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ESTHER TERRALL’S EXPERIMENT
Sy MRS. ODESSA S. PA YNE: Author of "Psyche, ” "The Sacrifice, ” "Hole East End Was Eedeemed. ”
XL
STHER hung up the receiver deliberate
ly. She joined her friends in the parlor,
and, after a half hour call, she and Mr.
Cranshaw rode back to Ferrall Hall.
As they cantered up the box bordered
walk, she saluted Dan Hallam gaily,
as he walked moodily on the Doric
columned portico.
Central had caught the Xmas spirit
E
of excitement. She had assured Mr. Hallam that
the call had come from the capital city.
Dan went up to his room, after awhile, and wrote
the message from memory. Then he devoted a half
hour to the study of it.
“The last and only solution,” he muttered.
“Well, I’ll have to talk it over with Lane tonight.
I reckon I am such a dunce that I cannot fathom the
mystery. What girls do I know, ’’ he continued, half
savage in his baffled bitterness, “named after
queens? Victoria, Elizabeth, Alexandria. Pshaw!
1 am no puzzle machine., Thousands of years ago!
Wait! Cleopatra, my Egypt, no, , by Isis, you
won’t do! I’ll try the Bible. It’s a good book and
full of queens that I don’t know.
“Vashti. ”
Mr. Hallam laid his handsome head down on the
table, in the shimmer of the rich mahogany, and sat
without movement of any sort for fully an hour.
After that, he got up and going down to the stables
saddled a big roan hunter, and rode away.
He galloped away through leafless forests, incarna
dined with the glory of the slow sinking winter
sun, with no consciousness of his whereabouts;
through barren meadows and by great gray fields
shorn of their golden harvests, with no more
appreciation of his surroundings than the horse
he rode.
One moment the sun shone, and the birds sang
in his mental world; the next, everything went
black, and the universe reeled into chaos. It was
quite dark before he realized that he had ridden
many miles from Ferrall Hall, and he turned his
horse’s head back toward the place. He had no
idea where he w’as; but he trusted the great roan
to take him back to the hospitable home whose
guest he was.
Ferrall Hall was illuminated from cellar to
garret when he finally arrived. A servant took
the horse, and Dan climbed the stairs slowly to his
room. He was still in an abstracted mood.
After making a careful toilet, he descended the
great stairway; pausing for a moment to look out
into the starlit darkness of the Xmas night.
At the supper table, Mr. Hallam- was as grave
as a judge on the supreme bench. But Lane and
Lila Anderson kept the ball of conversation rolling
brightly, seconded by the other guests of the gay
party. As they emerged from the supper table into
the lower hall, Dan looked up and saw a girl
gowned in white lace and silk, standing on the
platform of the stairway. One white gloved hand,
lay across the curved balustrade, with a half open,
fan in loose grasp. Then, suddenly, thrilling and.
weird, a voice floated down the silences.
“I heard the bells of Xmas day,
Their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet,
The words repeat,
Os Peace on Earth, Good Will to Men.” 1
Lane picked up a mandolin.
“Duchess, ‘The Happy Singer,’ sing for our
friends, and I’ll give you ‘Dixie’ for. a Xmas;
present.”
And, to the soft twang of the strings, the in
flexion of the glorious tones adapted to every shade
of the meaning, the charmed audience at the foot,
of the stairs listened to the words:
“He just kept on a singin’, when the shadows hid'
the sky:
The Golden Age for March 19, 1908.
Bright lamps shinin’ in the windows up on high;
Love will kiss the lilies, in the gardens, by
and by,
And we’ll rest in the beauty of the mornin’.
“ ‘Had his share of sorrow’ but with faith for
ever strong,
He saw amid the red thorns, all the sweetest roses
throng,
Evermore the music of that loved world-reaching
song:
‘We’ll rest in the beauty of the mornin’!”
There was a wild clapping of hands, as Esther
finished; and Dan thought he had never seen any
thing lovelier than the girl looked at the moment,
standing there on the landing, in her white robes,
under the light of the silver candelabra.
The soft brown hair made a coronal for the
statuesque beauty of the face; while the gray eyes
glowed and scintillated with restrained emotion.
There was no tinge of color about her, even the
roses in her belt were guiltless of leaves. Mr.
Charles Cranshaw met Esther at the foot of the
steps, and the whole party adjourned to the
parlors.
The portraits and pictures were wreathed in
holly everywhere throughout the great mansion; and
under the central silver candelabra in the rooms
where the guests were assembled, hung a large
bunch of white mistletoe, suspended by a red ribbon.
D, n was trying to beguile Lila Andersen under
the fatal emblem, when Esther and her escort
passed them. Esther ignored the tableau, but Cran
shaw laughed merrily, as he affirmed:
“It is my opinion that the ladies of the party
are playing to the gallery gods. Mistletoe is as
harmless as heliotrope—ten yards away.”
Dan felt as if he would like to wring his neck
for calling Esther’s attention to this little piece of
by-play. But she made no reply: for just at that
■moment the guests of the village began to arrive;
and Mrs. Ferrall, gowned in lilac silk and lace,
and looking very handsome, took her place by her
daughter, to receive their friends.
Afterward, there were g’ames, but no cards,
charades and other innocent amusements, which
culminated in a Xmas banquet, in the large old
fashioned dining room, at midnight.
There was a frieze of mistletoe around the high
green walls, interspersed at intervals with crimson
bells. The table, rich with Dresden china and
handwrought bowls of silver, was decorated with
carnations and holly. The lace center piece was
adorned with a basket of beauty roses, tied with
butterfly bows of crimson satin ribbon.
The Xmas idea was everywhere in evidence,
-even the places being marked with holly-cards.
David Grantland sat at Mrs. Ferrall’s right, and
Dan Hallam by Lane’s, at the other end of the
table. The high mantel was banked with mistletoe
and holly, and there were jardinieres of palms and
mist ferns in the corners. The light from the
■central silver candelabra fell brightly over the
most distinguished array of guests that had
honored Ferrall Hall for many years.
Edith Hill sat next to Dan Hallam. She wore
a cream lace point applique dress over pink taffeta,
and her bouquet was of carnations of the same hue.
■She had charming manners; and was a delightful
•conversationalist. Dan thought that it was quite
possible that she would be Mrs. Lane Ferrall some
•day.
“Outside of its spiritual significance,” Edith
:said with a smile, “ what makes Xmas so charming,
Mr. Hallam?”
Dan was trying to catch a glimpse of Esther on
the other side of the table, through a spray of mist
ferns.
“Because we all lay aside our armor, I suppose,”
he returned, “and, for the time being, really feel
the good will which the event commemorates.”
“Look at Mrs. Ferrall,” Edith exclaimed softly,
“she looks as if she felt in accord with the Xmas
harmony. And, I do not wonder; Mr. Grantland
is one of the most brilliant and entertaining men
I ever met.”
Dan took an olive, and looked the question he
would not ask.
“Yes, he is entirely devoted to her,” she return
ed with a simulated sigh, “and none of the girls
stand a ghost of a chance.”
The banquet was served in courses; but Mr.
Hallam did not find the time long; because besides
the piquant charm of Miss Hill, Esther and Mr.
Cranshaw sat opposite, and he did not miss any of
the by-play in that direction. Over the ices—which
were frozen red roses on sprays of holly —Dan
heard the young lawyer say, in an undertone:
“You must sing for me, Miss Ferrall, this is my
last night. Sing ‘Love Me And The World Is
Mine.’ ”
Miss Ferrall’s patrician face clouded.
“I am sorry,” she said quietly, “but I do not
feel at all sentimental. lam sure that I could not
sing it for you, with any expression, tonight.”
Dan turned gaily to Edith Hill.
“When your reign begins at Ferrall Hall, please
invite me to be one of your Xmas guests, every
year. ’ ’
Miss Hill looked shocked; but catching Lane’s
illuminating glance in explanation, she arose grand
ly to the challenge.
“All right, Mr. Hallam,” she said with a radiant
expression, which might have meant everything or
nothing, “I invite you now: for next Xmas eve.”
* * « » * « $ * *
The guests who constituted the party from the
village were all gone. All the good wishes and
cheery goodnights had been said, and the fair
young hostess stood alone under the silver can
delabra.
“Sic transit,” she said, with a sad little gesture,
and an enigmatic smile.
Dan and Lane were smoking in the library again,
and Esther, after ordering a servant to lock up the
house, went into the sitting room, and sank down
in a chair before the fire to review the events of
the evening.
She had not exchanged a word with Mr. Hallam,
and she could not tell whether he had caught
the vague clue she had given him over the phone,
or not. But from his gloom and abstraction at the
supper table, which had been duly reported by
Lila Anderson, she was inclined to believe that
he was still in the dark about the matter. If that
was not the cause, and he had discovered her iden
tity, he was certainly far from being enthused
over the information. And yet, what had she to
regret? He had been her brother’s friend, and
hers: and except the fact that she had concealed
her name, she had no reproaches to offer herself.
Ihe whole world might have listened, and wel
come, to her part of the telephone romance. Well,
it was all over, and in the morning Mr. Hallam would
go back to the city, and forget he ever knew her.
She sat in a deep study, in her leather chair, which
made an effective background for the loveliness
of her high bred face and white lace gown worn
over soft white silk. She stretched out her dainty
slippered feet to the fire, and smiled over the
consciousness of being picturesquely miserable.
After a time she heard Mr. Hallam and Lane
ascending the great stairway, and she knew that
she was then alone in the flower-scented stillness
of the lower floor. She took the roses from her
belt, and looking at their wilted loveliness, she
thought of the miserable finale of the Phone Ro
mance; and quoted softly the words of an old
philosopher:
A.on have had their sweetness; nothing endures,
be content.”
Suddenly, she felt that her solitude was shared,
and, glancing up, she saw Dan Hallam in the
doorway.
(Concluded on Page 5.)
