Beth Woodburn | Page 3

old soul, a little sharp-tongued, a relic of bygone days of Canadian life. She had been Dr. Woodburn's housekeeper ever since Beth could remember, and they had always called her "Aunt Prudence."
"What did that gander-shanks of a Mayfair want?" asked the old lady with a funny smile, as Beth was bustling about.
"Oh, just come to bring an invitation to tea from Edith."
Dr. Woodburn entered as soon as tea was ready. He was the ideal father one meets in books, and if there was one thing on earth Beth was proud of it was "dear daddy." He was a fine, broad-browed man, strikingly like Beth, but with hair silvery long before its time. His eyes were like hers, too, though Beth's face had a little shadow of gloom that did not belong to the doctor's genial countenance.
It was a pleasant little tea-table to which they sat down. Mrs Martin always took tea with them, and as she talked over Briarsfield gossip to the doctor, Beth, as was her custom, looked silently out of the window upon the green sloping lawn.
"Well, Beth, dear," said Dr. Woodburn, "has Mrs. Martin told you that young Arthur Grafton is coming to spend his holidays with us?"
"Arthur Grafton! Why, no!" said Beth with pleased surprise.
"He is coming. He may drop in any day. He graduated this spring, you know. He's a fine young man, I'm told."
"Oh! Beth ain't got time to think about anything but that slim young Mayfair, now-a-days," put in Mrs. Martin. "He's been out there with her most of the afternoon, and me with all them cherries to tend to."
Beth saw a faint shadow cross her father's face, but put it aside as fancy only and began to think of Arthur. He was an old play-fellow of hers. An orphan at an early age, he had spent his childhood on his uncle's farm, just beyond the pine wood to the north of her home. Her father had always taken a deep interest in him, and when the death of his uncle and aunt left him alone in the world, Dr. Woodburn had taken him into his home for a couple of years until he had gone away to school. Arthur had written once or twice, but Beth was staying with her Aunt Margaret, near Welland, that summer, and she had seen fit, for unexplained reasons, to stop the correspondence: so the friendship had ended there. It was five years now since she had seen her old play-fellow, and she found herself wondering if he would be greatly changed.
After tea Beth took out her books, as usual, for an hour or two; then, about eight o'clock, with her tin-pail on her arm, started up the road for the milk. This was one of her childhood's tasks that she still took pleasure in performing. She sauntered along in the sweet June twilight past the fragrant clover meadow and through the pine wood, with the fire-flies darting beneath the boughs. Some girls would have been frightened, but Beth was not timid. She loved the still sweet solitude of her evening walk. The old picket gate clicked behind her at the Birch Farm, and she went up the path with its borders of four-o'clocks. It was Arthur's old home, where he had passed his childhood at his uncle's--a great cheery old farm-house, with morning-glory vines clinging to the windows, and sun-flowers thrusting their great yellow faces over the kitchen wall.
The door was open, but the kitchen empty, and she surmised that Mrs. Birch had not finished milking; so Beth sat down on the rough bench beneath the crab-apple tree and began to dream of the olden days. There was the old chain swing where Arthur used to swing her, and the cherry-trees where he filled her apron. She was seven and he was ten--but such a man in her eyes, that sun-browned, dark-eyed boy. And what a hero he was to her when she fell over the bridge, and he rescued her! He used to get angry though sometimes. Dear, how he thrashed Sammie Jones for calling her a "little snip." Arthur was good, though, very good. He used to sit in that very bench where she was sitting, and explain the Sunday-school lesson to her, and say such good things. Her father had told her two or three years ago of Arthur's decision to be a missionary. He was going away off to Palestine. "I wonder how he can do it," she thought. "He has his B.A. now, too, and he was always so clever. He must be a hero. I'm not good like that; I--I don't think I want to be so good. Clarence isn't as good as that. But Clarence must be good. His poetry shows it. I wonder if Arthur will like Clarence?"
Mrs.