Fran | Page 5

He temporized rather weakly, "But you came here alone."
"But I'm not going away alone," said Fran. Her voice was still damp, but she had kept her resolution dry.
In the gloom, he vainly sought to discern her features. "Whose little girl are you?" he asked, not without an accent of gentle commiseration.
Fran, one foot on the first step of the stile, looked up at him; the sudden flare of a torch revealed the sorrow in her eyes. "I am nobody's little girl," she answered plaintively.
Her eyes were so large, and so soft and dark, that Abbott was glad she was only a child of fourteen--or fifteen, perhaps. Her face was so strangely eloquent in its yearning for something quite beyond his comprehension, that he decided, then and there, to be her friend. The unsteady light prevented definite perception of her face. He noted that her legs were thin, her arms long, her body slight, though there was a faint suggestion of curving outline of hips and bosom that lent an effect of charm.
There was, in truth, an element of charm in all he could discern. Even the thin limbs appealed to him oddly. Possibly the big hat helped to conceal or accentuate--at any rate, the effect was somewhat elfish. As for those great and luminously soft black eyes, he could not for the life of him have said what he saw in them to set his blood tingling with feeling of protecting tenderness. Possibly it was her trust in him, for as he gazed into the earnest eyes of Fran, it was like looking into a clear pool to see oneself.
"Nobody's little girl?" he repeated, inexpressibly touched that it should be so. What a treasure somebody was denied! "Are you a stranger in the town?"
"Never been here before," Fran answered mournfully.
"But why did you come?"
"I came to find Hamilton Gregory."
The young man was astonished. "Didn't you see him in the tent, leading the choir?"
"He has a house in town," Fran said timidly. "I don't want to bother him while he is in his religion. I want to wait for him at his house. Oh," she added earnestly, "if you would only show me the way."
Just as if she did not know the way!
Abbott Ashton was now completely at her mercy. "So you know Brother Gregory, do you?" he asked, as he led her over the stiles and down the wagon-road.
"Never saw him in my life," Fran replied casually. She knew how to say it prohibitively, but she purposely left the bars down, to find out if the young man was what she hoped.
And he was. He did not ask a question. They sought the grass-grown path bordering the dusty road; as they ascended the hill that shut out a view of the village, to their ears came the sprightly, Twentieth Century hymn. What change had come over Ashton that the song now seemed as strangely out of keeping as had the peacefulness of the April night, when he first left the tent? He felt the prick of remorse because in the midst of nature, he had so soon forgotten about souls.
Fran caught the air and softly sang--"We reap what we sow--"
"Don't!" he reproved her. "Child, that means nothing to you."
"Yes, it does, too," she returned, rather impudently. She continued to sing and hum until the last note was smothered in her little nose. Then she spoke: _"However_--it means a different thing to me from what it means to the choir."
He looked at her curiously. "How different?" he smiled.
"To me, it means that we really do reap what we sow, and that if we've done something very wrong in the past--_ugh!_ Better look out-- trouble's coming. That's what the song means to me."
"And will you kindly tell me what it means to the choir?"
"Yes, I'll tell you what it means to the choir. It means sitting on benches and singing, after a sermon; and it means a tent, and a great evangelist and a celebrated soloist--and then going home to act as if it wasn't so."
Abbott was not only astonished, but pained. Suddenly he had lost "Nobody's little girl", to be confronted by an elfish spirit of mischief. He asked with constraint, "Did this critical attitude make you laugh out, in the tent?"
"I wouldn't tell you why I laughed," Fran declared, "for a thousand dollars. And I've seen more than that in my day."
They walked on. He was silent, she impenetrable. At last she said, in a changed voice, "My name's Fran. What's yours?"
He laughed boyishly. "Mine's Abbott."
His manner made her laugh sympathetically. It was just the manner she liked best--gay, frank, and a little mischievous. "Abbott?" she repeated; "well--is that all?"
"Ashton is the balance; Abbott Ashton. And yours?"
"The rest of mine is Nonpareil--funny name, isn't it!--Fran Nonpareil. It means Fran, the