AFTERMATH

The excitement broke up into wide-spreading waves. All divided at once into two distinct parties,—those who wanted to discuss the matter further, and those who were filled with the hunter instinct and so craved to set off at once in pursuit of "the foxy pair." Mrs. Ray justly remarked that "they couldn't possibly get more than twelve hours' start, in just one night," and as it was incredible to suppose that they would return in the direction from which they had originally come, it followed that there was only two-thirds of the horizon to scour in any case. Elmer Hoskins and his dog lost no time, but set forth at once.

Mary Cody walked back down the hill telling a deeply interested circle the story of how, etc. (and that for the fifth time in ten minutes); another group stood excitedly on Mrs. Ray's porch; another set off to break the news to Ledgeville, and still others spread here and there, after the manner of distracted bees into whose hive some great and disturbing force has suddenly penetrated.

"We won't be able to begin to get this in Uncle Purchase's head for two days, at least," mourned Mrs. Wiley; "and Uncle Purchase is so awful fond of knowing things, too."

"They'll never catch them," said Lucia Cosby; "they know all the roads too well. They know every road there is to know."

"I should think they did!" said Mrs. Dunstall. "They've not got out of practice walking in this locality, I can tell you. Josiah Bates was down at the bottom of the St. Helena hill the other day, and if he didn't see them there. Oh, they know the roads."

"I'm sorry for the girl," said Clay Wright Benton.

"I ain't a bit sorry for her," said Mrs. Ray; "as a woman who works from before dawn to far on into the night to make a honest living by eleven different kinds of sweat on her brow, I ain't a bit sorry for either of them. And Jack O'Neil ain't going to be sorry for them, either; he told me last night if they was men, he'd get hold of 'em and take 'em out behind the wood-pile and he knew what they'd get. To-day isn't going to alter his views."

"If I was Mrs. O'Neil, I'd wash that shawl Mrs. Lathbun wore all the time," said Sarah Catt, one of the party escorting Mary Cody back to the hotel.

"It's in the tub already," said Mary Cody.

Mrs. O'Neil came running forth to meet them, her brown eyes shining more than ever.

"Oh, but they were a 'foxy pair,'" she exclaimed; "haven't they gone and left that hair-brush done up in a paper so that it's 'baggage,' and shows they want the room held for them till they come back. Oh, they've got the law at their finger-tips—those two."

The whole crowd entered the house. Alva and Lassie, packing in their room, had heard the news ten minutes earlier from Mrs. O'Neil herself. Lassie had watched her friend's face curiously, but Alva had too much else pressing upon her to be more than simply saddened.

When Mrs. O'Neil had gone Lassie had said almost hesitatingly: "They were adventuresses, weren't they, and Miss Lathbun's romance wasn't true, was it?"

"Let us not judge, even now," said Alva, quietly; "let us try to hope in some way. After all, what little things they were in life—so little, and probably beset beyond their strength. And such great things are pressing on me to-day. What do they matter? God forgive me for saying it."

Lassie was silenced.

When the Eastern mail train arrived about noon, belated as usual, their packing was quite finished. Mary Cody brought up the letters. Alva took hers into her room and a minute later she came to the door.

"Lassie," she said, "there is something here that I must attend to at once. Go down and have dinner, and I'll come a little late."

So Lassie went down to dine alone, and found Ingram waiting for her. She told him that Alva would come in a little.

"Has she had bad news?" he asked, startled by a presentiment of immediate sorrow.

"No, I think not," Lassie said; "she didn't speak so."

But Ingram stayed, distressed. "She has had bad news," he said; "poor girl—her tragedy is closing in fast. I can feel its end, myself."

His eyes went to the window. "Couldn't you go out with me for just an hour after dinner?" he asked wistfully. Then he smiled a little. "We can talk about the dam," he said—"or help hunt the Lathbuns."

She looked at him and they both knew that she would go. It was a very simple, almost childish, romance, theirs—but its lack of stress made it all the more alluring to two who were living under the wings of so much tragedy.

"I'll get my hat," Lassie said, and ran up-stairs. Alva's door was closed. "I'm lying down, please let me sleep. It's nothing but my head," she called from behind it. Lassie slipped on her wraps quickly and ran down; and they went out towards the Falls.

Mrs. Ray saw them go from the post-office window. The excitement having somewhat subsided, she was now left alone with Joey Beall's fiancÉe, who was there to try on her wedding dress.

"Such is life," Mrs. Ray commented; "that woman's pulled her shades down for a nice nap, and off they skip for a good-by down by the Falls. Oh, my, but those Falls are a blessing to the young! It's too far between roots and rocks for children to get down there, and as soon as anybody's married they never want to have nothing to do with love-making any more; so steep romantic places is just made for the only kind of people that have any reason for wanting to get to them."

"The Falls is full of meaning for lovers," said Joey Beall's fiancÉe, sentimentally. "Joey and I never get tired of them."

"You wait till you're married," said Mrs. Ray; "you'll find no meaning in climbing up and down those banks and having Joey jerk your arms out of the sockets, then. Yes, indeed. They call it tempestuous affection beforehand, but it comes to a plain jerk in the end. Life is full of learning."

"Gran'ma Benton's learning the parrot a great deal," said Sarah Catt. "I come by there just now and she's beginning already to teach it a new sentence. She says: 'Where are the Lathbuns, now?' and the parrot's got to learn to say 'Skipped,'—she's just set her heart on it."

"I d'n know but what I'm going to end by being sorry for that parrot," remarked Mrs. Ray, thoughtfully. "I think Gran'ma Benton's overdoing it a little, if she means it to keep up with the Lathbuns. You can force even a parrot beyond its strength. She's made it nervous, already. She's got to hold its claw all through every thunderstorm all summer long, and if a fly gets in its milk, it won't touch either the fly or the milk, which I call spoiling the parrot—not to speak of the fly and the milk, for of course no one else in a house is going to eat a fly or drink milk that a parrot won't look at."

"Sarah told me they had to take away all the looking-glasses every spring, or it cried the whole time it was moulting—over its tail feathers, you know," said the caller, thoughtfully.

"Well, if they come to live here, I shan't spoil it, I know that," said Mrs. Ray. "I shall be pleasant to it and I shall be kind, and it can run after me all it likes and I'll be careful never to step on it for the very simple reason that I don't want to take the time to clean up any sort of smashed creature, but it won't have no night-light here, nor get its claw held when it thunders, nor have the looking-glasses took down to spare its feelings. No one ever took a looking-glass down to spare my feelings, and I can't begin to take them down to spare a parrot's. Well, Sarah, I guess you can try on now. Wait till I fill up on pins. Oh, my lands alive, I wish I knew where those foxy Lathbuns are this minute."

"I guess Mr. Adams'll be glad to know they're caught," said Sarah Catt; "he's so nervous for fear they'll stop with him to-night. Joey saw him just after dinner. He was more scared even than Gran'ma Benton's parrot in a thunderstorm."

Mrs. Ray was thoughtfully putting pins in her mouth. "There's a great difference between a man's hand and a parrot's claw," she said with some difficulty. "Yes, indeed. Even in a thunderstorm."