Molly Browns Orchard Home | Page 6

blushed with pleasure at the compliment to her reading of the
blessed Damozel, for well she knew whom he had in mind. His praise
of Melissa would have merely pleased her as praise of her friends
always did, had she not already been somewhat disturbed by what
Dicky Blount had said to her of Professor Edwin Green and the
beautiful mountain girl.
"I am a silly girl and intend to put all such foolish notions out of my
head," declared Molly to herself. "Surely Professor Green has as much
right to make friends as I have, and I intend to know as many people

and like as many as I can. I am not the least bit in love with Edwin
Green,--but somehow I don't think he and Melissa are suited to one
another."
As the young girl sat reading over her letter, a feeling of sadness and
loneliness took possession of her and, looking up, she surprised a
furtive tear in her mother's eye. Mrs. Brown was reading a letter from
her married daughter Mildred, then living in Iowa where her husband
Crittenden Rutledge was at work as a bridge engineer.
The cabin had begun to fill with people who were leaving decks and
staterooms to hunt up their letters and belongings and generally prepare
themselves for a ten-day trip on the Atlantic.
"Mother, they say this is a small steamer, but it seems huge to me! Did
you ever see so many strange people? I don't believe we ever shall
know any of them. They all of them look at home and I feel so far from
home. Don't you?"
"Now, Molly, please don't get blue or I shall have to weep outright. Of
course we shall come to know most of the passengers and no doubt will
find many charming persons ready to know and like us. Suppose we
hurry up with our letters and go on deck again."
Just then a young man bounded into the cabin, made a hasty survey of
the crowd and came rapidly over to the dark gentleman seated opposite
them.
"Oh, Uncle Tom, how can you stay down in this stuffy cabin? There is
a sunset on the water that is just screaming out to be looked at. As for
that work, you have ten days to attend to those tiresome telegrams and
letters."
"Nonsense, Pierce, I have no idea of waiting ten days for this important
business. You forget the wireless," answered the uncle, looking fondly
at the enthusiastic young fellow, who was so like him except for the
gray hair that it was almost ludicrous.

"Oh, goodness gracious me, where is your holiday to be, with you tied
to your Mother Country with a stringless apron? That is what that old
wireless telegraphy reminds me of," laughed the young man, showing
all his perfect teeth. "Well, I've got your chair and steamer rug all ready
for you and all you have to do is come sit in it."
"Now, Pierce, don't wait on me. Part of having a holiday is to forget
how old I am. When I get these telegrams off, I am going to show you
how skittish I can be and forget all about business. I fancy you will
have to hold me back in my race for a good time. This limerick is to be
my motto:
"Said this long-legged daddy of Troy, 'Although I'm no longer a boy, I
bet I can show You chaps how to go.' Which he did to his own savage
joy."
Mrs. Brown and Molly could not help overhearing this conversation
and at the above limerick they laughed outright. The young man called
Pierce looked at them with a friendly glance and the uncle smiled
another of his rare smiles, which made the ladies from Kentucky feel
that the ocean was not going to be such a terribly lonesome place after
all. They gathered up their belongings and made their way on deck to
view the sunset that was "screaming to be looked at."
"It really is worth seeing, isn't it, Mother? Somehow, though, I never do
like to be made to look at a sunset. The persons who insist on your
doing it always seem to have a kind of proprietary air. Now that young
man wanted to bulldoze his uncle into coming when--when----" Molly
stopped suddenly, realizing that the two men in great-coats, with the
collars turned up to their ears, who had taken their places at the railing
next to her mother, were no other than the two in question.
"You are perfectly right, madam," said the elder, raising his hat. "This
nephew of mine is always doing it. Now I should much rather come on
deck when the sun is down and see the after-glow. The crepuscule