Chapter 3: The “Christmas Lady”

“The rosy glow of summer
Is on thy dimpled cheek,
While in thy heart the winter
Is lying cold and bleak.
“But this shall change hereafter,
When years have done their part,
And on thy cheek the wintered
And summer in thy heart.”
LATE the next afternoon a man and a girl were standing in the Olcott reception hall. The lamps had not been lighted, but the blaze from the back-log threw a cozy glow of comfort over the crimson curtains and on the mass of bright-hued pillows in the window-seat.

Robert Redding, standing with his hat in his hand, would have been gone long ago if the “Christmas Lady” had not worn her violet gown. He said it always took him half an hour to say good-by when she wore a rose in her hair, and a full hour when she had on the violet dress.

“By Jove, stand there a minute just as you are! The fire-light shining through your hair makes you look like a saint. Little Saint Lucinda!” he said teasingly, as he tried to catch her hand. She put it behind her for safe-keeping.

“Not a saint at all?” he went on, in mock surprise; “then an iceberg—a nice, proper little iceberg.”

Lucy Olcott looked up at him for a moment in silence; he was very tall and straight, and his face retained much of its boyishness, in spite of the firm, square jaw.

“Robert,” she said, suddenly grown serious, “I wish you would do something for me.”

“All right; what is it?” he asked.

She timidly put her hand on his, and looked up at him earnestly.

“It’s about Dick Harris,” she said. “I wish you would not be with him so much.”

Redding’s face clouded. “You aren’t afraid to trust me?” he asked.

“Oh, no; it isn’t that,” she said hurriedly; “but, Robert, it makes people think such wrong things about you; I can’t bear to have you misjudged.”

Redding put his arm around her, and together they stood looking down into the glowing embers.

“Tell me about it, little girl; what have you heard?” he asked.

She hesitated. “It wasn’t true what they said. I knew it wasn’t true, but they had no right to say it.”

“Well, let’s hear it, anyway. What was it?”

“Some people were here last night from New Orleans; they asked if I knew you—said they knew you and Dick the year you spent there.”

“Well?” said Redding.

Lucy evidently found it difficult to continue. “They said some horrid things then, just because you were Dick’s friend.”

“What were they, Lucy?”

“They told me that you were both as wild as could be; that your reputation was no better than his; that—forgive me, Robert, for even repeating it. It made me very angry, and I told them it was not true—not a word of it; that it was all Dick’s fault; that he—”