his hand into hers as Kitsy toddled back to her father.
“I’m sorry, Miss Fairlie,” Spig said. “We thought the children were staying outside.”
“I like them inside,” said Miss Fairlie. She was very small and very erect, with pale, faraway, blue eyes. Her voice was faraway, too. “If you have some other house you want to see, Tip may stay here till you come back. Tell the woman at the gate so she doesn’t charge you a second time. Very grasping.”
Molly and Spig looked at each other, avoiding their son’s eyes.
“I’d like very much to stay,” he said soberly, but there was a little catch in his voice. “Miss Fairlie says she’ll show me the apple tree. She says they do have snakes, but down in the water, not in the garden.”
“He could stay a little while, then,” Molly said. “We can come back on our way to the Camerons’. We’ll take Kitsy.”
“I’m not sure about this,” Spig said as they got in the car.
At the little, white-pillared office the toothy lady stopped them, smiling officiously. “The little boy . . . where is——”
“He’s staying with Miss Fairlie a while.”
“Oh . . .” She looked very startled indeed.
“She said he might.”
“Oh, well . . . I mean, I’m sure it’s all right. David—the old coloured man—he was there, wasn’t he?”
“Down by the house,” Spig said.
“Oh, well, it’s quite all right, then.” She smiled brightly. “I just wanted to check, that’s all.”
They went on three or four miles. “Spig,” Molly said. “That woman. What do you suppose she meant?”
“I guess she thought the old man’d keep him off the flowers.”
But Molly was disturbed. “Let’s go back, Spig.”
“Oh, he’s all right. They were doing fine, I thought.”
They went on, but just as they got to the sign Molly put her hand quickly on his arm. “No, Spig, I know I’m being difficult. But I’d be a lot happier . . .”
“Okay.” They went back. The woman at the gate smiled at them cordially.
“He’s quite all right. I’ve kept my eye on them.”
And he was all right. He and Miss Fairlie came around the turf between the borders, walking very solemnly. Then Tippy ran to meet them, his eyes shining like brand new stars.
“Miss Fairlie says she has lots of land and lots of water!” He stopped breathlessly and ran back. “Didn’t you, Miss Fairlie? Didn’t you say that?”
“Yes, I did,” Miss Fairlie said.
“I told her we didn’t have very much money. But she said that’s all right. Didn’t you, Miss Fairlie?”
Spig and Molly stared at them. Miss Fairlie came up, her pale childlike eyes resting on them quite definitely a moment before the far away look came back. She stood there, her white-gloved hands folded in front of her, blinking vaguely a moment before she spoke.
“Tip said thirty-five hundred dollars. Is that correct?”
“That’s . . . correct,” Spig said.
“Then you may have that piece on the other side of the Cove.” She turned and pointed across the gardens. “The house is old and very small. But if you paid me two thousand dollars, you’d have enough left to add on to it. There’s several acres. It goes to those trees you see this side of Mr. Sudley’s tobacco fields. There’s a pleasant piece of beach the children would enjoy, I think.”
Neither Spig nor Molly could speak. Tippy’s face had no need of words.
“There’s a great deal of honeysuckle. In fact, it’s completely overgrown, except around the cottage. I’ve kept that clear. You’d have to fix the road, but you could use mine as far as the old wagon trail. I’ve kept the bridge repaired. I don’t think you’ll mind the blood. You can hardly tell it unless you know it’s there.”
“She says you can hardly see it now, anyway,” Tip said urgently.
“That’s . . . wonderful, Miss Fairlie. But——”
“No. Blood disappears. It’s like everything else. Time is all it takes. We can go look now, if you like.”
“I don’t know. My wife——”
“We can go through the gardens. It won’t be too much for her.”
“Let’s go, Daddy! Please, Daddy! Please, Mother!”
There was a narrow, white bridge at the bottom of the garden.
“This isn’t the bridge I was talking about,” said Miss Fairlie. “This is my own bridge. The other one is over that way.” She waved vaguely out through the jungle of sassafras and locust, all matted with fox grape and honeysuckle. “The wagon trail is under there.” She indicated the jungle again. “We take this path.”
A moment later a small whitewashed cottage, windows and doors heavily shuttered, came into view. Through another tangle of vines and swamp myrtle in front of it they could see a glimpse here and there of the shining blue water of the Devon.
“I let it stay like this to keep fishermen and hunters away,” Miss Fairlie said. “We must go now, I think. You can come back and take the shutters down. There are two rooms. The blood is on the table. I’d like for Tip to live at Eden. I think he’d enjoy it very much. If the price is too high . . .”
“Oh, no. It’s not high enough. It’s——”
“But Daddy, it’s what she said. Isn’t it, Miss Fairlie? You do like it, don’t you, Daddy? And you like it, Mother? Don’t you?” Tip’s face was passionately alive with pleading, but his voice still its sober self.
“Of course, darling. It’s wonderful. But——”
“Then don’t talk any more,” Miss Fairlie said. She turned and led the way back into the gardens. At the gate she stood, blinking absently for a moment. Then she said, “I must go away now. Good-bye, Tip.”
She put her hand out as gravely as he took it.
“Good-bye, Miss Fairlie. Thank you very much for the house and land. I enjoyed the gardens very much, too. You’ll take care of my little ducks till I come back, won’t you?”
“Yes, I will.”
She turned and walked down the oyster shell drive, around a circle of boxwood, past the old coloured man, and into the house.
“She gave me six little ducks,” Tippy said.
They got to the white-pillared
