FullReads

“Oh, dear me, dear me,” struggled Flame. “Maybe a carol would calm them.”

To a certain extent a carol surely did. The hair-cloth parlor of the Rattle-Pane House would have calmed anything. And the mousey smell of the old piano fairly jerked the dogs to its senile old ivory keyboard. Cocking their ears to its quavering treble notes,–snorting their nostrils through its gritty guttural basses, they watched Flame’s facile fingers sweep from sound to sound.

“Oh, what a–glorious lark!” quivered Flame. “What a–a lonely glorious lark!”

Timidly at first but with an increasing abandon, half laughter and half tears, the clear young soprano voice took up its playful paraphrase,

“God rest you merrie–animals!
Let nothing you dismay!”

caroled Flame.

“For–“

It was just at this moment that Beautiful-Lovely, the Wolf Hound,–muzzled lifted, eyes rolling, jabbed his shrill nose into space and harmony with a carol of his own,–octaves of agony,–Heaven knows what of ecstasy,–that would have hurried an owl to its nest, a ghoul to a moving picture show!

“Wow-Wow–Wow!” caroled Beautiful-Lovely.
“Ww–ow–Ww–ow–Ww–Oo–Wwwww!”

As Flame’s hands dropped from the piano the unmistakable creak of red wheels sounded on the frozen driveway just outside.

No one but “Bertrand the Lay Reader” drove a buggy with red wheels! To the infinite scandalization of the Parish–no one but “Bertrand the Lay Reader” drove a buggy with red wheels!–Fleet steps sounded suddenly on the path! Startled fists beat furiously on the door!

“What is it? What is it?” shouted a familiar voice. “Whatever in the world is happening? Is it murder? Let me in! Let me in!”

“Sil–ly!” hissed Flame through a crack in the door. “It’s nothing but a party! Don’t you know a–a party when you hear it?”

For an instant only, blank silence greeted her confidence. Then “Bertrand the Lay Reader” relaxed in an indisputably genuine gasp of astonishment.

“Why! Why, is that you, Miss Flame?” he gasped. “Why, I thought it was a murder! Why–Why, whatever in the world are you doing here?”

“I–I’m having a party,” hissed Flame through the key-hole.

“A–a–party?” stammered the Lay Reader. “Open the door!”

“No, I–can’t,” said Flame.

“Why not?” demanded the Lay Reader.

Helplessly in the darkness of the vestibule Flame looked up,–and down,–and sideways,–but met always in every direction the memory of her promise.

“I–I just can’t,” she admitted a bit weakly. “It wouldn’t be convenient.–I–I’ve got trouble with my eyes.”

“Trouble with your eyes?” questioned the Lay Reader.

“I didn’t go away with my Father and Mother,” confided Flame.

“No,–so I notice,” observed the Lay Reader. “Please open the door!”

“Why?” parried Flame.

“I’ve been looking for you everywhere,” urged the Lay Reader. “At the Senior Warden’s! At all the Vestrymen’s houses! Even at the Sexton’s! I knew you didn’t go away! The Garage Man told me there were only two!–I thought surely I’d find you at your own house.–But I only found sled tracks.”

“That was me,–I,” mumbled Flame.

“And then I heard these awful screams,” shuddered the Lay Reader.

“That was a Carol,” said Flame.

“A Carol?” scoffed the Lay Reader. “Open the door!”

“Well–just a crack,” conceded Flame.

It was astonishing how a man as broad-shouldered as the Lay Reader could pass so easily through a crack.

Conscience-stricken Flame fled before him with her elbow crooked across her forehead.

“Oh, my eyes! My eyes!” she cried.

“Well, really,” puzzled the Lay Reader. “Though I claim, of course, to be ordinarily bright–I had never suspected myself of being actually dazzling.”

“Oh, you’re not bright at all,” protested Flame. “It’s just my promise.–I promised Mother not to see you!”

“Not to see me?” questioned the Lay Reader. It was astonishing how almost instantaneously a man as purely theoretical as the Lay Reader was supposed to be, thought of a perfectly practical solution to the difficulty. “Why–why we might tie my big handkerchief across your eyes,” he suggested. “Just till we get this mystery straightened out.–Surely there is nothing more or less than just plain righteousness in–that!”

“What a splendid idea!” capitulated Flame. “But, of course, if I’m absolutely blindfolded,” she wavered for a second only, “you’ll have to lead me by the hand.”