The Tangled Threads Part 28

"I tell you I know it's mine," retorted Mr. Clayton, and Ethel sighed her relief. "I did hope 't was your mother's," he continued; "but I might have known better. It's mine, and--and it means dollars to me--hundreds of them."

"Why, father!" The two voices were one in shocked surprise.

"Well, it does. Dennison was going to drop me a line here if certain things happened. And if they have happened, and I don't sell my P. & Z. before to-morrow noon, it 'll mean--well, there 'll be something to pay. On the other hand, if those certain things have n't happened, and I do sell--it 'll be worse."

"Well, well," laughed James in a surprisingly buoyant tone, considering the gloom on his father's face. "I guess the letter was yours all right. I should take it so, anyhow, and go ahead and sell."

"Yes, so should I," tossed Ethel over her shoulder as she tripped happily away.

"After all," mused James, slowly crossing the hall, "it could n't have been my letter. May would n't have written so soon; she 'd have waited until nearer Thursday. She would n't let me have the 'yes' quite so quickly. Not she!--the little tease of a sweetheart!"

On Wednesday morning, at half-past eight, the maid brought in the mail and laid it at her master's plate. There were a paper and two letters.

"Hm-m," began Mr. Clayton, "one for you, Julia, my dear, and--by Jove, it's Dennison's letter!" he finished joyfully, thrusting an eager thumb under the flap of the other envelope.

Twenty minutes later, with head erect and shoulders squared, the senior member of the firm of Clayton & Company left his home and hurried down the street. Behind him, on the veranda steps, were a young man and a young girl looking into each other's faces in blank dismay.

"You--you said _you_ were expecting a letter, did n't you?" began Ethel hopefully.

"Well, so were you, were n't you?" The tone showed quick irritation.

"Why, yes, but--"

"Well, don't you think it is yours?"

"Why, I--I don't know. It might be, of course; but--"

"You _said_ you thought it was yours, the very first thing."

"Yes, I know; but--well, perhaps it is."

"Of course it is," a.s.serted James, as he ran down the steps. And Ethel, looking after him, frowned in vague wonder.

Thursday morning's mail brought four letters, and Ethel blushed prettily as she tucked them all in her belt.

"But they aren't all yours," protested her brother James.

"But they are!" she laughed.

"All?"

"All."

"But _I_ was expecting a letter."

"Oh-ho!--so you were, were you?" teased the girl merrily. Ethel could afford to be merry; she had recognized a certain bold handwriting on one of the envelopes. "I really don't see, then, but you 'll have to go to Rover. Perhaps he can tell you where it is."

"Confound that dog!" growled James, turning on his heel.

"I'm going to accept Fred's invitation," soliloquized Ethel happily, as she hurried into her own room. "I shall read his first, so, of course, that will be the first one that I get!"

The noon delivery brought no letters for any one. James Clayton fidgeted about the house all the afternoon instead of going down to the golf club to see the open handicap--the annual club event. He felt that, in the present state of affairs, he could take no chances of seeing a certain young woman who was just then very much in his thoughts. If she _had_ written, and he should meet her as though she had not!--his blood chilled at the thought; and if she had not written, and he should meet her as though she had!--To James Clayton, at the moment, the thought of her precious letter lost forever to his longing eyes was only a shade worse than that there should have been no letter at all.

Five o'clock came, bringing the last mail--and still no letter. In the Clayton residence that night dinner was served at a table which showed a vacant place; James Clayton was reported to be indisposed. Yet, two hours later, after a sharp peal of the doorbell and a hasty knocking at his chamber door by the maid, James Clayton left the house; and one who met him on the steps said that his face was certainly not that of a sick man.

It was after breakfast the next morning, before the family had dispersed, that Ethel rushed headlong into the dining-room.

"Oh, James, James!" she cried breathlessly. "It _was_ your letter that Rover had, and here 't is!"

"But it was n't," retorted the young man airily. "I got mine last night--special delivery."

"But it is yours. Teddy found it in a hole under the barn. See!"

crowed Ethel; and she thrust into his hand a tattered, chewed, bedraggled envelope whose seal was yet unbroken.

"Well, by George--'t is for me," muttered the young man, as he descried his own name among the marks left by dirt-stained paws and sharp little teeth. "Humph!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed a moment later, eyeing the torn and crumpled sheet of paper which the envelope had contained.

"Well?" prompted several voices.

"It's an advertising letter from the Clover Farm kennels," he announced, with a slight twitching of his lips. "Do you think we--er--need another--dog?"

The Indivisible Five

At the ages of fifty-four and fifty, respectively, Mr. and Mrs.

Wentworth found themselves possessed of a roomy, old-fas.h.i.+oned farmhouse near a thriving city, together with large holdings of lands, mortgages, and bank stock. At the same time they awoke to an unpleasant realization that many of their fellow creatures were not so fortunate.

"James," began Mrs. Wentworth, with some hesitation, one June day, "I've been thinking--with all our rambling rooms and great big yards, and we with never a chick nor a child to enjoy them--I 've been thinking--that is, I went by the orphan asylum in town yesterday and saw the poor little mites playing in that miserable brick oven they call a yard, and--well, don't you think we ought to have one--or maybe two--of them down here for a week or two, just to show them what summer really is?"

The man's face beamed.

"My dear, it's the very thing! We'll take two--they'll be company for each other; only"--he looked doubtfully at the stout little woman opposite--"the worst of it will come on you, Mary. Of course Hannah can manage the work part, I suppose, but the noise--well, we 'll ask for quiet ones," he finished, with an air that indicated an entirely satisfactory solution of the problem.

Life at "Meadowbrook" was a thing of peaceful mornings and long, drowsy afternoons; a thing of spotless order and methodical routine. In a long, childless marriage Mr. and Mrs. Wentworth's days had come to be ordered with a precision that admitted of no frivolous deviations: and noise and confusion in the household machinery were the unforgivable offenses. It was into this placid existence that Mr. and Mrs.

Wentworth proposed to introduce two children from the orphan asylum.

Before the week was out a note was sent to the matron of the inst.i.tution, and the prospective host and hostess were making their plans with unwonted excitement.

"We 'll rise at six and breakfast at seven," began Mrs. Wentworth.

"And they must be in bed by eight o'clock," supplemented her husband.

"I did n't say whether to send boys or girls, and I forgot to say anything about their being quiet; but if they 're boys, you can teach them gardening, James, and if they 're girls, they can sew with me a good deal."

"Hm-m--yes; I really don't know what we shall do to entertain them.

Perhaps they might like to read," suggested Mr. Wentworth, looking with some doubt at his big bookcases filled with heavy, calf-bound volumes.

"Of course; and they can walk in the garden and sit on the piazza,"