Free CRIMSON MOUNTAIN by Grace Livingston Hill Page A

father. They met in college. My father was working his way through. He didn’t have an easy time. Grandfather was sick and old and not able to help. Then the First World War came and took Father. He and Mother married just out of college. I was only a little kid when Dad sailed for France, and he never came back. He was killed in action.”
    “Oh!” said Laurel pitifully. “Then you don’t remember your father?”
    “No,” said Pilgrim sadly, “not very well. And it nearly killed Mother. It broke her heart. I don’t believe she ever got over it. I can remember how sad her eyes always were, even with the glory in them. She worked pretty hard to keep us, for the money she had inherited had all been used up by her unscrupulous brother. Then, finally, Dad’s mother and father found it out and sent her money to come and live with them, but she died soon after we got here, and the rest of it had to be used to bury her. Grandmother died soon after that, and I had to live alone with Grandfather. So there you have my story. You see, I’m rather a nobody, and my story isn’t very exciting.”
    “But you came up a good man,” said Laurel with conviction, “and a brave, strong one.”
    “You don’t know that,” said Pilgrim. “You’re just imagining. Just trying to be nice and polite.”
    “No,” said Laurel, “I’m not. Of course I’ve heard a lot about Phil Pilgrim in college, what a scholar he was, and how he got quite a name in athletics, but those things don’t count much in real life. Do you think so? It’s what you stand for, the standards you have set for yourself, the plans you have made, whether you are steering for real things or just want to have a good time and let it go at that.”
    “I see,” said Pilgrim. “And how could you possibly tell by your brief contact with me what my standards were?”
    “Why, it’s written in your face.”
    “Say, now you are complimenting me. But I think you are all wrong. I knew a few fellows in college who had perfectly heavenly faces and perfectly rotten hearts! Not that I’m under the impression that my face is saintlike, but I’m merely trying to show you how little real reason you have to go on in judging me.”
    He was grinning at her now, and the line of his white teeth flashed at her pleasantly. Yes, he was very good-looking, but that wasn’t all. There was something fine and dependable below it that made her sure she had not misjudged him.
    “Well,” she said with an answering flash of humor in her own smile, “at least I have my woman’s intuition to go on, and that tells me I have a right to depend on you!”
    “You win!” he said with a twinkle. “And thanks awfully. But by that same token—that is, a man’s intuition—I knew that you were worth saving when I decided to lift you above that herd of cattle. I took time to figure it all out, of course.” He grinned. “But now, we haven’t completed our family biographies yet. Won’t you tell me about your lady-mother and your true-hearted father?”
    “Oh yes, of course,” said Laurel. “I’m pleased that you are interested. They were sweet, both of them. My mother
was
a lady. you have said it. Gentle and lovely always, never saying harsh things about people or to them, that I can remember. Everybody loved her. All the servants adored her. The people in the church loved to defer to her. They came to her for help in every activity, and she always helped. She had a lot of board meetings to attend, committee meetings and things. She was active in the hospital work and in helping poor people, getting food and clothing for them, but she always did it so quietly we never even knew much about her work of that sort even at home. It was after she had gone that people came to me and told me about it. And at home she was so wonderful, the very heart and life of us all. She always had time to help us children in our play and in our lessons, and we came to her with everything. She was so