The S. W. F. Club | Page 5

felt at first in Patience's "mysterious letter."
Patience, herself, was doing her best to play fair; fortunately, she was in school the greater part of the day, else the strain upon her powers of self-control might have proved too heavy.
"Mother," Pauline said one evening, lingering in her mother's room, after Hilary had gone to bed, "I don't believe Uncle Paul means answering at all. I wish I'd never asked him to do anything."
"So do I, Pauline. Still it is rather early yet for you to give up hope. It's hard waiting, I know, dear, but that is something we all have to learn to do, sooner or later."
"I don't think 'no news is good news,'" Pauline said; then she brightened. "Oh, Mother Shaw! Suppose the letter is on the way now, and that Hilary is to have a sea voyage! You'd have to go, too."
"Pauline, Pauline, not so fast! Listen, dear, we might send Hilary out to The Maples for a week or two. Mrs. Boyd would be delighted to have her; and it wouldn't be too far away, in case we should be getting her ready for that--sea voyage."
"I don't believe she'd care to go; it's quieter than here at home."
"But it would be a change. I believe I'll suggest it to her in the morning."
But when Mrs. Shaw did suggest it the next morning, Hilary was quite of Pauline's opinion. "I shouldn't like it a bit, mother! It would be worse than home--duller, I mean; and Mrs. Boyd would fuss over me so," she said impatiently.
"You used to like going there, Hilary."
"Mother, you can't want me to go."
"I think it might do you good, Hilary. I should like you to try it."
"Please, mother, I don't see the use of bothering with little half-way things."
"I do, Hilary, when they are the only ones within reach."
The girl moved restlessly, settling her hammock cushions; then she lay looking out over the sunny garden with discontented eyes.
It was a large old-fashioned garden, separated on the further side by a low hedge from the old ivy-covered church. On the back steps of the church, Sextoness Jane was shaking out her duster. She was old and gray and insignificant looking; her duties as sexton, in which she had succeeded her father, were her great delight. The will with which she sang and worked now seemed to have in it something of reproach for the girl stretched out idly in the hammock. Nothing more than half-way things, and not too many of those, had ever come Sextoness Jane's way. Yet she was singing now over her work.
Hilary moved impatiently, turning her back on the garden and the bent old figure moving about in the church beyond; but, somehow, she couldn't turn her back on what that bent old figure had suddenly come to stand for.
Fifteen minutes later, she sat up, pushing herself slowly back and forth. "I wish Jane had chosen any other morning to clean the church in, Mother Shaw!" she protested with spirit.
Her mother looked up from her mending. "Why, dear? It is her regular day."
"Couldn't she do it, I wonder, on an irregular day! Anyhow, if she had, I shouldn't have to go to The Maples this afternoon. Must I take a trunk, mother?"
"Hilary! But what has Jane to do with your going?"
"Pretty nearly everything, I reckon. Must I, mother?"
"No, indeed, dear; and you are not to go at all, unless you can do it willingly."
"Oh, I'm fairly resigned; don't press me too hard, Mother Shaw. I think I'll go tell Paul now."
"Well," Pauline said, "I'm glad you've decided to go, Hilary. I--that is, maybe it won't be for very long."

CHAPTER II
THE MAPLES
That afternoon Pauline drove Hilary out to the big, busy, pleasant farm, called The Maples.
As they jogged slowly down the one principal street of the sleepy, old town, Pauline tried to imagine that presently they would turn off down the by-road, leading to the station. Through the still air came the sound of the afternoon train, panting and puffing to be off with as much importance as the big train, which later, it would connect with down at the junction.
"Paul," Hilary asked suddenly, "what are you thinking about?"
Pauline slapped the reins lightly across old Fanny's plump sides. "Oh, different things--traveling for one." Suppose Uncle Paul's letter should come in this afternoon's mail! That she would find it waiting for her when she got home!
"So was I," Hilary said. "I was wishing that you and I were going off on that train, Paul."
"Where to?" Paul asked. After all, it couldn't do any harm--Hilary would think it one of their "pretend" talks, and it would he nice to have some definite basis to build on later.
"Anywhere," Hilary answered. "I would like to go to the seashore somewhere; but most anywhere, where there were