The Little Lonely Girl

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Title:     The Little Lonely Girl
Author: Octave Thanet [More Titles by Thanet]

The golf links were picturesque; spreading along the shore or climbing through the heart of the island set in the great river; here and there a vista of the huge bulk of the arsenal-shops; walled over the river by the hills behind opulent, bustling little cities, the fair greens jeweled by the sun and dappled with shadow from trees older than the Louisiana Purchase. A breeze shifted the shadows. Willy Butler felt its touch on his wet forehead.

He half turned to take out his handkerchief. In the act he saw her. It was the same girl who had followed the course yesterday. She was alone, just as she had been alone yesterday.

The gallery was bobbing like the crest of a wave over the brow of the hill; the carriages and machines glittered in slow pomp after the rope, while the favorites and their caddies marched over the slope toward the bunkers. But Willy and Dickson had only this one follower, a little lonely figure, slim and straight and nimble, in white linen, whose brown arms and brown face against her dazzling gown made the effect of a Russian eikon minus the gold-incrusted robe. She halted when Willy halted. With impersonal interest she watched Dickson make a strike. At the clean, beautiful drive she nodded approval. Then her black brows met in a slightly worried frown. Willy, club in hand, was aware of the frown. He was aware--in a sort of subconscious way--that she wanted him to play well; and he was acutely aware that he had not played well this afternoon. Even his direction, which had always been his best ally, had not kept its form. Twice had he gone into the rough, losing a shot each time, despite his really hair-raising recoveries. Now the other man was two up, with only four more holes to play. At best Willy could but halve this hole, at best, with a perfect approach and a long putt. "A duffer at golf, like everything else!" ran his own bitter comment to himself. He didn't know why he looked up; swinging his club for a trial stroke on a leaf. Look he did, however, to catch the dark eyes of the little lonely girl intently watching him. If she had called to him aloud "Brace up!" he couldn't have heard the words more distinctly. He almost thought he did hear them, and gave the child an involuntary, half-starved smile.

With the same smile on his lips he sent a faultless approach into easy putting distance, and he felt absurdly pleased because she clapped her hands. They halved the hole. Dickson, the Harvard champion, looked bored as he sank on the bench by the red water-cooler. He had been Willy's classmate a year ago at college, knowing him as the man who makes all the best societies and "leads the life" may know the recluse who makes none; he was conscious of a certain irritation peppering his cool superiority. To think of the millions that shuffling, cowed-looking, insignificant chap would have, while he, Dickson, had to slave on a salary. A duffer who couldn't even win a golf game that belonged to him, because he was rattled! Dickson felt that the ways of Fate were scandalous.

Willy had limped up. The day before he had blistered his heel somehow, and every step cost a pang. He eased the lame foot by resting his weight on the other. His gray-blue eyes, which only his dead mother had ever found handsome, scanned with a certain wistfulness Dickson's graceful, athletic figure and clean, dark profile. His own profile was irregular and his figure was awkward, with arms too long and shoulders too square for harmony; he stooped in an ungainly fashion, as if he had the habit of musing as he walked; his plain face was deeply freckled. Yet as there was a suggestion of strength in the figure, so there was the same suggestion in the young mouth and chin, and something clear and strangely innocent, for a young man, looked out of his eyes. As he stood, every muscle seemed to sag; he appeared utterly spent; but the instant Dickson had driven he stepped alertly into his place and sent a drive like a bird sailing far beyond Dickson's dot of white on the green. Somehow a new uplift of energy and hope had come to him; bless that kid, he would show her that he could still do something with the sticks! He heard her whispered, unconscious "Beauty!" This time he kept his head straight, but when the hole was won, he met her smile frankly with another. The next hole was easy. He had steadied; he had his nerve back; every calculation worked; and when Dickson stymied, it was a simple trick (the like of which he had practiced often) to hop over the ball and roll into the hole, to the artless joy of his caddy. "You're going to be the champeen," this worthy told Willy when they trudged on; "guess that young lady's a mascot."

"I guess she is," said Willy. He was sure of it when at the home hole, guarded by a high hedge, Dickson's ball was sliced into the stubborn net of osage-orange roots. When his own ball sailed cleanly over the wall he made an excuse of tying his shoe in order to get another view of "that kid's" brilliant smile. The girl herself went on to the bench in sight of the blackboard. Here she found herself beside an elderly man with a great head of thick gray hair. He was clapping so vigorously that she took him to be Willy's father, and sent him a glance of sympathy. "You been all 'round with him?" said he. "What sort of a game is he playing?"

"Pretty bad until the fifteenth, and then a wonder," she returned calmly.

"Rattled!" he snorted in disgust, as he chewed his cigar out of shape. "First match game. How are the others? What's his chance?"

"He can beat them all if he will only think so," she returned in the same even tone. Her voice was fuller, with a different and more melodious intonation than those about him; he looked up at her quickly, as if from a passing sense of the difference.

"Yes, he's rattled!" grunted the elderly gentleman. "Gone stale, practicing every minute. Too anxious. Wants to please his father by getting a little silverware."

"Aren't you his father?"

"Me? No. His father could buy me up out of his pocket-money. His father is Hiram G. Butler. I'm only his boss. He's learning the steel business with me. I wish I was his father; he's a genius in his way."

"I suppose his father is awfully proud of him."

"Proud nothing!" exploded the stout gentleman. "His father has bought and sold and fought inventors so long that when he discovered that his son was hatching formulas for open-hearth steel he was disgusted. Then at college Will took honors in chemistry and was a grind; and when his father wanted to load him with money, and told him to go ahead and make all the societies, he sent the money back and said he didn't know any boys in societies; the boys who ran after him were only after his money and the other boys didn't want him. The trouble simply is he is too all-fired shy and modest. Takes his father's word he is a failure because he couldn't make their fool societies. How should a fellow who has spent his life in English schools and traveling about with a tutor, and then is dumped into Harvard, be expected to make a splash among those snippy young swells? Harvard's no violet cold-frame! The other boys did, but they were chips of the old block, hard as nails and hustlers from 'way back. And since his mother died this poor chap has had nobody to chirk him up. Father didn't mind until the other boys died. All three in one year; pretty tough on their father. Pretty tough. Ever lose--ur-r!--any one in your family? Then you know. Now Willy's the only child, and his father wants to make him over in his brothers' image. Wants to give him a wife to help! And Willy so scared of a petticoat he walked two hours up and down before the Somerset Hotel at his first college dance trying to screw up courage to go in--and couldn't. Hiram never will get over that. But Willy, though he won't marry to please his father, is fond of the old dictator just the same. And mighty proud. That's why he has worked so at golf. Trying to show he can do some things like other boys, you see. Well, I see that Harvard dude has got his ball on the green at last. Now it's up to Willy--Didn't I tell you? In all right! Shall--Oh!" It was a singularly small, soft "Oh!" which the elderly man uttered, and it slipped out of his rugged lips when he caught the shy flash from Willy's eyes at the girl. He studied her an infinitesimal space before he spoke, and he turned a chuckle into a cough as he said, "Aren't you Lady Jean Bruce-Hadden and aren't you visiting the Brookes?"

She said that she was, rather indifferently, her gaze still following Willy, who was accepting Dickson's congratulations less awkwardly than was his wont.

"I guess Major Brooke has told you about me, Jabez Rivers--"

But ere he could finish the name, she had held out her hand with a kindling face, crying, "Oh, indeed, yes. I'm ever so glad to meet you, Mr. Rivers."

After this it was only natural to present Willy; but it was a bit of a surprise to have Willy, when presented, say, "This is my mascot, sir. I lost the game and she made me win it."

Willy was astonished at his own fluency; but then he had thought Lady Jean a very young girl, not quite the "kid" that he had styled her, but still hardly a young lady. Then, anyhow, she was different. Oh, very different!

His friend was eying him critically, with queer little grunts, according to his fashion. "You're not fit to walk," he grumbled. "Why will young folks wear shoes that don't fit! Say, you take Lady Jean home while I go over to the club-house with the major. And keep the car if you don't find me. I'll go back with Standish. And--I don't know but you better take her 'round the head of the island and show her that motor mowing-machine--lawn-mower, you know; I want her to see it."

He grinned as the young people obeyed him with grateful docility, speeding away in his electric runabout; and bestowed a look of orphic sagacity upon the officer in white undress uniform who had joined him. The officer was younger than Rivers, although not young.

"That is one of the very finest little ladies in the world," he remarked.

To which Rivers returned dryly, "So you've told me. And that's one of the finest, decentest, cleanest fellows in the world with her."

"As you've told me."

Rivers grunted. "Go over that lingo you told me about the girl again--or I'll repeat to see if I've got it straight. She's the fifth daughter of the Earl of Paisley, Scotch earl, and poor as even a Scotch earl can be. He has no sons. Distant cousin heir to title. Countess dead. Oldest daughter married to Baron Fairley; second, widow of a bishop; third, wife of army officer. Bishopess manages family. She has brought Lady Moira and the earl over here to give American millionaires a chance with Lady Moira, who is the family beauty; and little Jean, who is good as gold, and has sense, but isn't showy, was just thrown in because an old-maid aunt offered to pay her expenses. Your wife, who knew them in Scotland, asked her to come here while the Bishopess, in New York, picks out the most eligible of the millionaire admirers. So?"

"Yes. Well?"

"Come on over to the club-house; and while we rest a bit, you telephone over to Mrs. Brooke, who only needs a tip to go straight, to make Willy Butler stay to dinner--"

"Oh, I say--" began the major.

"No, you don't say anything. You don't ask questions. You have confidence in your Uncle Jabez and do what he asks. Not? "

"I will," said the major, and he went away smiling.

* * * * *

How astonishing to be taking a girl about alone and not be in torments of embarrassment! But this girl was so nice and simple and boyish; not the least like those snippy Boston buds! And she knew golf to the ground; it seemed the most natural thing in the world to ask her if she was going to watch Cleaves play to-morrow.

"I thought I'd follow you," she said quietly. "Do you want to--fire--isn't that what you call it?--your mascot?"

"Will you? Will you really?" he stammered in his pleasure. "I had a sneaking hope, but I didn't d-dare--I feel if you d-do, I'll beat my man; they say he is easy, and then I'll be Cleaves' runner-up and get a cup."

"Why not beat Cleaves and get the big cup?" said she in the same cool tone. "You can if you will. You know perfectly well you can. Promise me you will."

"Here and now?" said Willy, smiling faintly, but the light in her eyes struck a glint in his own. "Done," he added, holding out his hand. Her clasp was cool and soft, but as firm and frank as a boy's.

"And now," said she, "where's your lawn-mower?"

They had reached the head of the island, where there was a beautifully shaven sweep of lawn, but no vestige of mower; Willy's pulses beat a thought faster, and he felt himself a master of stratagem when he suggested their searching for it in an impossible locality at the farther end if the island. He found that she could talk as well about other things as golf. There was no froth in her talk, but she was very witty; Willy, who passed for an abnormally serious young fellow, laughed several times. He confessed to her that it was more like talking to a boy than to a girl to talk to her. "I've always wanted to be a boy," she laughed. "You can play I am one, if you like."

"But I'm afraid you would miss the pretty speeches, and all that."

"I never had any," she answered, with her flashing smile. "Maybe when I'm presented I shall have if we have enough money next year to have me come out. But I don't believe I shall. If you had four sisters all raving beauties and tremendously fetching, and you couldn't even sing a song, do nothing but ride and play tennis--well, you wouldn't expect pretty speeches!"

"Why not? You are pretty, too. You--"

She stopped him with a raised finger and a shrug of her shoulders. He wondered why he had never noticed before what lovely lines pertain to girls' shoulders and how daintily their little heads are set on their smooth olive throats. "Plain truth, you know," said she; "we're playing being two boys."

To save the situation he went on precipitately, "I dare say I know, though. I never was lucky enough to have a sister, but as I had three brothers who did everything I can't do, I know how it feels to--to be out of it."

"But you understand my sisters are splendid and no end nice to me."

"So were my brothers," said Willy loyally.

She looked at him with a quick sympathy. "I know," she murmured. "Mr. Rivers told me. And all in one year. It must have been dreadful."

"Yes, it was. But it was worse when my mother died."

"Oh, yes. I was sixteen when my mother died. And I miss her so now. Don't you?"

"Yes. I was fifteen."

They were both silent. The weight of their piteous memories was on both young hearts, and yet in each was a sense of companionship, of the sympathy of a common pain. The tears gathered slowly in the girl's eyes; she put her hand up her sleeve, but withdrew it empty, and the young man, taking out his own handkerchief, which had surely seen hard usage, looked disconsolately on it before tendering the freshest corner. "It's pretty mussy, but I lost the others," he apologized.

"And you have pockets, too! I lose handkerchiefs to an appalling extent."

"So do I." It was wonderful how many things they had in common--thoughts, opinions, most delightfully human of all, faults. He felt emboldened to say that it must be a great comfort to have a sister; he had always wanted one.

"They're a good deal of a nuisance, most boys think," said she, "but I don't know why. I know I shouldn't have been a nuisance to my brothers and I should rather like to have had one. We might have been pals."

His eyes sparkled; he felt that he was about to make a proposal as daring as it was original; but he made it, clutching the lever under his hand more firmly in his agitation, yet not hesitating. "If we are going to play things, why not play you are my sister? It would be easier than being two boys. You see I should all the time be afraid of forgetting somehow and saying something unbecoming, or too rough, if we played you were a boy."

She had more sense of humor than he, although she was scarcely less innocent; she laughed, saying, "Most boys are rough enough to their sisters. Besides, I don't know you well enough."

"You know me better than any one in the world does," he answered gravely. Their young eyes met and darted away. He thought how lovely her eyes were. Not so much in color or form, perhaps, but in expression. He wished that he could see them that way again. But she had turned away. He was worried lest he might unwittingly have offended her. He knew (for his French tutor had told him) how easy it is for a man to blunder clumsily into a woman's fine reserves and sensitive modesty; it was a great relief to have her turn swiftly toward him again and smile as she said, "But you don't know me!"

"Maybe not; I'm asking you to give me the chance."

"Oh! Is that why? Just to amuse you."

"You know better," said he, "for at least you know me."

"That was disagreeable of me," she admitted penitently. "I do know better. Please forgive me!"

"Then you will play it?" he said eagerly. "You know I did what you wanted. I promised to win the cup."

His first gleam of masterful daring did not displease the girl; possibly, it obscurely gratified her. "But you must be good and win," she said, conceding the point in the immemorial feminine fashion which would always march out of a surrendered keep with flags flying.

"I will be good and win," repeated Willy obediently.

There fell a little silence, during which they had glimpses of soft green woods, of distant harvest-fields and of the shimmer of sunlit waves. Vagrant odors of new-mown hay were wafted to them when the breeze stirred. An oriole's note rose out of the dim forest paths, poignantly sweet. Presently the lad spoke, not so much frightened at his own audacity as amazed at his lack of fear. "Since you are playing my sister, do you mind telling me your name? Did he say Buchanan?"

"No; Bruce-Hadden."

His face lighted as he exclaimed boyishly, "I knew I had known you! And I have--at least, I've seen your picture. You are Oswald Graham's cousin Jean."

"Of course; and you--you are his Yankee friend at Eton, the one who fought him because he said things about America!"

"And jolly well licked I was, too," said Willy gaily. "I didn't even know how to put up my hands; he made a gorgeous mess of me. And then he hunted me up and took it all back. Of course we were chums after that. I was going to visit him in the holidays, but--"

"But he was drowned, trying to save a child."

"He did save her. He always did what he set out to do. And if I had only been there--"

"I understand. He said you could swim like a duck."

"It's the only sport I'm not a muff at," said Willy dismally. "It's just my long arms. But he, he could do anything. I don't suppose I'll ever stop missing him. He was the only boy friend I ever had."

"But you have men friends now," she said gently.

"Yes." He sat up more erect in his seat. "You saw Mr. Rivers. He's the best ever."

"I've heard about how good he is and how gruff. That's the kind I like; no nonsense about them. I hate sissy men, don't you?"

Willy assented, but without animation; he was diffidently searching his inner consciousness as to whether he himself had not been accused of being a sissy. "Sometimes a fellow seems a sissy when he isn't," he offered.

"Oh, often," she agreed heartily; "but the man they want Moira to marry is a genuine muff, a horrid, languid-affected New Yorker who talks like a guardsman and makes fun of his own country. Moira can't endure him; but he offers to settle half a million on her, and we let Effie marry a captain of the line who had only a thousand a year--"

"That was you," interrupted Willy fervently. "You did that. Oswald told me--"

"No, it was dad; he couldn't bear to have Effie so unhappy when I told him how she might go into a decline, she felt so wretched. But you see, having let Effie do that and helping her out, we couldn't afford any more detrimentals, although Jimmy's got his colonelcy and the cross and they are ever so happy. But we can't afford another love match. The bishop is dead and Ellen hasn't very much; and Lord Fairley has a big family; he was a widower with five when Ellen married him, and they have two; and we are so deadly poor. It is really necessary, but it's awful. And I am sure she cares a lot for Reggy Sackville, a kind of cousin of ours who is a barrister, and she is sure he will be a judge, he is so clever; but he couldn't support a wife for years and years. Don't you think it's really and truly awful to have to marry anybody?"

"Awful--intolerable," agreed Willy. "I simply will not."

"And your father wants you--" She looked so sympathetic that Willy broke right in:

"Yes. I never seem able to do anything my father wants. I can't manage men and make friends and run the business as my brothers did. Now he wants me to marry a girl he has picked out for me; and I've got to disappoint him again. I wrote him I'd try to meet his wishes every other way--I'd accept dinner invitations; I'd learn the steel business; I could ride and run an automobile, and I had been up in an airship, and I'd try to win a golf cup; and I'm taking bridge lessons, but--the hand of Douglas was his own, you know."

"I think that's splendid!" cried the girl heartily. "I don't want to; but maybe I shall have to, to save Moira."

"Don't you do it!" he exclaimed. "It makes me sick to think of their trying to force you into such a thing." He did look moved.

"Don't get into such a wax. They can't force me--do I look like a person to be forced?--and poor old daddy of all people in the world! If you just knew him; we're the greatest pals in the world. But there's Moira. If I were to marry some one with a lot of money, she could marry poor Reggy; and Moira couldn't stand being unhappy near so well as I can."

"Who's the man?" growled Willy in a tone of mingled gloom and fury.

"I don't know his name," replied the girl sadly. "It was like this: Dad met his father, and they became very chummy, and they got to talking. He talked about his son, who is a 'nice fellow' with elegant tastes and doesn't like business. Oh, I know, a perfectly odious person."

"Odious," Willy agreed morosely; "a downright sissy! You'd be watched!"

"Yes," sighed Lady Jean; "but Moira would be wretcheder because she would always be thinking of Reggy. And besides"--she grew more cheerful--"men never fancy me; no doubt he'll think I'm too ugly and dowdy, and I'm so shy I shall be hideously awkward."

"You're nothing of the kind!" Willy interrupted; "it--it's the most abominable cold-blooded bargain-and-sale business! And your father told you--"

"Oh, no, he didn't tell me. It was Ellen. She was so pleased; she never had any hopes of me, don't you know; and now she says they won't need to sacrifice Moira. But if the young man doesn't want me, I shan't be to blame. Now tell me about your girl!"

"There's nothing to tell. I never saw her. I don't know her name, even. Only she's got a title; and she is very brilliant and charming and modest, and I'll be lucky. It's another case of parents butting in. All he wants, he says, is for me to see her; I told him I should run away if I knew I were in the same town! But never mind me. Don't worry, little girl. I'll think up a way to save you all right, all right."

His face, as he spoke, was stern and dark. She was sure that he must have great latent strength of character.

Abruptly she changed the subject recalling the elusive mowing-machine and the approach of the Brookes' dinner-hour. Willy was sure that Mr. Rivers would want her to see the mower, it was--was--so typically American; and if he would take her directly and swiftly home, wouldn't she go on another search to-morrow?

"If you win," said she; she felt that she must hesitate at nothing which would give him that cup. "Another thing, don't you give another thought to me; you think every minute of your game. If you distract your mind it may get onto your game."

"I won't let it hurt my game, don't you worry," returned Willy confidently.

Mrs. Brooke had none of the difficulty which she had anticipated in persuading Willy to dine with them; and she wondered what suffering friends of hers who had had his reluctant presence at social functions, meant by their stories. To be sure, he didn't talk much, but he was a most intelligent listener; and he was visibly having a good time.

The next day it was bruited about (no one but Jabez Rivers, who had walked the links with a reporter, could have quite told how) that young Butler was playing a wonderful game. A dozen of the golf lovers deserted the great man and his only less great opponent and saw Willy limp over eleven links, as he beat his man with leisurely ease.

That afternoon, while again searching for the mowing-machine which that unsuspected but efficient emissary of the Blind God, Jabez Rivers, had advised them to be sure to find--after with his own eyes he had seen it trundling into the garage--Willy submitted his plan of rescue. They were rolling noislessly along a wide avenue, above which the great elm boughs made a vaulted arch like the groined vault of a cathedral. Through the arches filtered the sunset rose. Willy suddenly stopped the machine. He did not look at her. He clutched the handle of the lever very hard; and she was positive he was pale, a pallor which threw his freckles into high relief. But she was thinking of anything else than freckles.

"I've thought it all out," said Willy very firmly, "and I wouldn't bother you the least little bit, not the least. And we think alike about so many things. I believe I could make it all right with your people. I can do anything, when you are backing me. It would ease my mind awfully; I should be sure to win the cup. I know that would please my father, and he'd help us, maybe. Besides, I've a fortune of my own; I'd settle it all on you--"

"What do you mean?" cried Lady Jean.

"You wouldn't need to marry anybody else if you married me," said Willy.

"My word!" gasped Lady Jean. "But you told me you didn't want to marry anybody."

"I shouldn't mind you so much," said he.

She was thoughtful, her own mind a chaos to herself. She stole a furtive glance at his miserable face; something tender and compassionate and strange made her lips quiver, but she set them closely.

"You would be making an awful sacrifice for me?"

He did not deny it.

"It would be an awful sacrifice for me, too."

"I know," he acquiesced sadly.

"Still--I suppose you ought to have your mind settled before to-morrow or it will get on your game."

"Yes, that's just it! I'd be awfully grateful--"

Without any warning she began to laugh. "I think you are the funniest boy in the world! I don't want to marry anybody. I want to live with daddy and take care of him and be like Aunt Jean, but if I have to marry anybody, I'd rather marry you. Shall we let it go at that for the present?"

"You are awfully good," cried the boy. He wondered at the extraordinary calm, almost elation, of his mood. That he should be engaged to be married and not be revolving suicide! He had read of the exaltation of self-sacrifice--maybe this was it. But how hard it must be for her.

"I'll make it just as easy for you as I can--dear." He added the last word very softly. Probably she didn't hear it, for she answered in her ordinary tone, not in the least offended, that she knew he would, then immediately demanded a sight of the mowing-machine; since it wasn't there, he would better take her home.

"Don't you begin to love this island?" he said, as he obeyed her.

"It is lovely," she said: "I never thought I could really like any place without mountains, but I do."

"I love mountains," said Willy.

"They were again surprised at their similarity of taste. Motor-cars and carriages passed them continually; luxurious open vehicles, victorias and golf-carts and automobiles with their hoods lowered, disclosing billows of diaphanous feminine finery and pretty, uncovered girlish heads. Willy marveled over his own ease as he returned greetings punctiliously. A week ago he would have raced his horse into the darkest woodland road to escape a passing salute, the hazard of a little casual badinage.

"How pretty American girls are," said Lady Jean a little wistfully; "such lovely wavy hair."

Willy's glance furtively took note of her sleek brown head and the heavy braid between her slim shoulders, which had caused him to think her a child.

"I don't much like this corrugated hair," said he carelessly; "it looks so machine-made."

Lady Jean declined all proffers of seats, even Rivers' invitation to a place by him in his runabout. She was going to walk; one could see better walking. Which was entirely correct, but was not her most intimate reason; in truth she could not endure to be sitting at her ease while Willy, footsore and weary, would be doggedly tramping after his ball. He presented rather a grotesque figure, did Willy, that eventful morning, being shod as to his sound foot with one of his own neat golf shoes, but as to his left (thanks to the ministrations of Rivers), with one of the latter's ample slippers over swathings of bandage soaked in healing-lotion. Every caddy on the ground (except Willy's) was in secret ecstasies over his appearance. "We ain't out for a beauty prize, but the champeen golf cup," says the faithful Tommy haughtily. "Yes, that's a bottle of liniment. I wet him up with it between whiles. He's in terrible agony. But he don't mind long's he can keep limber. And say, jest git onto our game, will you? Two up, and first round over."

Tommy and Jean were waiting when the first round ended, Rivers having taken the Brookes to the luncheon-tent to secure seats for them all. The game that morning had surprised all but the newspaper men and the few who had followed Willy the day before. The only hope of the friends of the champion lay in the possible exhaustion of the lame wonder whose unerring approaches were even more dangerous than his drives and his putts. "If his foot holds out," Rivers said to Brooke, "he's got the cup."

And at this very moment, as if fate conspired against Willy's chances, a frightful commotion arose. Willy, talking to Jean a moment about the game, could see the gay groups outside the white tent scatter in violent agitation with waving hands; could hear an uproar of shouts and screams. There came a quick change in Lady Jean's face, in every face near--the caddy's, the young red-jacketed officer's at the blackboard, the women's faces in a passing carriage. At first no intelligible sound penetrated the din; but in a thought's time a blood-curdling cry tore out of a score of throats, "Mad dog! Mad dog!" as men with golf-irons and pistols, raced toward the little group on the links, after a foam-flecked, glaring-eyed, panting little beast. The creature made straight for Tommy, who fled like a deer; but his foot hit the marker, and he stumbled and fell. It seemed in the same eyeblink that the dog was on the child and Willy Butler was on the dog, his bare hands twisting its collar into a tourniquet.

With one impulse Lady Jean and the young officer each snatched a golf-club and sprang to help him. "Keep off!" he cried. "I can hold him. Get a strap; we have to keep him alive to find out--Jean! For God's sake--"

His heart seemed to stand still. Lady Jean had dropped on her knees by the dog, shielding him from the young officer's club. "Don't," she said; "he's not mad! It's Mrs. Brooke's dog--Why can't you see? The poor brute's wagging his tail!"

"He is," said Willy; "hold up, boys! A mad dog doesn't wag his tail." He released the tourniquet sufficiently to free a piteous whimper. A second later he lifted his hand off the dog, which wriggled into Lady Jean's compassionate arms as a voice announced, "That's not the dog!"

The real mad dog--if mad he were--had been despatched by a single shot from a soldier's gun, rods away; but a panic-stricken crowd had used the customary judgment of panic, and pursued the wrong dog.

"And now," wrathfully declared Jabez Rivers to his army cronies, "now that poor boy has probably put his wrist out of whack; and his father coming in on the two o'clock train to see him fight for the cup! And this old fool telegraphed for him to come."

Nevertheless he kept a semblance of confidence. And he has always liked Dickson because he was so sure Willy would win. He offered to caddy for Willy; but Willy gratefully declined, because it would break Tommy's heart; Tommy's mother was coming over to see the game. "He's a real dead-game sport," Dickson ended, "and a little thing like a spurious mad dog isn't going to put him out of the running."

Nor did it; Cleaves made up one of his missing holes, but he got no farther; and at the sixteenth hole Rivers and a small, keen-eyed, quiet-looking man stood up in a runabout and shouted while the great Cleaves, bewildered but invincibly courteous, shook hands with Willy Butler.

"You wait until he has cleaned up a bit" advised Rivers; "give the boy's girl a chance first--there they are; she's talking to him now."

Mr. Butler knew who she was; she had been pointed out to him before; possibly having watched her carefully through the progress of the game, he knew something else, being a man who came to conclusions quickly, on occasion. He looked at her now; he looked at Rivers; the only words that escaped his lips--in a very small, low voice--were, "Wouldn't that make a man believe in answers to prayers!"

"Willy's been going some," said Rivers. "I don't know who you've up your sleeve for him, but we've picked out a winner--a sweet, brave, true-hearted little lady. Don't you butt in, Hiram."

"Well, hardly," said Hiram Butler, "since her father and I picked her out first. But, Jabez, blood will tell; I knew Willy had the makings. Now suppose you and I put the young folks into the machine. They can do their courting on the way."

It may be presumed that he knew, although they took their own original way to Arcadia. Fifteen minutes later, in the heart of the woods which they had sought because, although much longer to the club-house by that road, Willy needed its cool refreshment; fifteen minutes later the boy was saying, "I had to write the note because I didn't have a chance to see you. Have you read it?" He looked up tremulously. "I write an awfully blind handwriting always, and to-day, with playing golf and all, it's worse than ever."

"You could read it out to me, you know," said the girl; she pulled the score-card, on which Willy had scribbled, from her sleeve, and both the young heads bent over it. "'Dear Jean,'" read Willy; then he added, "I hope you don't think that presumptuous, but being engaged--"

"No, never mind that; you called me that to-day, already, at the top of your voice, too."

"You scared me stiff--Jean."

"You scared me first--before I knew it was Flukes. You are an awfully reckless boy."

"I will go on," said Willy; "it's short." He read:

"'Dear Jean, I forgot to say one thing yesterday when I asked you to marry me; I love and adore you. Yours very sincerely, William Godfrey Butler.'"

He said nothing more; neither did she say anything for a space. The squirrels watched them with their bright little eyes, and scampered fearlessly up the very tree under which their car had halted. All at once she began to laugh. "My word! but you look miserable, William Butler. I know it is a sacrifice; I made up my mind to release you; I only consented yesterday to make you easy in your mind for the game."

Then he surprised her. "That was yesterday," said he. "To-day I know why all the world has been different ever since I saw you; I knew everything I felt when you ran to that dog--"

"Then it will not be an awful sacrifice for you?"

He took her little cold brown hand; I had forgotten there was such a thing in the world as fear. "It will be heaven for me," he said. "But for you?"

She looked away at the squirrels; she tried in vain to speak in her gay, light tone. "I--I found out something this morning, too."

So Arcady lured two new explorers, who, going through its subtly winding paths, naturally took quite a little while to reach the club-house and the ovation waiting the champion. Just outside the portals Lady Jean uttered a little cry. "Why, I do believe! Why, Willy! There's the motor mower!"

There in the body, resting amid long lines of green stubble, there, indeed, stood the long-sought mower.

"I'm obliged to it," said Willy, "but I don't need it now."

[The end]
Octave Thanet's short story: Little Lonely Girl

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