Instead of being scolded for her escapade Molly found herself a sort of heroine. Nothing could exceed the tenderness of her thankful father, nor the interest of all the campers. The signal shots had brought them all back to the camp, and there the two lads went immediately to work to cook for the girl the most wonderful of suppers. Monty had caught some of Melvin’s deftness at the task and was most ambitious to show Molly his newly acquired skill. Also, at the first opportunity, when the Judge had for a moment released his darling’s hand to rise and greet Farmer Grimm coming through the woods, the boy proudly pulled from his pocket a few small coins and displayed them upon his palm.

“See them, Miss Molly? Hmm. Those are mine. My own. I—earned—them—myself!”

He paused so long to let this amazing statement sink into her mind that Melvin called:

“Come on, Mont! No loafing! Fetch another bit of wood and get on your hurry-up step! MerimÉe covered this fire so snug he nigh put it out, but wise enough, too. A fire in the forest isn’t a laughing matter. Look out! Don’t poke it, you clumsy, else you’ll tip over that coffee-pot. First time we’ve had a lady to visit us don’t want to act the blunder-head, do you?”

“Oh! hush, Bugle! No call to bulldoze a fellow just because you happened to be first on the spot! What made you think of carrying that thing, anyway?”

Molly herself drew near to hear the answer. She was wondering at the fact of their jolly comradeship, which was now so evident; and at Monty’s pride over a little money—he who had cared so little for it once. She was wondering at many things, and when Melvin did not at once reply she repeated Monty’s question.

“Melvin, how did you happen to take the bugle?”

“Why—why—I don’t know, but I fancy my mother would say that Providence put it into my mind. My mother believes that Providence has a Hand in everything, don’t you know? Anyhow, I’m glad I did take it. Without it and you hearing it we might have wandered right past that very place—one spot looks so much like another in the woods at night.”

“Melvin, would you sell me that bugle? It was that saved my life, maybe, if the animals I thought about had come or if—Would you?” asked Molly, softly, and with a pathetic clasping of her hands, which trembled again now, as she recalled past perils.“No, Molly, I won’t sell it to you. I’ll give it to you, if you’ll take it that way, and only wish it were a better one. It’s the cheapest made. It had to be, don’t you know?”

For a moment the girl hesitated. She did not like to rob the lad of his only musical enjoyment and she felt that he could not afford the gift. Then she remembered that there were other bugles in the world and that she had but to suggest to her father a sort of exchange for the better, and so satisfy both herself and Melvin. So she said simply:

“I shall prize it as the greatest treasure in the world, and I thank you, I—I can’t say much—I can’t talk when I feel most—but don’t you know how I feel? About my teasing you whenever I had the chance and—and lots of things? I’ll take the bugle if—if ‘you’ll call the slate washed clean,’ as Dolly says, and we can begin all over again?” She held out her hand, entreatingly, and the shy lad took it for a moment, then dropped it as if its touch had burned. A sudden wave of his old bashfulness had swept over him, for though he had gained much self-confidence during those weeks in camp it would be a long time before he conquered the timidity of his nature, if he ever did.

Then she asked Monty how he had earned money in such a place as that and he answered proudly:

“Made myself generally useful. The Prex hired me to wait on him and keep his traps in order sometimes—when the other old ‘Boys’ would let him be ‘coddled.’ Every man for himself, you know, out here. But the Prex is odd. He wants his boots blacked, or shoes, that he puts on after he takes off his hunting ones and I’ve ‘shined’ ’em for him like any street bootblack that ever did my own. Fact! Fancy what my mother would say! Master Montmorency Vavasour-Stark blacking shoes in order to get a bit of pocket-money! But I tell you what, Molly Breckenridge, I like it. I’m going to have one of these dimes made into a watch-charm and wear it always, just to remind me how fine I felt over the first, the very first, cent I ever honestly earned. And it’s taught me one thing. I’ll quit idling. I shall never be a scholar like long-legged Jim, but I’ll do things, I mean it. I’ll find out what I can do best, and I think I can guess that, and then I’m going ahead to do it. I’m going to ask Papa to stop giving me money. I’m going to shock my mother by going to work. But—that Prex is a wise old chap. He’s taught hundreds, likely thousands, of boys to make decent men and he’s trying to teach me. He says—”

“O, Monty! Quit! I’ve broiled that salmon steak to the Queen’s taste and the coffee’s settled as clear as that spring water and—Supper’s ready, Miss Molly Breckenridge. Will your ladyship partake?” demanded Melvin, interrupting.

Such a supper that was! Odd, that all the campers who had fared so heartily just a little while before should suddenly be “taken hungry” again and beg an invitation too. Even Farmer Grimm and his man waited to feast with the others before riding home to carry the good news; then departed, with the forgiven but shame-faced Anton riding between them and with the precious packet of letters transferred from his pocket to his master’s for safe-keeping.

Molly stayed the night to rest; lying snug in her father’s tent while he sat long awake thinking of many things; but mostly thankful for the safety of the little maid whose love and life meant all the world to him. The dear, repentant child; who had not gone to sleep till, all alone with him in the seclusion of his tent, she had clasped her arms about his neck and begged his pardon for all her thoughtlessness.

“It was terrible there in the dark woods when I woke and found I was lost, alone; but that wasn’t half so terrible, it didn’t make me feel half so bad in here,” laying her hand upon her heart, “as it does knowing how unhappy I’ve made everybody and how much trouble given. Seems if I never would be heedless and forget again, Papa dearest, seems if! But I’m just only Molly—and I haven’t much faith in your Molly, Judge Breckenridge!”

What could he do but kiss her quivering lips and smile at the whimsical way in which she expressed her contriteness? And, after all, would he have had her greatly different from what she was by nature, just his great-hearted, impulsive, precious Molly?

Next morning she rode home in great state. With Guide MerimÉe heading the little cavalcade and with masters Melvin and Monty on either side when that was practical for the crowding of the trees, and as van or rear guard it was not. Because the road was straight enough to one who knew it, as did the half-breed hunter, and that happy company followed him with no thought of care. Monty was laden with wild-flowers of every sort for Dorothy; Melvin had store of forsaken birds’ nests, lichens, and curious bits of stone or bark for Miss Greatorex to add to her “collection,” which Mrs. Hungerford assured her would cost more than it was worth to pass the revenue officers. “No matter if it does!” cried the happy teacher, “since it will be such an addition to Miss Rhinelander’s museum.”

The guide brought fish, freshly caught that morning before daybreak, and enough of game to feast even that farm crowd of “hands;” and having tarried long enough to deliver the packet to Mrs. Hungerford, to assure her that her brother was well and more than happy now; that he and the other “Boys” intended to lengthen their vacation by a few weeks, in fact to “stay just as long as they could;” to add that by no means must Molly ride “off grounds” again, alone, and that Anton was not to be punished for his “prank;” and to partake of Mrs. Grimm’s most excellent food and drink. Then he called the lads, now almost reluctant to leave the pleasant place of peace and plenty, and rode away again, they following and looking back again and again, to wave farewell.“I never saw so great an improvement in two boys as in those!” said Auntie Lu, standing to watch them disappear toward the forest, with Molly fast in her arms and Dorothy beside her; then laughed at the rather awkward manner in which she had expressed herself, as she saw Miss Greatorex regarding her. But for once that estimable person was not critical of others’ speech or grammar; and murmured with an air of great content:

“So many more weeks of rest and time to write up my travels.”

Mrs. Hungerford sighed, but conquered the slight loneliness that now oppressed her and set to work herself upon a vigorous correspondence and the carrying forward of a matter her brother had outlined for her. Sometimes in writing these letters she asked Dorothy to sit beside her and would frequently look at the girl as if she were studying her features or her manner. At such time Dolly felt a little awkward and perplexed, yet always, in some indefinable manner, as if this scrutiny were for her own good. Then Auntie Lu would laugh and call the girl her “Inspiration,” and write the faster.

Those last weeks on the old Farm were very quiet, uneventful, yet most happy ones; and the two girls passed much of the time in the cool, shadowy library, among the fine literature therein collected. For Molly had no further desire at present for “larks” and began, instead, to find out how much happiness one may find between the covers of a book. Dorothy introduced her to Dickens, and thereafter the merry maid needed no urging to: “Do sit down and read and let me do so!”

One morning in that late summer time, Mrs. Betty Calvert was sitting on a hotel veranda at the Springs. She was looking very handsome and queenly, in her white gown, her piled-up, snow-white hair, and her “air of one who belonged” to an old “aristocracy.” A little table was beside her, heaped with her morning’s mail; for here, even as in her old home at Bellvieu, she surrounded herself with more such reading matter than she could use. But the letters were duly read and re-read, some of them; and at last she dropped one to her lap, and remarked to a gentleman near her:

“Cousin Seth, Lucretia Breckenridge always was a fool!”

“Hard judgment, Cousin Betty. I should have given quite the contrary. I always thought her a very sweet, sensible, lovable woman.”

“Hmm. You see a deal of ‘sweetness’ in this silly old world. But look here. What sensible woman would write a letter of twenty pages when one would do? All to convince me of something I already knew.”

“Don’t expect me to answer that. Go on and tell me what’s ‘meat’ in so much ‘cocoanut.’”

“She believes—and she takes pages to justify her belief—that she has traced the parentage of one Dorothy, a foundling! Indeed! Why, Seth, those people up in that unhappy Nova Scotia—unhappy to be afflicted with two such foolish visitors—they think themselves detectives fit to rank with the world’s greatest. I thought Schuyler had some sense if Lucretia hadn’t. If they weren’t already there I’d bid them both ‘go to Halifax’ as I used to be bidden when I was a naughty little girl and plagued my nurse. She makes a great ado about Dorothy’s ‘unhappiness.’ I can’t believe that. I never, never saw a happier child in all my life. The idea! Lucretia is just as simple as she was always. She’s set out to find who Dorothy’s parents are or were and she thinks she’s found. The idea! The impertinent minx!”

The “Learned Blacksmith” did not reply, but calmly perused his own paper. He was a blacksmith transformed, and he seemed to fit into this environment as readily and completely as he had fitted the simple life of the old smithy under the Great Balm tree. He had recovered his health but was sojourning for a little time in this old resort of his youth, meeting those who were lads and maidens then but now as venerable as himself. Few among them were as alert, as vigorous and as young of heart as Cousin Betty and himself; and they two had, as a younger guest remarked: “Been having the time of their lives. Why, that black-eyed old lady has more attention this day than any of us girls; and as for wit and repartÉe, there isn’t her equal this year at our Springs.”

After a few moments of this silence, during which Mrs. Calvert tapped her white slipper impatiently, she interrupted her companion’s reading by an exclamation:

“Seth Winters, do put up that tiresome paper and listen. I don’t believe you’ve comprehended a single sentence you’ve looked at. I know. Your eyes had that hungry-for-Dorothy look in them. Leastwise, if they hadn’t, the feel of it is in my own old heart. A pretty how’d-ye-do, when that little Lu Breckenridge-Hungerford sets out to hint to me of my duty! a slip of a girl like her—the saucy chit!”

Old Seth laughed, so merrily that others drew near to learn the sport; seeing which, Mistress Elizabeth Cecil Somerset-Calvert, rather haughtily arose and remarked:

“Come, Cousin Seth, I’d like to take a walk.”

Pacing the green grove, up and down its smooth paths, they were undisturbed; but now all desire for conversation had left Mrs. Betty. She was, indeed, in deep reflection; wondering if a certain course she had followed were all for the best as she had hitherto esteemed it; and the only hint she gave to the blacksmith was the sentence:

“I wanted to wait till she came of her own accord. I’ve never quite forgiven her for preferring that woman Martha to me.”

Then she went on in a silence which he knew her too well to disturb and finally she announced:

“I think I’ll give a house party at Deerhurst. A regular old-fashioned ‘infair,’ though it’ll be no bride for whom the festivity is given. After the assembly—what seems best! Those Breckenridges and their camping friends; including the old ‘boys’ and young ones. The foster parents, of course; and Johnnie must be written to about bringing that sealed letter of mine, that I entrusted to his care. I marked it not to be opened till after my death; but I think I’ll postpone dying—if God wills!—for I’m not nearly so dumpish as I was the day I sealed that packet and set my directions upon it. I may open it and I may not. I may oblige Lu Breckenridge by letting her think she’s a wonderful clever woman, and I may take the wind out of her sails by telling her—the truth. What do you say? Will you go along?”

“Will I not? I should go anyway, whether your house-warming-infair materializes or not. I hope, though, you won’t change your mind, because I long for the mountain and my peaceful life upon it. I hope you’ll stick to this notion longer than some others.”

“Then come in and help me write the invitations and set things in trim for such a big entertaining. After they’re written I can’t change my mind, you know, though I rarely do. I scorn the imputation. Only, ought I to do it? Will it be for the best?”

“Oh! make haste, Betty Calvert! If I don’t get those invitations off in the first mail I’ll never be allowed to send them at all!”

He spoke jestingly, yet not without deep sympathy. The “change of mind” she intimated meant much, very much to little Dorothy; whose best interests nobody had so much in mind as these two old people with the young hearts. But his own desire was now for the clearing of all that “mystery” which had enveloped the child from her infancy and which only they two could solve.

The notes were written and most promptly posted. Then other matters were put in line to make the reopening of Deerhurst the most memorable event in its history. Servants were ordered thither, disused rooms were aired and fitted for occupancy, every scrap of fallen leaf or intrusive weed removed from its driveways and paths, and in all the glory of its early-autumn beauty the fine old place awaited the coming of its mistress and her guests.

First of all to arrive was one James Barlow, with two kindly happy dogs, leaping and barking and doing their canine best to express their happiness at seeing “home” once more. “Home” it was to the lad, also, as he felt it now; tugging stoutly upon the chains of the Great Danes, lest in their exuberant joy they should break away from him to gambol in the geranium beds that glorified the lawn.

Around from the vine-draped back porch came old Ephraim and Dinah; Hans and Griselda Roemer, who greeted Jim in their hearty German fashion, as if he were their own son come home. And bless me! If out of that great kitchen didn’t issue Ma Babcock herself, and all her daughters a-trail behind!“Why, Mrs. Babcock, you here? Surely, this is indeed a surprise!” cried Jim, releasing the Danes to Ephraim’s care and clasping the hands she extended toward him.

“Well, then, it needn’t be. Me and Mis’ Calvert has been neighbors this long while, years indeed. So what more natural than, when all the company was comin’ and help so hard to get—capable help, you know—up-mounting, but that old Seth, the farrier, should write me the invite to come and take a hold of things and see that they was the rightest kind of right for such grand doings? So I come; and I had to fetch the girls along, ’cause I never do leave them out of any the good times I have myself. Baretta stop holdin’ onto my skirt! You’ll pull it clean out the gathers and it’s just fresh-washed and ironed. Claretta, will you never, never quit suckin’ your thumb? Make your manners pretty, darlin’, to this fine gentleman! Who, after all said, is nobody but Jim Barlow, makin’ the most of his chance. Why, Alfy! You bashful? Come and shake hands with your old friend and don’t act simple!”

So Alfaretta came forward, a new modesty upon her and a change for the better in her whole appearance, even after so short a time as this one summer. And both happening to recall how she had greeted him when first this “hero” was presented to her, they laughed and the “ice” which had formed over their friendship during separation speedily melted.“Pa Babcock, you’re askin’ for? Oh, he’s well, that kind don’t never have nothing the matter with their health, though they’re always thinking they have. He stopped with his sister till she got tired and shook him. Then he went to Chicago, where there’s such a lot of silly Nanarchists like himself, and there he’s stayed. I hope will stay, too, till the children get growed. He seems to be makin’ his salt, some kind of livin’, and he’s happy as a clam in high water. He hasn’t a thing to do but talk and talkin’ suits him to a T. Best come in and get washed up. A letter come from Dorothy’s parents and the pair of ’em will be to the Landing by the evening boat. Or one by train and one by boat. Anyhow they’ll both be there and I ’low they’d admire, just admire that it should be you drove down to meet ’em. Me and Alfy and Dinah’ll be right on hand here to see they get their supper and to show ’em where they’re to sleep. You best hurry down to your own room to the gate-house and clean yourself. You’re powerful dusty and your face needs washin’. Alfy! What you gigglin’ at? Ain’t I tellin’ the truth? Ain’t he a sight?”

“Yes, Ma, he is; one ‘good for sore eyes,’ as you sometimes say;” and with this inelegant remark Miss Alfaretta walked away while laughing, happy Jim sped downwards to the vine-wreathed lodge at the great entrance gate. He had been happy all that summer, never more so; yet happier than ever now as he stepped into the freshly furbished upper chamber which was his own, his very home. All the dear familiar books on the shelves, the snowy bed, the dainty neatness of the place that showed the motherly touch of old Griselda everywhere, even to the bunch of flowers upon the little table.

Dolly would have said that the bouquet looked “Dutchy,” like the kind hands which had arranged it; with its conflicting colors and its tightly crowded bunches of bloom. But Dorothy wasn’t there to comment, there was nobody who could see him, and the orphan lad who had not yet outgrown his boyish tenderness suddenly stooped and kissed it. Was this in memory of a mother he had never known, or because of his gratitude for his “home?”