Part 32 (1/2)

”It's perfect nonsense,” broke in Miss Annabel. ”Leslie is no more likely to marry him than you are, Margaret!”

”Marry whom?” asked Lawyer Ed eagerly, ”Me?”

Miss Annabel screamed and said he was perfectly dreadful, but Mrs.

Willoughby broke in.

”No, not you, you conceited thing, but your partner. I thought Leslie claimed him as her property. She practically told the Baldwin girls she intended to marry Roderick McRae. And now she's left him and gone off to be a nurse.”

Miss Annabel's fair face flushed hotly. ”How utterly preposterous.

Why, if you lived at Rosemount you'd know whom Mr. McRae would be likely to marry. As for Leslie, she never cared any more for him than you did. You know how she loves fun. She was just enjoying herself.

I admit that she might have found a better way of putting in the time, but it was only a girl's nonsense. I was just dreadful that way myself when I was Leslie's age, a few years ago.”

”Indeed you were, Annabel,” cried Lawyer Ed, scenting danger and wisely steering to a safer subject, ”You were a dreadful flirt. Many a heart you broke and I am afraid you haven't reformed either.”

This put the lady into a good humour at once. She laughed gaily, confessing that she was really awfully giddy she knew, but she could not help it. And Mrs. Captain Willoughby, who never encouraged Miss Annabel in her youthfulness, said very dryly that she supposed they had all been silly when they were girls but she believed there was a time for everything.

Lawyer Ed saw conversational rocks ahead once more and piloted around them. ”What is this I hear about Leslie?” he asked. ”Is she going to be a nurse?”

”Oh, dear,” groaned Miss Annabel. ”That girl will break her mother's heart, and all our hearts. Just think of Leslie who never did a thing harder than put up her own hair going to be a nurse. It is perfectly absurd, but she has gone and Elizabeth will just have to let her go on until experience teaches her better.”

”I think it's the most sensible thing she ever did,” declared Mrs.

Willoughby, ”and you shouldn't discourage her. She'll make a fine wife for that boy of yours, Edward.”

Lawyer Ed shook his head. He had had his own shrewd suspicions regarding Roderick for some time and Miss Annabel's hint had set him thinking.

”I've been such a conspicuous failure in any attempt to get a wife of my own,” he said in the deepest melancholy, ”that I wouldn't presume to prescribe for any other man.” And he hastened back to his own table.

It was a great day. The Scotchmen ran races, and tossed the caber and walked the greasy pole across from the capsized dock to the _Inverness_. The Piper played, and the band played, and everybody ate all the ice cream and popcorn and drank all the lemonade possible.

At exactly seven o'clock the _Inverness_ gave a terrible roar. This was to warn every one that going home time had arrived. Mrs.

Doasyouwouldbedoneby began collecting the fairies for the difficult task of getting them on the scow and thence to the _Inverness_. All day Lawyer Ed had been keeping an eye on Roderick and had no difficulty in confirming his suspicion that the Lad was unhappy, and he immediately conceived of a plan to help him. He called a half-dozen young men together and just as Madame was ready to walk across the Island to the scow, Lawyer Ed came rowing round the bend with a fleet of boats to carry them all down to the _Inverness_. Then such a joyful scrambling and climbing as there was, while Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby got her water-babies afloat. Lawyer Ed had seen to it that Roderick was in charge of the one canoe, and as a row-boat in the eyes of Algonquin youths, was a thing to be despised, all the older water-babies screamed with joy at the sight of him, and as soon as he had run it up on the sand they swarmed into it filling it to overflowing.

This was likely to ruin all Lawyer Ed's fine plan and he charged down upon them with a terrible roar and chased them all to the shelter of Madame's skirts.

”Get away back there, you young rascals!” he shouted. ”You ought to know better than to try a load like that, Rod, you simpleton. Two pa.s.sengers at the most are all you want with that arm of yours!” He glanced about him. Helen Murray was standing near with the Perkins baby in her arms, while the little mother, free from all care for the first time in many hard years, was wandering happily about with her hands full of wild roses.

”Here, Miss Murray,” he cried, ”you jump in. You are just the right weight for this maimed pilot. 'Ere, William 'Enry, you come to me!”

But William Henry, now a st.u.r.dy little fellow of a-year-and-a-half, tightened his arms around his friend's neck and yelled his disapproval right valiantly.

”Well, now, will yer look at that!” cried the little mother proudly.

”Wot'll Daddy say w'en I tell 'im? The little rascal's so took with the young loidy. 'Ush up there now, bless 'is 'eart. See, 'e'll go with mammy.” She dropped her roses into Gladys's hands, and held out her arms, and the fickle young gentleman, let go his grip on his friend, and leaped upon his mother, crowing and squealing with delight.

Helen waved him farewell as she stepped into the canoe, and the baby waved her a fat square paw in return. Gladys and Eddie were about to follow her, when the Lawyer Ed again interposed.

”No, you mustn't take a load, Rod, this is your first paddle, so get away with you. Now you kids, hop into this boat and you'll be there just as soon as Miss Murray!” he roared. Roderick pushed off afraid to look at his chief lest the overwhelming grat.i.tude he felt might be seen in his face.

Lawyer Ed turned and watched them for a moment. They made a fine picture as they glided up the curving sh.o.r.e under the drooping birches and alders. Roderick kneeling in the stern, straight and strong, with no sign now of the illness he had been through, and the girl in the bow, her blue gown and her uncovered golden head making a bit of colouring perfectly harmonious with the sparkling waves and the sunlit sands.

But Lawyer Ed's gaze was fixed on Roderick. The joy in the Lad's eyes, answered in his own. Lawyer Ed's joys were all of the vicarious sort.