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Betty had hurried on up the road to call by for Katie Mallard, with the agreement that the couple which reached the post-office first should wait there for the other.
"Let's cut through Clovercroft," suggested Lloyd.
"Mrs. Marks won't care, and it is much shortah that way. The path below her ice-house will bring us out at her woodland gate, just across the road from the depot."
"Anything to get to the post-office first," agreed Ida. "I'm sure that there'll be a letter in your box for me to-day. I can just feel that there's one there."
From the depot it was but a few steps to the post-office. One had only to cross the road, pass the country store, and stroll a short distance along the shady avenue. There it sat by the wayside, a little box of a room, that always made Lloyd think of a dove-cote; for the first time she had been taken there her grandfather had explained that all the little square places where Miss Mattie was putting the letters were pigeonholes. Presently when Miss Mattie opened the window and handed him a letter from one of those places, she cried out with a little squeal of delight which made every one smile, "Oh, white pigeon wing flied out fo' you, grandfathah!"
Afterward it grew to be a byword that they always used between themselves, when one carried home a letter for the other. "Pigeon wing for grandpa's baby," he would call fondly, even when she had grown to be a tall girl; and "White pigeon wing flied out fo' you, grandfathah deah," was the cry if she were the bearer of the missive.
From the post-office door, looking across the road to a grassy ridge beyond, one could see the big inn that the year before had been turned into a home for old Confederate soldiers. Farther on was the wide green slope of the churchyard, and the little stone church with its ivy-covered belfry. The manse stood just behind it. Next to that was the cottage with the high green gables and diamond-shaped window-panes, where the Waltons had lived one summer while their new house was being built. And next to the cottage was the new house itself, set away back in the great grove of trees which gave to the place the name of "The Beeches."
Ida stood outside the door while Lloyd went in for the mail. She was afraid that Miss Mattie might suspect that she had an interest in the letters if she went in too, so she busied herself in looking for four-leaf clovers along the path.
She could not have seen one, however, had they been growing on every grass-blade, she was in such a nervous flutter of expectancy. When Lloyd came out with two letters in her hand, her face flushed crimson at sight of the familiar handwriting on one envelope.
"This is mine," she exclaimed, in a low tone, snatching it eagerly. "Let's sit down here on the step while I read it."
"I'm mighty glad it wasn't the only one," said Lloyd, glancing back over her shoulder to see if Miss Mattie still stood at the delivery-window. Peeping through the glass which covered the partition wall of pigeonholes, Lloyd saw that she had gone back to her desk by the rear window. So she continued, in a low tone:
"Suppose that had been the only letter, and Betty had asked me if I got one?"
"You would have said no, of course," said Ida, looking up from the page, impatient at the interruption. "This is not for you."
"But it is addressed to me," persisted Lloyd. "Suppose Miss Mattie heard me say no to such a question, or that Betty saw me take it out of the box?"
Again Ida looked up impatiently, but seeing the distressed expression of Lloyd's face, said, soothingly, "I know what you are thinking, Princess. It has just occurred to you that your helping me to carry on this correspondence under cover of your name seems a little bit underhanded. But if you could just read this letter you'd never be troubled by such a thought again. It makes me feel that I am carrying out the motto of our club in the very highest way possible.
"I cannot be with Edwardo, but at least half of this letter is taken up with telling me how much my letters have helped and influenced him. That the thought of me off here, true to him in spite of all that has been done to separate us, is keeping him straight as nothing else could do. Somehow it seems a good omen for the club that I should get such a letter on my way to the first meeting."
Ida's manner was convincing, and Lloyd's face brightened as she listened, but she breathed more freely when she saw the envelope bearing her name torn into little bits too small to tell tales, and dropped down the crack behind the doorstep.
Betty and Katie joined them presently, and two by two they rustled along through the fallen leaves which filled the path, to The Beeches. Long before three o'clock the six members of the Shadow Club were assembled around the big table in the dining-room, with their materials spread out for Mrs. Walton's inspection. Piles of brightly coloured tissue-paper, embroidery silks, zephyr, and ribbon, made a gay showing. Mrs. Walton entered into their plans for the fair enthusiastically, as she helped wind a skein of Iceland wool for Katie's crocheting.