"Look," said Philip, and began to sing softly. "Here comes a beau
a-courting, a-courting---"
"Phil!" chided Millie and Amanda in one breath.
"Don't worry, Sis," said the irrepressible youth, "we'll gradually
efface ourselves, one by one--we're very thoughtful. I'll flip a penny
to see whether Isabel stays or you. Heads you win, tails she does."
"Phil!"
The vehement protest from his sister did not deter the boy from tossing
the coin, which promptly rolled off the porch and fell into a bed of
geraniums.
"See," he continued, "even the Fates are uncertain which one of you
will win. I suppose the battle's to the strongest this time. Oh, hello,
Martin," he said graciously as the caller turned in at the gate, "Nice
day, ain't it?"
"What ails the boy?" asked Martin, laughing as he raised his hat and
joined the group on the porch.
"Martin," said Amanda after he had greeted Isabel and took his place on
a chair near her, "you'd do me an everlasting favor if you'd turn that
brother of mine up on your knees and spank him."
"Now that I'd like to see!" spoke up Millie.
"You would, Millie? You'd like to see me get that? After all the coal
I've carried out of the cellar for you, and the other ways I've helped
make your burden lighter--you'd sit and see me humiliated! Ingratitude!
Even Millie turns against me. I'm going away from this crowd where I'm
not appreciated."
"Oh, you needn't affect such an air of martyrdom," his sister told him.
"I know you have a book half read; you want to get back to that."
"Say," said Uncle Amos, "these women, if they don't beat all! They
ferret all the weak spots out a man. I say it ain't right."
Later in the evening the older members of the household left the porch
and the trio of eternal trouble--two girls and a man--were left alone.
It was then the city girl exerted her most alluring wiles to be
entertaining. The man had eyes and ears for her only. As Mrs. Landis
once said, he looked past Amanda and did not see her. She sat in the
shadow and bit her lip as her plumed knight paid court before the
beauty and charm of another. The heart of the simple country girl
ached. But Isabel smiled, flattered and charmed and did it so adeptly
that instead of being obnoxious to the country boy it thrilled and
held him like the voice of a Circe. They never noticed Amanda's
silence. She could lean back in her chair and dream. She remembered
the story of Ulysses and his wax-filled ears that saved him from the
sirens; the tale of Orpheus, who drowned their alluring voices by
playing on his instrument a music sweeter than theirs--ah, that was
her only hope! That somewhere, deep in the heart of the man she loved
was a music surpassing in sweetness the music of the shallow girl's
voice which now seemed to sway him to her will. "If he is a man worth
loving," she thought, "he'll see through the surface glamour of a girl
like that." It was scant consolation, for she knew that only too
frequently do noble men give their lives into the precarious keeping
of frivolous, butterfly women.