'Smiles', Eliot H. Robinson [books suggested by elon musk TXT] 📗

Early evening it was, several days later, evening of a sultry, stifling day, which had escaped the bounds of longitude and invaded even the North Shore. The open ocean, itself, seemed to have forgotten its habitual unrest and yielded to the general languor. From the Thayers' summer home—a glorified bungalow, broad of veranda and shingled silvery-olive, atop a long, terraced bank—it had the appearance of a limitless mirror, reflecting the unblemished blue infinity of the sky. Only the never-ceasing series of vague white lines which ever crept up the shelving beach, to vanish like half-formed dreams, showed that, although the mighty deep slept, its bosom rose and fell as it breathed.

The sky was a hazy horizon blue, unblemished save for a few vaporous clouds far in the west; the sun, well toward the end of its journey, was hazy, too, a thing of mystery; in the far eastern distance the broad Atlantic softened to a hazy violet-gray which, in turn, blended, almost without a line of demarcation, into the still more distant heavens.

Far out, above the waters, a solitary gull circled with slow, sweeping curves, and now and again planed to the surface of the sea and struck from it a faint white spark.

On the screened-in veranda, the members of the family, which now included Rose, sat or reclined, in attitudes of indolence, the men in negligee shirts and white flannels, the women in light dresses. Rose—who had, the day before, officially declared herself "off" the case; but had stayed on, a guest, at the general solicitation—wore a white dimity faintly sprinkled with her favorite rosebuds.

Her ex-patient sat on a little stool close by her side, a book of fairy stories resting on her elevated bare knees. The companionship of her beloved Smiles had already brought the warm color of health back to her cheeks and banished the listless look from her eyes. Her mother and Mr. MacDonald, Senior, were reading. Rose, chin resting on her cupped palm, was gazing seaward with a dreamy, far-away expression in her eyes, as blue as the sea itself. Donald sat back of her, and scarcely turned his gaze from the even contour of her cheek and neck and the shimmering glory of her hair, as he pulled leisurely at his cigar.

Only little Don showed signs of activity; for, with the boundless energy of four-and-a-half years, he was skidding and rolling industriously from one end of the porch to the other on a kiddie-car—a relic of the year before, and now much too small for him. With more or less dexterity he was weaving his way in and out among the various obstacles, animate and otherwise.

After looking for many silent minutes at the girl he loved, Donald said, tritely, "A penny for your thoughts, Smiles."

"Sir, you value them too high. I was thinking about you," she laughed.

"A likely story! I know well enough that your mind was far away from the present spot—the far-off expression on your face is indication enough of that. Furthermore, I'll wager that I can guess pretty nearly where they were."

It was a random shot, but he was disquieted to observe that it brought a faint blush in her cheeks. The added color, soft and lovely in itself, was darkly reflected on his heart.

Jumping up, Smiles cried, with a mock pout, "I shan't stay here to be made the subject of a demonstration of clairvoyancy. My thoughts are my own, and I mean to keep them so, sir."

As she ran into the house Donald's eyes followed her, moodily. And if he had, indeed, possessed the power of divination which he had laid pretence to, the expression in them, and the shadow on his spirit, would have been justified.

Rose ran lightly upstairs, and, as she approached her room, drew from within her waist a letter. There was something both mysterious and childlike in the manner that she next opened one of the drawers of her dressing table and, taking out a box which held almost all of her modest treasures, started to place the letter with them.

Instead, however, she paused to lift out a neat little package containing a score or more of other epistles, tied together with a white ribbon. For a moment she hesitated, as though she were both mentally and physically weighing the objects held in either hand. A shadow of strange uncertainty came into her eyes, the outward expression of an inward uncertainty foreign to her nature. Slowly, she turned from her reflection in the mirror and dropped down on the edge of the daintily counterpaned bed. With hesitating fingers she untied the ribbon from the package and began to glance through the unbound letters, pausing at intervals to read stray paragraphs from them. Each one began and ended almost the same—"Dear little Smiles" and "Affectionately your friend, Donald."

There was the one which contained the allegory of the steep path—which now lay behind her; the one in which he told her of little Donald's advent into the world and of his own betrothal to Marion Treville, and as she read that sentence which held so much of import in the lives of both of them, she sighed, "Poor Don. He hasn't mentioned her; but her faithlessness must have struck deep, for he is, oh, so changed and more reserved." There were other letters filled with the spirit of camaraderie, and then the later ones, strong, simple, with their stories of others' sacrifice in the great cause of humanity.

When the last one was read and laid upon the others, she sat with them in her lap for a moment, musing. The suspicion of tears shone in her eyes as she finally shook her head, and, evening them carefully, retied them.

"No," she whispered, half aloud, "I mustn't be foolish. He's just my brother, that is the way he cares for me. It has always been like that. And I ... I mustn't be foolish."

Almost angrily she brushed away the single tear which had started its uncertain course down her cheek.

With a gesture of resolution, she stood up and placed the package in its box. The other letter was about to follow; but, as she started to lay it down, she changed her mind, and, with the flush again mounting her cheeks, took it from the envelope, which bore a special delivery stamp, postmarked in Boston that very morning.

Opening it, she read: