The Golden Road | Page 7

long parting if you send me away alone on such a voyage.
Pluck up your courage, and we'll let Townleys and MacNairs whistle
their mouldy feuds down the wind while we sail southward in The Fair
Lady. I have a plan.'
"'Let me hear it,' said Ursula, beginning to get back her breath.
"'There is to be a dance at The Springs Friday night. Are you invited,
Ursula?'
"'Yes.'
"'Good. I am not--but I shall be there--in the fir grove behind the house,
with two horses. When the dancing is at its height you'll steal out to
meet me. Then 'tis but a fifteen mile ride to Charlottetown, where a
good minister, who is a friend of mine, will be ready to marry us. By
the time the dancers have tired their heels you and I will be on our
vessel, able to snap our fingers at fate.'
"'And what if I do not meet you in the fir grove?' said Ursula, a little
impertinently.
"'If you do not, I'll sail for South America the next morning, and many

a long year will pass ere Kenneth MacNair comes home again.'
"Perhaps Kenneth didn't mean that, but Ursula thought he did, and it
decided her. She agreed to run away with him. Yes, of course that was
wrong, too, Felicity. She ought to have said, 'No, I shall be married
respectably from home, and have a wedding and a silk dress and
bridesmaids and lots of presents.' But she didn't. She wasn't as prudent
as Felicity King would have been."
"She was a shameless hussy," said Felicity, venting on the long- dead
Ursula that anger she dare not visit on the Story Girl.
"Oh, no, Felicity dear, she was just a lass of spirit. I'd have done the
same. And when Friday night came she began to dress for the dance
with a brave heart. She was to go to The Springs with her uncle and
aunt, who were coming on horseback that afternoon, and would then go
on to The Springs in old Hugh's carriage, which was the only one in
Carlyle then. They were to leave in time to reach The Springs before
nightfall, for the October nights were dark and the wooded roads rough
for travelling.
"When Ursula was ready she looked at herself in the glass with a good
deal of satisfaction. Yes, Felicity, she was a vain baggage, that same
Ursula, but that kind didn't all die out a hundred years ago. And she had
good reason for being vain. She wore the sea- green silk which had
been brought out from England a year before and worn but once--at the
Christmas ball at Government House. A fine, stiff, rustling silk it was,
and over it shone Ursula's crimson cheeks and gleaming eyes, and
masses of nut brown hair.
"As she turned from the glass she heard her father's voice below, loud
and angry. Growing very pale, she ran out into the hall. Her father was
already half way upstairs, his face red with fury. In the hall below
Ursula saw her step-mother, looking troubled and vexed. At the door
stood Malcolm Ramsay, a homely neighbour youth who had been
courting Ursula in his clumsy way ever since she grew up. Ursula had
always hated him.

"'Ursula!' shouted old Hugh, 'come here and tell this scoundrel he lies.
He says that you met Kenneth MacNair in the beechgrove last Tuesday.
Tell him he lies! Tell him he lies!'
"Ursula was no coward. She looked scornfully at poor Ramsay.
"'The creature is a spy and a tale-bearer,' she said, 'but in this he does
not lie. I DID meet Kenneth MacNair last Tuesday.'
"'And you dare to tell me this to my face!' roared old Hugh. 'Back to
your room, girl! Back to your room and stay there! Take off that finery.
You go to no more dances. You shall stay in that room until I choose to
let you out. No, not a word! I'll put you there if you don't go. In with
you--ay, and take your knitting with you. Occupy yourself with that
this evening instead of kicking your heels at The Springs!'
"He snatched a roll of gray stocking from the hall table and flung it into
Ursula's room. Ursula knew she would have to follow it, or be picked
up and carried in like a naughty child. So she gave the miserable
Ramsay a look that made him cringe, and swept into her room with her
head in the air. The next moment she heard the door locked behind her.
Her first proceeding was to have a cry of anger and shame and
disappointment. That did no good, and then she took to marching up
and down her room. It did not calm her