"The Meredith homestead?" the driver had queried. "Oh, yes. All right; but it's quite a journey. Don't get discouraged."
A sense of discouragement regarding long distances was just at that moment the most remote sensation in Stanton's sensibilities. If the railroad journey had seemed unhappily drawn out, the sleigh-ride reversed the emotion to the point of almost telescopic calamity: a stingy, transient vista of village lights; a brief, narrow, hill-bordered road that looked for all the world like the aisle of a toy-shop, flanked on either side by high-reaching shelves where miniature house-lights twinkled cunningly; a sudden stumble of hoofs into a less-traveled snow-path, and then, absolutely unavoidable, absolutely unescapable, an old, white colonial house with its great solemn elm trees stretching out their long arms protectingly all around and about it after the blessed habit of a hundred years.
Nervously, and yet almost reverently, Stanton went crunching up the snowy path to the door, knocked resonantly with a slim, much worn old brass knocker, and was admitted promptly and hospitably by "Mrs. Meredith" herself-Molly's grandmother evidently, and such a darling little grandmother, small, like Molly; quick, like Molly; even young, like Molly, she appeared to be. Simple, sincere, and oh, so comfortable-like the fine old mahogany furniture and the dull-shining pewter, and the flickering firelight, that seemed to be everywhere.
"Good old stuff!" was Stanton's immediate silent comment on everything in sight.
It was perfectly evident that the little old lady knew nothing whatsoever about Stanton, but it was equally evident that she suspected him of being neither a highwayman nor a book agent, and was really sincerely sorry that Molly had "a headache" and would be unable to see him.
"But I've come so far," persisted Stanton. "All the way from Boston. Is she very ill? Has she been ill long?"
The little old lady's mind ignored the questions but clung a trifle nervously to the word Boston.
"Boston?" her sweet voice quavered. "Boston? Why you look so nice-surely you're not that mysterious man who has been annoying Mollie so dreadfully these past few days. I told her no good would ever come of her going to the city."
"Annoying Molly?" cried Stanton. "Annoying my Molly? I? Why, it's to prevent anybody in the whole wide world from ever annoying her again about-anything, that I've come here now!" he persisted rashly. "And don't you see-we had a little misunderstanding and-"
Into the little old lady's ivory cheek crept a small, bright, blush-spot.
"Oh, you had a little misunderstanding," she repeated softly. "A little quarrel? Oh, is that why Molly has been crying so much ever since she came home?"
Very gently she reached out her tiny, blue-veined hand, and turned Stanton's big body around so that the lamp-light smote him squarely on his face.
"Are you a good boy?" she asked. "Are you good enough for-my-little Molly?"
Impulsively Stanton grabbed her small hands in his big ones, and raised them very tenderly to his lips.
[Illustration: "Are you a good boy?" she asked]
"Oh, little Molly's little grandmother," he said; "nobody on the face of this snow-covered earth is good enough for your Molly, but won't you give me a chance? Couldn't you please give me a chance? Now-this minute? Is she so very ill?"
"No, she's not so very ill, that is, she's not sick in bed," mused the old lady waveringly. "She's well enough to be sitting up in her big chair in front of her open fire."
"Big chair-open fire?" quizzed Stanton. "Then, are there two chairs?" he asked casually.
"Why, yes," answered the little-grandmother in surprise.
"And a mantelpiece with a clock on it?" he probed.
The little-grandmother's eyes opened wide and blue with astonishment.
"Yes," she said, "but the clock hasn't gone for forty years!"
"Oh, great!" exclaimed Stanton. "Then won't you please-please-I tell you it's a case of life or death-won't you please go right upstairs and sit down in that extra big chair-and not say a word or anything but just wait till I come? And of course," he said, "it wouldn't be good for you to run upstairs, but if you could hurry just a little I should be so much obliged."
As soon as he dared, he followed cautiously up the unfamiliar stairs, and peered inquisitively through the illuminating crack of a loosely closed door.
The grandmother as he remembered her was dressed in some funny sort of a dullish purple, but peeping out from the edge of one of the chairs he caught an unmistakable flutter of blue.
Catching his breath he tapped gently on the woodwork.
Round the big winged arm of the chair a wonderful, bright aureole of hair showed suddenly.
"Come in," faltered Molly's perplexed voice.
All muffled up in his great fur-coat he pushed the door wide open and entered boldly.
"It's only Carl," he said. "Am I interrupting you?"
The really dreadful collapsed expression on Molly's face Stanton did not appear to notice at all. He merely walked over to the mantelpiece, and leaning his elbows on the little cleared space in front of the clock, stood staring fixedly at the time-piece which had not changed its quarter-of-three expression for forty years.
"It's almost half-past seven," he announced pointedly, "and I can stay till just eight o'clock."
Only the little grandmother smiled.
Almost immediately: "It's twenty minutes of eight now!" he announced severely.
"My, how time flies!" laughed the little grandmother.
When he turned around again the little grandmother had fled.
But Molly did not laugh, as he himself had laughed on that faraway, dreamlike evening in his rooms. Instead of laughter, two great tears welled up in her eyes and glistened slowly down her flushing cheeks.
"What if this old clock hasn't moved a minute in forty years?" whispered Stanton passionately, "it's such a stingy little time to eight o'clock-even if the hands never get there!"
Then turning suddenly to Molly he held out his great strong arms to her.
"Oh, Molly, Molly!" he cried out beseechingly, "I love you! And I'm free to love you! Won't you please come to me?"
[Illustration: "It's only Carl," he said]
Sliding very cautiously out of the big, deep chair, Molly came walking hesitatingly towards him. Like a little wraith miraculously tinted with bronze and blue she stopped and faced him piteously for a second.
Then suddenly she made a little wild rush into his arms and burrowed her small frightened face in his shoulder.
"Oh, Carl, Sweetheart!" she cried. "I can really love you now? Love you, Carl-love you! And not have to be just Molly Make-Believing any more!"
THE END.