A GOOD NEIGHBOR

Miss Benslow was wont to refer to her weather-beaten house, woefully in need of paint, as "the homestead." In her grandfather's time the place had been a small farm, but Cy Benslow had sold all of it but a couple of acres to Portland people who had put up cheap summer cottages.

The house was set back some two hundred feet from the sea and a few Balm-of-Gilead trees relieved the monotony of the wind-swept landscape.

Madge Lindsay had found places for a couple of hammocks, which Fred Whitcomb observed with satisfaction on his arrival with his charge.

"You're perfectly welcome to them," Miss Lindsay assured him. "Did you ever play the rÔle of a head of cabbage for six weeks?"

"Is it anything like a blockhead?" inquired Whitcomb. "I've played that all my life."

"Yes, they're ever so much the same," drawled Madge. Perhaps she had affected a drawl to offset her devoted mother's snappy, nervous manner. At any rate, it was second nature now. "You're not allowed to have an idea when you're assigned the rÔle of cabbage head; so it amounts to the same thing as your limitation."

"Thanks awfully," returned Whitcomb. "It's worth everything to discover sympathy." He was establishing King in a steamer chair on the piazza while they were talking: a precarious piazza it was, with a list to leeward.

Mrs. Lindsay looked on solicitously and held ready a steamer rug. "These slanting boards used to make me seasick at first," she said, "but after a while you don't mind anything here, the air is so divine and there's so much of it." She extinguished King's evident shiver with her rug.

"Thank you, Mrs. Lindsay," he said. "Do you guarantee that in a short time I shall act and feel less like a shaky old woman? Or, perhaps, I'm more like a baby. Whitcomb's brought everything along but a nursing-bottle, and his beefiness makes me feel like a rattling skeleton."

"Oh, just be a cabbage, Mr. King," advised Madge, "and you'll come out all right. You know how much stress is laid on thinking these days. Don't think a shaky old woman, and don't think a baby, but think a cabbage. It's the most restful thing in the world; and there's nothing and nobody here to inspire a thought."

"You have neighbors," said King, "according to Whitcomb. A cousin of mine, Mrs. Porter, is staying here with Miss Barry. Mrs. Porter is the sort to inspire even a cabbage."

"Not when she's being one herself," returned Madge. "She's a music teacher! Who can blame her? I know if I were one, I'd be a murderess too.—Yes, they are over there, and so is Linda Barry. I hope neither of you is attached to her, for I think she's the coldest, most impossible girl I ever met."

"Surely you know of her sorrow?" said Whitcomb, and his expression was a reproach to the girl's drawling speech.

"Oh, so you are attached! Forgive me, won't you? All the same, if I'm ever in mourning I'm determined not to freeze my sister-woman and slink away from her into by-ways."

"Madge, dear," warned Mrs. Lindsay.

"Oh, Mother and Miss Barry have had some traffic over ferns; and Mrs. Porter's offishness is different from Linda Barry's. She's a queen, Mrs. Porter is. I'd take lessons of her just for the companionship, only that she'd think I thought I had a voice."

"And so you have, a very nice one," chirped Mamma.

"Her goose is such a swan," exclaimed Madge, with a lazy smile. "No one should be without a mother."

"Shoo, all of you," said Whitcomb, motioning with his hands. "I want King to go to sleep."

The convalescent's eyes closed as his head rested against the pillow of his reclining chair. "There goes Whitcomb, again," he announced through his nose. "Baby always goes to sleep in his carriage when he hits the oxygen, you know."

"No, no, Mr. King. Cabbage, cabbage," exclaimed Madge in reminder, as she jumped off the rickety steps.

Her acquaintance with Whitcomb had been very casual heretofore. There had been a few hours in New York and a few hours in Chicago at various times when cousinly amenities were exchanged; and now, as her youthful vitality had reasserted itself, the rÔle of vegetable was becoming a frightful bore, and this invasion of the two young men restored an interest in life.

There was a level plain back of Miss Benslow's house and Madge had discovered signs that previous boarders had essayed to play tennis there. She led Whitcomb to it now.

"Don't you think we might fix it up?" she asked.

He looked dubiously at the tufts of grass. "And crack a few tendons over these hummocks?" he suggested. "Do you play much?"

Her dark eyes gave him a provocative glance. "I might surprise you," she drawled.

"Good enough. It will be better than nothing."

"Which? A girl antagonist or the court?"

"I'll tell you that later."

"Then go and ask Luella for a scythe and a lawn mower. Let's begin right off. I'm aching to play."

"Don't believe I can this afternoon," returned Whitcomb, rather consciously. "I ought to go over to Miss Barry's and call the first thing."

"Oh, yes. I forgot the attachment." Madge's dark, tanned face lighted brilliantly with a gleam of white teeth. She feigned a shiver. "Be careful that she doesn't freeze you. To call on Linda Barry seems an intrepid act to me."

"You didn't grow up with her."

"I suppose she's really charming when one knows her," said Madge, as they turned away from the potential court and strolled toward the house. Whitcomb's manner as he replied had suggested danger. "She's certainly lovely to look upon."

"You haven't seen her yet in a normal condition," he replied, somewhat mollified. "People can't get over shocks like hers in a minute. This must have been a great place for her, though."

Whitcomb's eyes swept the vastness of sea and sky.

"If you don't find her much improved, tell her of the cabbage stunt," said Madge. Then she pointed out to her companion the low, broad, shingled cottage, clinging to the rocky shore, and turned away toward the house.

"To-morrow morning for the tennis court," said Whitcomb gayly as he left her.

"How tiresome," she thought. "That Barry iceberg will never like me, and now Fred will want to drag her into everything. If only Mr. King had his sea legs."

She looked disapprovingly toward the piazza, where the convalescent's clear-cut face showed, sleeping against the blue chintz pillow.

"Where has Fred gone, dear?" asked her mother's voice at her elbow. The sharp eyes had witnessed her child's desertion.

"Gone over to call on Linda Barry. I think that's all he came here for."

"H'm. Shows Fred's not mercenary. Still, you know, things aren't going to turn out so badly as people expected. I had a talk with Fred this morning and he's quite optimistic. It seems that that Mr. King is the hero of the whole affair. I'll tell you about it sometime. Hasn't he an aristocratic face!" added Mrs. Lindsay, with an approving snap of her eyes toward the steamer chair.

"I wanted to fix the tennis court. I wish that human Thermos bottle was in Kamchatka."

Mrs. Lindsay laughed. "They retain heat as well as cold, remember. Perhaps Fred knows what is inside that one better than you do."

Madge yawned and put an arm around her mother as they walked toward the house. They were excellent friends.

The following morning, when Whitcomb had finished ministering to the convalescent's needs, and had placed him comfortably in the hammock, he was ready for the tennis court proposition.

It proved that Luella's lawn mower was an antique whose working days were over; and she indicated to the young people a house where one could be borrowed. It was not Miss Barry's cottage!

When they had traversed some distance across the field on the errand, a demurely stepping figure approached them. It was a very young girl in a blue frock, bareheaded, and carrying with great solicitude a bowl covered with a napkin.

As she approached, Whitcomb recognized her, and it was with some relief that she recognized him, bareheaded, and in khaki trousers and sweater, with a general appearance of being long for this world. He was laughing and talking with Luella's boarder in a reassuring manner, and when his eyes fell upon her, he spoke. "Why, good-morning, Blanche Aurora."

"Good mornin', Mr. Whitcomb," she responded loudly in her best manner and with a sharp glance at the dark young lady in the rose gown.

"Whither away, Blanche Aurora?"

"I'm carryin' jell to the king," she announced.

"What's this?" Fred's eyes lighted curiously on the snowy napkin. "Something nice for King, eh? Bertram the first?"

"Lemon jell," announced Blanche Aurora, with a proud accession of lung power, and an evident desire not to be delayed.

"Well, Mr. King's over there in a hammock," said Whitcomb, looking doubtful. "I don't believe I need to go back."

"Go back? Of course not!" cried Madge.—"Ask for Mrs. Lindsay when you get to Miss Benslow's and she'll see to it. Come on, Fred."

Blanche Aurora gave the young lady one look, as cold and impersonal as china-blue optics are capable of bestowing, and moved on her way. Call for Mrs. Lindsay! Not likely, now that she knew the king was easy prey in a hammock.

"But poor King," protested Whitcomb, as he followed Madge's determined march. "Is it fair? No cotton for his ears."

"Oh, she probably won't see him at all. The young one will give the jelly to Mother and she'll attend to it."

Little Madge Lindsay knew of the swelling heart beneath the blue gingham frock. Blanche Aurora's confused and excited meditations had conferred royalty upon the mysterious stranger, and should she find him informally wearing a crown in his hammock, it would not astonish her in the least.

Arriving at the Benslow house, she cast glances askance toward piazza and windows, fearing that some one might inquire her business; but it was ten-thirty in the morning, a busy time for housekeepers, and she proceeded unmolested toward the Balm-of-Gilead trees.

One hammock hung empty, its fringes stirring but lightly in the protected nook to which the trees owed their life.

The visitor caught sight of fair hair on the pillow of the second swinging couch, and continuing from the head a long black chrysalis.

She approached eagerly. King, glancing around at a sound, suddenly saw beside him a blue-clothed figure with long, white, pipe-stem legs, and white sneakers. The newcomer's red braided hair glinting in the sun was surmounted by a voluminous blue bow.

As he turned his head, the better to see his visitor, she burst forth in one breath: "I'm Miss Belinda Barry's help, Blanche Aurora Martin, Blanche Aurora for short, and I've brought you a snack, O King."

The invalid turned, chrysalis and all, the better to view the bowl being extended to him.

"Why—why"—he said, exhibiting broadly the teeth Linda had commended,—"somebody is being very kind to me."

"It's Miss Barry; but I made the jell and she sent it with her compliments. Snacks is good for folks that's sick and delicate."

As she spoke, the visitor was devouring the royal features with intent to verify her suspicion concerning the new photograph, and to understand the great man's influence on Miss Linda.

"What did you say was your name?"

"Blanche Aurora."

"Well, you're a very kind little girl. Do you say that jelly is for me?"

"Yes, and you'd better eat it right off, O King, 'cause the middle o' the mornin' is the time for snacks. I've got a spoon in here,"—she took off the napkin and revealed it. "If you eat it now, you see, I can take the bowl back; 'cause if it once gits in with Luella's things, no tellin' when we'd ever see it again."

King's gray eyes twinkled. "Blanche Aurora, you're a joy," he declared mildly, "and never in my life have I seen anything look so good as that jelly."

"It is good, O King," admitted the visitor, stentorianly modest. "It's got orange juice in it, too."

"Then, get that chair over there under the tree, and bring it here where you'll be more sociable; and would you mind getting the pillow out of the other hammock so I can be royally propped up. If I'm a king, nothing's too good for me, eh?"

"Of course, nothin's too good for you," declared Blanche Aurora solemnly, as she carried out his directions.

"I'm afraid somebody has been—well—stringing you, to put it informally, concerning myself," remarked the invalid when his visitor had propped his shoulders to her liking. "If my head should lie any uneasier if it wore a crown, the game wouldn't be worth the candle. Could you pull that pillow a little higher—there, that's fine. Now, then, for the jelly."

The visitor took it from the chair, and handing it to him, seated herself, with her demurest company manner.

"One thing more, you good child. Can you tuck the end of that rug under my feet?"

"Is your feet cold?" asked Blanche Aurora sharply as she jumped up and complied. "Do you wish you had a hot-water bag?"

"I dare say Whitcomb brought one."

"But the hens can lend you all you want," declared Blanche Aurora earnestly. "They don't need 'em this weather."

"The hens? What sort of a place have I got into?"

So the visitor explained Luella's invention, and King laughed till he was weak, while the little girl eyed him solemnly.

"Do stop," he begged. "Spare me this last humiliation of being in the old hen's class. Now, Blanche Aurora, here goes." And he began an appreciative attack on the jelly.