Mr. Pat's Little Girl Part 28

When it was really impossible to eat another one, they built up the fire for the pleasure of watching it, and sang songs and told stories, the magician, with his elbows on his knees, looking from one to another and laughing as if he understood all the fun.

The glow of their fire and the sound of their voices could be seen and heard far up on Red Hill; so Celia Fair told them, emerging suddenly out of the darkness into the firelight. In her white dress, with something fleecy about her head and shoulders, she suggested a piece of thistledown.

The children gave her a rapturous welcome and proffered marshmallows; the magician looked on smiling. Allan had gone in search of firewood. Celia had been up the hill to visit an old servant who was ill, and returning, with Bob for guard, had seen the fire and heard the voices.

"At first I thought of gypsies, and then Rosalind's pointed hood suggested witches, and it was only when I reached the bridge that I recognized you,"

she said; adding, "No, I can't stay. Bob is taking me home."

"Do stay; I'll take you home, Miss Celia," said Jack, as Rosalind bestowed marshmallows on the grinning Bob.

Celia hesitated, then turned, as if about to dismiss her escort, when Allan Whittredge stepped into the circle and cast an armful of wood on the fire. Celia retreated into the shadow. "I must go, dear," she whispered to Belle's urging.

A chorus of protest followed her as she hurried up the bank. She had hardly reached the road when she heard her name spoken quietly, and turning, she faced Allan Whittredge in the moonlight.

There was some hesitation in his manner as he said, "I can understand your wish to avoid me, and yet I am anxious to have a few moments' talk with you, now or at any time that may suit you." As he spoke, a sense of the absurdity of this formality between old playmates swept over him, almost bringing a smile to his lips.

Celia spoke gently. "I think not. I mean I can imagine no reason for it--no good it could do."

"But you can't judge of that until you know what I have to say. Something I did not understand has recently been made clear to me and--it is of that I wish to speak."

"If it has anything to do with the--the difference between your family and mine, it is needless--useless. I cannot listen, I can only try to forget."

On the last word Celia's voice broke a little.

Allan took a step forward; "I do not think you have a right to refuse. You should grant me the privilege of defending myself against--"

Celia interposed, "I have not accused you, Mr. Whittredge; there is no occasion for defence, I must say good night."

Nothing could have been more final than her manner as she moved away toward Bob, who waited at a discreet distance. There was no uncertainty in her voice now, nor in the poise of her head.

Allan stood in the road, looking after her retreating figure. He had bungled. If he had begun in the right way, she would have been compelled to listen. What could he do to obtain a hearing? After two years of silence he could not wonder at her refusal to listen to him now.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SECOND.

CIRc.u.mSTANTIAL EVIDENCE.

"I sometimes do believe and sometimes do not."

"Belle!" called Mrs. Parton from the porch, addressing her daughter, who swung lazily to and fro in the hammock, her eyes on a book, "I can't find Jack, and I want you to take this money to Morgan. Your father reminded me of the bill just before he left, and I haven't thought of it from that day to this."

"Oh, mother, can't--?"

"Can't who? You know there isn't a soul to send but you, and I must have this off my mind. Manda is helping me with the sweet pickles, and Tilly has gone to camp-meeting."

Belle rose reluctantly, tossed back her hair, and went in search of her hat.

"Be sure now to get a receipt," Mrs. Parton said, as she gave the money into Belle's hands. "I am not afraid of Morgan, but the colonel is certain to accuse me of not paying it if I haven't a receipt to show him."

Belle tucked her book under her arm and walked off.

"Now, Belle," protested her mother, "why can't you leave that book at home? Don't let me hear of your reading as you go along the street."

"I won't, but I like to carry it," answered Belle, patting it lovingly.

She was deeply interested in the story, and begrudged the time it took to walk to the magician's. Once there, she decided she would stay awhile to rest and finish the chapter.

The day was warm, and she strolled along in lazy fas.h.i.+on. The Whittredge house as she pa.s.sed looked deserted. The front shutters were closed, and no one was to be seen. Rosalind had gone away with her uncle for a few days. Belle amused herself by imagining that Rosalind's having been there at all was a dream, and she succeeded in producing a bewildering sense of unreality in her own mind.

Morgan was not in his shop, but that he had been there recently was evident, for his tools lay scattered about.

After the heat of the street the shop was cool and inviting, and a corner of an old sofa offered itself as a desirable spot in which to continue the story. It stood against the wall, and with several other pieces of furniture before it, was a secluded as well as a comfortable resting-place. Belle settled herself to her liking and was at once lost in her book. She finished the chapter and read another, and was beginning a third when something aroused her. For a moment she couldn't remember where she was, then with a finger in her book she peeped around the clock case, which with a high-backed chair screened her corner.

The magician stood in the middle of the room, with his back toward her, gazing intently at something in his hand. Belle was about to come out of her hiding-place when he stepped to the window, and holding the object up between his thumb and finger, let the sunlight fall upon it, laughing gleefully like a child over a toy.

Belle drew back quickly. Was she dreaming still? She pinched herself. No, she was awake, and in the magician's shop, and the thing she had seen in his hand was nothing less than Patricia's ring! She had heard it described too often not to recognize it. But how came it in Morgan's possession? She sat still and thought.

Meanwhile, after turning it over and over, and nodding and laughing to himself in a way that would have seemed rather crazy to one who did not know him, the magician disappeared into the back room, closing the door behind him. Belle seized the opportunity to steal from the shop. It would be easier to think out of doors.

The little brown and white house across the lane was keeping itself to-day. Miss Betty had gone to the city, and Sophy was at camp-meeting, as Belle happened to know, so she went over and sat on the porch step beside a large hydrangea. She must decide what to do. She remembered very distinctly the circ.u.mstances connected with the disappearance of the ring.

Morgan had been one of the last persons to speak to old Mr. Gilpin before the attack of heart failure that ended his life, but no one had dreamed of suspecting him. Could he have had it all this time?

Belle felt ashamed of herself for the thought. If there was an honest person in the world, it was Morgan. She had heard her father talk of circ.u.mstantial evidence, and how easy it was to draw wrong conclusions.

She was puzzled. One thing was certain, she had seen the ring in his hand.

"Now, if he were really a magician, I might think he had broken the spell on the ring we found in the Gilpin house," she said to herself.

She must go back and pay the bill; for if she did not, her mother would have to know the reason, and Belle was not sure it would be wise to tell her about the discovery. Mrs. Parton acknowledged frankly she couldn't keep a secret, and Belle was wise enough to see it wouldn't do to spread the news abroad.

"I wish Rosalind was here," she thought.

When at length she made up her mind to go back, the magician was at work and greeted her just as usual. Belle wondered if she had not dreamed it after all. While he went into the next room to make change and receipt the bill, she looked for the ring she and Rosalind had hung on a nail beside the door. It was gone. Had any one ever known such a perplexing state of affairs?

The magician must have wondered what made the usually merry Belle so grave, for he asked if she was well as he gave her the bill.

As she walked slowly homeward, she noticed a large, dignified gentleman coming toward her. He did not belong to Friends.h.i.+p, she knew, and she wondered a little who he might be. He looked down on her benevolently through his spectacles as he pa.s.sed, and for a moment seemed about to speak. Belle quickly forgot him, however, for the ring occupied her thoughts to the exclusion of everything else. Even the story so fascinating an hour ago, had lost its charm.

"Does your head ache?" her mother asked, seeing her sitting on the doorstep, her chin in her hand, her book unopened beside her.

"No, mother; I am just thinking," was Belle's reply.

She was trying to decide whom to tell. "I wish father was at home," she said to herself.

She went to bed with the matter still undecided, and the first thing she thought of when she opened her eyes the next day was the ring. A conversation overheard between her mother and Manda, the cook, added to her uneasiness.

"Miss Mary, did you know there was a 'tective loafin' round town?"

"A detective? No, I did not. If there is, it won't make any difference to you and me," answered Mrs. Parton.