The S. W. F. Club

Pauline dropped the napkin she was hemming and, leaning back in her chair, stared soberly down into the rain-swept garden.

Overhead, Patience was having a "clarin' up scrape" in her particular corner of the big garret, to the tune of "There's a Good Time Coming."

Pauline drew a quick breath; probably, there was a good time coming-any number of them-only they were not coming her way; they would go right by on the main road, they always did.

"'There's a good time coming,'" Patience insisted shrilly, "'Help it on! Help it on!'"

Pauline drew another quick breath. She would help them on! If they would none of them stop on their own account, they must be flagged. And-yes, she would do it-right now.

Getting up, she brought her writing-portfolio from the closet, clearing a place for it on the little table before the window. Then her eyes went back to the dreary, rain-soaked garden. How did one begin a letter to an uncle one had never seen; and of whom one meant to ask a great favor?

But at last, after more than one false start, the letter got itself written, after a fashion.

Pauline read it over to herself, a little dissatisfied pucker between her brows:-

Mr. Paul Almy Shaw,

New York City, New York.

MY DEAR UNCLE PAUL: First, I should like you to understand that neither father nor mother know that I am writing this letter to you; and that if they did, I think they would forbid it; and I should like you to believe, too, that if it were not for Hilary I should not dream of writing it. You know so little about us, that perhaps you do not remember which of us Hilary is. She comes next to me, and is just thirteen. She hasn't been well for a long time, not since she had to leave school last winter, and the doctor says that what she needs is a thorough change. Mother and I have talked it over and over, but we simply can't manage it. I would try to earn some money, but I haven't a single accomplishment; besides I don't see how I could leave home, and anyway it would take so long, and Hilary needs a change now. And so I am writing to ask you to please help us out a little. I do hope you won't be angry at my asking; and I hope very, very much, that you will answer favorably.

I remain,

Very respectfully,

PAULINE ALMY SHAW.

WINTON, VT., May Sixteenth.

Pauline laughed rather nervously as she slipped her letter into an envelope and addressed it. It wasn't a very big flag, but perhaps it would serve her purpose.

Tucking the letter into her blouse, Pauline ran down-stairs to the sitting-room, where her mother and Hilary were. "I'm going down to the post-office, mother," she said; "any errands?"

"My dear, in this rain?"

"There won't be any mail for us, Paul," Hilary said, glancing listlessly up from the book she was trying to read; "you'll only get all wet and uncomfortable for nothing."

Pauline's gray eyes were dancing; "No," she agreed, "I don't suppose there will be any mail for us-to-day; but I want a walk. It won't hurt me, mother. I love to be out in the rain."

And all the way down the slippery village street the girl's eyes continued to dance with excitement. It was so much to have actually started her ball rolling; and, at the moment, it seemed that Uncle Paul must send it bounding back in the promptest and most delightful of letters. He had never married, and somewhere down at the bottom of his apparently crusty, old heart he must have kept a soft spot for the children of his only brother.

Thus Pauline's imagination ran on, until near the post-office she met her father. The whole family had just finished a tour of the West in Mr. Paul Shaw's private car-of course, he must have a private car, wasn't he a big railroad man?-and Pauline had come back to Winton long enough to gather up her skirts a little more firmly when she saw Mr. Shaw struggling up the hill against the wind.

"Pauline!" he stopped, straightening his tall, scholarly figure. "What brought you out in such a storm?"

With a sudden feeling of uneasiness, Pauline wondered what he would say if she were to explain exactly what it was that had brought her out. With an impulse towards at least a half-confession, she said hurriedly, "I wanted to post a letter I'd just written; I'll be home almost as soon as you are, father."

Then she ran on down the street. All at once she felt her courage weakening; unless she got her letter posted immediately she felt she should end by tearing it up.

When it had slipped from her sight through the narrow slit labeled "LETTERS," she stood a moment, almost wishing it were possible to get it back again.

She went home rather slowly. Should she confess at once, or wait until Uncle Paul's answer came? It should be here inside of a week, surely; and if it were favorable-and, oh, it must be favorable-would not that in itself seem to justify her in what she had done?

On the front piazza, Patience was waiting for her, a look of mischief in her blue eyes. Patience was ten, a red-haired, freckled slip of a girl. She danced about Pauline now. "Why didn't you tell me you were going out so I could've gone, too? And what have you been up to, Paul Shaw? Something! You needn't tell me you haven't."

"I'm not going to tell you anything," Pauline answered, going on into the house. The study door was half open, and when she had taken off her things, Pauline stood a moment a little uncertainly outside it. Then suddenly, much to her small sister's disgust, she went in, closing the door behind her.

Mr. Shaw was leaning back in his big chair at one corner of the fireplace. "Well," he asked, looking up, "did you get your letter in in time, my dear?"

"Oh, it wasn't the time." Pauline sat down on a low bench at the other end of the fireplace. "It was that I wanted to feel that it was really mailed. Did you ever feel that way about a letter, father? And as if, if you didn't hurry and get it in-you wouldn't-mail it?"

Something in her tone made her father glance at her more closely; it was very like the tone in which Patience was apt to make her rather numerous confessions. Then it occurred to him, that, whether by accident or design, she was sitting on the very stool on which Patience usually placed herself at such times, and which had gained thereby the name of "the stool of penitence."

"Yes," he answered, "I have written such letters once or twice in my life."

Pauline stooped to straighten out the hearth rug. "Father," she said abruptly; "I have been writing to Uncle Paul." She drew a sharp breath of relief.

"You have been writing to your Uncle Paul! About what, Pauline?"

And Pauline told him. When she had finished, Mr. Shaw sat for some moments without speaking, his eyes on the fire.

"It didn't seem very-wrong, at the time," Pauline ventured. "I had to do something for Hilary."

"Why did you not consult your mother, or myself, before taking such a step, Pauline?"

"I was afraid-if I did-that you would-forbid it; and I was so anxious to do something. It's nearly a month now since Dr. Brice said Hilary must have a change. We used to have such good times together-Hilary and I-but we never have fun anymore-she doesn't care about anything; and to-day it seemed as if I couldn't bear it any longer, so I wrote. I-I am sorry, if you're displeased with me, father, and yet, if Uncle Paul writes back favorably, I'm afraid I can't help being glad I wrote."

Mr. Shaw rose, lighting the low reading-lamp, standing on the study table. "You are frank enough after the event, at least, Pauline. To be equally so, I am displeased; displeased and exceedingly annoyed. However, we will let the matter rest where it is until you have heard from your uncle, I should advise your saying nothing to your sisters until his reply comes. I am afraid you will find it disappointing."

Pauline flushed. "I never intended telling Hilary anything about it unless I had good news for her; as for Patience-"

Out in the hall again, with the study door closed behind her, Pauline stood a moment choking back a sudden lump in her throat. Would Uncle Paul treat her letter as a mere piece of school-girl impertinence, as father seemed to?

From the sitting-room came an impatient summons. "Paul, will you never come!"

"What is it, Hilary?" Pauline asked, coming to sit at one end of the old sofa.

"That's what I want to know," Hilary answered from the other end. "Impatience says you've been writing all sorts of mysterious letters this afternoon, and that you came home just now looking like--"

"Well, like what?"

"Like you'd been up to something-and weren't quite sure how the grown-ups were going to take it," Patience explained from the rug before the fire.

"How do you know I have been writing-anything?" Pauline asked.

"There, you see!" Patience turned to Hilary, "she doesn't deny it!"

"I'm not taking the trouble to deny or confirm little girl nonsense,"

Pauline declared. "But what makes you think I've been writing letters?"

"Oh, 'by the pricking of my thumbs'!" Patience rolled over, and resting her sharp little chin in her hands, stared up at her sisters from under her mop of short red curls. "Pen! Ink! Paper! And such a lot of torn-up scraps! It's really very simple!"

But Pauline was on her way to the dining-room. "Terribly convincing, isn't it?" Her tone should have squelched Patience, but it didn't.

"You can't fool me!" that young person retorted. "I know you've been up to something! And I'm pretty sure father doesn't approve, from the way you waited out there in the hall just now."

Pauline did not answer; she was busy laying the cloth for supper. "Anything up, Paul?" Hilary urged, following her sister out to the dining-room.

"The barometer-a very little; I shouldn't wonder if we had a clear day to-morrow."

"You are as provoking as Impatience! But I needn't have asked; nothing worth while ever does happen to us."

"You know perfectly well, Pauline Almy Shaw!" Patience proclaimed, from the curtained archway between the rooms. "You know perfectly well, that the ev'dence against you is most in-crim-i-na-ting!" Patience delighted in big words.

"Hilary," Pauline broke in, "I forgot to tell you, I met Mrs. Dane this morning; she wants us to get up a social-'If the young ladies at the parsonage will,' and so forth."

"I hate socials! Besides, there aren't any 'young ladies' at the parsonage; or, at any rate, only one. I shan't have to be a young lady for two years yet."

"Most in-crim-i-na-ting!" Patience repeated insistently; "you wrote."

Pauline turned abruptly and going into the pantry began taking down the cups and saucers for the table. As soon as Hilary had gone back to the sitting-room, she called softly, "Patty, O Patty!"

Patience grinned wickedly; she was seldom called Patty, least of all by

Pauline. "Well?" she answered.

"Come here-please," and when Patience was safely inside the pantry,

Pauline shut the door gently-"Now see here, Impatience-"

"That isn't what you called me just now!"

"Patty then-Listen, suppose-suppose I have been-trying to do something to-to help Hilary to get well; can't you see that I wouldn't want her to know, until I was sure, really sure, it was going to come to something?"

Patience gave a little jump of excitement. "How jolly! But who have you been writing to-about it, Paul!"

"I haven't said that-"

"See here, Paul, I'll play fair, if you do; but if you go trying to act any 'grown-up sister' business I'll-"

And Pauline capitulated. "I can't tell you about it yet, Patty; father said not to. I want you to promise not to ask questions, or say anything about it, before Hilary. We don't want her to get all worked up, thinking something nice is going to happen, and then maybe have her disappointed."

"Will it be nice-very nice?"

"I hope so."

"And will I be in it?"

"I don't know. I don't know what it'll be, or when it'll be."

"Oh, dear! I wish you did. I can't think who it is you wrote to,

Paul. And why didn't father like your doing it?"

"I haven't said that he-"

"Paul, you're very tiresome. Didn't he know you were going to do it?"

Pauline gathered up her cups and saucers without answering.

"Then he didn't," Patience observed. "Does mother know about it?"

"I mean to tell her as soon as I get a good chance," Pauline said impatiently, going back to the dining-room.

When she returned a few moments later, she found Patience still in the pantry, sitting thoughtfully on the old, blue sugar bucket. "I know," Patience announced triumphantly. "You've been writing to Uncle Paul!"

Pauline gasped and fled to the kitchen; there were times when flight was the better part of discretion, in dealing with the youngest member of the Shaw family.

On the whole, Patience behaved very well that evening, only, on going to bid her father good-night, did she ask anxiously, how long it took to send a letter to New York and get an answer.

"That depends considerably upon the promptness with which the party written to answers the letter," Mr. Shaw told her.

"A week?" Patience questioned.

"Probably-if not longer."

Patience sighed.

"Have you been writing a letter to someone in New York?" her father asked.

"No, indeed," the child said gravely, "but," she looked up, answering his glance. "Paul didn't tell me, father; I-guessed. Uncle Paul does live in New York, doesn't he?"

"Yes," Mr. Shaw answered, almost sharply. "Now run to bed, my dear."

But when the stairs were reached. Patience most certainly did not run. "I think people are very queer," she said to herself, "they seem to think ten years isn't a bit more grown-up than six or seven."

"Mummy," she asked, when later her mother came to take away her light, "father and Uncle Paul are brethren, aren't they?"

"My dear! What put that into your head?"

"Aren't they?"

"Certainly, dear."

"Then why don't they 'dwell together in unity'?"

"Patience!" Mrs. Shaw stared down at the sharp inquisitive little face.

"Why don't they?" Patience persisted. If persistency be a virtue,

Patience was to be highly commended.

"My dear, who has said that they do not?"

Patience shrugged; as if things had always to be said. "But, mummy-"

"Go to sleep now, dear." Mrs. Shaw bent to kiss her good-night.

"All the same," Patience confided to the darkness, "I know they don't." She gave a little shiver of delight-something very mysterious was afoot evidently.

Out on the landing, Mrs. Shaw found Pauline waiting for her. "Come into your room, mother, please, I've started up the fire; I want to tell you something."

"I thought as much," her mother answered. She sat down in the big armchair and Pauline drew up before the fire. "I've been expecting it all the evening."

Pauline dropped down on the floor, her head against her mother's knee. "This family is dreadfully keen-sighted. Mother dear, please don't be angry-" and Pauline made confession.

When she had finished, Mrs. Shaw sat for some moments, as her husband had done, her eyes on the fire. "You told him that we could not manage it, Pauline?" she said at last. "My dear, how could you!"

"But, mother dear, I was-desperate; something has to be done for-Hilary, and I had to do it!"

"Do you suppose your father and I do not realize that quite as well as you do, Pauline?"

"You and I have talked it over and over, and father never says-anything."

"Not to you, perhaps; but he is giving the matter very careful consideration, and later he hopes-"

"Mother dear, that is so indefinite!" Pauline broke in. "And I can't see-Father is Uncle Paul's only brother! If I were rich, and Hilary were not and needed things, I would want her to let me know."

"It is possible, that under certain conditions, Hilary would not wish you to know." Mrs. Shaw hesitated, then she said slowly, "You know, Pauline, that your uncle is much older than your father; so much older, that he seemed to stand-when your father was a boy-more in the light of a father to him, than an older brother. He was much opposed to your father's going into the ministry, he wanted him to go into business with him. He is a strong-willed man, and does not easily relinquish any plan of his own making. It went hard with him, when your father refused to yield; later, when your father received the call to this parish, your uncle quite as strongly opposed his accepting it-burying himself alive in a little out-of-the-way hole, he called it. It came to the point, finally, on your uncle's insisting on his making it a choice between himself and Winton. He refused to ever come near the place and the two or three letters your father wrote at first remained unanswered. The breach between them has been one of the hardest trials your father has had to bear."

"Oh," Pauline cried miserably, "what a horrid interfering thing father must think me! Rushing in where I had no right to! I wish I'd known-I just thought-you see, father speaks of Uncle Paul now and then-that maybe they'd only-grown apart-and that if Uncle Paul knew! But perhaps my letter will get lost. It would serve me right; and yet, if it does, I'm afraid I can't help feeling somewhat disappointed-on Hilary's account."

Her mother smiled. "We can only wait and see. I would rather you said nothing of what I have been telling you to either Hilary or Patience, Pauline."

"I won't, Mother Shaw. It seems I have a lot of secrets from Hilary. And I won't write any more such letters without consulting you or father, you can depend on that."

Mr. Paul Shaw's answer did not come within the allotted week. It was the longest week Pauline had ever known; and when the second went by and still no word from her uncle, the waiting and uncertainty became very hard to bear, all the harder, that her usual confidant, Hilary, must not be allowed to suspect anything.

The weather had turned suddenly warm, and Hilary's listlessness had increased proportionately, which probably accounted for the dying out of what little interest she had felt at first in Patience's "mysterious letter."

Patience, herself, was doing her best to play fair; fortunately, she was in school the greater part of the day, else the strain upon her powers of self-control might have proved too heavy.

"Mother," Pauline said one evening, lingering in her mother's room, after Hilary had gone to bed, "I don't believe Uncle Paul means answering at all. I wish I'd never asked him to do anything."

"So do I, Pauline. Still it is rather early yet for you to give up hope. It's hard waiting, I know, dear, but that is something we all have to learn to do, sooner or later."

"I don't think 'no news is good news,'" Pauline said; then she brightened. "Oh, Mother Shaw! Suppose the letter is on the way now, and that Hilary is to have a sea voyage! You'd have to go, too."

"Pauline, Pauline, not so fast! Listen, dear, we might send Hilary out to The Maples for a week or two. Mrs. Boyd would be delighted to have her; and it wouldn't be too far away, in case we should be getting her ready for that-sea voyage."

"I don't believe she'd care to go; it's quieter than here at home."

"But it would be a change. I believe I'll suggest it to her in the morning."

But when Mrs. Shaw did suggest it the next morning, Hilary was quite of Pauline's opinion. "I shouldn't like it a bit, mother! It would be worse than home-duller, I mean; and Mrs. Boyd would fuss over me so," she said impatiently.

"You used to like going there, Hilary."

"Mother, you can't want me to go."

"I think it might do you good, Hilary. I should like you to try it."

"Please, mother, I don't see the use of bothering with little half-way things."

"I do, Hilary, when they are the only ones within reach."

The girl moved restlessly, settling her hammock cushions; then she lay looking out over the sunny garden with discontented eyes.

It was a large old-fashioned garden, separated on the further side by a low hedge from the old ivy-covered church. On the back steps of the church, Sextoness Jane was shaking out her duster. She was old and gray and insignificant looking; her duties as sexton, in which she had succeeded her father, were her great delight. The will with which she sang and worked now seemed to have in it something of reproach for the girl stretched out idly in the hammock. Nothing more than half-way things, and not too many of those, had ever come Sextoness Jane's way. Yet she was singing now over her work.

Hilary moved impatiently, turning her back on the garden and the bent old figure moving about in the church beyond; but, somehow, she couldn't turn her back on what that bent old figure had suddenly come to stand for.

Fifteen minutes later, she sat up, pushing herself slowly back and forth. "I wish Jane had chosen any other morning to clean the church in, Mother Shaw!" she protested with spirit.

Her mother looked up from her mending. "Why, dear? It is her regular day."

"Couldn't she do it, I wonder, on an irregular day! Anyhow, if she had, I shouldn't have to go to The Maples this afternoon. Must I take a trunk, mother?"

"Hilary! But what has Jane to do with your going?"

"Pretty nearly everything, I reckon. Must I, mother?"

"No, indeed, dear; and you are not to go at all, unless you can do it willingly."

"Oh, I'm fairly resigned; don't press me too hard, Mother Shaw. I think I'll go tell Paul now."

"Well," Pauline said, "I'm glad you've decided to go, Hilary. I-that is, maybe it won't be for very long."