Mary Ware's Promised Land

  CHAPTER II

  TOWARDS THE CANAAN OF HER DESIRE

  In Phil Tremont's office desk, in an inner drawer reserved for privatepapers, lay a package of letters fastened together by a broad rubberband. "From the Little Vicar," it was labelled, and Mary's astonishmentwould have been great, could she have known that every letter she hadever written him was thus preserved. He had kept the first ones, writtenin a childish, painstaking hand, because they chronicled the doings ofthe family at Ware's Wigwam in such an amusing and characteristic way.The letters after that time had been few and far between until her finalreturn to Lone-Rock, but each one had been kept for some differentreason. It had contained a particularly laughable description of some ofher Warwick Hall escapades, or some original view of life and the worldin general which made it worth preserving.

  Then when Mrs. Ware's letters ceased, and at Phil's urgent request Marytook up her mother's custom of writing regularly to him, he kept thembecause they revealed so much of herself. So brave, so womanly, sostrong she had grown, bearing her great sorrow as the Jester did hishidden sword, to prove that "undaunted courage was the jewel of hersoul." All during the lonely summer after her mother's death he expectedto go to see her in the fall, but the work which held him in Mexico wasnot finished, and too much depended upon its successful completion forhim to ask for leave of absence.

  Then, just as he was about to start back to the States, his chief wastaken ill, and asked him to stay and fill his place in anotherengineering enterprise which he had made a contract for. It was anopportunity too big for Phil to thrust aside, even if his sense ofobligation had not been so great to the man who had helped make him whathe was. So he consented to stay on another year. The place to which hewas sent, where the great new dam was to be constructed, was further inthe interior. His papers, brought over on mule back, were a week oldwhen they reached him, and Mary's letters attained an importance theymight not have had otherwise, had he been in a less lonely region.

  It was with great satisfaction that he heard of Jack's marriage. Hefelt that Mary would be more satisfied to stay on in Lone-Rockindefinitely now that she had Betty's companionship. Her letters wereenthusiastic about the new sister, whom she had long loved, first withthe admiration of a little girl for an older one, then with that of apupil for an adored teacher. Now they seemed of the same age, and of thesame mind about essential things, especially the pedestal on which theyboth placed Jack.

  Betty fitted into the family as beautifully as if she had always been apart of it, Mary wrote soon after her arrival. She loved Lone-Rock themoment she laid eyes on it, and made friends with everybody right away.She thought it an ideal place in which to write, and already was at workon the series which the publishers had asked for. Norman was "simplycrazy" about her, and Jack was so happy and proud that it did one'sheart good to see him.

  As for Mary herself, it was easy for Phil to see the vast differencethat Betty's coming had made in her life. He laid these letters asidewith the others as they came, thankful for the happy spirit thatbreathed through them, for now he was convinced that she "really feltthe gladness she had only feigned before." She was all aglow once morewith her old hopes and ambitions. Despite her efforts to hide it he haddiscerned how dreary the days had been for her hitherto, and now he wasglad he could think of her with the background she pictured for him.Betty's coming had brightened it wonderfully. But just as he wasbeginning to be sure she was satisfied and settled, a little note cameto disturb his comfort in that belief. It was evidently scrawled inhaste and began abruptly without address or date.

  "'_And it came to pass . . . when the cloud was taken up . . . they journeyed!_' Oh, Phil, the signal to move on has come at last! I have no idea what it will lead to. It may be to the wells of some Elim, it may be to that part of the wilderness 'where there is no water to drink.' But wherever it may be I'm convinced that Providence is pointing the way, for the call came without my lifting so much as a little finger. It came through Madam Chartley. I'm to be secretary for a friend of hers, a Mrs. Dudley Blythe of Riverville, at a big salary--at least it seems big to me--and I'm leaving in the morning. That's all I know now, but I'll write you full particulars as soon as I'm settled.

  "Manuella, the clever little Mexican maid who has tided us over various emergencies, is coming to help Betty with the work, so that the writing may not be interfered with. Yours, once more on the march towards the Canaan of her desire,

  "M. W."