Greatheart, Ethel May Dell [children's books read aloud TXT] 📗

found the strange sad eyes upon her, alight with a smile of welcome. She went forward impetuously, and in a moment Isabel's cold hands were clasped upon her warm ones.

"I have been waiting for you, dear child," the low voice said. "What have you been doing?"

Dinah suddenly felt as if she were standing in the presence of a princess. Isabel in public bore herself with a haughtiness fully equal to that displayed by Sir Eustace, and she knew that Lady Grace was impressed by it.

"I would have come back sooner if I had known," she said, closely holding the long, slender fingers.

"My dear, you are woefully untidy now you have come," murmured Lady
Grace.

But Isabel gently freed one hand to put her arm about the girl. "To me she is—just right," she said, and in her voice there sounded the music of a great tenderness. "Youth is never tidy, Lady Grace; but there is nothing in the world like it."

Lady Grace's eyes went to her daughter whose faultless apparel and perfection of line were in vivid contrast to Dinah's harum-scarum appearance.

"I do not altogether agree with you in that respect, Mrs. Everard," she said, with a smile. "I think young girls should always aim at being presentable. But I quite admit that it is more difficult for some than for others. Dinah, my dear, Mrs. Everard has been kind enough to ask you to lunch in her sitting-room with her, and to go for a sleigh-drive afterward; so you had better run and get respectable as quickly as you can."

"Oh, how kind you are!" Dinah said, with earnest eyes uplifted. "You know how I shall love to come, don't you?"

"I thought you might, dear," Isabel said. "Scott is coming to keep us company. He has arranged for a sleigh to be here in an hour. We are going for a twelve-mile round, so we must not be late starting. It gets so cold after sundown."

"I had better go then, hadn't I?" said Dinah.

"I am coming too," Isabel said. Her arm was still about her. It remained so as she turned to go. "Good-bye, Lady Grace! I will take great care of the child. Thank you for allowing her to come."

She bowed with regal graciousness and moved away, taking Dinah with her.

"Exit Purple Empress!" murmured a man in the background close to Rose.
"Who on earth is she? I haven't seen her anywhere before."

Rose uttered her soft, artificial laugh. "She is Sir Eustace Studley's sister. Rather peculiar, I believe, even eccentric. But I understand they are of very good birth."

"That covers a multitude of sins," he commented. "She's been a mighty handsome woman in her day. She must be many years older than Sir Eustace. She looks more like his mother than his sister."

"I believe she is actually younger," Rose said. "They say she has never recovered from the sudden death of her husband some years ago, but I know nothing of the circumstances."

"A very charming woman," said Lady Grace, joining them. "We have had quite a long chat together. Yes, her manner is a little strange, slightly abstracted, as if she were waiting for something or someone. But a very easy companion on the whole. I think you will like her, Rose dear."

"She's dead nuts on Dinah," observed Billy with a chuckle. "She don't look at anyone else when she's got Dinah."

Lady Grace smiled over his head and took no verbal notice of the remark.

"They are a distinguished-looking family," she said. "Run and wash your hands, Billy. Are you thinking of ski-ing this afternoon, Rose?"

"You bet!" murmured Billy, under his breath. He too had seen the distant figure of Sir Eustace on the mountain-side.

"It depends," said Rose, non-committally.

"Captain Brent and Sir Eustace have been on skis all the morning," said her mother. "We must see what they say about it."

Billy spun a coin into the air behind her back. "Heads Sir Eustace and tails Captain Brent," he muttered to the man who had commented upon Isabel's beauty. "Heads it is!"

Lady Grace turned round with a touch of sharpness at the sound of his companion's laugh. "Billy! Did I not tell you to go and wash your hands?"

Billy's green eyes smiled impudent acknowledgment. "You did, Lady Grace.
And I'm going. Good-bye!"

He pocketed the coin, winked at his friend, and departed whistling.

"A very unmannerly little boy!" observed Lady Grace, with severity.
"Come, my dear Rose! We must go in."

"I don't like either the one or the other," said Rose, with a very unusual touch of petulance. "They are always in the way."

"I fully agree with you," said Lady Grace acidly. "But it is for the first and last time in their lives. I have already told the Colonel so. He will never ask them to accompany us again."

"Thank goodness for that!" said Rose, with restored amiability. "Of course I am sorry for poor little Dinah; but there is a limit."

"Which is very nearly reached," said Lady Grace.

CHAPTER XV THE MOUNTAIN CREST

That sleigh-drive was to Dinah the acme of delight, and for ever after the jingle of horse-bells was to recall it to her mind. The sight of the gay red trappings, the trot of the muffled hoofs, the easy motion of the sleigh slipping over the white road, and above all, Isabel, clad in purple and seated beside her, a figure of royal distinction, made a picture in her mind that she was never to forget. She rode in a magic chariot through wonderland.

She longed to delay the precious moments as they flew, like a child chasing butterflies in the sunshine; but they only seemed to fly the faster. She chattered almost incessantly for the first few miles, and occasionally Isabel smiled and answered her; but for the most part it was Scott, seated opposite, who responded to her raptures,—Scott, unfailingly attentive and courteous, but ever watchful of his sister's face.

She gazed straight ahead when she was not looking at anything to which Dinah called her attention. Her eyes had the intense look of one who watches perpetually for something just out of sight.

Quiet but alert, he marked her attitude, marked also the emaciation which was so painfully apparent in the strong sunshine and formed so piteous a contrast to the vivid youth of the girl beside her. Presently Dinah came out of her rhapsodies and observed his vigilance. She watched him covertly for a time while she still chatted on. And she noted that there were very weary lines about his eyes, lines of anxiety, lines of sleeplessness, that filled her warm heart with quick sympathy and a longing to help.

The road was one of wild beauty. It wound up a desolate mountain pass along which great black boulders were scattered haphazard like the mighty toys of a giant. The glittering snow lay all around them, making their nakedness the more apparent. And far, far above, the white crags shone with a dazzling purity in the sunlit air.

Below them the snow lay untrodden, exquisitely pure, piled here in great drifts, falling away there in wonderful curves and hollows, but always showing a surface perfect and undesecrated by any human touch. And ever the sleigh ran smoothly on over the white road till it seemed to Dinah as if they moved in a dream. She fell silent, charmed by the swift motion, and by the splendour around her.

"You are quite warm, I hope?" Scott said, after an interval.

She was wrapped in a fur cloak belonging to Isabel. She smiled an affirmative, but she saw him as through a veil. The mystery and the wonder of creation filled her soul.

"I feel," she said, "I feel as if we were being taken up into heaven."

"Oh, that we were!" said Isabel, speaking suddenly with a force that had in it something terrible. "Do you see those golden peaks, sweetheart? That is where I would be. That is where the gates of Heaven open—where the lost are found."

Dinah's hand was clasped in hers under the fur rug, and she felt the thin fingers close with a convulsive hold.

Scott leaned forward. "Heaven is nearer to us than that, Isabel," he said gently.

She looked at him for a moment, but her eyes at once passed beyond. "No, no, Stumpy! You never understand," she said restlessly. "I must reach the mountain-tops or die. I am tired—I am tired of my prison. And I stifle in the valley—I who have watched the sun rise and set from the very edge of the world. Why did they take me away? If I had only waited a little longer—a little longer—as he told me to wait!" Her voice suddenly vibrated with a craving that was passionate. "He would have come with the next sunrise. I always knew that the dawn would bring him back to me. But"—dull despair took the place of longing—"they took me away, and the sun has never shone since."

"Isabel!" Scott's voice was very grave and quiet. "Miss Bathurst will wonder what you mean. Don't forget her!"

Dinah pressed close to her friend's side. "Oh, but I do understand!" she said softly. "And, dear Mrs. Everard, I wish I could help you. But I think Mr. Studley must be right. It is easier to get to heaven than to climb those mountain-peaks. They are so very steep and far away."

"So is Heaven, child," said Isabel, with a sigh of great weariness.

As it were with reluctance, she again met the steady gaze of Scott's eyes, and gradually her mood seemed to change. Her brief animation dropped away from her; she became again passive, inert, save that she still seemed to be watching.

Scott broke the silence, kindly and practically. "We ought to reach the châlet at the head of the pass soon," he said. "You will be glad of some tea."

"Oh, are we going to stop for tea?" said Dinah.

"That's the idea," said Scott. "And then back by another way. We ought to get a good view of the sunset. I hope it won't be misty, but they say a change is coming."

"I hope it won't come yet," said Dinah fervently. "The last few days have been so perfect. And there is so little time left."

Scott smiled. "That is the worst of perfection," he said. "It never lasts."

Dinah's eyes were wistful. "It will go on being perfect here long after we have left," she said. "Isn't it dreadful to think of all the good things—all the beauty—one misses just because one isn't there?"

"It would be if there were nothing else to think of," said Scott. "But there is beauty everywhere—if we know how to look for it."

She looked at him uncertainly. "I never knew what it meant before I came here," she told him shyly. "There is no time for beautiful things in my life. It's very, very drab and ugly. And I am very discontented. I have never been anything else."

Her voice quivered a little as she made the confession. Scott's eyes were so kind, so full of friendly understanding. Isabel had dropped out of their intercourse as completely as though her presence had been withdrawn. She lay back against her cushions, but her eyes were still watching, watching incessantly.

"I think the very dullest life can be made beautiful," Scott said, after a moment. "Even the desert sand is gold when the sun shines on it. The trouble is,—" he laughed a little—"to get the sun to shine."

Dinah leaned forward eagerly, confidentially. "Yes?" she questioned.

He looked her suddenly straight in the eyes. "There is a great store of sunshine in you," he said. "One can't come near you without feeling it. Isabel will tell you the same. Do you keep it only for the Alps? If so,—" he paused.

Dinah's face flushed suddenly under his look. "If so?" she asked, under her breath.

He smiled. "Well, it seems a pity, that's all," he said. "Rather a waste too when you come to think of it."

Dinah's eyes caught the reflection of his smile. "I shall remember that,
Mr. Greatheart," she said.

"Forgive me for preaching!" said Scott.

She put out a hand to him quickly, spontaneously. "You don't preach—and it does me good," she said somewhat incoherently. "Please—always—say what you like to me!"

"At risk of hurting you?" said Scott. He held the small, impulsive hand a moment and let it go.

"You could never hurt me," Dinah answered. "You are far too