CHAPTER IV.

A SUCCESSFUL EXPERIMENT.

ONLY a few hours and our young traveller found herself in another world. They were climbing the mountain; that is, the engine was climbing, but he was such a powerful creature, with so strong a pair of lungs, that he made no trouble whatever about it, and Dilly would not have known it was other than level ground but for the display which suddenly caught her eye from the car window. A deep, deep gorge, so deep that there seemed to her to be no bottom; and apparently it grew deeper every moment, as indeed it did, for she ascended higher; as for the picture spread around her, the lovely greens of the distant trees, the play of sunlight and shadow near at hand, the trickling of water down the mountain side, it would have been of no use for Dilly to try to describe it; it is almost as little use for me to try to tell how it made her feel; she drew deep breaths occasionally, and a lovely pink color spread over her face; but for the rest, she was still.

Ethel invited her to a frolic in vain; the solemn mountains had gotten possession of her.

"She is an appreciative little thing," said Mrs. Hammond to her son; "look at her face."

There was an amused smile on Hart's face; he thought it absurdly impossible that a child, like Dilly, could appreciate mountain scenery, nevertheless he turned at his mother's word and looked at her face. Presently he arose and took the vacant seat beside her, Ethel having been carried away by the nurse.

"What do you think of it?"

Dilly started, and trembled with surprise and excitement, as she turned toward him. Her cheeks were glowing, her eyes were bright, but there were tears in them.

"I never saw a mountain before," she said. "I didn't think they looked like this."

"What did you think they looked like?"

"Oh! I don't know; I can't tell at all, but I didn't suppose they quite touched the sky; and I didn't think the shadows were all colors, nor that they made you feel so."

"How do they make you feel?"

There was a faint smile on Dilly's face. "I can't tell that, either; I don't know how to tell things."

"Try," persisted Hart. "I have seen mountains all my life, and I have forgotten how they made me feel when I first saw them; I want to know what the feeling is."

"They make me," said Dilly, in a slow, awe-stricken tone, "they make me think—of God."

It was Hart's turn to start, now, and to give her a very surprised look. It was not at all the answer he had expected. He was silent because he really could not think of a proper reply; but to himself he said—"She is a queer little specimen, I guess; not one of the usual sort. It may be worth while to have a little fun with her." Then, aloud, after a moment, "This view is nothing, compared with what you will see when we reach the top. They can get up some wonderful sights up here. I wonder what you would think of sunset on Table Rock, since your taste runs in that direction?"

"What is it like?" asked Dilly after a moment of timid waiting. She was a good deal surprised to find herself talking with this young man with whom she had resolved so recently to have nothing to do.

He laughed, not unpleasantly. "Oh! Don't ask me; sunsets are not in my line; I haven't been to see one of them in three years. Worn out, you know. But I remember having a queer sort of feeling the first time I saw the exhibition. It wasn't hard to fancy that up there behind the crimson and gold was a door, partly open, which might, if you could only contrive to get up there, let a fellow slip into Heaven, before the angels knew what they were about."

Dilly looked a trifle shocked, a good deal excited, and wholly interested. She had never heard any one talk so about Heaven, before; she had never seen a sunset which gave her any such feeling.

"I would like to see it," she said, clasping her hands, and speaking in a sort of fever of suppressed excitement.

"Oh! You'll see it, without any doubt. It is quite the thing to go to Table Rock; my mother goes a dozen times a week—no, not so bad as that; there aren't a dozen sunsets in a week, are there? But she goes a great deal, and of course she will give you a chance; then you shall tell me how it makes you feel. Halloo! Here we are."

He arose suddenly, and the bustle of gathering straps and boxes and shawls, commenced.

A beautiful summer morning, and Dilly came to the door of the tent to look about her. Such a pretty view as one had behind those tent curtains! A large room neatly covered with white matting; curtains of delicate blue and white cretonne dividing it into departments, or, looping back, allowing it to be one large room, as the fancy of the occupant decided. Curtains of creamy lace, drawn at will in front of the opening, shut out the too-curious gaze of passersby, when one chose not to let them gaze. Just now they were pushed away, making a lovely mass of cream color against the tent side. There were easy chairs of bamboo pattern, wide, hospitable-looking arm-chairs, and pretty little rockers; a wide lounge of willow pattern, a table of the same, in the centre of the room, while the toilet articles which retired behind the blue and white curtain, on occasion, were draped in pure white.

To Dilly's mind there was never a prettier room; she had never seen anything like it. So simple, and yet so pure and beautiful. There was one special corner of it closed in with the lovely blue curtains which filled her with delight whenever she looked that way. A cot bed made up in white, occupied one end; a toilet stand draped in white was at its foot; a small rocker occupied the space between the side and the curtains, a corner was curtained off for a clothes press, and this spot in all its richness was Dilly's own. It was impossible not to lie in the small white bed at night and contrast it with the little room over the kitchen at home, where she had passed her weary nights for so long.

There were many contrasts, but the most delightful one to Dilly, was the rush of pure, sweet-scented air which came constantly in at the small round window away above her head, and went over to meet the current flowing in from the opposite round window. When had a breath of air stirred the curtain which hung limp and lifeless over the little window at home? It was the first bit of news Dilly wrote to her father from this new world.

"Father, don't you think the wind comes in all night! Great whiffs, and sometimes I have to partly close the queer little round window at the top, it opens and closes with a blue cord. It is a tent, you know. O father! It is so nice and beautiful to live in a tent."

Almost anything was "nice and beautiful" nowadays to Dilly.

"I never saw so marked a contrast in so short a time in my life!" said Mrs. Hammond to the nurse, one evening, speaking of Dilly. "Just think, Nurse, it is only ten days since we came, and look at her cheeks; they actually begin to puff out; and she has quite a little color."

"There do be quite a great change, that is a fact," said nurse Jeannette, who had not at first approved of Dilly, but was beginning to like her very well. "I thought when we came up here, ma'am, you would just have a sick girl on your hands to pay you for your trouble; but she is getting well, I'm thinking; and she's a comfortable little thing to have around."

"She certainly is," said Mrs. Hammond, speaking in a satisfied tone as she watched Dilly with careful fingers brush the dust from Effie's white dress, straighten her little sun hat, and lovingly pat her baby cheek. "Effie is very fond of her, Nurse."

"She is that, ma'am; and more good-tempered with her than she is with anybody else."

Mrs. Hammond smiled, and did not say what she thought: that Effie was good-tempered with Dilly, because Dilly was good-tempered with her. Nurse Jeannette was an excellent washer and ironer, and was always to be trusted to do her work carefully; it was not worth while to offend her by reminding her that she had not as much patience with the baby as Dilly had.

So, on this lovely morning when Dilly paused at the tent door a moment, she had been on the mountain for two delicious weeks, and was beginning to feel the blood bound through her veins, and to be glad to spring up in the morning, and to think that her breakfast of milk and eggs, and good bread and butter, was more delicious than anything she had ever before tasted. A very happy girl was Dilly. Her small outburst of indignation and self-pity in which she had indulged on the cars, was quite gone.

Nothing but gratitude remained for Mrs. Hammond; she had brought her to Paradise and was keeping her there. And when she went home, she could be well enough to keep house for her father as it ought to be kept; this was enough for Dilly.

On the whole, Mrs. Hammond's experiment was working very well. Certainly Effie thought so; the nurse was right, there was no one with whom she was happier than Dilly.

At first, Effie's mother had watched with anxiety; but peep when she would, even during the first days of Dilly's coming, when she was too weak to do much beside sit out of doors and watch Effie's slumbers, no stray fly was ever caught perching on that dear little nose, no sudden breeze was allowed to carry away the lace shield from the sleeping carriage. The lovely embroidered blanket was always carefully spread in just the right place, and the sun-shade tipped to exactly the right angle.

A few days later, when Dilly was able to have the wide-awake Effie entrusted to her, the mother kept them within seeing distance from her tent door, and wondered as the hours passed, that no fretful cry came from Effie, and arose often and looked, and found her always happy; digging in the dirt, or fluttering from grass plot to gay flower bed, always attended by Dilly, always happy and busy.

"She is a treasure," Mrs. Hammond said, going back to her book with a long-drawn sigh of relief; "she is just a treasure. I am very glad I brought her, and she is getting well, too; what a comfort she will be to her father," and then Mrs. Hammond sighed again.

It was of her Dilly was thinking while she stood at the door this morning, she had learned, she could hardly have told how, that Mrs. Hammond was often sorrowful over her son. Just what her fear or anxiety was, Dilly did not understand; but it was only too apparent that he was not in all respects what his mother wished; and Dilly had even seen her wipe away tears after one of their long talks together.

To this matter the little girl gave a great deal of thought. Mrs. Hammond had been so very kind to her, if she could in some way repay her; if there was only something she could do for Mr. Hart which would make her happier!

She was so beautiful, and so rich, and Effie was so sweet, and there was so very much for her to be happy about, yet she was not happy. Dilly could not fail to see that her face, when quiet, was nearly always sad.

What led her to think of it even more than usual this morning, was the fact that when she went into Mrs. Hammond's room at the hotel to get something for Effie, it was plain that that lady had been crying; and Mr. Hart had come out just before her, and had banged the door. What could he be doing to worry his mother? While she stood and thought, he came in sight, and stopped before her.