that he sent the man who was helping him back to the barn with the mule and spring-wagon, and planned to walk himself. He wanted a look at the bunch in the wood-lot, and now, while he was so near it, was as good a time as he could find in which to visit that other herd.
But the first falling drops caught him before he was half way to the wood-lot, so he turned around without attempting that visit and started for home. Then that great downpour which had trapped Arethusa under the hollow tree caught him just as he was passing Miss Asenath's Woods, and he decided to go on up to the Redfield house, as it was so much nearer than his own; nearly a mile and a half nearer, this way.
He climbed the snake fence into the woodland and splashed rapidly through the wet growth. The big leaves that he brushed in passing, emptied their load of water upon him; Timothy was getting wetter and wetter, but rather enjoying it all. Then he spied Arethusa propped up against her tree with her eyes shut tight, and he stopped short in amazement.
"A—re—thusa Worthington!"
Her eyes flew open. She screamed; for Timothy had appeared before her as suddenly as though he had come in that clap of thunder.
"Timothy! You nasty thing! You scared me almost to death!"
"What on earth are you doing out here?"
"Picking water lilies!" she replied pertly.
"You must have fallen in then, because I never did see anything just as wet! But I thought you weren't afraid of storms?"
"I'm not. I love 'em."
"Why do you screw up your eyes for when it thunders then?" he asked, teasingly, as at another terrific sound her eyes shut just as tight as before.
But she only made a face at him in reply.
"Does Miss 'Liza know you're out here?" Timothy demanded next.
"She