“when mary began recapturing her kingdom she seemed to take it by assault. you can see her jumping back to health since she got out into the garden again, lynette,” said win, watching the three garden girls from the dining-room window.

“she’s perfectly sound in health, so are jane and florimel; jane is the least strong of the three. i’m so happy to see mary’s colour coming back, to know she is safe, that i wonder at myself, win!” said mrs. garden.

win thought that she looked preoccupied.

“seems small wonder to me, lynette,” he said. “i’d expect any one to be happy about that, let alone mary’s mother.”

“oh, of course, if one reasons it out! but i’ve been so utterly outside domestic affairs always! i must go to write a note, win, if you don’t mind. lord kelmscourt is sailing next week; he wants to come here before he goes.”268 mrs. garden gathered up her mail from the table and went toward the door.

“glad to see him, for my part,” said win sincerely. “is he to stay here, in this house?”

“they were nice to me at kelmscourt when i visited there.” mrs. garden’s reply conveyed an excuse. “lord wilfrid won’t stay on long; hardly a second night. anne thought we should be able to manage it quite easily; so did the girls, though i think they looked dismayed.”

win heard her soft laugh as she went out of the door. the garden girls were dismayed; they were discussing the expected guest that moment in the garden; win had noticed from the window that they looked solemn.

“he is coming to ask her to be lady kelmscourt,” said jane decidedly. “he would not come for anything else. in novels they ‘run down to the country’ before they sail for india, or africa, or some land where they are going to get a chance to earn glory in the army, or else to kill some animals who are attending to their own jungle affairs, not meddling with any one in such distant lands. then they ask the heroine to marry them, so they’ll have courage to interfere with those none-of-their-business jungle folk, and she always does! i know!”

269 mary laughed, though she looked troubled. “you say ‘they’ do all this, and the heroine marries ‘them.’ how many of them does the heroine marry, janie?” she asked.

“one at a time, and one is quite enough,” insisted jane, undaunted.

“if madrina marries lord kelmscourt, i don’t see how i can bear it,” florimel declared. “if, when we thought she was dead, we had heard she was alive and was lady kelmscourt, we should have been just as glad and just as excited as we could have been. of course it would be pretty good fun to say, carelessly, to the other girls: ‘my mother, lady kelmscourt, did’ something or other. but it’s not the same when you’ve had her and loved her. there’s no use in my trying to think i’ll enjoy visiting lady kelmscourt’s english castle; i may, but what’s that? and i think just as jane does that madrina will be a—countess, is it? what kind of a lord is lord kelmscourt? madrina knows we can’t have garden parties in the winter, can’t even sit in the garden; she knows there won’t be anything, then, but the house. we like it, but lord kelmscourt has a palace, or a castle, or tower, or something. the moment she spoke of lord wilfrid’s coming,270 i said to myself: ‘farewell, cute little madrina!’”

mary sang significantly: “‘i have so loved thee, but could not, could not hold thee!’ i don’t see why you should bid her good-bye without waiting to find out whether she is going or not, mel. she is altogether changed about hollyhock house—and the garden girls, for that matter! perhaps she’ll stay with them. i’m anxious, but when one is anxious, there’s still hope; one isn’t sure of the worst. i’m sure, whatever happens, we shall not lose her, so we’ve got to be reconciled to keeping her as she likes best to be kept. we can’t be without her, really, though we may have to do without her—do you see that? it sounds like a riddle.”

mrs. garden came down the steps, humming under her breath, looking so girlish and happy that her children’s faces grew proportionately long.

“i was just writing lord wilfrid when he called me on the telephone,” she said. “he is coming, to-night. do you think his room is as it should be, mary? anne says it is, and i hesitate about going to see; she might resent it.”

“oh, madrina, if anne says a room is right,271 there’s no need of any one else giving it a thought!” laughed mary. “i’ll look at it, and put flowers in it by and by. i don’t know how rooms should be prepared for lords, even though they were once chauffeurs! in novels their rooms, all english rooms, seem to lay no stress on any furniture but a bath—valets bring in baths until one’s back aches. as that room has its bath and dressing-room, i shouldn’t know what other furniture to put into it.”

“if the room is right for mr. moulton, for instance, it will be all lord kelmscourt could desire,” said mrs. garden, smiling at mary. “jane, i should like you to drive, when he is to be met; will you, dear? i am going to the station; we’ll all go, but would you mind driving the car?”

“you’re afraid to drive with me, madrina,” jane reminded her honestly.

“not so short a distance through these quiet streets. you look so much nicer than bell on the front seat; your straight young back and shining hair is a pleasanter outlook for a guest than bell’s outlines. bell is not a particularly safe driver yet. you don’t mind, jane?” mrs. garden pleaded.

“not if you are anxious to have lord kelmscourt272 look at the back you like best.” jane assented so unwillingly that her mother glanced at her, with a laugh in her eyes to see how sullenly jane’s eyes glowed under her long lashes, and how the corners of her short upper lip pulled down.

the long, graceful lines of the garden car could not surmount the gloom on the faces of all its passengers, save one, on the way to the station to meet lord kelmscourt. it was a car of a make that always suggests pleasure, its lines are so sweeping, so elegant. but to-day it looked as though it bore three youthful chief mourners. jane still sullenly unhappy, florimel gloomy and angry, mary so intent upon making the best of it that her form of melancholy was the most depressing of all.

mrs. garden seemed to see nothing of all this; she chattered and laughed, and was animatedly blithe, gowned in her most becoming way, her hat and its plumes so shading her face that she looked more than ever her daughters’ eldest sister.

in spite of their disposition to regard lord wilfrid as their natural enemy, the garden girls could not help admitting to themselves that he had an attractive face and air as he came briskly273 down the platform, carrying his own bag, and smiling a welcome to his waiting escort, though they were not minded to welcome him.

mrs. garden received him with pretty cordiality and mary nobly supplemented her. jane was not able to maintain her forbidding manner in the light of this guest’s frank pleasure at seeing her again and finding her driving the big car, in which art he had given her the first lesson. florimel thawed a little, also, in this warmer air, compelled additionally by the laws of hospitality. so they drove homeward under an invisible, but, to mrs. garden, a perceptible, flag of truce.

“mrs. garden wrote me of your splendid courage, miss garden, and of its cruel result. my word, but you’re a plucky girl! i’m no end glad you’ve come through so well. i was greatly distressed while they were all fearful you mightn’t get off with suffering for a time, i assure you,” lord kelmscourt said.

“thank you, lord kelmscourt,” mary replied. “it was not pluck that made me try to help that baby; it was seeing her afire. no one could have kept away from her. i am deeply thankful that i was not seriously harmed.”

“so he knew when i was so ill; madrina wrote him of her trouble,” mary thought, as she answered274 him, and, glancing toward jane, she saw that jane was making mental note of this fact also.

there was a fire on the hearth that night, not needed, but delightful to sit before after the excellent little dinner, which anne provided, had been enjoyed. win had not been under constraint in welcoming lord kelmscourt; there were no reservations in his mind when he told him, truthfully, how glad he was to see him again.

“there’s the telephone! excuse me, madrina, please,” said mary, rising to get the message. “oh, mrs. moulton!” they heard her in the hall, saying into the receiver, as innocently as if this call had not been prearranged between herself and her guardian’s wife. “why, yes, i think we can go for a while. lord kelmscourt is here. all of us? jane, florimel, win? i’ll tell them, mrs. moulton. we’ll be there right away if mother doesn’t mind. good-bye.” machiavellian mary hung up the receiver and returned to the group by the library fireside, innocent and sweet.

“madrina, mrs. moulton asks if we may all go over to her for a short time. will you mind? will lord kelmscourt mind if ‘the children’275 run away to play for an hour or so?” mary asked, with a great effort to keep her manner unconscious at the last words, but feeling a look of guilt creep into her eyes.

“go if you like, mary. please don’t be long. i want lord kelmscourt to know you better, to be able to tell his sister, who is a dear friend of mine, what each of my girls is like; he has known jane and florimel, when he brought them here in the car, but you he has seen but little,” mrs. garden answered her.

lord kelmscourt had laughed when mary made her request. now he arose, and crossed the room to hold the door open for the three young girls as they passed through it.

“i fancy that i know miss mary better than she imagines that i do,” he said, his pleasant blue eyes so full of mischievous kindness that mary’s dropped before their gaze. “i think that she would be a generous foe,” he added, and mary knew that her ruse, which her mother had accepted without criticism, was transparent to her guest.

“i’m not going, mary,” jane announced, after the three, with win, were safely outside the door. “as if i didn’t know you asked mrs. moulton to call us up, and tell us to come over,276 so he’d have a chance to talk to madrina! it’s all right; we’ve got to get out of the way, and let him steal her, but i’m going right up to my room. i don’t want to go anywhere to talk and behave.”

“nor i,” florimel echoed. “jane and i will go upstairs; they’ll never know. when you come back, come in at the side door and whistle up the back stairs, win. we’ll hear and come down, as if we’d been with you, but i couldn’t see a soul while i knew my little toy-mother was getting stolen, just as jane says. my gracious! people lock up their spoons!” florimel added with bitter disgust.

“do you mean to imply that this englishman is spoony?” win suggested, but florimel could not smile. she stalked upstairs, shaking her head, its black braid of hair appropriate to the mourning stamped on the handsome little face below it.

mary and win went on their way, therefore, without the others.

“i’m glad your hands aren’t scarred, mary,” win said, taking one of them to draw it through his arm. “i’ve always been fond of your capable, shapely hands, my dear. that mark on the right one isn’t going to show. there’s romance277 in the air, molly darling! do you know i think that audrey can see me with her opera glasses screwed down to a shorter range than she could before the garden of dreams came off? sometimes i’m tempted to imagine that audrey begins to think of me as a possible rival to wellesley! do you?”

mary laughed and squeezed win’s arm with the beautiful hand which he was glad to know was unmarred. “to tell the truth, win dearest, i haven’t noticed these symptoms of better sight in audrey. but none of us were one bit anxious about her being blind. i’d like to know why she wouldn’t care for you, you splendid old winchester-brother-uncle! i’ve no doubt you’re right,” she declared.

“i’m not going to try to get in the way of her college,” said win, thanking mary with a pressure on the hand in his elbow. “but i’d like to be visible to her, and to know i stood some chance when she came home again.”

“mercy!” said mary involuntarily. “all that time! audrey won’t graduate; she’ll cut off half the course. perhaps i oughtn’t to say so, girls ought to stand by one another, but you’re not conceited, win, so i’m going to tell you that all of the girls feel sure audrey likes278 you a great deal, and only seems to like her college plan better, because she’s so sure of you. there; it’s out! of course audrey honestly longs to study; i don’t mean she doesn’t,” added mary hastily.

the call on mr. and mrs. moulton was a failure. mary’s whole mind was turned backward to the hearthside at home, where she knew that the englishman was doing his best to urge her little mother to leave her fireside, and come to preside over his dignified and important house.

“how long ought we stay, do you think, win?” mary asked after a half-hour, and mr. moulton lay back in his chair to laugh at her.

“‘the considerate daughter, or the tables turned,’ a farce in one act, by miss mary garden, with the author in the title rôle!” he chuckled, turning to his wife to share his amusement.

“really, mary, there is no reason why you should feel called upon to smooth the way to an event which you dread,” observed mrs. moulton.

“it isn’t that, so much,” said candid mary. “i want to feel sure that i didn’t act as horrid as i feel about it; that’s one thing. and another is, if, by great good luck, madrina should decide to stay with us i’d want to feel we got her279 honestly; that we hadn’t tried to keep her by tricks.”

“that’s the way to feel,” mr. moulton approved her. “if you can’t win a game without peeping at the cards, or slyly moving your ball with your toe, then by all means lose the game. it’s worse than lost if it’s won by tricks, hey, mary?”

“i suppose that’s what we feel, sir,” smiled mary, rising to go.

mark accompanied her and win homeward, as a matter of course. “well, i’m sure i hope with all my heart your mother will not leave you for this lordly chauffeur of yours,” mark said as they sauntered along. “she seems very young and merry to settle down here in vineclad. to be sure you are a great deal younger, yet it would seem natural for you to settle down here, all three of you. but you belong to vineclad, whereas your mother seems like a bit broken off of another world.”

“that’s just it, mark!” win said. “that’s lynette.”

“yes, but gradually, and especially since i was burned, she seems to be getting cemented on to our world,” mary said wistfully.

“the englishman is lucky to have so much280 to offer her, if he cares for her,” said mark. win looked over at him across mary, surprised at the discouraged note in the young voice.

“why, mark, what’s up?” he cried.

“nothing. nothing down, either; as down as that sounded,” returned mark. “but i see things as they are, young as i am. mr. moulton is fine, as good to me as a man can be, and i’m getting on with the work in a way that satisfies him—and he is exacting for his beloved science!—and fairly to satisfy myself. but how shall i ever get on in the world? i’m slightly lame; i’m doing underground work, though i do love it. if i—if i cared about a girl, ever, what would be the use? i’m not ungrateful; i surely love my work, but a young chap does like to see daylight, or at least a crack where it could come in.”

“there surely is romance in the air, as i told mary to-night,” thought win, looking sidewise at the fair, quiet face beside him, which gave no sign whether she had a suspicion of what this might mean or not. “boys are not worrying much about the future unless they have seen the girl,” thought win. “and mark would be blind not to see that mary was indeed the girl of girls!”

281 “i wouldn’t get impatient, mark,” he said gently. “there’s a lot of time for a boy under twenty. since things have worked so well for you thus far, i’d be content to believe they were going to work out right in the end.”

“i’ll try,” said mark. “i get sort of raging; then i’m ashamed of it.” and win noticed that mary, usually so quick to try to comfort every one’s anxieties, did not raise her eyes nor speak.

mark left his friends at the gate, and mary and win went around to the side door, and whistled up the back stairs, fulfilling their contract. jane and florimel came down to join them, looking more ruffled in spirit than when they had gone up. jane was white to the lips, and her short upper lip would quiver and draw; her eyes had hollows under them and they had retreated into her head in a way they had, as if to conceal their colour, as well as expression, when they were sorrowful. florimel, on the contrary, was dark crimson in cheeks and brilliant eyed; she looked like an embodied young electrical storm.

“i won’t kiss him and call him father, not if he is the king!” florimel declared, stopping short at the door, and nearly upsetting mary’s282 gravity, though she quivered with apprehension of what they were to be told on its further side. the three girls saw, on entering, the same impassive, perfect-mannered gentleman beside the hearth that they had left there.

mrs. garden’s eyes were gentle, her smile newly sweet and kind, as lord wilfrid arose. then her three beautiful young daughters entered. she put out her arms to them with a new, motherly gesture which she had learned by the light of the fire that had nearly cost her mary’s life.

“a pleasant evening, my dearests?” she asked. that was all, but her voice gave jane a swift glow of hope that sent her to her mother’s clasp.

they settled themselves beside the fire, which win replenished.

obedient to mrs. garden’s expressed wish, lord kelmscourt talked chiefly to mary, drawing her out, that he might tell his sister how lovely was this eldest child of her friend, whose talents had once delighted that other world which lynette devon had forsaken. after a quiet and pleasant hour, in which mary found pleasure, and jane and florimel plucked up heart, they could not have said why, lord kelmscourt begged to be allowed to say good-night.

283 “i am to spend to-morrow here; mrs. garden has kindly urged it, and i am promised to be allowed to drive the car many miles, to see as much as i can of this part of your great state. then i go home to england, carrying ineffaceable memories of the only american family i know in its home, and of these three girls whom, i am proud to remember, england may claim a share in, as she gave them their mother,” he said. the little speech had a formality about it that did not prevent its ringing sincere. it also conveyed to the three girls, distinctly, the impression of a valedictory.

when win had gone with lord kelmscourt to his room, mary, jane, and florimel turned with mute insistence to their mother. they did not speak, except through their imploring eyes. mrs. garden went to them, holding out her hands, with her pretty grace, half crying, half laughing.

“you were horribly frightened, weren’t you, my treasures?” she cried. “once i could not have believed that i should have refused the shelter, the honour of that good man’s love, nor the rank and luxury he would give me. but i have found out what it means to be a mother, my little lassies! i could not be less your284 mother, could not leave you again, to mount the throne! let me stay close to you always, my darlings, for every day i shall love you better and grow a better woman in my home. oh, children, when i thought i might lose mary, then i saw, i saw! i couldn’t be lady kelmscourt, dearests, because i want to be nothing and nobody on all the earth but just the garden girls’ little madrina!”