Barb was still quiet and humble of heart, but the year had given her the poise which comes from increasing self dependence and even more from depths and widths of experience. Barbara was learning to base life broad on the roots of things and faced the world serenely content if a little gravely, going the "softlier all her days for the dream's sake" as so many women do.
Suzanne was, on the surface, the least changed. She still flashed out conversational audacities and delighted in "taking a shot at the idols" as she put it. But underneath the jewel-like hardness and brilliance of the exterior there was a difference. Her theories of life were not so polished and compact and perfected. She had undergone more than one seismic upheaval of emotion during the year and her "cock-sureness" was shattered if not annihilated. But the greatest difference lay in her deepened power of human sympathy and understanding. The success of "Melissa on the Road" had not been mere accident but a logical outgrowth of its author's surer insight into life, and the play was an even more certain indication that Suzanne in finding herself had found something universal at the same time.
As for Sylvia--but let Sylvia speak for herself. Suzanne, lolling as before in Sylvia's hammock, again pronounced judgment.
"I never knew a person for whom the whole universe seemed to be working the way it does for you, Sylvia Arden. Now, if I had wanted to live in a certain place Roger would have been called to Kamchatka or Kalamazoo or some other God forgotten spot. But just because you had your heart set on living at Arden Hall the fates come galloping up to present Phil a choice professional opening on a charger."
"Do you know whether a charger is a horse or a platter?" laughed Sylvia. "I should never know from your phrasing."
"It is both, of course. Don't criticize my diction. Diction is my business. And don't crab. Honest, Sylvia, don't you think your luck is altogether out of proportion to your deserts?"
"'In the course of justice which of us should see salvation?'" quoted Sylvia. "Oh, I know, Suzanne. It is almost too good to be true that Phil can find the right kind of work in Greendale and we can live here at Arden Hall. But you are mistaken about my having set my heart on living here. I love it better than any place on earth but I would have gone anywhere with Phil. Even the Hall wanes in comparison with him." And Sylvia blushed charmingly as she made the admission.
"Of course you think so. Quite the proper sentiment to express twenty-four hours before your wedding. May the Lord give me grace to feel the same next December when I follow your lead to the altar. But, Sylvia, you don't really know what you are talking about. I can't imagine you in a little apartment. You're too--spacious."
Sylvia smiled.
"Oh, I believe I could have adjusted my spaciousness if necessary. But I'm rather glad I don't have to. I'd rather--spread."
"You will spread, too," put in Barb. "You and Phil will have a wonderful opportunity to really live here, more than you could ever have done in the city."
"I hope so." Sylvia's eyes were thoughtful as she looked out across the lawn, past the magnolia to the blue sky, just as she had a year ago. She looked as if she saw visions. Perhaps she did. The "home trust" which she and Felicia had formed years ago was still an integral part of her scheme of things. She meant her home to be a home in the truest sense, not just a house beneath whose roof she could shelter herself and her loved ones. She wanted her doors to stand open wide to the world--especially the lonely people. "The lonely people" were always very close to Sylvia's heart perhaps because her own lonely girlhood had given her the clew to the yearning that nearly all the world knows at times.
"You are going to keep on being viciously contented," accused Suzanne.
"I hope so," said Sylvia again. "I feel that way at present, anyway. I am afraid I'll never do anything very big, Suzanne. You and Barb are going to leave me way behind, I know. I haven't any special ambition except to be happy myself and to make other people within my range happy, too."
"You are a genius at that. Remember what Mr. Kinnard said. Don't let Suzanne tease you, Sylvia. You have the secret of living. If all the people in the world wanted to be happy themselves and tried to see that other people near them were happy, why--"
"The millennium would have come," finished Suzanne. "You are blooming sentimentalists both of you, though I don't deny there is a little solid sense behind your sentiment. Anyway, I have a sneaking notion I shall have a sort of satisfaction knowing that down here on your Hill things are going to be a little more the way they ought to be than is customary in this cranky old world."
"Why, Suzanne! That is just what I was thinking," cried Barb. "I see so much sin and sordidness and misery and things so snarled and twisted that it seems as if they never would smooth out. I'm going to see even more this year if I go in for the probation work. And it is wonderful to me to be able to think that it is all clean and sweet and happy and kind in Sylvia's world. It is kindness somehow that is important. If we would all be kind the way Christ taught us there wouldn't be any war and hate and competition and oppression. We'd all be just brothers and sisters."
"Maybe that is what we are growing into," said Sylvia soberly. "Thank you, Barb. I like that--what you said just now. Remember, if you want to send anybody down to my--our garden-- It is Phil's, too--we shall be glad to take her--or him--in. We want to help."
"We want to help." That is the keynote of the new democracy. And Barb and Suzanne and Sylvia, each in her own way, had enlisted in the shining army which is none other than the army of love.
And indoors, while the three girls were thus philosophizing about the universe at large, Felicia and Stephen had suddenly concentrated upon themselves.
"Felicia," Stephen was saying, "I have waited very patiently. Haven't you a different answer for me this time? I am not going to pretend I shall go away broken-hearted if it is no. My heart is a little too old to break, but if you could make it yes it will make all the difference in the world. Couldn't you say it, dear? Sylvia won't need you after to-morrow. And you know the kiddies won't be the losers. We'll see to that. Those reasons of yours aren't operative any more, you know."
"But there is still Sydney," she reminded him gravely, her face averted.
"There is," he admitted. "Ah, but, Felicia, you can't live all your days on a memory--even so vital a one. I don't expect to take Syd's place. I don't even want to. But, Felicia, look at me. Haven't I somewhere a place all my own in your heart?"
And then Felicia lifted her eyes, still forget-me-not blue like Marianna's.
"Yes, Stephen, I believe you have--a big place. If you want me as I am, the best of me gone, the rest is all yours."
Night and stillness of night on Arden Hall and Sylvia's garden! Suddenly out of the darkness Sylvia stole down the broad staircase, candle in hand, like a vestal virgin, in her white silk robe, her dark hair unbound, lying loose upon her shoulders.
On the wall, near the foot of the stairs hung two portraits; one, of a dark-eyed young man, the other a lovely young girl, looking out with wistful, wondering gaze upon the world.
Straight to the portraits went Sylvia, holding her candle high. For a moment she stood there with uplifted face and rapt gaze, trying to speak to these two, to bespeak their blessing this night on the daughter who was to follow in their footsteps to-morrow in giving herself in marriage to the mate she loved.
"If only you were here," she sighed. "I do want you so, Father! Mother! Please try to know and be glad I am so happy. Please be glad. I want you to be glad."
In the flickering light of the uplifted candle it seemed to Sylvia as if her father's dark eyes smiled down into hers as if he understood and was glad as she desired.
"The truest and the kindest," she whispered. "That was what Doctor Tom said, and I know you must have been. Phil is like that, too, Father. I'm glad you know. Good night."
Then she turned to the fair girl whom it had always been a little hard to think of as a mother, she was so tiny and sweet and girlish herself and her eyes looked so incredibly young and innocent.
"Little Mother!" crooned Sylvia. "Little, little Mother! I wonder if you were afraid at all. Did you ever feel like running away even from him? This marrying is such a big, solemn business. Didn't you feel a teeny little bit scared about it all? It isn't that you are afraid of him. It is rather yourself you don't trust, as if you weren't quite tall enough to reach up to marriage. Marriage is so high, so dreadfully high. But it is all right, isn't it, little Mother? You just have to trust love, don't you? Good night, little Mother. Please love me up there where you are."
This rite over, Sylvia turned to go back upstairs. But the moonlight fell in bright patines across the floor from the latticed windows, beside the front door, and Sylvia had never been able to resist moonlight. Hastily she set down her candle and snatched up a black velvet cloak from the rack and throwing it about her shoulders, covering her thin silken draperies, she unbolted the rear door which led out into the garden and ran down the steps into the enchanted world outside.
Even as she reached the path she uttered a half startled exclamation. A tall form was pacing up and down under the willow-trees, silhouetted against the whiteness of the garden space. She did not retreat however but stood motionless as a statue with the moonlight full upon her. In a moment the silhouetted figure turned and came swiftly toward her.
"Sylvia!"
"Phil!"
For a second she was swept into Phil's arms, his kiss on her lips. Then they stood apart, looking at each other as if all at once they had discovered some new, sacred thing which all their love up to now had not taught them.
"Phil, I'm glad--glad it is you," breathed Sylvia. "Glad I'm going to be yours."
"Forever and ever, amen," said Phil Lorrimer, as solemnly as if he were pronouncing his own wedding service.
The actual ceremony took place the next day in the gray stone Gothic church where Sylvia's father and mother had been made man and wife. But to Sylvia, and perhaps to Phil, too, it always seemed as if the real wedding had been the night before in the white moonlight of Sylvia's own garden. There it was at least that Sylvia lost forever her fear of not being able to reach up to marriage however high it was. Love, she knew, would show her the way.
THE END
* * * * * * * *
CHARMING BOOKS FOR GIRLS
May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list
WHEN PATTY WENT TO COLLEGE, By Jean Webster.
Illustrated by C. D. Williams.
One of the best stories of life in a girl's college that has ever been written. It is bright, whimsical and entertaining, lifelike, laughable and thoroughly human.
JUST PATTY, By Jean Webster.
Illustrated by C. M. Relyea.
Patty is full of the joy of living, fun-loving, given to ingenious mischief for its own sake, with a disregard for pretty convention which is an unfailing source of joy to her fellows.
THE POOR LITTLE RICH GIRL, By Eleanor Gates.
With four full page illustrations.
This story relates the experience of one of those unfortunate children whose early days are passed in the companionship of a governess, seldom seeing either parent, and famishing for natural love and tenderness. A charming play as dramatized by the author.
REBECCA OF SUNNYBROOK FARM, By Kate Douglas Wiggin.
One of the most beautiful studies of childhood--Rebecca's artistic, unusual and quaintly charming qualities stand out midst a circle of austere New Englanders. The stage version is making a phenomenal dramatic record.
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA, By Kate Douglas Wiggin.
Illustrated by F. C. Yohn.
Additional episodes in the girlhood of this delightful heroine that carry Rebecca through various stages to her eighteenth birthday.
REBECCA MARY, By Annie Hamilton Donnell.
Illustrated by Elizabeth Shippen Green.
This author possesses the rare gift of portraying all the grotesque little joys and sorrows and scruples of this very small girl with a pathos that is peculiarly genuine and appealing.
EMMY LOU: Her Book and Heart, By George Madden Martin.
Illustrated by Charles Louis Hinton.
Emmy Lou is irresistibly lovable, because she is so absolutely real. She is just a bewitchingly innocent, hugable little maid. The book is wonderfully human.
* * * * *
KATHLEEN NORRIS' STORIES
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MOTHER. Illustrated by F. C. Yohn.
This book has a fairy-story touch, counterbalanced by the sturdy reality of struggle, sacrifice, and resulting peace and power of a mother's experiences.
SATURDAY'S CHILD.
Frontispiece by F. Graham Cootes.
Out on the Pacific coast a normal girl, obscure and lovely, makes a quest for happiness. She passes through three stages--poverty, wealth and service--and works out a creditable salvation.
THE RICH MRS. BURGOYNE.
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THE STORY OF JULIA PAGE.
Frontispiece by Allan Gilbert.
How Julia Page, reared in rather unpromising surroundings, lifted herself through sheer determination to a higher plane of life.
THE HEART OF RACHAEL.
Frontispiece by Charles E. Chambers.
Rachael is called upon to solve many problems, and in working out these, there is shown the beauty and strength of soul of one of fiction's most appealing characters.
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BOOTH TARKINGTON'S NOVELS
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SEVENTEEN.
Illustrated by Arthur William Brown.
No one but the creator of Penrod could have portrayed the immortal young people of this story. Its humor is irresistible and reminiscent of the time when the reader was Seventeen.
PENROD.
Illustrated by Gordon Grant.
This is a picture of a boy's heart, full of the lovable, humorous, tragic things which are locked secrets to most older folks. It is a finished, exquisite work.
PENROD AND SAM.
Illustrated by Worth Brehm.
Like "Penrod" and "Seventeen," this book contains some remarkable phases of real boyhood and some of the best stories of juvenile prankishness that have ever been written.
THE TURMOIL.
Illustrated by C. E. Chambers.
Bibbs Sheridan is a dreamy, imaginative youth, who revolts against his father's plans for him to be a servitor of big business. The love of a fine girl turns Bibb's life from failure to success.
THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA.
Frontispiece.
A story of love and politics,--more especially a picture of a country editor's life in Indiana, but the charm of the book lies in the love interest.
THE FLIRT.
Illustrated by Clarence F. Underwood.
The "Flirt," the younger of two sisters, breaks one girl's engagement, drives one man to suicide, causes the murder of another, leads another to lose his fortune, and in the end marries a stupid and unpromising suitor, leaving the really worthy one to marry her sister.
* * * * *
THE NOVELS OF
MARY ROBERTS RINEHART
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K.
Illustrated
K. LeMoyne, famous surgeon, drops out of the world that has known him, and goes to live in a little town where beautiful Sidney Page lives. She is in training to become a nurse. The joys and troubles of their young love are told with that keen and sympathetic appreciation which has made the author famous.
THE MAN IN LOWER TEN.
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An absorbing detective story woven around the mysterious death of the "Man in Lower Ten." The strongest elements of Mrs. Rinehart's success are found in this book.
WHEN A MAN MARRIES.
Illustrated by Harrison Fisher and Mayo Bunker.
A young artist, whose wife had recently divorced him, finds that his aunt is soon to visit him. The aunt, who contributes to the family income and who has never seen the wife, knows nothing of the domestic upheaval. How the young man met the situation is humorously and most entertainingly told.
THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE.
Illus. by Lester Ralph.
The summer occupants of "Sunnyside" find the dead body of Arnold Armstrong, the son of the owner, on the circular stair-case. Following the murder a bank failure is announced. Around these two events is woven a plot of absorbing interest.
THE STREET OF SEVEN STARS.
Illustrated (Photo Play Edition.)
Harmony Wells, studying in Vienna to be a great violinist, suddenly realizes that her money is almost gone. She meets a young ambitious doctor who offers her chivalry and sympathy, and together with world-worn Dr. Anna and Jimmie, the waif, they share their love and slender means.
* * * * *
STORIES OF RARE CHARM BY
GENE STRATTON-PORTER
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MICHAEL O'HALLORAN.
Illustrated by Frances Rogers.
Michael is a quick-witted little Irish newsboy, living in Northern Indiana. He adopts a deserted little girl, a cripple. He also assumes the responsibility of leading the entire rural community upward and onward.
LADDIE.
Illustrated by Herman Pfeifer.
This is a bright, cheery tale with the scenes laid in Indiana. The story is told by Little Sister, the youngest member of a large family, but it is concerned not so much with childish doings as with the love affairs of older members of the family. Chief among them is that of Laddie and the Princess, an English girl who has come to live in the neighborhood and about whose family there hangs a mystery.
THE HARVESTER.
Illustrated by W. L. Jacobs.
"The Harvester," is a man of the woods and fields, and if the book had nothing in it but the splendid figure of this man it would be notable. But when the Girl comes to his "Medicine Woods," there begins a romance of the rarest idyllic quality.
FRECKLES.
Illustrated.
Freckles is a nameless waif when the tale opens, but the way in which he takes hold of life; the nature friendships he forms in the great Limberlost Swamp; the manner in which everyone who meets him succumbs to the charm of his engaging personality; and his love-story with "The Angel" are full of real sentiment.
A GIRL OF THE LIMBERLOST.
Illustrated.
The story of a girl of the Michigan woods; a buoyant, loveable type of the self-reliant American. Her philosophy is one of love and kindness towards all things; her hope is never dimmed. And by the sheer beauty of her soul, and the purity of her vision, she wins from barren and unpromising surroundings those rewards of high courage.
AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW.
Illustrations in colors.
The scene of this charming love story is laid in Central Indiana, The story is one of devoted friendship, and tender self-sacrificing love. The novel is brimful of the most beautiful word painting of nature, and its pathos and tender sentiment will endear it to all.
THE SONG OF THE CARDINAL.
Profusely illustrated.
A love ideal of the Cardinal bird and his mate, told with delicacy and humor.
* * * * *
THE NOVELS OF
CLARA LOUISE BURNHAM
JEWEL: A Chapter in Her Life.
Illustrated by Maude and Genevieve Cowles.
A story breathing the doctrine of love and patience as exemplified in the life of a child. Jewel will never grow old because of the immortality of her love.
JEWEL'S STORY BOOK.
Illustrated by Albert Schmitt.
A sequel to "Jewel," in which the same characteristics of love and cheerfulness touch and uplift the reader.
THE INNER FLAME.
Frontispiece in color.
A young mining engineer, whose chief ambition is to become an artist, but who has no friends with whom to realize his hopes, has a way opened to him to try his powers, and, of course, he is successful.
THE RIGHT PRINCESS
At a fashionable Long Island resort, a stately English woman employs a forcible New England housekeeper to serve in her interesting home. Many humorous situations result. A delightful love affair runs through it all.
THE OPENED SHUTTERS.
Illustrated with Scenes from the Photo Play.
A beautiful woman, at discord with life, is brought to realize, by her new friends, that she may open the shutters of her soul to the blessed sunlight of joy by casting aside self love.
THE RIGHT TRACK.
Frontispiece in color by Greene Blumenschien.
A story of a young girl who marries for money so that she can enjoy things intellectual. Neglect of her husband and of her two step-children makes an unhappy home till a friend brings a new philosophy of happiness into the household.
CLEVER BETSY. Illustrated by Rose O'Neill.
The "Clever Betsy" was a boat--named for the unyielding spinster whom the captain hoped to marry. Through the two Betsy's a delightful group of people are introduced.
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