“Whatever you think is or isn’t so,” he warned, “don’t—press anybody too hard, don’t push some one by letting him know too quickly that you have guessed who he is. Your aunt is eager and overwrought; who wouldn’t be, after ten years of anxiety and sorrow? She and you might be in too much of a hurry and ruin everything. John thinks he is safe under his assumed name and with your aunt too ill to be about. He knows who you are and perhaps why you have come, but he can’t yet make up his mind to conquer his stubborn pride. Give him time, that is all I say, give him time. He rode away into the hills the first day he saw you, but he must have thought things out up there in the mountains, for he came back again. But he can’t come all the way yet.”
“Do you think he ever will?” Beatrice asked anxiously.
“Yes, I think he will. Does your aunt have any suspicion of who he is?”
“I am sure she hasn’t,” Beatrice declared. “She thinks of him as Hester’s father, some one too old to be her brother. No, she doesn’t dream it.”
“Then don’t tell her and don’t tell him,” he urged. “Wait until John is ready to tell her himself. You must go gently with a man who has been hurt to his very soul.”
Beatrice held out her brown hand and the doctor shook it solemnly. She watched him ride away; then returned to the house to saddle Buck and set off presently up the mountain. Her mind was full of new, excited hopes that seemed to dance to the music of Buck’s flying feet.
Nancy, meanwhile, was not thinking so much of their new problem. She had the faculty of being completely absorbed in the object in hand and to-day that object was a cake. Christina had given her a Scandinavian recipe, dwelling so much on the unusual deliciousness of the result that Nancy could scarcely wait to try it. With the greatest of care she mixed and measured and weighed and stirred.
“It is rather a long cake,” she reflected after she had spent an hour combining the ingredients, but she felt certain that the completed dish would amply repay her toil.
She had just got it into the oven when a knock sounded on the kitchen door to announce the boy whom Hester had sent with a basket of eggs.
“Thank you, Olaf,” she said as he set them down; then flushed since she had not meant to speak his name. The color flooded his face also. “I beg your pardon,” she added quickly. “We have been guessing who you were, but we didn’t mean to pry into any secrets.”