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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/10926-0.txt b/10926-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9eb759a --- /dev/null +++ b/10926-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9881 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10926 *** + +SAXE HOLM'S STORIES + +[by Helen Hunt Jackson] + + +1873 + + +Content. + +Draxy Miller's Dowry +The Elder's Wife +Whose Wife Was She? +The One-Legged Dancers +How One Woman Kept Her Husband +Esther Wynn's Love-Letters + + + + +Draxy Miller's Dowry. + + + +Part I. + + +When Draxy Miller's father was a boy, he read a novel in which the heroine +was a Polish girl, named Darachsa. The name stamped itself indelibly upon +his imagination; and when, at the age of thirty-five, he took his +first-born daughter in his arms, his first words were--"I want her called +Darachsa." + +"What!" exclaimed the doctor, turning sharply round, and looking out above +his spectacles; "what heathen kind of a name is that?" + +"Oh, Reuben!" groaned a feeble voice from the baby's mother; and the nurse +muttered audibly, as she left the room, "There ain't never no luck comes +of them outlandish names." + +The whole village was in a state of excitement before night. Poor Reuben +Miller had never before been the object of half so much interest. His +slowly dwindling fortunes, the mysterious succession of his ill-lucks, had +not much stirred the hearts of the people. He was a retice'nt man; he +loved books, and had hungered for them all his life; his townsmen +unconsciously resented what they pretended to despise; and so it had +slowly come about that in the village where his father had lived and died, +and where he himself had grown up, and seemed likely to live and die, +Reuben Miller was a lonely man, and came and went almost as a stranger +might come and go. His wife was simply a shadow and echo of himself; one +of those clinging, tender, unselfish, will-less women, who make pleasant, +and affectionate, and sunny wives enough for rich, prosperous, +unsentimental husbands, but who are millstones about the necks of +sensitive, impressionable, unsuccessful men. If Jane Miller had been a +strong, determined woman, Reuben would not have been a failure. The only +thing he had needed in life had been persistent purpose and courage. The +right sort of wife would have given him both. But when he was discouraged, +baffled, Jane clasped her hands, sat down, and looked into his face with +streaming eyes. If he smiled, she smiled; but that was just when it was of +least consequence that she should smile. So the twelve years of their +married life had gone on slowly, very slowly, but still surely, from bad +to worse; nothing prospered in Reuben's hands. The farm which he had +inherited from his father was large, but not profitable. He tried too long +to work the whole of it, and then he sold the parts which he ought to have +kept. He sunk a great portion of his little capital in a flour-mill, which +promised to be a great success, paid well for a couple of years, and then +burnt down, uninsured. He took a contract for building one section of a +canal, which was to pass through part of his land; sub-contractors cheated +him, and he, in his honesty, almost ruined himself to right their wrong. +Then he opened a little store; here, also, he failed. He was too honest, +too sympathizing, too inert. His day-book was a curiosity; he had a vein +of humor which no amount of misfortune could quench; and he used to enter +under the head of "given" all the purchases which he knew were not likely +to be paid for. It was at sight of this book, one day, that Jane Miller, +for the first and only time in her life, lost her temper with Reuben. + +"Well, I must say, Reuben Miller, if I die for it," said she, "I haven't +had so much as a pound of white sugar nor a single lemon in my house for +two years, and I do think it's a burnin' shame for you to go on sellin' +'em to them shiftless Greens, that'll never pay you a cent, and you know +it!" + +Reuben was sitting on the counter smoking his pipe and reading an old +tattered copy of Dryden's translation of Virgil. He lifted his clear blue +eyes in astonishment, put down his pipe, and, slowly swinging his long +legs over the counter, caught Jane by the waist, put both his arms round +her, and said,-- + +"Why, mother, what's come over you! You know poor little Eph's dyin' of +that white swellin'. You wouldn't have me refuse his mother anything we've +got, would you?" + +Jane Miller walked back to the house with tears in her eyes, but her +homely sallow face was transfigured by love as she went about her work, +thinking to herself,-- + +"There never was such a man's Reuben, anyhow. I guess he'll get interest +one o' these days for all he's lent the Lord, first and last, without +anybody's knowin' it." + +But the Lord has His own system of reckoning compound interest, and His +ways of paying are not our ways. He gave no visible sign of recognition of +indebtedness to Reuben. Things went harder and harder with the Millers, +until they had come to such a pass that when Reuben Miller went after the +doctor, in the early dawn of the day on which little Draxy was born, he +clasped his hands in sorrow and humiliation before he knocked at the +doctor's door; and his only words were hard words for a man of +sensitiveness and pride to speak:-- + +"Doctor Cobb, will you come over to my wife? I don't dare to be sure I can +ever pay you; but if there's anything in the store "-- + +"Pshaw, pshaw, Reuben, don't speak of that; you'll be all right in a few +years," said the kind old doctor, who had known Reuben from his boyhood, +and understood him far better than any one else did. + +And so little Draxy was born. + +"It's a mercy it's a girl at last," said the village gossips. "Mis' +Miller's had a hard time with them four great boys, and Mr. Miller so +behindhand allers." + +"And who but Reuben Miller'd ever think of givin' a Christian child such a +name!" they added. + +But what the name was nobody rightly made out; nor even whether it had +been actually given to the baby, or had only been talked of; and between +curiosity and antagonism, the villagers were so drawn to Reuben Miller's +store, that it began to look quite like a run of custom. + +"If I hold out a spell on namin' her," said Reuben, as in the twilight of +the third day he sat by his wife's bedside; "if I hold out a spell on +namin' her, I shall get all the folks in the district into the store, and +sell out clean," and he laughed quizzically, and stroked the little +mottled face which lay on the pillow. "There's Squire Williams and Mis' +Conkey both been in this afternoon; and Mis' Conkey took ten pounds of +that old Hyson tea you thought I'd never sell; and Squire Williams, he +took the last of those new-fangled churns, and says he, 'I expect you'll +want to drive trade a little brisker, Reuben, now there's a little girl to +be provided for; and, by the way, what are you going to call her?' + +"'Oh, it's quite too soon to settle, that,' said I, as if I hadn't a name +in my head yet. And then Mis' Conkey spoke up and said: 'Well, I did hear +you were going to name her after a heathen goddess that nobody over heard +of, and I do hope you will consider her feelings when she grows up.' + +"'I hope I always shall, Mis' Conkey,' said I; and she didn't know what to +say next. So she picked up her bundle of tea, and they stepped off +together quite dignified. + +"But I think we'll call her Darachsa, in spite of 'em all, Jane," added +Reuben with a hesitating half laugh. + +"Oh, Reuben!" Jane said again. It was the strongest remonstrance on which +she ever ventured. She did not like the name; but she adored Reuben. So +when the baby was three months old, she was carried into the meeting-house +in a faded blue cashmere cloak, and baptized in the name of the Father, +and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, "Darachsa Lawton Miller." + +Jane Miller's babies always thrived. The passive acquiescence of her +nature was a blessing to them. The currents of their blood were never +rendered unhealthful by overwrought nerves or disturbed temper in their +mother. Their infancy was as placid and quiet as if they had been kittens. +Not until they were old enough to understand words, and to comprehend +deprivations, did they suffer because of their poverty. Then a serious +look began to settle upon their faces; they learned to watch their father +and mother wistfully, and to wonder what was wrong; their childhood was +very short. + +Before Draxy was ten years old she had become her father's inseparable +companion, confidant, and helper. He wondered, sometimes almost in terror, +what it meant, that he could say to this little child what he could not +say to her mother; that he often detected himself in a desire to ask of +this babe advice or suggestion which he never dreamed of asking from his +wife. + +But Draxy was wise. She had the sagacity which comes from great tenderness +and loyalty, combined with a passionate nature. In such a woman's soul +there is sometimes an almost supernatural instinct. She will detect danger +and devise safety with a rapidity and ingenuity which are incredible. But +to such a nature will also come the subtlest and deepest despairs of which +the human heart is capable. The same instinct which foresees and devises +for the loved ones will also recognize their most hidden traits, their +utmost possibilities, their inevitable limitations, with a completeness +and infallibility akin to that of God Himself. Jane Miller, all her life +long, believed in the possibility of Reuben's success; charged his +failures to outside occasions, and hoped always in a better day to come. +Draxy, early in her childhood, instinctively felt, what she was far too +young consciously to know, that her father would never be a happier man; +that "things" would always go against him. She had a deeper reverence for +the uprightness and sweet simplicity of his nature than her mother ever +could have had. She comprehended, Jane believed; Draxy felt, Jane saw. +Without ever having heard of such a thing as fate, little Draxy recognized +that her father was fighting with it, and that fate was the stronger! Her +little arms clasped closer and closer round his neck, and her serene blue +eyes, so like his, and yet so wondrously unlike, by reason of their latent +fire and strength, looked this unseen enemy steadfastly in the face, day +by day. + +She was a wonderful child. Her physical health was perfect. The first ten +years of her life were spent either out of doors, or in her father's lap. +He would not allow her to attend the district school; all she knew she +learned from him. Reuben Miller had never looked into an English grammar +or a history, but he knew Shakespeare by heart, and much of Homer; a few +odd volumes of Walter Scott's novels, some old voyages, a big family +Bible, and a copy of Byron, were the only other books in his house. As +Draxy grew older, Reuben now and then borrowed from the minister books +which he thought would do her good; but the child and he both loved Homer +and the Bible so much better than any later books, that they soon drifted +back to them. It was a little sad, except that it was so beautiful, to +see the isolated life these two led in the family. The boys were good, +sturdy, noisy boys. They went to school in the winter and worked on the +farm in the summer, like all farmers' boys. Reuben, the oldest, was +eighteen when Draxy was ten; he was hired, by a sort of indenture, for +three years, on a neighboring farm, and came home only on alternate +Sundays. Jamie, and Sam, and Lawton were at home; young as they were, they +did men's service in many ways. Jamie had a rare gift for breaking horses, +and for several years the only ready money which the little farm had +yielded was the price of the colts which Jamie raised and trained so +admirably that they sold well. The other two boys were strong and willing, +but they had none of their father's spirituality, or their mother's +gentleness. Thus, in spite of Reuben Miller's deep love for his children, +he was never at ease in his boys' presence; and, as they grew older, +nothing but the influence of their mother's respect for their father +prevented their having an impatient contempt for his unlikeness to the +busy, active, thrifty farmers of the neighborhood. + +It was a strange picture that the little kitchen presented on a winter +evening. Reuben sat always on the left hand of the big fire-place, with a +book on his knees. Draxy was curled up on an old-fashioned cherry-wood +stand close to his chair, but so high that she rested her little dimpled +chin on his head. A tallow candle stood on a high bracket, made from a +fungus which Reuben had found in the woods. When the candle flared and +dripped, Draxy sprang up on the stand, and, poised on one foot, reached +over her father's head to snuff it. She looked like a dainty fairy +half-floating in the air, but nobody knew it. Jane sat in a high-backed +wooden rocking-chair, which had a flag bottom and a ruffled calico +cushion, and could only rock a very few inches back and forth, owing to +the loss of half of one of the rockers. For the first part of the evening, +Jane always knitted; but by eight o'clock the hands relaxed, the needles +dropped, the tired head fell back against the chair, and she was fast +asleep. + +The boys were by themselves in the farther corner of the room, playing +checkers or doing sums, or reading the village newspaper. Reuben and Draxy +were as alone as if the house had been empty. Sometimes he read to her in +a whisper; sometimes he pointed slowly along the lines in silence, and the +wise little eyes from above followed intently. All questions and +explanations were saved till the next morning, when Draxy, still curled up +like a kitten, would sit mounted on the top of the buckwheat barrel in the +store, while her father lay stretched on the counter, smoking. They never +talked to each other, except when no one could hear; that is, they never +spoke in words; there was mysterious and incessant communication between +them whenever they were together, as there is between all true lovers. + +At nine o'clock Reuben always shut the book, and said, "Kiss me, little +daughter." Draxy kissed him, and said, "Good-night, father dear," and that +was all. The other children called him "pa," as was the universal custom +in the village. But Draxy even in her babyhood had never once used the +word. Until she was seven or eight years old she called him "Farver;" +after that, always "father dear." Then Reuben would wake Jane up, sighing +usually, "Poor mother, how tired she is!" Sometimes Jane said when she +kissed Draxy, at the door of her little room, "Why don't you kiss your pa +for good-night?" + +"I kissed father before you waked up, ma," was always Draxy's quiet +answer. + +And so the years went on. There was much discomfort, much deprivation in +Reuben Miller's house. Food was not scarce; the farm yielded enough, such +as it was, very coarse and without variety; but money was hard to get; the +store seemed to be absolutely unremunerative, though customers were not +wanting; and the store and the farm were all that Reuben Miller had in the +world. But in spite of the poor food; in spite of the lack of most which +money buys; in spite of the loyal, tender, passionate despair of her +devotion to her father, Draxy grew fairer and fairer, stronger and +stronger. At fourteen her physique was that of superb womanhood. She had +inherited her body wholly from her father. For generations back, the +Millers had been marked for their fine frames. The men were all over six +feet tall, and magnificently made; and the women were much above the +average size and strength. On Draxy's fourteenth birthday she weighed one +hundred and fifty pounds, and measured five feet six inches in height. Her +coloring was that of an English girl, and her bright brown hair fell below +her waist in thick masses. To see the face of a simple-hearted child, +eager but serene, determined but lovingly gentle, surrounded and glorified +by such splendid physical womanhood, was a rare sight. Reuben Miller's +eyes filled with tears often as he secretly watched his daughter, and said +to himself, "Oh, what is to be her fate! what man is worthy of the wife +she will be?" But the village people saw only a healthy, handsome girl, +"overgrown," they thought, and "as queer as her father before her," they +said, for Draxy, very early in life, had withdrawn herself somewhat from +the companionship of the young people of the town. + +As for Jane, she loved and reverenced Draxy, very much as she did Reuben, +with touching devotion, but without any real comprehension of her nature. +If she sometimes felt a pang in seeing how much more Reuben talked with +Draxy than with her, how much more he sought to be with Draxy than with +her, she stifled it, and, reproaching herself for disloyalty to each, set +herself to work for them harder than before. + +In Draxy's sixteenth year the final blow of misfortune fell upon Reuben +Miller's head. + +A brother of Jane's, for whom, in an hour of foolish generosity, Reuben +had indorsed a note of a considerable amount, failed. Reuben's farm was +already heavily mortgaged. There was nothing to be done but to sell it. +Purchasers were not plenty nor eager; everybody knew that the farm must be +sold for whatever it would bring, and each man who thought of buying hoped +to profit somewhat, in a legitimate and Christian way, by Reuben's +extremity. + +Reuben's courage would have utterly forsaken him now, except for Draxy's +calmness. Jane was utterly unnerved; wept silently from morning till +night, and implored Reuben to see her brother's creditors, and beg them +to release him from his obligation. But Draxy, usually so gentle, grew +almost stern when such suggestions were made. + +"You don't understand, ma," she said, with flushing cheeks. "It is a +promise. Father must pay it. He cannot ask to have it given back to him." + +But with all Draxy's inflexibility of resolve, she could not help being +disheartened. She could not see how they were to live; the three rooms +over the store could easily be fitted up into an endurable dwelling-place; +but what was to supply the food which the farm had hitherto given them? +There was literally no way open for a man or a woman to earn money in that +little farming village. Each family took care of itself and hired no +service, except in the short season of haying. Draxy was an excellent +seamstress, but she knew very well that the price of all the sewing hired +in the village in a year would not keep them from starving. The Store must +be given up, because her father would have no money with which to buy +goods. In fact, for a long time, most of his purchases had been made by +exchanging the spare produce of his farm at large stores in the +neighboring towns. Still Draxy never wavered, and because she did not +waver Reuben did not die. The farm was sold at auction, with the stock, +the utensils, and all of the house-furniture which was not needed to make +the store chambers habitable. The buyer boasted in the village that he had +not given more than two thirds of the real value of the place. After +Reuben's debts were all paid, there remained just one thousand dollars to +be put into the bank. + +"Why, father! That is a fortune," said Draxy, when he told her. "I did +not suppose we should have anything, and it is glorious not to owe any man +a cent." + +It was early in April when the Millers moved into the "store chambers." +The buyer of their farm was a hard-hearted, penurious man, a deacon of the +church in which Draxy had been baptized. He had never been known to give a +penny to any charity excepting Foreign Missions. His wife and children had +never received at his hands the smallest gift. But even his heart was +touched by Draxy's cheerful acquiescence in the hard change, and her +pathetic attempts to make the new home pleasant. The next morning after +Deacon White took possession, he called out over the fence to poor Reuben, +who stood listlessly on the store steps, trying not to look across at the +house which had been his. + +"I say, Miller, that gal o' your'n is what I call the right sort o' woman, +up an' down. I hain't said much to her, but I've noticed that she set a +heap by this garding; an' I expect she'll miss the flowers more'n +anything; now my womenfolks they won't have anythin' to do with such +truck; an' if she's a mind to take care on't jest's she used ter, I'm +willin'; I guess we shall be the gainers on't." + +"Thank you, Deacon White; Draxy'll be very glad," was all Reuben could +reply. Something in his tone touched the man's flinty heart still more; +and before he half knew what he was going to say, he had added,-- + +"An' there's the vegetable part on't, too, Miller. I never was no hand to +putter with garden sass. If you'll jest keep that up and go halves, fair +and reg'lar, you're welcome." + +This was tangible help. Reuben's face lighted up. + +"I thank you with all my heart," he replied. "That'll be a great help to +me; and I reckon you'll like our vegetables, too," he said, half smiling, +for he knew very well that nothing but potatoes and turnips had been seen +on Deacon White's table for years. + +Then Reuben went to find Draxy; when he told her, the color came into her +face, and she shut both her hands with a quick, nervous motion, which was +habitual to her under excitement. + +"Oh, father, we can almost live off the garden," said she. "I told you we +should not starve." + +But still new sorrows, and still greater changes, were in store for the +poor, disheartened family. In June a malignant fever broke out in the +village, and in one short month Reuben and Jane had laid their two +youngest boys in the grave-yard. There was a dogged look, which was not +all sorrow, on Reuben's face as he watched the sexton fill up the last +grave. Sam and Jamie, at any rate, would not know any more of the +discouragement and hardship of life. + +Jane, too, mourned her boys not as mothers mourn whose sons have a +birthright of gladness. Jane was very tired of the world. + +Draxy was saddened by the strange, solemn presence of death. But her +brothers had not been her companions. She began suddenly to feel a sense +of new and greater relationship to them, now that she thought of them as +angels; she was half terrified and bewildered at the feeling that now, for +the first time, they were near to her. + +On the evening after Sam's funeral, as Reuben was sitting on the store +steps, with his head buried in his hands, a neighbor drove up and threw +him a letter. + +"It's been lyin' in the office a week or more, Merrill said, and he +reckoned I'd better bring it up to you," he called out, as he drove on. + +"It might lie there forever, for all my goin' after it," thought Reuben to +himself, as he picked it up from the dust; "it's no good news, I'll be +bound." + +But it was good news. The letter was from Jane's oldest sister, who had +married only a few years before, and gone to live in a sea-port town on +the New England coast. Her husband was an old captain, who had retired +from his seafaring life with just money enough to live on, in a very +humble way, in an old house which had belonged to his grandfather. He had +lost two wives; his children were all married or dead, and in his +loneliness and old age he had taken for his third wife the gentle, quiet +elder sister who had brought up Jane Miller. She was a gray-haired, +wrinkled spinster woman when she went into Captain Melville's house; but +their life was by no means without romance. Husband and home cannot come +to any womanly heart too late for sentiment and happiness to put forth +pale flowers. + +Emma Melville wrote offering the Millers a home; their last misfortune had +but just come to her knowledge, for Jane had been for months too much out +of heart to write to her relatives. Emma wrote:-- + +"We are very poor, too; we haven't anything but the house, and a little +money each year to buy what we need to eat and wear, the plainest sort. +But the house is large; Captain Melville and me never so much as set foot +up-stairs. If you can manage to live on the upper floor, you're more than +welcome, we both say; and we hope you won't let any pride stand in the way +of your coming. It will do us good to have more folks in the house, and it +ain't as if it cost us anything, for we shouldn't never be willing, +neither me nor Captain Melville, to rent the rooms to strangers, not while +we've got enough to live on without." + +There was silence for some minutes between Reuben and Jane and Draxy after +this letter had been read. Jane looked steadily away from Reuben. There +was deep down in the patient woman's heart, a latent pride which was +grievously touched. Reuben turned to Draxy; her lips were parted; her +cheeks were flushed; her eyes glowed. "Oh, father, the sea!" she +exclaimed. This was her first thought; but in a second more she added, +"How kind, how good of Aunt Emma's husband!" + +"Would you like to go, my daughter?" said Reuben, earnestly. + +"Why, I thought of course we should go!" exclaimed Draxy, turning with a +bewildered look to her mother, who was still silent. "What else is the +letter sent for? It means that we must go." + +Her beautiful simplicity was utterly removed from any false sense of +obligation. She accepted help as naturally from a human hand as from the +sunshine; she would give it herself, so far as she had power, just as +naturally and just as unconsciously. + +There was very little discussion about the plan. Draxy's instinct overbore +all her father's misgiving, and all her mother's unwillingness. + +"Oh, how can you feel so, Ma," she exclaimed more than once. "If I had a +sister I could not. I love Aunt Emma already next to you and father; and +you don't know how much we can do for her after we get there, either. I +can earn money there, I know I can; all we need." + +Mrs. Melville had written that there were many strangers in the town in +the summer, and that she presumed Draxy could soon find all the work she +wished as seamstress; also that there were many chances of work for a man +who was accustomed to gardening, as, of course, Reuben must be. + +Draxy's sanguine cheerfulness was infectious; even Jane began to look +forward with interest to the new home; and Reuben smiled when Draxy sang. +Lawton and Reuben were to be left behind; that was the only regret; but it +was merely anticipating by a very little the separation which was +inevitable, as the boys had both become engaged to daughters of the +farmers for whom they had been working, and would very soon take their +positions as sons-in-law on these farms. + +The store was sold, the furniture packed, and Reuben Miller, with his wife +and child, set his face eastward to begin life anew. The change from the +rich wheat fields and glorious forests of Western New York, to the bare +stony stretches of the Atlantic sea-board, is a severe one. No adult heart +can make it without a struggle. When Reuben looked out of the car windows +upon the low gray barrens through which he was nearing his journey end, +his soul sank within him. It was sunset; the sea glistened like glass, and +was as red as the sky. Draxy could not speak for delight; tears stood in +her eyes, and she took hold of her father's hand. But Reuben and Jane saw +only the desolate rocks, and treeless, shrubless, almost--it seemed to +them--grassless fields, and an unutterable sense of gloom came over them. +It was a hot and stifling day; a long drought had parched and shriveled +every living thing; and the white August dust lay everywhere. + +Captain Melville lived in the older part of the town near the water. The +houses were all wooden, weather-beaten, and gray, and had great patches of +yellow lichen on their walls and roofs; thin rims of starved-looking grass +edged the streets, and stray blades stood up here and there among the old +sunken cobble-stones which made the pavements. + +The streets seemed deserted; the silence and the sombre color, and the +strange low plashing of the water against the wharves, oppressed even +Draxy's enthusiastic heart. Her face fell, and she exclaimed +involuntarily, "Oh, what a lonesome place!" Checking herself, she added, +"but it's only the twilight makes it look so, I expect." + +They had some difficulty in finding the house. The lanes and streets +seemed inextricably tangled; the little party was shy of asking direction, +and they were all disappointed and grieved, more than they owned to +themselves, that they had not been met at the station. At last they found +the house. Timidly Draxy lifted the great brass knocker. It looked to her +like splendor, and made her afraid. It fell more heavily than she supposed +it would, and the clang sounded to her over-wrought nerves as if it filled +the whole street. No one came. They looked at the windows. The curtains +were all down. There was no sign of life about the place. Tears came into +Jane's eyes. She was worn out with the fatigue of the journey. + +"Oh dear, oh dear," she said, "I wish we hadn't come." + +"Pshaw, mother," said Reuben, with a voice cheerier than his heart, "very +likely they never got our last letter, and don't know we were to be here +to-day," and he knocked again. + +Instantly a window opened in the opposite house, and a jolly voice said, +"My gracious," and in the twinkling of an eye the jolly owner of the jolly +voice had opened her front door and run bareheaded across the street, and +was shaking hands with Reuben and Jane and Draxy, all three at once, and +talking so fast that they could hardly understand her. + +"My gracious I my gracious! Won't Mrs. Melville be beat! Of course you're +her folks she was expecting from the West, ain't you? I mistrusted it +somehow as soon as I heard the big knock. Now I'll jest let you in the +back door. Oh my, Mis' Melville'll never get over this; to think of her +be'n' away, an' she's been lookin' and looking and worryin' for two weeks, +because she didn't hear from you; and only last night Captain Melville he +said he'd write to-day if they didn't hear.'" + +"We wrote," said Draxy, in her sweet, low voice, "we wrote to Aunt Emma +that we'd come to-day." + +"Now did you!" said the jolly voice. "Well, that's jest the way. You see +your letter's gone somewhere else, and now Mis' Melville she's gone +to"--the rest of the sentence was lost, for the breathless little woman was +running round the house to the back door. + +In a second more the upper half of the big old-fashioned door had swung +open, to Draxy's great delight, who exclaimed, "Oh, father, we read about +such doors as this in that Knickerbocker book, don't you remember?" + +But good Mrs. Carr was drawing them into the house, giving them neighborly +welcome, all the while running on in such voluble ejaculatory talk that +the quiet, saddened, recluse-like people were overwhelmed with +embarrassment, and hardly knew which way to turn. Presently she saw their +confusion and interrupted herself with-- + +"Well, well, you're jest all tired out with your journey, an' a cup o' +tea's the thing you want, an' none o' my talk; but you see Mis' Melville +'n me's so intimate that I feel's if I'd known you always, 'n I'm real +glad to see you here, real glad; 'n I'll bring the tea right over; the +kettle was a boilin' when I run out, 'n I'll send Jim right down town for +Captain Melville; he's sure to be to the library. Oh, but won't Mis' +Melville be beat," she continued, half way down the steps; and from the +middle of the street she called back, "'an she ain't coming home till +to-morrow night." + +Reuben and Jane and Draxy sat down with as bewildered a feeling as, if +they had been transported to another world. The house was utterly unlike +anything they had ever seen; high ceilings, wainscoted walls, wooden +cornices and beams, and wooden mantels with heads carved on the corners. +It seemed to them at first appallingly grand. Presently they observed the +bare wooden floors, the flag-bottomed chairs, and faded chintz cushions, +the row of old tin utensils, and plain, cheap crockery in the glass-doored +cupboard, and felt more at home. + +"You know Aunt Emma said they were poor, too," said Draxy, answering her +own unspoken thought as well as her father's and mother's. + +Reuben pushed his hair off his warm forehead and sighed. + +"I suppose we might go up-stairs, mother," he said; "that's to be our +house, as I understand it" + +Draxy bounded at the words. With flying steps she ascended the stairs and +opened the first door. She stood still on the threshold, unable to move +from astonishment. It was still light enough to see the room. Draxy began +to speak, but broke down utterly, and bursting out crying, threw herself +into the arms of her father who had just reached the top of the stairs. + +"Oh, father, it's all fixed for a sitting-room! Father dear, I told you!" + +This was something they had not dreamed of. They had understood the offer +to be merely of rooms in which they could live rent-free. In fact, that +had been Captain Melville's first intention. But his generous sailor's +heart revolted from the thought of stripping the rooms of furniture for +which he had no use. So Emma had rearranged the plain old-fashioned +things, and adding a few more which could be spared as well as not, had +fitted up a sitting-room and two bed-rooms with all that was needed for +comfort. Reuben and Jane and Draxy were all crying when Mrs. Carr came +back with her pitcher of smoking tea. Reuben tried to explain to her why +they were crying, but she interrupted him with,-- + +"Well, now, I understand it jest's if 'twas to me it'd all happened; an' I +think it's lucky after all that Mis' Melville wasn't here, for she's +dreadful easy upset if people take on. But now you drink your tea, and get +all settled down's quick's you can, for Captain Melville 'll be here any +minute now I expect, an' he don't like tantrums." + +This frightened Draxy, and made a gloomy look come on Reuben's face. But +the fright and the gloom disappeared in one minute and forever when the +door burst open, and a red-faced, white-haired old man, utterly out of +breath, bounced into the room, and seizing Reuben by the hand gasped out, +puffing between the words like a steam-engine:-- + +"Wreck me, if this isn't a hard way to make port. Why, man, we've been +looking for some hail from you for two weeks, till we began to think you'd +given us the go-by altogether. Welcome to Melville Harbor, I say, +welcome!" and he had shaken Reuben's hand, and kissed Jane and turned to +Draxy all in a breath. At the first full sight of Draxy's face he started +and felt dumb. He had never seen so beautiful a woman. He pulled out a red +silk handkerchief and wiped his face nervously as she said, "Kiss me too, +uncle," but her warm lips were on his cheek before he had time to analyze +his own feelings. Then Reuben began to say something, about gratitude, and +the old sailor swore his favorite oath again: "Now, may I be wrecked if I +have a word o' that. We're glad enough to get you all here; and as for the +few things in the rooms, they're of no account anyhow." + +"Few things! Oh, uncle," said Draxy, with a trembling voice, and before he +knew what she was about to do she had snatched his fat, weather-beaten old +hand and kissed it. No woman had ever kissed John Melville's hand before. +From that moment he looked upon Draxy as a princess who had let him once +kiss hers! + +Captain Melville and Reuben were friends before bed-time. Reuben's gentle +simplicity and unworldliness, and patient demeanor, roused in the rough +sailor a sympathy like that he had always felt for women. And to Reuben +the hearty good cheer, and brisk, bluff sailor ways were infinitely +winning and stimulating. + +The next day Mrs. Melville came home. In a short time the little household +had adjusted itself, and settled down into its routine of living. When, in +a few days, the great car-load of the Millers' furniture arrived, Capt. +Melville insisted upon its all going to the auction-rooms excepting the +kitchen furniture, and a few things for which Jane had especial +attachment. It brought two hundred dollars, which, in addition to the +price of the farm, and the store and its stock, gave Reuben just nineteen +hundred dollars to put in the Savings Bank. + +"And I am to be counted at least two thousand more, father dear, so you +are not such a very poor man after all," said Draxy, laughing and dancing +around him. + +Now Draxy Miller's real life began. In after years she used to say, "I +was born first in my native town; second, in the Atlantic Ocean!" The +effect of the strong sea air upon her was something indescribable; joy +seemed to radiate from her whole being. She smiled whenever she saw the +sea. She walked on the beach; she sat on the rocks; she learned to swim in +one lesson, and swam so far out that her uncle dared not follow, and +called to her in imploring terror to return. Her beauty grew more and more +radiant every day. This the sea gave to her body. But there was a far +subtler new life than the physical, a far finer new birth than the birth +of beauty,--which came to Draxy here. This, books gave to her soul. Only a +few years before, a free library had been founded in this town, by a rich +and benevolent man. Every week hundreds of volumes circulated among the +families where books were prized, and could not be owned. When Draxy's +uncle first took her into this library, and explained to her its purpose +and regulations, she stood motionless for a few moments, looking at +him--and at the books: then, with tears in her eyes, and saying, "Don't +follow me, uncle dear; don't mind me, I can't bear it," she ran swiftly +into the street, and never stopped until she had reached home and found +her father. An hour later she entered the library again, leading her +father by the hand. She had told him the story on the way. Reuben's thin +cheeks were flushed. It was almost more than he too could bear. Silently +the father and daughter walked up and down the room, looking into the +alcoves. Then they sat down together, and studied the catalogue. Then +they rose and went out, hand in hand as they had entered, speaking no +word, taking no book. For one day the consciousness of this wealth filled +their hearts beyond the possibility of one added desire. After that, Draxy +and her father were to be seen every night seated at the long table in the +reading-room. They read always together, Draxy's arm being over the back +of her father's chair. Many a man and many a woman stopped and looked long +at the picture. But neither Draxy nor her father knew it. + +At the end of two years, Draxy Miller had culture. She was ignorant still, +of course; she was an uneducated girl; she wept sometimes over her own +deficiencies; but her mind was stored with information of all sorts; she +had added Wordsworth to her Shakespeare; she had journeyed over the world +with every traveller whose works she could find; and she had tasted of +Plato and Epictetus. Reuben's unfailing simplicity and purity of taste +saved her from the mischiefs of many of the modern books. She had hardly +read a single novel; but her love of true poetry was a passion. + +In the mean time she had become the favorite seamstress of the town. Her +face, and voice, and smile would alone have won way for her; but in +addition to those, she was a most dexterous workwoman. If there had only +been twice as many days in a year, she would have been--glad. Her own +earnings in addition to her father's, and to their little income from the +money in the bank, made them comfortable; but with Draxy's expanded +intellectual life had come new desires: she longed to be taught. + +One day she said to her father, "Father dear, what was the name of that +canal contractor who borrowed money of you and never paid it?" + +Reuben looked astonished, but told her. + +"Is he alive yet?" + +"Oh, yes," said Reuben, "and he's rich now. There was a man here only last +week who said he'd built him a grand house this year." + +Draxy shut her hands nervously. "Father, I shall go and get that money." + +"You, child! Why it's two days' journey; and he'd never pay you a cent. I +tried times enough," replied Reuben. + +"But I think perhaps he would be more likely to pay it to a woman; he +would be ashamed," said Draxy, "especially if he is rich now, and I tell +him how much we need it." + +"No, no, child; I shouldn't hear to your going; no more would mother; and +it would be money wasted besides," said Reuben, with sternness unusual for +him. + +Draxy was silent. The next morning she went to the railway station and +ascertained exactly how much the journey would cost. She was disheartened +at the amount. It would be difficult for her to save so much out of a +whole year's earnings. That day Draxy's face was sad. She was sewing at +the house of one of her warmest friends. All her employers were her +friends, but this one was a woman of rare intelligence and culture, who +had loved Draxy ever since the day she had found her reading a little +volume of Wordsworth, one of the Free Library books, while she was eating +her dinner in the sewing-room. + +Draxy looked her gratitude, but said nothing. Not the least of her +charms, to the well-bred people who employed her, was her exquisite +reticence, her gentle and unconscious withdrawal into herself, in spite of +all familiarity with which she might be treated. + +A few days later Mrs. White sent a note to Draxy with the thirty dollars +inclosed, and this note to Mr. Miller:-- + +"MR. MILLER--DEAR SIR:-- + +"This money has been contributed, by Draxy's friends. You do not know how +much we all prize and esteem your daughter and wish to help her. I hope +you will be willing that she should use this money for the journey on +which her heart is so set. I really advise you as a friend to let her make +the effort to recover that money; I think she will get it. + +"Truly, your friend, + +"A. WHITE." + +This note brought tears of pride to Reuben's eyes. Draxy watched him +closely, and said:-- + +"Father dear, I should like to go to-morrow." + +Her preparations had already been made. She knew beforehand that her cause +was won; that her father's sense of justice would not let him interfere +with her use of the gift for the purpose for which it was made. + +It was on a clear cold morning in January that Draxy set out. It was the +second journey of her life, and she was alone for the first time; but she +felt no more fear than if she had been a sparrow winging its way through a +new field. The morning twilight was just fading away; both the east and +the west were clear and glorious; the east was red, and the west pale +blue; high in the west stood the full moon, golden yellow; below it a long +narrow bar of faint rose-color; below that, another bar of fainter purple; +then the low brown line of a long island; then an arm of the sea; the +water was gray and still; the ice rims stretched far out from the coast, +and swayed up and down at the edges, as the waves pulsed in and out. +Flocks of gulls were wheeling, soaring in the air, or lighting and +floating among the ice fragments, as cold and snowy as they. Draxy leaned +her head against the side of the car and looked out on the marvelous +beauty of the scene with eyes as filled with calm delight as if she had +all her life journeyed for pleasure, and had had nothing to do but feed +and develop her artistic sense. + +A company of travelling actors sat near her; a dozen tawdry women and +coarse men, whose loud voices and vulgar jests made Draxy shudder. She did +not know what they could be; she had never seen such behavior; the men +took out cards and began to play; the women leaned over, looked on, and +clapped the men on their shoulders. Draxy grew afraid, and the expression +of distress on her face attracted the conductor's notice. He touched her +on the shoulder. + +"I'll take you into the next car, Miss, if you don't like to be near these +people. They're only actors; there's no harm in them, but they're a rough +set." + +"Actors," said Draxy, as the kind conductor lifted her from one platform +to another. "I never thought they were like that. Do they play +Shakespeare?" + +"I don't know, I'm sure," said the conductor, puzzled enough: "but I dare +say they do." + +"Then I'm glad I never went to the theatre," thought Draxy, as she +settled herself in her new seat. For a few moments she could not banish +her disturbed and unhappy feeling. She could not stop fancying some of the +grand words which she most loved in Shakespeare, repeated by those +repulsive voices. + +But soon she turned her eyes to the kindling sky, and forgot all else. The +moon was slowly turning from gold to silver; then it would turn from +silver to white cloud, then to film, then vanish away. Draxy knew that day +and the sun would conquer. "Oh, if I only understood it," sighed Draxy. +Then she fell to thinking about the first chapter in Genesis; and while +she looked upon that paling moon, she dreamed of other moons which no +human eyes ever saw. Draxy was a poet; but as yet she had never dared to +show even to her father the little verses she had not been able to help +writing. "Oh, how dare I do this; how dare I?" she said to herself, as +alone in her little room, she wrote line after line. "But if nobody ever +knows, it can do no harm. It is strange I love it, though, when I am so +ashamed." + +This morning Draxy had that mysterious feeling as if all things were new, +which so often comes to poetic souls. It is at once the beauty and the +burden, the exhaustion and the redemption of their lives. No wonder that +even common men can sometimes see the transfiguration which often comes to +him before whose eyes death and resurrection are always following each +other, instant, perpetual, glorious. Draxy took out her little diary. +Folded very small, and hid in the pocket of it, was a short poem that she +had written the year before on a Tiarella plant which had blossomed in +her window. Mrs. White had brought it to her with some ferns and mosses +from the mountains; and all winter long it had flowered as if in summer. +Draxy wondered why this golden moon reminded her of the Tiarella. She did +not know the subtle underlying bonds in nature. These were the Tiarella +verses:-- + + My little Tiarella, + If thou art my own, + Tell me how thus in winter + Thy shining flowers have blown. + Art thou a fairy smuggler, + Defying law? + Didst take of last year's summer + More than summer saw? + Or hast thou stolen frost-flakes + Secretly at night? + Thy stamens tipped with silver, + Thy petals spotless white, + Are so like those which cover + My window-pane; + Wilt thou, like them, turn back at noon + To drops again? + + Oh, little Tiarella, + Thy silence speaks; + No more my foolish question + Thy secret seeks. + The sunshine on my window + Lies all the day. + How shouldst thou know that summer + Has passed away? + The frost-flake's icy silver + Is dew at noon for thee. + O winter sun! O winter frost, + Make summer dews for me! + +After reading these over several times, Draxy took out her pencil, and +very shyly screening herself from all observation, wrote on the other side +of the paper these lines: + + The Morning Moon. + + The gold moon turns to white; + The white moon fades to cloud; + It looks so like the gold moon's shroud, + It makes me think about the dead, + And hear the words I have heard read, + By graves for burial rite. + + I wonder now how many moons + In just such white have died; + I wonder how the stars divide + Among themselves their share of light; + And if there were great years of night + Before the earth saw noons. + + I wonder why each moon, each sun, + Which ever has been or shall be, + In this day's sun and moon I see; + I think perhaps all of the old + Is hidden in each new day's hold; + So the first day is not yet done! + + And then I think--our dust is spent + Before the balances are swung; + Shall we be loneliest among + God's living creatures? Shall we dare + To speak in this eternal air + The only discontent? + +Then she shut the book resolutely, and sat up straight with a little +laugh, saying to herself, "This is a pretty beginning for a business +journey!" + +Far better than you knew, sweet Draxy! The great successes of life are +never made by the men and women who have no poetic comprehension in their +souls. + +Draxy's first night was spent at the house of a brother of Captain +Melville's, to whom her uncle had given her a letter. All went smoothly, +and her courage rose. The next day at noon she was to change cars in one +of the great railroad centres; as she drew near the city she began to feel +uneasy. But her directions were explicit, and she stepped bravely out into +the dismal, dark, underground station, bought her ticket, and walked up +and down on the platform with her little valise in her hand, waiting for +the train. + +In a few moments it thundered in, enveloped in a blinding, stifling smoke. +The crowd of passengers poured out. "Twenty minutes for refreshments," was +shouted at each car, and in a moment more there was a clearing up of the +smoke, and a lull in the trampling of the crowd. Draxy touched the +conductor on the arm. + +"Is this the train I am to take, sir?" she said showing him her ticket. + +He glanced carelessly at it. "No, no," said he; "this is the express; +don't stop there. You must wait till the afternoon accommodation." + +"But what time will that train get there?" said Draxy, turning pale. + +"About ten o'clock, if it's on time," said the conductor, walking away. He +had not yet glanced at Draxy, but at her "Oh, what shall I do!" he turned +back; Draxy's face held him spellbound, as it had held many a man before. +He stepped near her, and taking the ticket from her hand, turned it over +and over irresolutely. "I wish I could stop there, Miss," he said. "Is it +any one who is sick?"--for Draxy's evident distress suggested but one +explanation. + +"Oh no," replied Draxy, trying in vain to make her voice steady. "But I am +all alone, and I know no one there, and I am afraid--it is so late at +night. My friends thought I should get there before dark." + +"What are you going for, if you don't know anybody?" said the conductor, +in a tone less sympathizing and respectful. He was a man more used to +thinking ill than well of people. + +Draxy colored. But her voice became very steady. + +"I am Reuben Miller's daughter, sir, and I am going there to get some +money which a bad man owed my father. We need the money, and there was no +one else to go for it." + +The conductor had never heard of Una, but the tone of the sentence, "I am +Reuben Miller's daughter," smote upon his heart, and made him as reverent +to the young girl as if she had been a saint. + +"I beg your pardon, Miss," he said involuntarily. + +Draxy looked at him with a bewildered expression, but made no reply. She +was too childlike to know that for the rough manner which had hurt her he +ought to ask such pardon. + +The conductor proceeded, still fingering the ticket:-- + +"I don't see how I can stop there. It's a great risk for me to take. If +there was only one of the Directors on board now." Draxy looked still more +puzzled. "No," he said, giving her back the ticket: "I can't do it no +how;" and he walked away. + +Draxy stood still in despair. In a few minutes he came back. He could not +account for its seeming to him such an utter impossibility to leave that +girl to go on her journey at night. + +"What shall you do?" said he. + +"I think my father would prefer that I should find some proper place to +spend the night here, and go on in the morning," replied Draxy; "do you +not think that would be better, sir?" she added, with an appealing, +confiding tone which made the conductor feel more like her knight than +ever. + +"Yes, I think so, and I will give you my card to take to the hotel where I +stay," said he, and he plunged into the crowd again. + +Draxy turned to a brakeman who had drawn near. + +"Has the conductor the right to stop the train if he chooses?" said she. + +"Why yes, Miss, he's right enough, if that's all. Of course he's got to +have power to stop the train any minute. But stoppin' jest to let off a +passenger, that's different." + +Draxy closed her lips a little more firmly, and became less pale. When the +conductor came back and gave her his card, with the name of the hotel on +it, she thanked him, took the card, but did not stir. He looked at her +earnestly, said "Good day, Miss," lifted his hat, and disappeared. Draxy +smiled. It yet wanted ten minutes of the time for the train to go. She +stood still, patiently biding her last chance. The first bell rang--the +steam was up--the crowd of passengers poured in; at the last minute but +one came the conductor. As he caught sight of Draxy's erect, dignified +figure, he started; before he could speak, Draxy said, "I waited, sir, for +I thought at the last minute a director might come, or you might change +your mind." + +The conductor laughed out, and seizing Draxy's valise, exclaimed, "By +George, I will stop the train for you, Miss Miller! Hang me if I don't; +jump in!" and in one minute more Draxy was whirling out of the dark +station into the broad sunlight, which dazzled her. + +When the conductor first--came through the car he saw that Draxy had been +crying. "Do her good," he thought to himself; "it always does do women +good; but I'll be bound she wouldn't ha' cried if I'd left her." + +Half an hour later he found her sound asleep, with her head slipping +uneasily about on the back of the seat. Half ashamed of himself, he +brought a heavy coat and put it under her head for a pillow. Seeing a +supercilious and disagreeable smile on the face of a fashionable young man +in the seat before Draxy, he said sharply: "She's come a long journey, and +was put under my care." + +"I guess that's true enough to pass muster," he chuckled to himself as he +walked away. "If ever I'd ha' believed a woman could make me stop this +train for her! An', by George, without askin' me to either!" + +Draxy slept on for hours. The winter twilight came earlier than usual, for +the sky was overcast. When she waked, the lamps were lighted, and the +conductor was bending over her, saying: "We're most there, Miss, and I +thought you'd better get steadied on your feet a little before you get +off, for I don't calculate to make a full stop." + +Draxy laughed like a little child, and put up both hands to her head as if +to make sure where she was. Then she followed the conductor to the door +and stood looking out into the dim light. + +The sharp signal for "down brakes," made experienced passengers spring to +their feet. Windows opened; heads were thrust out. What had happened to +this express train? The unaccustomed sound startled the village also. It +was an aristocratic little place, settled by wealthy men whose business +was in a neighboring city. At many a dinner-table surprised voices said: +"Why, what on earth is the down express stopping here for? Something must +have broken." + +"Some director or other to be put off," said others; "they have it all +their own way on the road." + +In the mean time Draxy Miller was walking slowly up the first street she +saw, wondering what she should do next. The conductor had almost lifted +her off the train; had shaken her hand, said "God bless you, Miss," and +the train was gone, before she could be sure he heard her thank him. "Oh, +why did I not thank him more before we stopped," thought Draxy. + +"I hope she'll get her money," thought the conductor. "I'd like to see the +man that wouldn't give her what she asked for." + +So the benediction and protection of good wishes, from strangers as well +as from friends, floated on the very air through which Draxy walked, all +unconscious of the invisible blessings. + +She walked a long way before she met any one of whom she liked to ask +direction. At last she saw an elderly man standing under a lamp-post, +reading a letter. Draxy studied his face, and then stopped quietly by his +side without speaking. He looked up. + +"I thought as soon as you had finished your letter, sir, I would ask you +to tell me where Stephen Potter lives." + +It was marvelous what an ineffable charm there was in the subtle mixture +of courtesy and simplicity in Draxy's manner. + +"I am going directly by his house myself, and will show you," replied the +old gentleman. "Pray let me take your bag, Miss." + +"Was it for you," he added, suddenly recollecting the strange stopping of +the express train, "was it for you the express train stopped just now?" + +"Yes, sir," said Draxy. "The conductor very kindly put me off." + +The old gentleman's curiosity was strongly roused, but he forbore asking +any further questions until he left Draxy on the steps of the house, when +he said: "are they expecting you?" + +"Oh no, sir," said Draxy quietly. "I do not know them." + +"Most extraordinary thing," muttered the old gentleman as he walked on. He +was a lawyer, and could not escape from the professional habit of looking +upon all uncommon incidents as clews. + +Draxy Miller's heart beat faster than usual as she was shown into Stephen +Potter's library. She had said to the servant simply, "Tell Mr. Potter +that Miss Miller would like to see him alone." + +The grandeur of the house, the richness of the furniture, would have +embarrassed her, except that it made her stern as she thought of her +father's poverty. "How little a sum it must be to this man," she thought. + +The name roused no associations in Stephen Potter; for years the thought +of Reuben Miller had not crossed his mind, and as he looked in the face of +the tall, beautiful girl who rose as he entered the room, he was utterly +confounded to hear her say,-- + +"I am Reuben Miller's daughter. I have come to see if you will pay me the +money you owe him. We are very poor, and need it more than you probably +can conceive." + +Stephen Potter was a bad man, but not a hard-hearted bad man. He had been +dishonest always; but it was the dishonesty of a weak and unscrupulous +nature, not without generosity. At that moment a sharp pang seized him. He +remembered the simple, upright, kindly face of Reuben Miller. He saw the +same look of simple uprightness, kindled by strength, in the beautiful +face of Reuben Miller's daughter. He did not know what to say. Draxy +waited in perfect composure and silence. It seemed to him hours before he +spoke. Then he said, in a miserable, shuffling way,-- + +"I suppose you think me a rich man." + +"I think you must be very rich," said Draxy, gently. + +Then, moved by some strange impulse in the presence of this pure, +unworldly girl, Stephen Potter suddenly spoke out, for the first time +since his boyhood, with absolute sincerity. + +"Miss Miller, you are your father over again. I reverenced your father. I +have wronged many men without caring, but it troubled me to wrong him. I +would give you that money to-night, if I had it, or could raise it. I am +not a rich man. I have not a dollar in the world. This house is not mine. +It may be sold over my head any day. I am deep in trouble, but not so deep +as I deserve to be," and he buried his face in his hands. + +Draxy believed him. And it was true. At that moment Stephen Potter was +really a ruined man, and many others were involved in the ruin which was +impending. + +Draxy rose, saying gravely, "I am very sorry for you, Mr. Potter. We +heard that you were rich, or I should not have come. We are very poor, but +we are not unhappy, as you are." + +"Stay, Miss Miller, sit down; I have a thing which might be of value to +your father;" and Mr. Potter opened his safe and took out a bundle of old +yellow papers. "Here is the title to a lot of land in the northern part of +New Hampshire. I took it on a debt years ago, and never thought it was +worth anything. Very likely it has run out, or the town has taken +possession of the land for the taxes. But I did think the other day, that +if worst came to worst, I might take my wife up there and try to farm it. +But I'd rather your father should have it if it's good for anything. I +took it for three thousand dollars, and it ought to be worth something. I +will have the legal transfer made in the morning, and give it to you +before you leave." + +This was not very intelligible to Draxy. The thin and tattered old paper +looked singularly worthless to her. But rising again, she said simply as +before, "I am very sorry for you, Mr. Potter; and I thank you for trying +to pay us! Will you let some one go and show me to the hotel where I ought +to sleep?" + +Stephen Potter was embarrassed. It cut him to the heart to send this +daughter of Reuben Miller's out of his house to pass the night. But he +feared Mrs. Potter very much. He hesitated only a moment. + +"No, Miss Miller. You must sleep here. I will have you shown to your room +at once. I do not ask you to see my wife. It would not be pleasant for you +to do so." And he rang the bell. When the servant came, he said,-- + +"William, have a fire kindled in the blue room at once; as soon as it is +done, come and let me know." + +Then he sat down near Draxy and asked many questions about her family, all +of which she answered with childlike candor. She felt a strange sympathy +for this miserable, stricken, wicked man. When she bade him good-night, +she said again, "I am very sorry for you, Mr. Potter. My father would be +glad if he could help you in any way." + +Stephen Potter went into the parlor where his wife sat, reading a novel. +She was a very silly, frivolous woman, and she cared nothing for her +husband, but when she saw his face she exclaimed, in terror, "What was it, +Stephen?" + +"Only Reuben Miller's daughter, come two days' journey after some money I +owe her father and cannot pay," said Stephen, bitterly. + +"Miller? Miller?" said Mrs. Potter, "one of those old canal debts?" + +"Yes," said Stephen. + +"Well, of course all those are outlawed long ago," said she. "I don't see +why you need worry about that; she can't touch you." + +Stephen looked scornfully at her. She had a worse heart than he. At that +moment Draxy's face and voice, "I am very sorry for you, Mr. Potter," +stood out in the very air before him. + +"I suppose not," said he, moodily; "I wish she could! But I shall give her +a deed of a piece of New Hampshire land which they may get some good of. +God knows I hope she may," and he left the room, turning back, however, to +add, "She is to sleep here to-night. I could not have her go to the hotel. +But you need take no trouble about her." + +"I should think not, Stephen Potter," exclaimed Mrs. Potter, sitting bolt +upright in her angry astonishment; "I never heard of such impudence as her +expecting"-- + +"She expected nothing. I obliged her to stay," interrupted Stephen, and +was gone. + +Mrs. Potter's first impulse was to go and order the girl out of her house. +But she thought better of it. She was often afraid of her husband at this +time; she dimly suspected that he was on the verge of ruin. So she sank +back into her chair, buried herself in her novel, and soon forgot the +interruption. + +Draxy's breakfast and dinner were carried to her room, and every +provision made for her comfort. Stephen Potter's servants obeyed him +always. No friend of the family could have been more scrupulously served +than was Draxy Miller. The man-servant carried her bag to the station, +touched his hat to her as she stepped on board the train, and returned to +the house to say in the kitchen: "Well, I don't care what she come for; +she was a real lady, fust to last, an' that's more than Mr. Potter's got +for a wife, I tell you." + +When Stephen Potter went into his library after bidding Draxy good-by, he +found on the table a small envelope addressed to him. It held this note:-- + +"MR. POTTER:--I would not take the paper [the word 'money' had been +scratched out and the word 'paper' substituted] for myself; but I think I +ought to for my father, because it was a true debt, and he is an old man +now, and not strong. + +"I am very sorry for you, Mr. Potter, and I hope you will become happy +again. DRAXY MILLER." + +Draxy had intended to write, "I hope you will be 'good' again," but her +heart failed her. "Perhaps he will understand that 'happy' means good," +she said, and so wrote the gentler phrase. Stephen Potter did understand; +and the feeble outreachings which, during the few miserable years more of +his life, he made towards uprightness, were partly the fruit of Draxy +Miller's words. + +Draxy's journey home was uneventful. She was sad and weary. The first +person she saw on entering the house was her father. He divined in an +instant that she had been unsuccessful. "Never mind, little daughter," he +said, gleefully, "I am not disappointed; I knew you would not get it, but +I thought the journey 'd be a good thing for you, may be." + +"But I have got something, father dear," said Draxy; "only I'm afraid it +is not worth much." + +"'Taint likely to be if Steve Potter gave it," said Reuben, as Draxy +handed him the paper. He laughed scornfully as soon as he looked at it. +"'Taint worth the paper it's writ on," said he, "and he knew it; if he +hain't looked the land up all these years, of course 'twas sold at vendue +long ago." + +Draxy turned hastily away. Up to this moment she had clung to a little +hope. + +When the family were all gathered together in the evening, and Draxy had +told the story of her adventures, Reuben and Captain Melville examined the +deed together. It was apparently a good clear title; it was of three +hundred acres of land. Reuben groaned, "Oh, how I should like to see land +by the acre once more." Draxy's face turned scarlet, and she locked and +unlocked her hands, but said nothing. "But it's no use thinking about it," +he went on; "this paper isn't worth a straw. Most likely there's more than +one man well under way on the land by this time." + +They looked the place up on an atlas. It was in the extreme northeast +corner of New Hampshire. A large part of the county was still marked +"ungranted," and the township in which this land lay was bounded on the +north by this uninhabited district. The name of the town was Clairvend. + +"What could it have been named for?" said Draxy. "How pleasantly it +sounds." + +"Most likely some Frenchman," said Captain Melville. "They always give +names that 're kind o' musical." + +"We might as well burn the deed up. It's nothing but a torment to think of +it a lyin' round with it's three hundred acres of land," said Reuben in an +impulsive tone, very rare for him, and prolonging the "three hundred" +with a scornful emphasis; and he sprang up to throw the paper into the +fire. + +"No, no, man," said Captain Melville; "don't be so hasty. No need of +burning things up in such a roomy house's this! Something may come of that +deed yet. Give it to Draxy; I'm sure she's earned it, if there's anything +to it. Put it away for your dowry, dear," and he snatched the paper from +Reuben's hands and tossed it into Draxy's lap. He did not believe what he +said, and the attempt at a joke brought but a faint smile to any face. The +paper fell on the floor, and Draxy let it lie there till she thought her +father was looking another way, when she picked it up and put it in her +pocket. + +For several days there were unusual silence and depression in the +household. They had really set far more hope than they knew on this +venture. It was not easy to take up the old routine and forget the air +castle. Draxy's friend, Mrs. White, was almost as disappointed as Draxy +herself. She had not thought of the chance of Mr. Potter's being really +unable to pay. She told her husband, who was a lawyer, the story of the +deed, and he said at once: "Of course it isn't worth a straw. If Potter +didn't pay the taxes, somebody else did, and the land's been sold long +ago." + +Mrs. White tried to comfort herself by engaging Draxy for one month's +steady sewing, and presenting her with a set of George Eliot's novels. And +Draxy tried steadily and bravely to forget her journey, and the name of +Clairvend. + +About this time she wrote a hymn, and showed it to her father. It was the +first thing of the kind she had ever let him see, and his surprise and +delight showed her that here was one way more in which she could brighten +his life. She had not thought, in her extreme humility, that by hiding her +verses she was depriving him of pleasure. After this she showed him all +she wrote, but the secret was kept religiously between them. + + Draxy's Hymn. + + I cannot think but God must know + About the thing I long for so; + I know He is so good, so kind, + I cannot think but He will find + Some way to help, some way to show + Me to the thing I long for so. + + I stretch my hand--it lies so near: + It looks so sweet, it looks so dear. + "Dear Lord," I pray, "Oh, let me know + If it is wrong to want it so?" + He only smiles--He does not speak: + My heart grows weaker and more weak, + With looking at the thing so dear, + Which lies so far, and yet so near. + + Now, Lord, I leave at thy loved feet + This thing which looks so near, so sweet; + I will not seek, I will not long-- + almost fear I have been wrong. + I'll go, and work the harder, Lord, + And wait till by some loud, clear word + Thou callest me to thy loved feet, + To take this thing so dear, so sweet. + + + +Part II. + + +As the spring drew near, a new anxiety began to press upon Draxy. Reuben +drooped. The sea-shore had never suited him. He pined at heart for the +inland air, the green fields, the fragrant woods. This yearning always was +strongest in the spring, when he saw the earth waking up around him; but +now the yearning became more than yearning. It was the home-sickness of +which men have died. Reuben said little, but Draxy divined all. She had +known it from the first, but had tried to hope that he could conquer it. + +Draxy spent many wakeful hours at night now. The deed of the New Hampshire +land lay in her upper bureau drawer, wrapped in an old handkerchief. She +read it over, and over, and over. She looked again and again at the faded +pink township on the old atlas. "Who knows," thought she, "but that land +was overlooked and forgotten? It is so near the 'ungranted lands,' which +must be wilderness, I suppose!" Slowly a dim purpose struggled in Draxy's +brain. It would do no harm to find out. But how? No more journeys must be +taken on uncertainties. At last, late one night, the inspiration came. +Who shall say that it is not an unseen power which sometimes suggests to +sorely tried human hearts the one possible escape? Draxy was in bed. She +rose, lighted her candle, and wrote two letters. Then she went back to bed +and slept peacefully. In the morning when she kissed her father good-by, +she looked wistfully in his face. She had never kept any secret from him +before, except the secret of her verses. "But he must not be disappointed +again," said Draxy; "and there is no real hope." + +She dropped her letter into the post-office and went to her work. + +The letter was addressed-- + +"To the Postmaster of Clairvend, + +"New Hampshire." + +It was a very short letter. + +"DEAR SIR:--I wish to ask some help from a minister in your town. If there +is more than one minister, will you please give my letter to the kindest +one. Yours truly, + +"DRAXY MILLER." + +The letter inclosed was addressed-- + +"To the Minister of Clairvend." + +This letter also was short. + +"DEAR SIR:--I have asked the Postmaster to give this letter to the kindest +minister in the town. + +"I am Reuben Miller's daughter. My father is very poor. He has not known +how to do as other men do to be rich. He is very good, sir. I think you +can hardly have known any one so good. Mr. Stephen Potter, a man who owed +him money, has given us a deed of land in your town. My father thinks the +deed is not good for anything. But I thought perhaps it might be; and I +would try to find out. My father is very sick, but I think he would get +well if he could come and live on a farm. I have written this letter in +the night, as soon as I thought about you; I mean as soon as I thought +that there must be a minister in Clairvend, and he would be willing to +help me. + +"I have not told my father, because I do not want him to be disappointed +again as he was about the deed. + +"I have copied for you the part of the deed which tells where the land is; +and I put in a stamp to pay for your letter to me, and if you will find +out for us if we can get this land, I shall be grateful to you all my +life. DRAXY MILLER." + +Inclosed was a slip of paper on which Draxy had copied with great care the +description of the boundaries of the land conveyed by the deed. It was all +that was necessary. The wisest lawyer, the shrewdest diplomatist in the +land never put forth a subtler weapon than this simple girl's simple +letter. + +It was on the morning of the 3d of April that Draxy dropped her letter in +the office. Three days later it was taken out of the mail-bag in the +post-office of Clairvend. The post-office was in the one store of the +village. Ten or a dozen men were lounging about curiosity about the odd +name was soon swallowed up in curiosity as to the contents of the letter. +The men of Clairvend had not been so stirred and roused by anything since +the fall election. Luckily for Draxy's poor little letter, there was but +one minister in the village, and the only strife which rose was as to who +should carry him the letter. Finally, two of the most persistent set out +with it, both declaring that they had business on that road, and had meant +all along to go in and see the Elder on their way home. + +Elder Kinney lived in a small cottage high up on a hill, a mile from the +post-office, and on a road very little travelled. As the men toiled up +this hill, they saw a tall figure coming rapidly towards them. + +"By thunder! there's the Elder now! That's too bad," said little Eben +Hill, the greatest gossip in the town. + +The Elder was walking at his most rapid rate; and Elder Kinney's most +rapid rate was said to be one with which horses did not easily keep up. +"No, thank you, friend, I haven't time to ride to-day," he often replied +to a parishioner who, jogging along with an old farm-horse, offered to +give him a lift on the road. + +"Elder! Elder! here's a letter we was a bringin' up to you!" called out +both of the men at once as he passed them like a flash, saying hurriedly +"Good evening! good evening!" and was many steps down the hill beyond them +before he could stop. + +"Oh, thank you!" he said, taking it hastily and dropping it into his +pocket. "Mrs. Williams is dying, they say; I cannot stop a minute," and +he was out of sight while the baffled parishioners stood confounded at +their ill-luck. + +"Now jest as like's not we shan't never know what was in that letter," +said. Eben Hill, disconsolately. "Ef we'd ha'gone in and set down while he +read it, we sh'd ha' had some chance." + +"But then he mightn't ha' read it while we was there," replied Joseph +Bailey resignedly; an' I expect It ain't none o' our business anyhow, one +way or t'other." + +"It's the queerest thing's ever happened in this town," persisted Eben; +"what's a girl--that is, if 'tis a girl--got to do writin' to a minister +she don't know? I don't believe it's any good she's after." + +"Wal, ef she is, she's come to the right place; and there's no knowin' but +that the Lord's guided her, Eben; for ef ever there was a man sent on this +airth to do the Lord's odd jobs o' looking arter folks, it's Elder +Kinney," said Joseph. + +"That's so," answered Eben in a dismal tone, "that's so; but he's dreadful +close-mouthed when he's a mind to be. You can't deny that!" + +"Wal, I dunno's I want ter deny it," said Joseph, who was beginning, in +Eben's company, to grow ashamed of curiosity; "I dunno's it's anything +agin him," and so the men parted. + +It was late at night when Elder Kinney went home from the bedside of the +dying woman. He had forgotten all about the letter. When he undressed, it +fell from his pocket, and lay on the floor. It was the first thing he saw +in the morning. "I declare!" said the Elder, and reaching out a long arm +from the bed, he picked it up. + +The bright winter sun was streaming in on the Elder's face as he read +Draxy's letter. He let it fall on the scarlet and white counterpane, and +lay thinking. The letter touched him unspeakably. Elder Kinney was no +common man; he had a sensitive organization and a magnetic power, which, +if he had had the advantages of education and position, would have made +him a distinguished preacher. As a man, he was tender, chivalrous, and +impulsive; and even the rough, cold, undemonstrative people among whom his +life had been spent had, without suspecting it, almost a romantic +affection for him. He had buried his young wife and her first-born +still-born child together in this little village twelve years before, and +had ever since lived in the same house from which they had been carried to +the grave-yard. "If you ever want any other man to preach to you," he said +to the people, "you've only to say so to the Conference. I don't want to +preach one sermon too many to you. But I shall live and die in this house; +I can't ever go away. I can get a good livin' at farmin'--good as +preachin', any day!" + +The sentence, "I am Reuben Miller's daughter," went to his heart as it +had gone to every man's heart who had heard it before from Draxy's +unconscious lips. But it sunk deeper in his heart than in any other. + +"If baby had lived she would have loved me like this perhaps," thought the +Elder, as he read the pathetic words over and over. Then he studied the +paragraph copied from the deed. Suddenly a thought flashed into his mind. +He knew something about this land. It must be--yes, it must be on a part +of this land that the sugar-camp lay from which he had been sent for, five +years before, to see a Frenchman who was lying very ill in the little log +sugar-house. The Elder racked his brains. Slowly it all came back to him. +He remembered that at the time some ill-will had been shown in the town +toward this Frenchman; that doubts had been expressed about his right to +the land; and that no one would go out into the clearing to help take care +of him. Occasionally, since that time, the Elder had seen the man hanging +about the town. He had an evil look; this was all the Elder could +remember. + +At breakfast he said to old Nancy, his housekeeper: "Nancy, did you ever +know anything about that Frenchman who had a sugar-camp out back of the +swamp road? I went to see him when he had the fever a few years ago." + +Nancy was an Indian woman with a little white blood in her veins. She +never forgot an injury. This Frenchman had once jeered at her from the +steps of the village store, and the village men had laughed. + +"Know anythin' about him? Yes, sir. He's a son o' Satan, an' I reckon he +stays to hum the great part o' the year, for he's never seen round here +except jest sugarin' time." + +The Elder laughed in spite of himself. Nancy's tongue was a member of +which he strongly disapproved; but his efforts to enforce charity and +propriety of speech upon her were sometimes rendered null and void by his +lack of control of his features. Nancy loved her master, but she had no +reverence in her composition, and nothing gave her such delight as to make +him laugh out against his will. She went on to say that the Frenchman came +every spring, bringing with him a gang of men, some twelve or more, "all +sons o' the same father, sir; you'd know 'em's far's you see 'em." They +took a large stock of provisions, went out into the maple clearing, and +lived there during the whole sugar season in rough log huts. "They do say +he's jest carried off a good thousand dollar's worth o' sugar this very +week," said Nancy. + +The Elder brought his hand down hard on the table and said "Whew!" This +was Elder Kinney's one ejaculation. Nancy seldom heard it, and she knew it +meant tremendous excitement. She grew eager, and lingered, hoping for +further questions; but the Elder wanted his next information from a more +accurate and trustworthy source than old Nancy. Immediately after +breakfast he set out for the village; soon he slackened his pace, and +began to reflect. It was necessary to act cautiously; he felt +instinctively sure that the Frenchman had not purchased the land. His +occupation of it had evidently been acquiesced in by the town for many +years; but the Elder was too well aware of the slack and unbusinesslike +way in which much of the town business was managed, to attach much weight +to this fact. He was perplexed--a rare thing for Elder Kinney. He stopped +and sat down on the top of a stone wall to think. In a few minutes he saw +the steaming heads of a pair of oxen coming up the hill. Slowly the cart +came in sight: it was loaded with sugar-buckets; and there, walking by +its side, was--yes! it was--the very Frenchman himself. + +Elder Kinney was too much astonished even to say "Whew!" + +"This begins to look like the Lord's own business," was the first +impulsive thought of his devout heart. "There's plainly something to be +done. That little Draxy's father shall get some o' the next year's sugar +out o' that camp, or my name isn't Seth Kinney;" and the Elder sprang from +the wall and walked briskly towards the Frenchman. As he drew near him, +and saw the forbidding look on the fellow's face, he suddenly abandoned +his first intention, which was to speak to him, and, merely bowing, passed +on down the hill. + +"He's a villain, if I know the look of one," said honest Elder. "I'll +think a little longer. I wonder where he stores his buckets. Now, there's +a chance," and Elder Kinney turned about and followed the plodding cart up +the hill again. It was a long pull and a tedious one; and for Elder Kinney +to keep behind oxen was a torture like being in a straight waistcoat. One +mile, two miles, three miles! the Elder half repented of his undertaking; +but like all wise and magnetic natures, he had great faith in his first +impulses, and he kept on. + +At last the cart turned into a lane on the right-hand side of the road. + +"Why, he's goin' to old Ike's," exclaimed the Elder. "Well, I can get at +all old Ike knows, and it's pretty apt to be all there is worth knowin'," +and Elder Kinney began, in his satisfaction, to whistle + + "Life is the time to serve the Lord," + +in notes as clear and loud as a bob-o'-link's. + +He walked on rapidly, and was very near overtaking the Frenchman, when a +new thought struck him. "Now, if he's uneasy about himself,--and if he +knows he ain't honest, of course he's uneasy,--he'll may be think I'm on +his track, and be off to his 'hum,' as Nancy calls it," and the Elder +chuckled at the memory, "an' I shouldn't have any chance of ketchin' him +here for another year." The Elder stood still again. Presently he jumped a +fence, and walking off to the left, climbed a hill, from the top of which +he could see old Ike's house. Here, in the edge of a spruce grove, he +walked back and forth, watching the proceedings below. "Seems little too +much like bein' a spy," thought the good man, "but I never felt a clearer +call in a thing in my life than I do in this little girl's letter," and he +fell to singing + + "Rise, my soul, and stretch thy wings," + +till the crows in the wood were frightened by the strange sound, and came +flying out and flapping their great wings above his head. + +The Frenchman drove into old Ike's yard. Ike came out of the house and +helped him unload the buckets, and carry them into an old corn-house which +stood behind the barn: As soon as the Frenchman had turned his oxen's head +down the lane, the Elder set out for the house, across the fields. Old Ike +was standing in the barn-door. When he saw the tall figure striding +through the pasture, he ran to let down the bars, and hurried up to the +Elder and grasped both his hands. Not in all Elder Kinney's parish was +there a single heart which beat so warmly for him as did the heart of this +poor lonely old man, who had lived by himself in this solitary valley ever +since the Elder came to Clairvend. + +"Oh, Elder, Elder," said he, "it does me reel good to see your face. Be ye +well, sir?" looking closely at him. + +"Yes, Ike, thank you, I'm always well," replied the Elder absently. He was +too absorbed in his errand to have precisely his usual manner, and it was +the slight change which Ike's affectionate instinct felt. But Ike saved +him all perplexity as to introducing the object of his visit by saying at +once, picking up one of the sugar-buckets which had rolled off to one +side, "I'm jest pilin' up Ganew's sugar-buckets for him. He pays me well +for storin' 'em, but I kind o' hate to have anythin' to do with him. Don't +you remember him, sir--him that was so awful bad with the fever down'n the +clearin' five years ago this month? You was down to see him, I know." + +"Yes, yes, I remember," said the Elder, with a manner so nonchalant that +he was frightened at his own diplomacy. "He was a bad fellow, I thought," + +Ike went on: "Wall, that's everybody's feelin' about him: and there ain't +no great thing to show for 't nuther. But they did say a while back that +he hadn't no reel right to the land. He turned up all of a sudden, and +paid up all there was owin' on the taxes, an' he's paid 'em regular ever +sence. But he hain't never showed how the notes come to be signed by some +other name. Yes, sir, the hull lot--it's nigh on ter three hundred acres, +such's 'tis; a good part on't 's swamp though, that ain't wuth a +copper--the hull lot went to a man down in York State, when the Iron +Company bust up here, and for two or three year the chap he jest sent up +his note for the taxes, and they've a drefful shiftless way o' lettin' +things go in this ere town, 's you know, sir; there wan't nobody that +knowed what a sugar orchard was a lyin' in there, or there'd been plenty +to grab for it; but I don't s'pose there's three men in the town'd ever +been over back o' Birch Hill till this Ganew he come and cut a road in, +and had his sugar-camp agoin' one spring, afore anybody knew what he was +arter. But he's paid all up reg'lar, and well he may, sez everybody, for +he can't get his sugar off, sly's he is, w'thout folks gettin' some kind +o' notion about it, an' they say's he's cleared thousands an' thousands o' +dollars. I expect they ain't overshot the mark nuther, for he's got six +hundred new buckets this spring, and Bill Sims, he's been in with 'em the +last two years, 'n he says there ain't no sugar orchard to compare, except +Squire White's over in Mill Creek, and he's often taken in three thousand +pounds off his'n." + +Ike sighed as he paused, breathless. "It's jest my luck, allers knockin' +about 'n them woods 's I am, not to have struck trail on that air orchard. +I could ha' bought it's well's not in the fust on't, if it had been put up +to vendue, 's't oughter ben, an' nobody knowin' what 'twas wuth." + +Elder Kinney was almost overcome by this unhoped-for corroboration of his +instincts; clearing up of his difficulties. His voice sounded hoarse in +his own ears as he replied:-- + +"Well, Ike, the longest lane has a turnin'. It's my belief that God +doesn't often let dishonest people prosper very long. We shall see what +becomes of Ganew. Where does he live? I'd like to see him." + +"Well, he don't live nowhere, 's near's anybody can find out. He's in the +camp with the gang about six weeks, sometimes eight; they say's it's a +kind of settlement down there, an' then he's off again till sugarin' comes +round; but he's dreadful sharp and partikler about the taxes, I tell you, +and he's given a good deal too, fust and last, to the town. Folks say he +wants to make 'em satisfied to let him alone. He's coming up here again +to-morrow with two more loads of buckets, sir: if 'twouldn't be too much +trouble for you to come here agin so soon," added poor Ike, grasping at +the chance of seeing the Elder again. + +"Well, I think perhaps I'll come," replied the Elder, ashamed again of the +readiness with which he found himself taking to tortuous methods, "if I'm +not too busy. What time will he be here?" + +"About this same time," said Ike. "He don't waste no time, mornin' nor +evenin'." + +The Elder went away soon, leaving poor Ike half unhappy. + +"He's got somethin' on his mind, thet's plain enough," thought the loving +old soul. "I wonder now ef it's a woman; I've allus thought the Elder +war'nt no sort of man to live alone all his days." + +"Dear, good little Draxy," thought the Elder, as he walked down the road. +"How shall I ever tell the child of this good luck, and how shall I manage +it all for the best for her?" + +Draxy's interests were in good hands. Before night Elder Kinney had +ascertained that there had never been any sale of this land since it was +sold to "the New York chap," and that Ganew's occupation of it was +illegal. After tea the Elder sat down and wrote two letters. + +The first one was to Draxy, and ran as follows:-- + +"MY DEAR CHILD:-- + +"I received your letter last night, and by the Lord's help I have found +out all about your father's land today. But I shall write to your father +about it, for you could not understand. + +"I wish the Lord had seen fit to give me just such a daughter as you are. + +"Your friend, + +"SETH KINNEY." + +The letter to Reuben was very long, giving in substance the facts which +have been told above, and concluding thus:-- + +"I feel a great call from the Lord to do all I can in this business, and I +hope you won't take it amiss if I make bold to decide what's best to be +done without consulting you. This fellow's got to be dealt with pretty +sharp, and I, being on the ground, can look after him better than you can. +But I'll guarantee that you'll have possession of that land before many +weeks." He then asked Reuben to have an exact copy of the deed made out +and forwarded to him; also any other papers which might throw light on the +transfer of the property, sixteen years back. "Not that I calculate +there'll be any trouble," he added; "we don't deal much in lawyer's tricks +up here, but it's just as well to be provided." + +The Elder went to the post-office before breakfast to post this letter. +The address did not escape the eyes of the postmaster. Before noon Eben +Hill knew that the Elder had written right off by the first mail to a +"Miss Draxy Miller." + +Meantime the Elder was sitting in the doorway of old Ike's barn waiting +for the Frenchman; ten o'clock came, eleven, twelve--he did not appear. + +The Elder's uneasiness grew great, but he talked on and on till poor Ike +was beside himself with delight. At last the distant creak of the wheels +was heard. "There he is," exclaimed Ike. "I'm thinking, sir, that it's a +kind o' providential dispensation thet's hendered him all this time; it's +done me such a sight o' good to hear you talk." + +The Elder smiled tenderly on poor old Ike. + +"Everything is a dispensation, Ike, accordin' to my way o' thinkin';" and +again he thought involuntarily of "little Draxy." + +Ganew assented with a half-surly civility to Elder Kinney's proposition to +ride down with him. + +"I've got a matter of business to talk over with you, Mr. Ganew,"--said +the Elder, "and I came up here on purpose to find you." + +The man turned his stolid black eyes full on the Elder, but made no reply. +It was indeed an evil face. The Elder was conscious that impulses which +he feared were unchristian were rising rapidly in his breast. He had +wished a few times before in his life that he was not a minister. He +wished it now. He would have liked to open his conversation with Ganew +after the manner of the world's people when they deal with thieves. And +again he thought involuntarily of "little Draxy," and her touching "we are +very poor." + +But when he spoke, he spoke gently and slowly. + +"I have some news for you which will be very disagreeable, Mr. Ganew." +Here the Frenchman started, with such a terrified, guilty, malignant look +on his face, that the Elder said to himself: "Good God, I believe the man +knows he's in danger of his life. Stealin's the least of his crimes, I'll +venture." + +He proceeded still more gently. "The owners of the land which you've been +using as your own in this town, have written to inquire about it, and have +put the business in my hands." + +Ganew was silent for a moment. Then trying to speak in an indignant tone, +he said,-- + +"Using as my own! I don't know what you mean, Mr. Parson. I have paid my +taxes all regular, and I've got the title-deeds of the land, every acre of +it. I can't help whoever's been writing to you about it; it's all my +land." + +But his face twitched with nervous excitement, and the fright and anger in +his serpent-like black eyes were ugly to see. + +"No, Mr. Ganew, it is not," said the Elder; "and you know it. Now you jest +listen to me; I know the whole truth about the matter, an' all the time +you spend fightin' off the truth'll be wasted, besides addin' lyin' to +havin' been a thief. The owners of the land'll be here, I expect before +long; but they've put it all in my hands, an' I can let you off if I +choose." + +"Let me off! What the devil do you mean?" said Ganew. + +"Why, you don't suppose there's goin' to be nothin' said about all the +thousands o' dollars' wuth of sugar you've carried off here, do"-- + +The next thing Elder Kinney knew he was struggling up to his feet in the +middle of the road; he was nearly blinded by blood trickling from a cut on +his forehead, and only saw dimly that Ganew was aiming another blow at him +with his heavy-handled ox-goad. + +But the Frenchman had reckoned without his host. Elder Kinney, even half +stunned, was more than a match for him. In a very few minutes Ganew was +lying in the bottom of his own ox-cart, with his hands securely tied +behind him with a bit of his own rope and the Elder was sitting calmly +down on a big boulder, wiping his forehead and recovering his breath; it +had been an ugly tussle, and the Elder was out of practice. + +Presently he rose, walked up to the cart, and leaning both his arms on the +wheel, looked down on his enemy. + +The Frenchman's murderous little black eyes rolled wildly, but he did not +struggle. He had felt in the first instant that he was but an infant in +the Elder's hands. + +"Ye poor, miserable, cowardly French,--sinner ye," said the Elder, +struggling for an epithet not unbecoming his cloth. "Did you think you was +goin' to get me out o' yer way's easy's that, 's I dare say ye have better +folks than me, before now!" + +Ganew muttered something in a tongue the Elder did not understand, but the +sound of it kindled his wrath anew. + +"Well, call on your Master, if that's what you're doin', 's much's you +like. He don't generally look out for anybody much who's so big a fool's +you must be, to think you was goin' to leave the minister o' this parish +dead in a ditch within stone's throw o' houses and nobody find you out," +and the Elder sat down again on the boulder. He felt very dizzy and faint; +and the blood still trickled steadily from his forehead. Ganew's face at +this moment was horrible. Rage at his own folly, hate of the Elder, and +terror which was uncontrollable, all contended on his livid features. + +At last he spoke. He begged abjectly to be set free. He offered to leave +the town at once and never return if the Elder would only let him go. + +"What an' give up all your land ye've got such a fine clear title to?" +said the Elder, sarcastically. "No; we'll give ye a title there won't be +no disputin' about to a good berth in Mill Creek jail for a spell!" + +At this the terror mastered every other emotion in the Frenchman's face. +What secret reason he had for it all, no one could know but himself; what +iniquitous schemes already waiting him in other places, what complications +of dangers attendant on his identification and detention. He begged, he +besought, in words so wildly imploring, so full of utter unconditional +surrender, that there could be no question as to their sincerity. The +Elder began, in spite of himself, to pity the wretch; he began also to ask +whether after all it would not be the part of policy to let him go. After +some minutes he said, "I can't say I put much confidence in ye yet, Mr. +Ganew; but I'm inclined to think it's the Lord's way o' smoothin' things +for some o' his children, to let you kind o' slink off," and somehow Elder +Kinney fancied he heard little Draxy say, "Oh, sir, let the poor man go." +There was something marvelous in his under-current of consciousness of +"little Draxy." + +He rose to his feet, picked up the heavy ox-goad, struck the near ox +sharply on the side, and walking on a little ahead of the team, said: +"I'll just take ye down a piece, Mr. Ganew, till we're in sight of Jim +Blair's, before I undo ye. I reckon the presence o' a few folks'll +strengthen your good resolutions." "An' I mistrust I ain't quite equal to +another handlin,'" thought the Elder to himself, as he noted how the sunny +road seemed to go up and down under his feet. He was really far more hurt +than he knew. + +When they were in sight of the house, he stopped the oxen, and leaning +again on the wheel, and looking down on Ganew, had one more talk with him, +at the end of which he began cautiously to untie the rope. He held the +ox-goad, however, firmly grasped in his right hand, and it was not without +a little tremor that he loosed the last knots. "Suppose the desperate +critter sh'd have a knife," thought the Elder. + +He need not have feared. A more crestfallen, subdued, wretched being than +Paul Ganew, as he crawled out of that cart, was never seen. He had his own +secret terror, and it had conquered him. "It's more'n me he's afraid of," +said the Elder to himself. "This is the Lord's doin', I reckon. Now, Mr. +Ganew, if you'll jest walk to the heads o' them oxen I'll thank ye," said +he: "an' 's I feel some tired, I'll jump into the cart; an' I'll save ye +carryin' the ox-goad," he added, as he climbed slowly in, still holding +the murderous weapon in his hand. Nothing could extinguish Seth Kinney's +sense of humor. + +"If we meet any folks," he proceeded, "we've only to say that I've had a +bad hurt, and that you're very kindly takin' me home." + +Ganew walked on like a man in a dream. He was nearly paralyzed with +terror. They met no human being, and very few words passed between them. +When the cart stopped at the Elder's door, Ganew stood still without +turning his head. The Elder went up to him and said, with real kindness of +tone, + +"Mr. Ganew, I expect you can't believe it, but I don't bear ye the least +ill-will." + +A faint flicker of something like grateful surprise passed over the hard +face, but no words came. + +"I hope the Lord'll bring ye to himself yet," persisted the good man, +"and forgive me for havin' had anything but pity for ye from the first +on't. Ye won't forget to send me a writing for Bill Sims that the rest of +the buckets in the camp belong to me?" + +Ganew nodded sullenly and went on, and the Elder walked slowly into the +house. + +After dark, a package was left at the Elder's door. It contained the +order on Bill Sims, and a letter. Some of the information in the letter +proved useful in clearing up the mystery of Ganew's having known of this +tract of land. He had been in Potter's employ, it seemed, and had had +access to his papers. What else the letter told no one ever knew; but the +Elder's face always had a horror-stricken look when the Frenchman's name +was mentioned, and when people sometimes wondered if he would ever be seen +again in Clairvend, the emphasis of the Elder's "Never! ye may rely on +that! Never!" had something solemn in it. + +In less than forty-eight hours the whole village knew the story. "The +sooner they know the whole on't the better, and the sooner they'll be +through talkin'," said the Elder, and nobody could have accused him of +being "close-mouthed" now. He even showed "the little gal's letter," as +the townspeople called it, to anybody who asked to see it. It hurt him to +do this, more than he could see reason for, but he felt a strong desire to +have the village heart all ready to welcome "little Draxy" and her father +when they should come. And the village heart was ready! Hardly a man, +woman, or child but knew her name and rejoiced in her good fortune. "Don't +yer remember my tellin' yer that night," said Josiah Bailey to Eben Hill, +"that she'd come to the right place for help when she come to Elder +Kinney?" + +When Draxy took Elder Kinney's letter out of the post-office, her hands +trembled. She walked rapidly away, and opened the letter as soon as she +reached a quiet street. The Elder had not made it so clear as he thought +he had, in his letter to the "child," which way matters had gone. Draxy +feared. Presently she thought, "He says 'your father's land.' That must +mean that we shall have it." But still she had sad misgivings. She almost +decided to read the inclosed letter which was unsealed; she could not have +her father disappointed again; but her keen sense of honor restrained her. + +Reuben had grown really feeble. There were many days now when he could not +work, but sat listlessly on a ledge of rocks near the house, and watched +the restless waves with a sense of misery as restless as they. When Draxy +reached home this night and found that her father was not in the house, +she ran over to the "Black Ledge." There she found him. She sat down by +his side, not knowing how to begin. Presently he said: "I wish I loved +this water, daughter,--it is very beautiful to look at; but I'm thinkin' +it's somethin' like human beings; they may be ever so handsome to look on, +but if you don't love 'em you don't, and that's the end on't, an' it don't +do ye no sort o' good to be where they are." + +"The woods and fields used to do you good, father," said Draxy. + +Reuben was astonished. Draxy was not wont to allude to the lost and +irrecoverable joys. But he only sighed. + +"Read this letter, father dear," said Draxy, hurriedly pushing it into his +hand; "I wrote up to a good old minister to find out, and here's his +answer." + +Reuben looked bewildered. Draxy's words did not make themselves clear. +But the first words of Elder Kinney's letter did. The paper fell from his +hands. + +"Oh, daughter! daughter! it can't be true! It can't!" and Reuben Miller +covered his eyes and cried. Draxy did not cry. One of the finest traits in +her nature was her instantaneous calmness of exterior under sudden and +intense excitement. + +"Yes; father, it is true. It must be. I have believed it from the first! +Oh do, do read the letter," said Draxy, and she forced the letter into his +hands again. + +"No, no, daughter. Read it to me. I can't see the words," replied Reuben, +still weeping. He was utterly unmanned. Then Draxy read the letter aloud +slowly, distinctly, calmly. Her voice did not tremble. She accepted it +all, absolutely, unconditionally, as she had accepted everything which had +ever happened to her. In Draxy's soul the past never confused the present; +her life went on from moment to moment, from step to step as naturally, as +clearly, as irrevocably as plants grow and flower, without hinderance, +without delay. This it was which had kept her serene, strong: this is true +health of nature. + +After a time Reuben grew calmer; Draxy's presence always helped him. They +sat on the rocks until twilight fell, and the great red lamp in the +light-house was lighted. + +"Father, dear," said Draxy, "I think there are light-houses all along our +lives, and God knows when it is time to light the lamps." + +Reuben clasped Draxy's hand tighter, and turned his eyes upon her with a +look whose love was almost reverent. + +Lights shone until morning from the windows of Captain Melville's house. +The little family had sat together until long after midnight, discussing +this new and wonderful turn in their affairs. Jane and Reuben were +bewildered and hardly happy yet; Draxy was alert, enthusiastic, ready as +usual; poor Captain Melville and his wife were in sore straits between +their joy in the Millers' good fortune, and their pain at the prospect of +the breaking up of the family. Their life together had been so beautiful, +so harmonious. + +"Oh, Draxy," said the Captain, "how shall we ever live without you?" + +"Oh! but you will come up there, uncle." said Draxy; "and we shall keep +you after we once get you." + +Captain Melville shook his head. He could never leave the sea. But full +well he knew that the very salt of it would have lost its best savor to +him when this sweet, fair girl had gone out from his house. + +The "good-nights" were sadly and solemnly said. "Oh!" thought Draxy, "does +joy always bring pain in this world?" and she fell asleep with tears on +her cheeks. + +Reuben sat up until near dawn, writing to Elder Kinney. He felt strangely +strong. He was half cured already by the upland air of the fields he had +never seen. The next morning Draxy said, "Do you not think, father, I +ought to write a note too, to thank the kind minister, or will you tell +him how grateful I am?" + +"Put a postscript to my letter, daughter. That will be better," said +Reuben. + +So Draxy wrote at the bottom of the last page:-- + +"DEAR MR. KINNEY:--I do not know any words to thank you in; and I think +you will like it better if I do not try. My father seems almost well +already. I am sure it was the Lord that helped you to find out about our +land. I hope we can come very soon. + +"Your grateful friend, + +"DRAXY MILLER." + +When the Elder read this second note of Draxy's, he said aloud, "God bless +her! she's one o' His chosen ones, that child is," and he fell to +wondering how she looked. He found himself picturing her as slight and +fair, with blue eyes, and hair of a pale yellow. "I don't believe she's +more than fourteen at most;" thought he, "she speaks so simple, jest like +a child; an' yet, she goes right to the pint, 's straight's any woman; +though I don't know, come to think on't, 's ever I knew a woman that could +go straight to a pint," reflected the Elder, whose patience was often +sorely tried by the wandering and garrulous female tongues in his parish. +The picture of "Little Draxy" grew strangely distinct in his mind; and his +heart yearned towards her with a yearning akin to that which years before +he had felt over the little silent form of the daughter whose eyes had +never looked into his. + +There was no trouble with the town in regard to the land. If there had +been any doubts, Elder Kinney's vigorous championship of the new claimant +would have put them down. But the sympathy of the entire community was +enlisted on Reuben's side. The whole story from first to last appealed to +every man's heart; and there was not a father in town that did not rest +his hand more lovingly on his little girl's head at night, when he sat in +his door-way talking over "them Millers," and telling about Draxy's +"writin' to th' Elder." + +Before the first of May all was settled. Elder Kinney had urged Mr. Miller +to come at once to his house, and make it a home until he could look about +and decide where he would establish himself. + +"I am a lonely man," he wrote; "I buried my wife and only child many years +ago, and have lived here ever since, with only an old Indian woman to take +care of me. I don't want to press you against your will; and there's a +house in the village that you can hire; but it will go against me sorely +not to have you in my house at the first. I want to see you, and to see +your little daughter; I can't help feeling as if the Lord had laid out for +us to be friends more than common." + +Reuben hesitated. The shyness of his nature made him shrink from other +men's houses. But Draxy inclined strongly to the Elder's proposition. "Oh, +think father, how lonely he must be. Suppose you hadn't mother nor me, +father dear!" and Draxy kissed her father's cheek; "and think how glad you +have been that you came to live with uncle," she added. + +Reuben looked lovingly at Captain Melville, but said nothing. + +"I'll tell ye what I think, Reuben;" said the Captain. "It's my belief +that you'n that parson'll take to each other. His letters sound like your +talk. Somehow, I've got an uncommon respect for that man, considerin' he's +a parson: it's my advice to ye, to take up with his offer." + +"And it seems no more than polite, father," persisted Draxy: "after he +has done so much for us. We need not say how long we will stay in his +house, you know." + +"Supposin' you go up first, Draxy," said Reuben, hesitatingly, "an' see +how 'tis. I always did hate Injuns." + +"Oh!" said Draxy; she had hardly observed the mention of that feature in +the Elder's household, and she laughed outright. Her ideas of the +ancestral savage were too vague to be very alarming. "If she has lived all +these years with this good old minister, she must be civilized and kind," +said Draxy. "I'm not afraid of her." + +"But I think it would be a great deal better for me to go first," she +continued, more and more impressed with the new idea. "Then I can be sure +beforehand about everything, and get things all in order for you; and +there'll be Mr. Kinney to take care of me; I feel as if he was a kind of +father to everybody." And Draxy in her turn began to wonder about the +Elder's appearance as he had wondered about hers. Her mental picture was +quite as unlike the truth as was his. She fancied him not unlike her +father, but much older, with a gentle face, and floating white hair. Dim +purposes of how she might make his lonely old age more cheerful, floated +before her mind. "It must be awful," thought she, "to live years and years +all alone with an Indian." + +When Elder Kinney read Reuben's letter, saying that they would send their +daughter up first to decide what would be best for them to do, he brought +his hand down hard on the table and said "Whew!" again. + +"Well, I do declare," thought he to himself, "I'm afraid they're dreadful +shiftless folks, to send that girl way up here, all alone by herself; and +how's such a child's that goin' to decide anything, I should like to +know?" + +He read again the letter Reuben had written. "My daughter is very young, +but we lean upon her as if she was older. She has helped us bear all our +misfortunes, and we have more confidence in her opinions than in our own +about everything." The Elder was displeased. + +"Lean on her;' I should think you did! Poor little girl! Well, I can look +out for her; that's one comfort." And the Elder wrote a short note to the +effect that he would meet their "child" at the railway station, which was +six miles from their town; that he would do all he could to help her; and +that he hoped soon to see Mr. and Mrs. Miller under his roof. + +The words of the note were most friendly, but there was an indefinable +difference between it and all the others, which Draxy felt without knowing +that she felt it, and her last words to her father as she bade him good-by +from the car window were: "I don't feel so sure as I did about our staying +with Mr. Kinney, father. You leave it all to me, do you, dear, even if I +decide to buy a house?" + +"Yes, daughter," said Reuben, heartily; "all! Nothing but good's ever come +yet of your way o' doin' things." + +"An' I don't in the least hanker after that Injun," he called out as the +cars began to move. Draxy laughed merrily. Reuben was a new man already. +They were very gay together, and felt wonderfully little fear for people +to whom life had been thus far so hard. + +There was not a misgiving in Draxy's heart as she set out again on a two +days' journey to an unknown place. "Oh how different from the day when I +started before," she thought as she looked out on the water sparkling +under the bright May sun. She spent the first night, as before, at the +house of Captain Melville's brother, and set out at eight the following +morning, to ride for ten hours steadily northward. The day was like a day +of June. The spring was opening early; already fruit-trees were white and +pink; banks were green, and birds were noisy. + +By noon mountains came in sight. Draxy was spellbound. "They are grander +than the sea," thought she, "and I never dreamed it; and they are loving, +too. I should like to rest my cheek on them." + +As she drew nearer and nearer, and saw some tops still white with snow, +her heart beat faster, and with a sudden pang almost of +conscience-stricken remorse, she exclaimed, "Oh, I shall never, never once +miss the sea!" + +Elder Kinney had borrowed Eben Hill's horse and wagon to drive over for +Draxy. He was at the station half an hour before the train was due. It had +been years since the steady currents of his life had been so disturbed and +hurried as they were by this little girl. + +"Looks like rain, Elder; I 'spect she'll have to go over with me arter +all," said George Thayer, the handsomest, best-natured stage-driver in the +whole State of New Hampshire. The Elder glanced anxiously at the sky. + +"No, I guess not, George," he replied. "'Twon't be anything more'n a +shower, an' I've got an umbrella and a buffalo-robe. I can keep her dry." + +Everybody at the station knew Draxy's story, and knew that the Elder had +come to meet her. When the train stopped, all eyes eagerly scanned the +passengers who stepped out on the platform. Two men, a boy, and three +women, one after the other; it was but a moment, and the train was off +again. + +"She hain't come," exclaimed voice after voice. The Elder said nothing; he +had stood a little apart from the crowd, watching for his ideal Draxy; as +soon as he saw that she was not there, he had fallen into a perplexed +reverie as to the possible causes of her detention. He was sorely anxious +about the child. "Jest's like's not, she never changed cars down at the +Junction," thought he, "an' 's half way to Montreal by this time," and +the Elder felt hot with resentment against Reuben Miller. + +Meantime, beautiful, dignified, and unconscious, Draxy stood on the +platform, quietly looking at face after face, seeking for the white hair +and gentle eyes of her trusted friend, the old minister. + +George Thayer, with the quick instinct of a stage-driver, was the first to +see that she was a stranger. + +"Where d'ye wish to go, ma'am?" said he, stepping towards her. + +"Thank you," said Draxy, "I expected some one to meet me," and she looked +uneasy; but reassured by the pleasant face, she went on: "the minister +from Clairvend village was to meet me here." + +George Thayer said, two hours afterward, in recounting his share of the +adventure, "I tell ye, boys, when she said that ye might ha' knocked me +down with a feather. I hain't never heard no other woman's voice that's +got jest the sound to't hern has; an' what with that, an' thinkin' how +beat the Elder'd be, an' wonderin' who in thunder she was anyhow, I don't +believe I opened my dum lips for a full minute; but she kind o' smiled, +and sez she, 'Do you know Mr. Kinney?' and that brought me to, and jest +then the Elder he come along, and so I introduced 'em." + +It was not exactly an introduction, however. The Elder, entirely absorbed +in conjecture as to poor little Draxy's probable whereabouts, stumbled on +the platform steps and nearly fell at her very feet, and was recalled to +himself only to be plunged into still greater confusion by George Thayer's +loud "Hallo! here he is. Here's Elder Kinney. Here's a lady askin' for +you, Elder!" + +Even yet it did not dawn upon Elder Kinney who this could be; his little +golden-haired girl was too vividly stamped on his brain; he looked gravely +into the face of this tall and fine-looking young woman and said kindly, +"Did you wish to see me, ma'am?" + +Draxy smiled. She began to understand. "I am afraid you did not expect to +see me so tall, sir," she said. "I am Reuben Miller's daughter,--Draxy," +she added, smiling again, but beginning in her turn to look confused. +Could this erect, vigorous man, with a half-stern look on his dark-bearded +face, be the right Mr. Kinney? her minister? It was a moment which neither +Elder Kinney nor Draxy ever forgot. The unsentimental but kindly George +gave the best description of it which could be given. + +"I vow, boys, I jest wish ye could ha' seen our Elder; an' yet, I dunno's +I do wish so, nuther. He stood a twistin' his hat, jest like any o' us, +an' he kind o' stammered, an' I don't believe neither on 'em knew a word +he said; an' her cheeks kep' gittin' redder'n redder, an' she looked's ef +she was ready to cry, and yet she couldn't keep from larfin, no how. Ye +see she thought he was an old man and he thought she was a little gal, an' +somehow't first they didn't either of 'em feel like nobody; but when I +passed 'em in the road, jest out to Four Corners, they was talkin' as easy +and nateral as could be; an' the Elder he looked some like himself, and +she--wall, boys, you jest wait till you see her; that's all I've got to +say. Ef she ain't a picter!" + +The drive to the village seemed long, however, to both Draxy and the +Elder. Their previous conceptions of each other had been too firmly rooted +to be thus overthrown without a great jar. The Elder felt Draxy's +simplicity and child-like truthfulness more and more with each word she +spoke; but her quiet dignity of manner was something to which he was +unused; to his inexperience she seemed almost a fine lady, in spite of her +sweet and guileless speech. Draxy, on the other hand, was a little +repelled by the Elder's whole appearance. He was a rougher man than she +had known; his pronunciation grated on her ear; and he looked so strong +and dark she felt a sort of fear of him. But the next morning, when Draxy +came down in her neat calico gown and white apron, the Elder's face +brightened. + +"Good morning, my child," he said. "You look as fresh as a pink." The +tears came into Draxy's eyes at the word "child," said as her father said +it. + +"I don't look so old then, this morning, do I, sir?" she asked in a +pleading tone which made the Elder laugh. He was more himself this +morning. All was well. Draxy sat down to breakfast with a lighter heart. + +When Draxy was sitting she looked very young. Her face was as childlike as +it was beautiful: and her attitudes were all singularly unconscious and +free. It was when she rose that her womanhood revealed itself to the +perpetual surprise of every one. As breakfast went on the Elder gradually +regained his old feeling about her; his nature was as simple, as +spontaneous as hers; he called her "child" again several times in the +course of the meal. But when at the end of it Draxy rose, tall, erect, +almost majestic in her fullness of stature, he felt again singularly +removed from her. + +"'Ud puzzle any man to say whether she's a child or a woman," said the +Elder to himself. But his face shone with pleasure as he walked by her +side out into the little front yard. Draxy was speechless with delight. In +the golden east stretched a long range of mountains, purple to the top; +down in the valley, a mile below the Elder's house, lay the village; a +little shining river ran side by side with its main street. To the north +were high hills, some dark green and wooded, some of brown pasture land. + +"Oh, sir," said Draxy, "is there any other spot in your mountain land so +beautiful as this?" + +"No, not one," said the Elder, "not one;" and he, too, looked out silently +on the scene. + +Presently Draxy exclaimed, with a sigh, "Oh, it makes me feel like crying +to think of my father's seeing this!" + +"Shall I tell you now about my father, sir?" she continued; "you ought to +know all about us, you have been so good." + +Then sitting on the low step of the door, while the Elder sat in an +arm-chair in the porch, Draxy told the story of her father's life, and, +unconsciously, of her own. More than once the Elder wiped his eyes; more +than once he rose and walked up and down before the door, gazing with +undefined but intense emotion at this woman telling her pathetic story +with the simple-hearted humility of a child. Draxy looked younger than +ever curled up in the doorway, with her hands lying idle on her white +apron. The Elder was on the point of stroking her hair. Suddenly she rose, +and said, "But I am taking too much of your time, sir; will you take me +now to see the house you spoke of, which we could hire?" She was again the +majestic young woman. The Elder was again thrown back, and puzzled. + +He tried to persuade her to give up all idea of hiring the house: to make +his house their home for the present. But she replied steadfastly, "I must +look at the house, sir, before I decide." They walked down into the +village together. Draxy was utterly unconscious of observation, but the +Elder knew only too well that every eye of Clairvend was at some +window-pane studying his companion's face and figure. All whom they met +stared so undisguisedly that, fearing Draxy would be annoyed, he said,-- + +"You mustn't mind the folks staring so at you. You see they've been +talkin' the matter all over about the land, an' your comin', for a month, +an' it's no more than natural they should want to know how you look;" and +he, too, looked admiringly at Draxy's face. + +"Oh," said Draxy (it was a new idea to her mind), "I never thought of +that." + +"I hope they are all glad we are coming, sir," added she, a moment after. + +"Oh yes, yes; they're glad enough. 'Taint often anything happens up here, +you know, and they've all thought everything of you since your first +letter came." + +Draxy colored. She had not dreamed of taking a whole village into her +confidence. But she was glad of the friendliness; and she met every +inquisitive gaze after this with an open, responsive look of such beaming +good-will that she made friends of all whom she saw. One or two stopped +and spoke; most were afraid to do so, unconsciously repelled, as the Elder +had been at first, by something in Draxy's dress and bearing which to +their extreme inexperience suggested the fine lady. Nothing could have +been plainer than Draxy's cheap gray gown; but her dress always had +character: the tiniest knot of ribbon at her throat assumed the look of a +decoration; and many a lady for whom she worked had envied her the +expression of her simple clothes. + +The house would not answer. Draxy shook her head as soon as she saw it, +and when the Elder told her that in the spring freshets the river washed +into the lower story, she turned instantly away, and said, "Let us go +home, sir; I must think of something else." + +At dinner Draxy was preoccupied, and anxious. The expression of perplexity +made her look older, but no less beautiful. Elder Kinney gazed at her +more steadily than he knew; and he did not call her "child" again. + +After dinner he took her over the house, explaining to her, at every turn, +how useless most of the rooms were to him. In truth, the house was +admirably adapted for two families, with the exception that there was but +one kitchen. "But that could be built on in a very few days, and would +cost very little," said the Elder eagerly. Already all the energies of his +strong nature were kindled by the resolve to keep Draxy under his roof. + +"I suppose it might be so built that it could be easily moved off and +added to our own house when we build for ourselves," said Draxy, +reflectively. + +"Oh, yes," said the Elder, "no sort o' trouble about that," and he glowed +with delight. He felt sure that his cause was gained. + +But he found Draxy very inflexible. There was but one arrangement of which +she would think for a moment. It was, that the Elder should let to them +one half of his house, and that the two families should be entirely +distinct. Until the new kitchen and out-buildings were finished, if the +Elder would consent to take them as boarders, they would live with him; +"otherwise, sir, I must find some one in the village who will take us," +said Draxy in a quiet tone, which Elder Kinney knew instinctively was not +to be argued with. It was a novel experience for the Elder in more ways +than one. He was used to having his parishioners, especially the women, +yield implicitly to his advice. This gentle-voiced girl, who said to him, +"Don't you think, sir?" in an appealing tone which made his blood quicken, +but who afterward, when she disagreed with him, stood her ground +immovably even against entreaties, was a phenomenon in his life. He began +to stand in awe of her. When some one said to him on the third day after +Draxy's arrival: "Well, Elder, I don't know what she'd ha' done without +you," he replied emphatically, "Done without me! You'll find out that all +Reuben Miller's daughter wants of anybody is jest to let her know exactly +how things lay. She ain't beholden to anybody for opinions. She's as +trustin' as a baby, while you're tellin' her facts, but I'd like to see +anybody make her change her mind about what's best to be done; and I +reckon she's generally right; what's more, she's one of the Lord's +favorites, an' He ain't above guidin' in small things no mor'n in great." + +No wonder Elder Kinney was astonished. In forty-eight hours Draxy had +rented one half of his house, made a contract with a carpenter for the +building of a kitchen and out-buildings on the north side of it, engaged +board at the Elder's table for her parents and herself for a month, and +hired Bill Sims to be her father's head man for one year. All the while +she seemed as modestly grateful to the Elder as if he had done it all for +her. On the afternoon of the second day she said to him:-- + +"Now, sir, what is the nearest place for me to buy our furniture?" + +"Why, ain't you goin' to use mine--at least's far's it goes?" said the +poor Elder. "I thought that was in the bargain." + +Draxy looked disturbed. "Oh, how careless of me," she said; "I am afraid +nothing was said about it. But we cannot do that; my father would dislike +it; and as we must have furniture for our new house, we might as well have +it now. I have seven hundred dollars with me, sir; father thought I might +decide to buy a house, and have to pay something down." + +"Please don't be angry with me," she added pleadingly, for the Elder +looked vexed. "You know if I am sure my father would prefer a thing, I +must do it." + +The Elder was disarmed. + +"Well, if you are set on buyin' furniture," he said, "I shouldn't wonder +if you'd have a chance to buy all you'd want cheap down at Squire +Williams's sale in Mill Creek. His wife died the night your first letter +came, an' I heard somebody say he was goin' to sell all out; an' they've +always been well-to-do, the Williamses, an' I reckon you'd fancy some o' +their things better'n anything you'd get at the stores." + +Already the Elder began to divine Draxy's tastes; to feel that she had +finer needs than the women he had known. In less than an hour he was at +the door with Eben Hill's horse and wagon to take Draxy to Squire +Williams's house. + +"Jest more o' the same Providence that follows that girl," thought he when +he saw Draxy's eyes fairly dilate with pleasure as he led her into the +old-fashioned parlor, where the furniture was piled and crowded ready for +the auction. + +"Oh, will they not cost too much for me, dear Mr. Kinney?" whispered +Draxy. + +"No, I guess not," he said, "there ain't much biddin' at these sort of +sales up here," and he mentally resolved that nothing Draxy wanted should +cost too much for her. + +The sale was to be the next day. Draxy made a careful list of the things +she would like to buy. The Elder was to come over and bid them off for +her. + +"Now you just go over 'em again," said the Elder, "and mark off what you'd +like to have if they didn't cost anything, because sometimes things go +for's good 's nothing, if nobody happens to want 'em." So Draxy made a +second list, and laughing a little girlish laugh as she handed the papers +to the Elder, pointed to the words "must haves" at the head of the first +list, and "would-like-to-haves" at the head of the second. The Elder put +them both in his breast-pocket, and he and Draxy drove home. + +The next night two great loads of Squire Williams's furniture were carried +into Elder Kinney's house. As article after article was taken in, Draxy +clapped her hands and almost screamed with delight; all her +"would-like-to-haves" were there. "Oh, the clock, the clock! Have I really +got that, too!" she exclaimed, and she turned to the Elder, half crying, +and said, "How shall I ever thank you, sir?" + +The Elder was uncomfortable. He was in a dilemma. He had not been able to +resist buying the clock for Draxy. He dared not tell her what he had paid +for it. "She'd never let me give her a cent's worth, I know that well +enough. It would be just like her to make me take it back," thought he. +Luckily Draxy was too absorbed in her new riches, all the next day, to ask +for her accounts, and by the next night the Elder had deliberately +resolved to make false returns on his papers as to the price of several +articles. "I'll tell her all about it one o' these days when she knows me +better," he comforted himself by thinking; "I never did think Ananias was +an out an' out liar. It couldn't be denied that all he did say was true!" +and the Elder resolutely and successfully tried to banish the subject from +his mind by thinking about Draxy. + +The furniture was, much of it, valuable old mahogany, dark in color and +quaint in shape. Draxy could hardly contain herself with delight, as she +saw the expression it gave to the rooms; it had cost so little that she +ventured to spend a small sum for muslin curtains, new papers, bright +chintz, and shelves here and there. When all was done, she herself was +astonished at the result. The little home was truly lovely. "Oh, sir, my +father has never had a pretty home like this in all his life," said she to +the Elder, who stood in the doorway of the sitting-room looking with +half-pained wonder at the transformation. He felt, rather than saw, how +lovely the rooms looked; he could not help being glad to see Draxy so +glad; but he felt farther removed from her by this power of hers to create +what he could but dimly comprehend. Already he unconsciously weighed all +things in new balances; already he began to have a strange sense of +humility in the presence of this woman. + +Ten days from the day that Draxy arrived in Clairvend she drove over with +the Elder to meet her father and mother at the station. She had arranged +that the Elder should carry her father back in the wagon; she and her +mother would go in the stage. She counted much on the long, pleasant drive +through the woods as an opening to the acquaintance between her father and +the Elder. She had been too busy to write any but the briefest letters +home, and had said very little about him. To her last note she had added a +post-script,-- + +"I am sure you will like Mr. Kinney, father. He is very kind and very +good. But he is not old as we thought." + +To the Elder she said, as they drove over, "I think you will love my +father, sir, and I know you will do him good. But he will not say much at +first; you will have to talk," and Draxy smiled. The Elder and she +understood each other very well. + +"I don't think there's much danger o' my not lovin' him," replied the +Elder; "by all you tell he must be uncommon lovable." Draxy turned on him +such a beaming smile that he could not help adding, "an' I should think +his bein' your father was enough." + +Draxy looked seriously in his face, and said "Oh, Mr. Kinney, I'm not +anything by the side of father." + +The Elder's eyes twinkled. + +It was a silent though joyful group which gathered around the Elder's +tea-table that night. + +Reuben and Jane were tired, bewildered, but their eyes rested on Draxy +with perpetual smiles. Draxy also smiled more than she spoke. The Elder +felt himself half out of place and wished to go away, but Draxy looked +grieved at his proposal to do so, and he stayed. But nobody could eat, and +old Nancy, who had spent her utmost resources on the supper, was cruelly +disappointed. She bustled in and out on various pretenses, but at last +could keep silence no longer. "Seems to me ye've dreadful slim appetites +for folks that's been travellin' all day. Perhaps ye don't like yer +victuals," she said, glancing sharply at Reuben. + +"Oh yes, madame, yes," said poor Reuben, nervously, "everything is very +nice; much nicer than I am used to." + +Draxy laughed aloud. "My father never eats when he is tired, Nancy. You'll +see how he'll eat to-morrow." + +After Nancy had left the room, Reuben wiped his forehead, and Draxy +laughed again in spite of herself. Old Nancy had been so kind and willing +in helping her, she had grown fond of her, and had quite forgotten her +father's dread. When Reuben bade Draxy good-night, he said under his +breath, "I like your Elder very much, daughter; but I don't know how I'm +ever goin' to stand livin' with that Injun." + +"My Elder," said Draxy to herself as she went up-stairs, "he's everybody's +Elder--and the Lord's most of all I think," and she went to sleep thinking +of the solemn words which she had heard him speak on the last Sunday. + +It was strange how soon the life of the new household adjusted itself; how +full the days were, and how swift. The summer was close upon them; +Reuben's old farmer instincts and habits revived in full force. Bill Sims +proved a most efficient helper; he had been Draxy's sworn knight, from the +moment of her first interview with him. There would be work on Reuben's +farm for many hands, but Reuben was in no haste. The sugar camp assured +him of an income which was wealth to their simple needs; and he wished to +act advisedly and cautiously in undertaking new enterprises. All the land +was wild land--much of it deep swamps. The maple orchard was the only part +immediately profitable. The village people came at once to see them. +Everybody was touched by Jane's worn face and gentle ways; her silence did +not repel them; everybody liked Draxy too, and admired her, but many were +a little afraid of her. The village men had said that she was "the +smartest woman that had ever set foot in Clairvend village," and human +nature is human nature. It would take a great deal of Draxy's kindly +good-will to make her sister women forgive her for being cleverer than +they. Draxy and Reuben were inseparable. They drove; they walked; even +into the swamps courageous Draxy penetrated with her father and Bill Sims, +as they went about surveying the land; and it was Draxy's keen instinct +which in many cases suggested where improvements could be made. + +In the mean time Elder Kinney's existence had become transformed. He dared +not to admit himself how much it meant, this new delight in simply being +alive, for back of his delight lurked a desperate fear; he dared not move. +Day after day he spent more and more time in the company of Draxy and her +father. Reuben and he were fast becoming close friends. Reuben's gentle, +trustful nature found repose in the Elder's firm, sturdy downrightness, +much as it had in Captain Melville's; and the Elder would have loved +Reuben if he had not been Draxy's father. But to Draxy he seemed to draw +no nearer. She was the same frank, affectionate, merry, puzzling +woman-child that she had been at first; yet as he saw more and more how +much she knew of books which he did not know, of people, and of affairs of +which he had never heard--how fluently, graciously, and even wisely she +could talk, he felt himself cut off from her. Her sweet, low tones and +distinct articulation tortured him while they fascinated him; they seemed +to set her so apart. In fact, each separate charm she had, produced in the +poor Elder's humble heart a mixture of delight and pain which could not be +analyzed and could not long be borne. + +He exaggerated all his own defects of manner, and speech, and education; +he felt uncomfortable in Draxy's presence, in spite of all the +affectionate reverence with which she treated him; he said to himself +fifty times a day, "It's only my bein' a minister that makes her think +anythin' o' me." The Elder was fast growing wretched. + +But Draxy was happy. She was still in some ways more child than woman. Her +peculiar training had left her imagination singularly free from fancies +concerning love and marriage. The Elder was a central interest in her +life; she would have said instantly and cordially that she loved him +dearly. She saw him many times every day; she knew all his outgoings and +incomings; she knew the first step of his foot on the threshold; she felt +that he belonged to them, and they to him. Yet as a woman thinks of the +man whose wife she longs to be, Draxy had never once thought of Elder +Kinney. + +But when the new kitchen was finished, and the Millers entered on their +separate housekeeping, a change came. As Reuben and Jane and Draxy sat +down for the first time alone together at their tea-table, Reuben said +cheerily:-- + +"Now this seems like old times. This is nice." + +"Yes," replied Jane. Draxy did not speak. Reuben looked at her. She +colored suddenly, deeply, and said with desperate honesty,-- + +"Yes, father; but I can't help thinking how lonely Mr. Kinney must be." + +"Well, I declare," said Reuben, conscience-stricken; "I suppose he must +be; I hate to think on't. But we'll have him in here's often's he'll +come." + +Just the other side of the narrow entry sat the Elder, leaning both his +elbows on the table, and looking over at the vacant place where the night +before, and for thirty nights before, Draxy had sat. It was more than he +could bear. He sprang up, and leaving his supper untasted, walked out of +the house. + +Draxy heard him go. Draxy had passed in that moment into a new world. She +divined all. + +"He hasn't eaten any supper," thought she; and she listened intently to +hear him come in again. The clock struck ten, he had not returned! Draxy +went to bed, but she could not sleep. The little house was still; the warm +white moonlight lay like summer snow all over it; Draxy looked out of her +window; the Elder was slowly coming up the hill; Draxy knelt down like a +little child and said, "God bless him," and crept back to bed. When she +heard him shut his bedroom door she went to sleep. + +The next day Draxy's eyes did not look as they had looked the day before. +When Elder Kinney first saw her, she was coming down stairs. He was +standing at the foot of the staircase and waited to say "Good morning." +As he looked up at her, he started back and exclaimed: "Why, Draxy, what's +the matter?" + +"Nothing is the matter, sir," said Draxy, as she stepped from the last +stair, and standing close in front of him, lifted the new, sweet, softened +eyes up to his. Draxy was as simple and sincere in this as in all other +emotions and acts of her life. She had no coquetry in her nature. She had +no distinct thought either of a new relation between herself and the +Elder. She simply felt a new oneness with him; and she could not have +understood the suggestion of concealment. If Elder Kinney had been a man +of the world, he would have folded Draxy to his heart that instant. If he +had been even a shade less humble and self-disrustful, he would have done +it, as it was. But he never dreamed that he might. He folded his empty +arms very tight over his faithful, aching, foolish heart, and tried to say +calmly and naturally, "Are you sure? Seems to me you don't look quite +well." + +But after that morning he never felt wholly without hope. He could not +tell precisely why. Draxy did not seek him, did not avoid him. She was +perhaps a little less merry; said fewer words; but she looked glad, and +more than glad. "I think it's the eyes," he said to himself again and +again, as he tried to analyze the new look on Draxy's face which gave him +hope. These were sweet days. There are subtle joys for lovers who dwell +side by side in one house, together and yet apart. The very air is loaded +with significance to them--the door, the window, the stairway. Always +there is hope of meeting; always there is consciousness of presence; +everywhere a mysterious sense that the loved one has passed by. More than +once Seth Kinney knelt and laid his cheek on the stairs which Draxy's feet +had just ascended! Often sweet, guileless Draxy thought, as she went up +and down, "Ah, the dear feet that go over these stairs." One day the +Elder, as he passed by the wall of the room where he knew Draxy was +sitting, brushed his great hand and arm against it so heavily that she +started, thinking he had stumbled. But as the firm step went on, without +pausing, she smiled, she hardly knew why. The next time he did it she laid +down her work, locked and unlocked her hands, and looking toward the door, +whispered under her breath, "Dear hands!" Finally this became almost a +habit of his; he did not at first think Draxy would hear it; but he felt, +as he afterwards told her, "like a great affectionate dog going by her +door, and that was all he could do. He would have liked to lie down on the +rug." + +These were very sweet days; spite of his misgivings, Elder Kinney was +happy; and Draxy, in spite of her unconsciousness, seemed to herself to be +living in a blissful dream. But a sweeter day came. + +One Saturday evening Reuben said to Draxy,-- + +"Daughter, I've done somethin' I'm afraid'll trouble you. I've told th' +Elder about your verses, an' showed him the hymn you wrote when you was +tryin' to give it all up about the land." + +"Oh, father, how could you," gasped Draxy; and she looked as if she would +cry. + +Reuben could not tell just how it happened. It seemed to have come out +before he knew it, and after it had, he could not help showing the hymn. + +Draxy was very seriously disturbed; but she tried to conceal it from her +father, and the subject was dropped. + +The next morning Elder Kinney preached--it seemed to his people--as he +never preached before. His subject was self-renunciation, and he spoke as +one who saw the waving palms of the martyrs and heard their shouts of joy. +There were few dry eyes in the little meeting-house. Tears rolled down +Draxy's face. But she looked up suddenly, on hearing Elder Kinney say, in +an unsteady voice,-- + +"My bretherin, I'm goin' to read to you now a hymn which comes nigher to +expressin' my idea of the kind of resignation God likes than any hymn +that's ever been written or printed in any hymn-book;" and then he +began:-- + +"I cannot think but God must know," etc. + +Draxy's first feeling was one of resentment; but it was a very short-lived +one. The earnest tone, the solemn stillness of the wondering people, the +peaceful summer air floating in at the open windows,--all lifted her out +of herself, and made her glad to hear her own hymn read by the man she +loved, for the worship of God. But her surprise was still greater when the +choir began to sing the lines to a quaint old Methodist tune. They had +been provided with written copies of the hymn, and had practiced it so +faithfully that they sang it well. Draxy broke down and sobbed for a few +moments, so that Elder Kinney was on the point of forgetting everything, +and springing to her side. He had not supposed that anything in the world +could so overthrow Draxy's composure. He did not know how much less +strong her nerves were now than they had been two months before. + +After church, Draxy walked home alone very rapidly. She did not wish to +see any one. She was glad that her father and mother had not been there. +She could not understand the tumult of her feelings. + +At twilight, she stole out of the back door of the house, and walked down +to a little brook which ran near by. As she stood leaning against a young +maple tree she heard steps, and without looking up, knew that the Elder +was coming. She did not move nor speak. He waited some minutes in silence. +Then he said "Oh, Draxy! I never once thought o' painin' you! I thought +you'd like it. Hymns are made to be sung, dear; and that one o' yours is +so beautiful!" He spoke as gently as her father might, and in a voice she +hardly knew. Draxy made no reply. The Elder had never seen her like this. +Her lips quivered, and he saw tears in her eyes. + +"Oh, Draxy, do look up at me--just once! You don't know how hard it is for +a man to think he's hurt anybody--like you!" stammered the poor Elder, +ending his sentence quite differently from what he had intended. + +Draxy smiled through her tears, and looking up, said: "But I am not hurt, +Mr. Kinney; I don't know what I am crying for, sir;" and her eyes fell +again. + +The Elder looked down upon her in silence. Moments passed. "Oh, if I could +make her look up at me again!" he thought. His unspoken wish stirred her +veins; slowly she lifted her eyes; they were calm now, and unutterably +loving. They were more than the Elder could bear." + +"Oh, Draxy, Draxy!" exclaimed he, stretching out both his arms towards +her. + + "My heart grows weaker and more weak + With looking on the thing so dear + Which lies so far, and yet so near!" + +Slowly, very slowly, like a little child learning to walk, with her eyes +full of tears, but her mouth smiling, Draxy moved towards the Elder. He +did not stir, partly because he could not, but partly because he would not +lose one instant of the deliciousness of seeing her, feeling her come. + +When they went back to the house, Reuben was sitting in the porch. The +Elder took his hand and said: + +"Mr. Miller, I meant to have asked you first; but God didn't give me +time." + +Reuben smiled. + +"You've's good's asked me a good while back, Elder; an' I take it you +haint ever had much doubt what my answer'd be." Then, as Draxy knelt down +by his chair and laid her head on his shoulder, he added more solemnly,-- + +"But I'd jest like once to say to ye, Elder, that if ever I get to heaven, +I wouldn't ask anythin' more o' the Lord than to let me see Draxy 'n' you +a comin' in together, an' lookin' as you looked jest now when ye come in't +that gate!" + + + + +The Elder's Wife. + +Sequel to "Draxy Miller's Dowry." + + + +Part I. + + +Draxy and the Elder were married in the little village church, on the +first Sunday in September. + +"O Draxy! let it be on a communion Sunday," the Elder had said, with an +expression on his face which Draxy could not quite fathom; "I can't tell +you what it 'ud be to me to promise myself over again to the blessed +Saviour, the same hour I promise to you, darling, I'm so afraid of loving +Him less. I don't see how I can remember anything about heaven, after I've +got you, Draxy," and tears stood in the Elder's eyes. + +Draxy looked at him wonderingly and with a little pain in her face. To her +serene nature, heaven and earth, this life and all the others which may +follow it, had so long seemed one--love and happiness and duty had become +so blended in one sweet atmosphere of living in daily nearness to God, +that she could not comprehend the Elder's words. + +"Why, Mr. Kinney, it's all Christ," she said, slowly and hesitatingly, +slipping her hand into his, and looking up at him so lovingly that his +face flushed, and he threw his arms around her, and only felt a thousand +times more that heaven had come to mean but one thing to him. + +"Darling," he whispered, "would you feel so if I were to die and leave you +alone?" + +"Yes, I think so," said Draxy, still more slowly, and turning very pale. +"You never can really leave me, and no human being can be really alone; it +would still be all Christ, and it would be living His life and God's +still;" but tears rolled down her cheeks, and she began to sob. + +"Oh, forgive me, Draxy," exclaimed the Elder, wrung to the heart by the +sight of her grief. "I'm nothing but a great brute to say that to you just +now; but, Draxy, you don't know much about a man's heart yet; you're such +a saint yourself, you can't understand how it makes a man feel as if this +earth was enough, and he didn't want any heaven, when he loves a woman as +I love you," and the Elder threw himself on the ground at Draxy's feet, +and laid his face down reverently on the hem of her gown. There were fiery +depths in this man's nature of which he had never dreamed, until this +fair, sweet, strong womanhood crossed his path. His love of Draxy kindled +and transformed his whole consciousness of himself and of life; it was no +wonder that he felt terrors; that he asked himself many times a day what +had become of the simple-minded, earnest, contented worker he used to be. +He was full of vague and restless yearnings; he longed to do, to be, to +become, he knew not what, but something that should be more of kin to this +beautiful nature he worshipped--something that should give her great +joy--something in which she could feel great pride. + +"It ain't right, I know it ain't right, to feel so about any mortal," he +would say to himself; "that's the way I used to feel about Jesus. I wanted +to do all for Him, and now I want to do all for Draxy," and the great, +tender, perplexed heart was sorely afraid of its new bliss. + +They were sitting in the maple grove behind the house. In the tree under +which they sat was a yellow-hammer's nest. The two birds had been +fluttering back and forth in the branches for some time. Suddenly they +both spread their wings and flew swiftly away in opposite directions. +Draxy looked up, smiling through her tears, and, pointing to the fast +fading specks in the distant air, said,-- + +"It would be like that. They are both sent on errands. They won't see each +other again till the errands are done." + +The Elder looked into her illumined face, and, sighing, said: "I can't +help prayin' that the Lord'll have errands for us that we can do together +as long's we live, Draxy." + +"Yes, dear," said Draxy, "I pray for that too," and then they were silent +for some minutes. Draxy spoke first. "But Mr. Kinney, I never heard of +anybody's being married on Sunday--did you?" + +"No," said the Elder, "I never did, but I've always thought it was the +only day a man ought to be married on; I mean the most beautiful, the +sweetest day." + +"Yes," replied Draxy, a solemn and tender light spreading over her whole +face, "it certainly is. I wonder why nobody has ever thought so before. +But perhaps many people have," she added with a merrier smile; "we don't +know everybody." + +Presently she looked up anxiously and said: + +"But do you think the people would like it? Wouldn't they think it very +strange?" + +The Elder hesitated. He, too, had thought of this. + +"Well, I tell you, Draxy, it's just this way: I've tried more than once to +get some of them to come and be married on a Sunday in church, and they +wouldn't, just because they never heard of it before; and I'd like to have +them see that I was in true earnest about it. And they like you so well, +Draxy, and you know they do all love me a great deal more'n I deserve, and +I can't help believing it will do them good all their lives by making them +think more how solemn a thing a marriage ought to be, if they take it as I +think they will; and I do think I know them well enough to be pretty +sure." + +So it was settled that the marriage should take place after the morning +sermon, immediately before the communion service. When Reuben was told of +this, his face expressed such absolute amazement that Draxy laughed +outright, in spite of the deep solemnity of her feeling in regard to it. + +"Why, father," she said, "you couldn't look more surprised if I had told +you I was not to be married at all." + +"But Draxy, Draxy," Reuben gasped, "who ever heard of such a thing? What +will folks say?" + +"I don't know that anybody ever heard of such a thing, father dear," +answered Draxy, "but I am not afraid of what the people will say. They +love Mr. Kinney, and he has always told them that Sunday was the day to be +married on. I shouldn't wonder if every young man and young woman in the +parish looked on it in a new and much holier light after this. I know I +began to as soon as the Elder talked about it, and it wouldn't seem right +to me now to be married on any other day," and Draxy stooped and kissed +her father's forehead very tenderly. There was a tenderness in Draxy's +manner now towards every one which can hardly be described in words. It +had a mixture of humility and of gracious bestowal in it, of entreaty and +of benediction, which were ineffably beautiful and winning. It is ever so +when a woman, who is as strong as she is sweet, comes into the fullness of +her womanhood's estate of love. Her joy overflows on all; currents of +infinite compassion set towards those who must miss that by which she is +thrilled; her incredulity of her own bliss is forever questioning humbly; +she feels herself forever in presence of her lover, at once rich and free +and a queen, and poor and chained and a vassal. So her largess is +perpetual, involuntary, unconscious, and her appeal is tender, wistful, +beseeching. In Draxy's large nature,--her pure, steadfast, loving soul, +quickened and exalted by the swift currents of an exquisitely attuned and +absolutely healthful body,--this new life of love and passion wrought a +change which was vivid and palpable to the commonest eyes. Men and women +upon whom she smiled, in passing, felt themselves lifted and drawn, they +knew not how. A sentiment of love, which had almost reverence in it, grew +up towards her in the hearts of the people. A certain touch of sadness, of +misgiving, mingled with it. + +"I'm afraid she ain't long for this world; she's got such a look o' heaven +in her face," was said more than once, in grieving tones, when the Elder's +approaching marriage was talked of. But old Ike was farther sighted, in +his simplicity, than the rest. "'Tain't that," he said, "that woman's got +in her face. It's the kind o' heaven that God sends down to stay'n this +world, to help make us fit for the next. Shouldn't wonder ef she outlived +th' Elder a long day," and Ike wiped his old eyes slyly with the back of +his hand. + +The day of the marriage was one of those shining September days which only +mountain regions know. The sky was cloudless and of a transcendent blue. +The air was soft as the air of June. Draxy's young friends had decorated +the church with evergreens and clematis vines; and on each side of the +communion-table were tall sheaves of purple asters and golden-rod. Two +children were to be baptized at noon, and on a little table, at the right +of the pulpit, stood the small silver baptismal font, wreathed with white +asters and the pale feathery green of the clematis seed. + +When Draxy walked up the aisle leaning on her father's arm, wearing the +same white dress she had worn on Sundays all summer, it cannot be denied +that there were sighs of disappointment in some of the pews. The people +had hoped for something more. Draxy had kept her own counsel on this point +closely, replying to all inquiries as to what she would wear, "White, of +course," but replying in such a tone that no one had quite dared to ask +more, and there had even been those in the parish who "reckoned" that she +wouldn't "be satisfied with anythin' less than white satin." Her head was +bare, her beautiful brown hair wound tightly round and round in the same +massive knot as usual. Her only ornaments were the creamy white blossoms +of the low cornel; one cluster in the braids of her hair, and one on her +bosom. As she entered the pew and sat down by the side of her mother, +slanting sunbeams from the southern windows fell upon her head, lighting +up the bright hair till it looked like a saintly halo. Elder Kinney sat in +the pulpit, with his best loved friend, Elder Williams, who was to preach +that day and perform the marriage ceremony. When Draxy and her father +entered the door, Elder Kinney rose and remained standing until they +reached their pew. As Draxy sat down and the golden sunbeams flickered +around her, the Elder sank back into his seat and covered his eyes with +his hand. He did not change his posture until the prayers and the hymns +and the sermon were over, and Elder Williams said in a low voice,-- + +"The ceremony of marriage will now be performed." Then he rose, his +countenance glowing like that of one who had come from some Mount of +Transfiguration. With a dignity and grace of bearing such as royal +ambassadors might envy, he walked slowly down to Reuben Miller's pew, and, +with his head reverently bent, received Draxy from her father's hands. + +Passionate love and close contact with Draxy's exquisite nature were +developing, in this comparatively untrained man, a peculiar courteousness +and grace, which added a subtle charm to the simplicity of his manners. As +he walked up the aisle with Draxy clinging to his arm, his tall figure +looked majestic in its strength, but his face was still bent forward, +turned toward her with a look of reverence, of love unspeakable. + +The whole congregation rose, moved by one impulse, and the silence was +almost too solemn. When the short and simple ceremony was over, the Elder +led Draxy to his own pew and sat down by her side. + +After the little children had been baptized, the usual announcement of the +Lord's Supper was made, and the usual invitation given. Absolute silence +followed it, broken only by the steps of the singers leaving their seats +in the gallery to take places below. Not a person moved to leave the body +of the house. Elder Williams glanced at Elder Kinney in perplexity, and +waited for some moments longer. The silence still remained unbroken; there +was not a man, woman, or child there but felt conscious of a tender and +awed impulse to remain and look on at this ceremony, so newly significant +and solemn to their beloved Elder. Tears came into many eyes as he took +the cup of wine from Deacon Plummer's trembling hands and passed it to +Draxy, and many hearts which had never before longed for the right to +partake of the sacred emblems longed for it then. + +After the services, were ended, just as Elder Williams was about to +pronounce the benediction, Elder Kinney rose from his seat, and walking +rapidly to the communion table said,-- + +"My dear friends, I know you don't look for any words from me to-day; but +there are some of you I never before saw at this blessed feast of our +Lord, and I must say one word to you from Him." Then pausing, he looked +round upon them all, and, with an unutterable yearning in the gesture, +stretched out both his arms and said: "O my people, my people! like as a +hen gathereth her chickens under her wing, He would have gathered you long +ago, but ye would not." Then, still holding out his arms towards them, he +pronounced the benediction. + +Silently and solemnly the little congregation dispersed. A few lingered, +and looked longingly at Draxy, as if they would go back and speak to her. +But she stood with her eyes fixed on the Elder's face, utterly unconscious +of the presence of any other human being. Even her father dared not break +the spell of holy beatitude which rested on her countenance. + +"No, no, ma," he said to Jane, who proposed that they should go back to +the pew and walk home with her. "This ain't like any other wedding that +was ever seen on this earth, unless, maybe, that one in Cana. And I don't +believe the Lord was any nearer to that bridegroom than He is to this +one." + +So Jane and Reuben walked home from church alone, for the first time since +they came to Clairvend, and Draxy and her husband followed slowly behind. +The village people who watched them were bewildered by their manner, and +interpreted it variously according to their own temperaments. + +"You'd ha' thought now they'd been married years an' years to look at +'em," said Eben Hill; "they didn't speak a word, nor look at each other +any more 'n old Deacon Plummer 'n his wife, who was joggin' along jest +afore 'em." + +Old Ike--poor, ignorant, loving old Ike, whose tender instinct was like +the wistful sagacity of a faithful dog--read their faces better. He had +hurried out of church and hid himself in the edge of a little pine grove +which the Elder and Draxy must pass. + +"I'd jest like to see 'em a little longer," he said to himself half +apologetically. As they walked silently by, old Ike's face saddened, and +at last became convulsed with grief. Creeping out from beneath the pines, +he slowly followed them up the hill, muttering to himself, in the fashion +which had grown upon him in his solitary life:-- + +"O Lord! O Lord! No such looks as them is long for this earth. O Lord! +which is it ye're goin' to take? I reckon it's the Elder. I reckon 'tis. +That woman's goin' to have her heart broke. O Lord! O Lordy me! I can't +bear the sight on't!" and he leaped a fence and struck off across the +fields towards his house. He did not shut his eyes that night, but tossed +and groaned aloud. Towards morning he formed a resolution which calmed him +somewhat. + +"Ef I kin only be right close to 'em till it comes, p'raps I can be of a +little use. Leastways it 'ud be some comfort to try," he said. + +As the Elder and Draxy were sitting at breakfast the next day, they caught +sight of the old man's bent figure walking up and down outside the gate, +and stopping now and then irresolutely, as if he would come in, but dared +not. + +"Why, there's old Ike," exclaimed the Elder, "What on earth can he want +at this time of day!" + +Draxy looked up with a very tender smile, and said: "I shouldn't wonder if +he wanted just to see how happy you look, Mr. Kinney. Nobody in this world +loves you so well as old Ike does." + +"Oh, Draxy!" said the Elder, reproachfully. + +"No, dear, not even I. Old Ike never dreams of receiving any love in +return. I have seen his eyes follow you with just such a look as dogs' +eyes have. I wish we could do something for him." + +"We will, dear, we will go and see him often. I own it smites me to the +soul sometimes to think how humble he is, and so glad to see me when I +haven't been near him for six months, maybe." + +At this moment Hannah put her head into the door and said, in no pleasant +voice:-- + +"Here's that Ike Sanborn wantin' to speak to ye sir, but I telled him"-- + +"Let him come right in here, Hannah," said Draxy. "Mr. Kinney and I will +be very glad to see him this morning." Hannah's face relaxed in spite of +herself, in answer to Draxy's smile, but she could not forgive Ike for +what seemed to her a most unwarrantable intrusion, and she was grimmer +than ever when she returned to him, saying,-- + +"They'll see ye; but I must say, I sh'd ha' thought ye'd know better'n to +be comin' round here this mornin' of all mornin's. Ain't they to have a +minute's peace to theirselves?" + +Ike looked up appealingly at the hard Indian face. + +"I wa'n't goin' to keep 'em a minute," he said: "I won't go in now. I'll +come agin, ef you say so, Hannah." + +"No, no--go in, now ye're here; ye've interrupted 'em, and ye may's well +take the good on't now," replied the vengeful Hannah, pushing Ike along +towards the sitting-room door. + +"Ef there's anythin' I do hate, it's shiftless white folks," grumbled +Hannah as she went back to her work. If poor Ike had known the angry +contempt for him which filled Hannah's heart, he would have felt still +less courage for the proposition he had come to make. As it was, he stood +in the doorway the very picture of irresolution and embarrassment. + +"Come in, come in, Ike," said the Elder; "you're the first one of the +parish to pay your respects to Mrs. Kinney." Draxy rose from her seat +smiling, and went towards him and said: "And Mrs. Kinney is very glad to +see you, Ike." + +This was too much for the loving old heart. He dropped his hat on the +floor, and began to speak so rapidly and incoherently that both Draxy and +the Elder were almost frightened. + +"O Elder! O Miss Kinney!--I've been a thinkin' that p'raps you'd let me +come an' live with you, an' do all yer chores. I'd bring my two cows, an' +my keepin' wouldn't be very much; an'--oh, sir, ef ye'll only let me, I'll +bless ye all the days o' my life," and Ike began to cry. + +So did Draxy, for that matter, and the Elder was not very far from it. +Draxy spoke first. + +"Why, Ike, do you really want so much to live with us?" + +Ike's first answer was a look. Then he said, very simply,-- + +"I've laid awake all night, ma'am, tryin' to get bold enough to come and +ask ye." + +Draxy looked at her husband, and said in a low voice, "You know what I +told you just now, Mr. Kinney?" + +The Elder saw that Draxy was on Ike's side. + +"Well, well, Ike," he said, "you shall certainly come and try it. Perhaps +you won't like it as well as you think. But don't say anything about it to +any one else till you hear from us. You shall come very soon." + +Ike turned to go, but lingered, and finally stammered: "I hope, sir, ye +don't take it that I'm askin' a charity; I make bold to believe I could be +worth to ye's much's my keepin'; I'm considerable handy 'bout a good many +things, an' I can do a day's mowin' yet with any man in the parish, I +don't care who he is. It's only because--because"--Ike's voice broke, and +it was very nearly with a sob that he added, "because I love ye, sir," and +he hurried away. Draxy sprang after him. + +"I know that very well, Ike, and so does Mr. Kinney, and you will be a +great help to us. You are making us the most valuable wedding present +we've had yet, Ike," and Draxy held out her hand. + +Ike looked at the hand, but he did not touch it. + +"Maybe God'll let me thank ye yet, ma'am," he said, and was gone. + +As he went through the kitchen a sudden misgiving seized him of terror of +Hannah. + +"Supposin' she sh'd take into her head to be agin me," thought he. "They +say the Elder himself's 'fraid on her. I don't s'pose she'd dare to try to +pizen me outright, an' anyhow there's allers eggs an' potatoes. But I'll +bring her round fust or last;" and, made wary by love, Ike began on the +spot to conciliate her, by offering to bring a pail of water from the +well. + +This small attention went farther than he could have dreamed. When Draxy +first told Hannah that Ike was to come and live with them, she said +judiciously,-- + +"It will make your work much easier in many ways, Hannah." + +Hannah answered:-- + +"Yes, missus. He'll bring all the water I spose, an that alone's wuth any +man's keep--not that I've ever found any fault with the well's bein' so +far off. It's 's good water's there is in the world, but it's powerful +heavy." + +The arrival of the two cows crowned Hannah's liking of the plan. If she +had a passion in life it was for cream and for butter-making, and it had +been a sore trial to her in her life as the Elder's housekeeper, that she +must use stinted measures of milk, bought from neighbors. So when poor Ike +came in, trembling and nervous, to his first night's lodging under the +Elder's roof, he found in the kitchen, to his utter surprise, instead of a +frowning and dangerous enemy, a warm ally, as friendly in manner and mien +as Indian blood would permit. + +Thus the little household settled down for the winter: Draxy and the Elder +happy, serene, exalted more than they knew, by their perfect love for each +other, and their childlike love of God, blending in one earnest purpose +of work for souls; Hannah and Ike anything but serene, and yet happy after +their own odd fashions, and held together much more closely than they knew +by the common bond of their devotion to the Elder and his wife. + +In the other side of the house were also two very thankful and contented +hearts. Reuben and Jane were old people now: Reuben's hair was snowy +white, and Jane was sadly bent; but the comfort and peace which had come +so late into their lives had still come early enough to make the sunset a +bright one. It was a sight to do all hearts good to see the two sitting +together on the piazza of the house, in the warm afternoons, and gazing in +delight at the eastern mountain ranges turning rose-pink, and then fading +through shades of purple to dark gray. + +"It's a good deal like our life, ma," Reuben said sometimes; "our sun's +pretty low--most down, I reckon; it's all rosy-light, just these days; but +we shall have to lie down in the shadow presently; but it's all beautiful, +beautiful." + +Jane did not understand him. She never did. But she loved the sound of his +voice best when he said the things which were too subtle for her. + +The two households lived separately as before. The Elder had proposed +their making one family, and Reuben had wistfully seconded it. But Draxy +had firmly said "No." + +"I shall be able to do more for you, father dear, if we do not. It will +not seem so at first, but I know I am right," she said, and it was a rare +wisdom in her sweet soul which led to the decision. At first it was very +hard for Reuben to bear, but as the months went on he saw that it was +best. + +Draxy's loving, thoughtful care of them never relaxed. The excellent woman +whom she had secured for their servant went for her orders quite as often +to Draxy as to Jane; very few meals were set out for them to which Draxy's +hand had not given the last final touch. She flitted back and forth +between the two homes, equally of both the guardian angel; but the line of +division and separation was just as distinctly drawn as if they had been +under different roofs a mile apart. Two or three times in the week they +dined and took tea together, but the habit never was formed of doing this +on a special day. When Reuben said, "Couldn't ye arrange it so's always to +eat your Sunday dinner with us, Draxy?" she replied: + +"Sometimes Sunday dinner; sometimes Thursday; sometimes Saturday, father +dear. If we make it a fixed day, we shall not like it half so well; any of +us. We'll come often enough, you may be sure." And of this, too, Reuben +soon saw the wisdom. + +"O Draxy, Draxy, my little girl!" he said one day, when, just after +breakfast, she ran in, exclaiming,-- + +"Father dear, we're coming to take dinner with you and ma to-day. It's a +surprise party, and the chickens have come first; they're in the kitchen +now!" + +"O Draxy, Draxy," he exclaimed, "it's a great deal nicer not to know it +beforehand. How could you be so wise, child?" + +Draxy put her arms round his neck and did not speak for a moment. Then she +said, "I don't think it is wisdom, dear. Real true love knows by instinct, +just as the bee does, which shaped cell will hold most honey. I'm only a +honey-maker for my darlings." + +Jane looked mystified, but Reuben's face quivered with pleasure. + +"That you are, you blessed child," he said, and as, hearing the Elder's +step in the hall, she flew out of the room, Reuben covered his eyes with +his hand. + +Happy years leave slender records; but for suffering and sin there would +not be history. The winter came, and the spring came, and the summer and +the autumn, and no face in the quiet little parsonage looked a shade older +for the year that had gone; no incident had taken place which could make a +salient point in a story, and not one of the peaceful hearts could believe +that a twelvemonth had flown. Elder Kinney's pathetic fears lest he might +love his Saviour less by reason of his new happiness, had melted like +frost in early sunlight, in the sweet presence of Draxy's child-like +religion. + +"O Draxy!" he said again and again, "seems to me I never half loved all +these souls we are working for, before I had you. I don't see how I could +have been so afraid about it before we were married." + +"Do I really help you, Mr. Kinney?" Draxy would reply, with a lingering +emphasis on the "really," which made her husband draw her closer to him +and forget to speak: "It seems very strange to me that I can. I feel so +ignorant about souls. It frightens me to answer the smallest question the +people ask me. I never do, in any way except to tell them if I have ever +felt so myself, and how God seemed to help me out." + +Blessed Draxy! that was the secret of her influence from first to last: +the magnetic sympathy of a pure and upright soul, to whose rare strength +had been added still rarer simplicity and lovingness. Old and young, men +as well as women, came to her with unhesitating confidence. Before her +marriage, they had all felt a little reserve with her, partly because she +was of finer grain than they, partly because she had, deep down in her +soul, a genuine shyness which showed itself only in quiet reticence. But +now that she was the Elder's wife, they felt that she was in a measure +theirs. There is a very sweet side, as well as an inconvenient and +irritating one, to the old-fashioned rural notion that the parish has +almost as much right to the minister's wife as to the minister. Draxy saw +only the sweet side. With all the loyalty and directness which had made +her, as a little girl, champion and counselor and comfort to her father, +she now set her hand to the work of helping her husband do good to the +people whom he called his children. + +"If they are yours, they must be mine, too, Mr. Kinney," she would say, +with a smile half arch, half solemn. "I hope I shan't undo on week-days +what you do on Sundays." + +"What I do on Sundays is more'n half your work too, Draxy," the Elder +would make reply; and it was very true. Draxy's quicker brain and finer +sense, and in some ways superior culture, were fast moulding the Elder's +habits of thought and speech to an extent of which she never dreamed. +Reuben's income was now far in advance of their simple wants, and +newspapers, magazines, and new books continually found their way to the +parsonage. Draxy had only to mention anything she desired to see, and +Reuben forthwith ordered it. So that it insensibly came to pass that the +daily life of the little household was really an intellectual one, and +Elder Kinney's original and vigorous mind expanded fast in the congenial +atmosphere. Yet he lost none of his old quaintness and simplicity of +phrase, none of his fervor. The people listened to his sermons with +wondering interest, and were not slow to ascribe some of the credit of the +new unction to Draxy. + +"Th' Elder's getting more'n more like Mis' Kinney every day o' his life," +they said: "there's some o' her sayin's in every sermon he writes. + +"And no wonder," would be added by some more enthusiastic worshipper of +Draxy's. "I guess he's got sense enough to know that she's got more real +book-learnin' in her head than he has, twice over. I shouldn't wonder if +she got to writin' some of his sermons for him out'n out, before long." + +Dear Draxy's reverent wifehood would have been grieved and dismayed if she +had known that her efforts to second her husband's appeals to his people +were sometimes so eloquent as to make the Elder's words forgotten. But she +never dreamed of such a thing; she was too simple hearted and humble. + +In the early days of the second winter came the Angel of the Annunciation, +bearing a white lily to Draxy. Her joy and gratitude were unspeakable, and +the exquisite purity and elevation of her nature shone out transcendent in +the new experience. + +"Now I begin to feel surer that God really trusts me," she said, "since he +is going to let me have a child of my own." + +"O my dear friends!" she exclaimed more than once to mothers, "I never +dreamed how happy you were. I thought I knew, but I did not." + +Draxy's spontaneous and unreserved joy of motherhood, while yet her babe +was unborn, was a novel and startling thing to the women among whom she +lived. The false notions on this point, grown out of ignorant and base +thoughts, are too wide-spread, too firm-rooted, to be overthrown in an +hour or a day, even by the presence of angelic truth incarnate. Some of +Draxy's best friends were annoyed and disquieted by her frankness and +unreserve of delight. But as the weeks went on, the true instinct of +complete motherhood thrilled for the first time in many a mother's heart, +under Draxy's glowing words, and women talked tearfully one with another, +in secret, with lowered voices, about the new revelation which had come to +them through her. + +"I've come to see it all quite different, since I've talked with Mis' +Kinney," said one young married woman, holding her baby close to her +breast, and looking down with remorseful tenderness on its placid little +face. "I shan't never feel that I've quite made it up to Benjy, never, for +the thoughts I had about him before he was born. I don't see why nobody +ever told us before, that we was just as much mothers to 'em from the very +first as we ever could be," and tears dropped on Benjy's face; "an' I jest +hope the Lord'll send me's many more's we can manage to feed'n clothe, 'n +I'll see if lovin' 'em right along from the beginnin', with all my heart, +'ll make 'em beautiful an' happy an' strong an' well, 's Mis' Kinney sez. +I b'lieve it's much's ef 'twas in the Bible, after all she told me, and +read me out of a Physiology, an' it stands to natur', which's more'n the +old way o' talkin did." + +This new, strong current of the divinest of truths, stirred the very veins +of the village. Mothers were more loving and fathers more tender, and +maidens were sweeter and graver--all for the coming of this one little +babe into the bosom of full and inspired motherhood. + +On the morning when Draxy's son was born, a stranger passing through the +village would have supposed that some great news of war or of politics had +arrived. Little knots of people stood at gates, on corners, all talking +earnestly; others were walking rapidly to and fro in the street. +Excitement filled the air. + +Never was heir to royal house more welcomed than was the first-born son of +this simple-minded, great-hearted woman, by the lowly people among whom +she dwelt. + +Old Ike's joy was more than he could manage. He had sat on the floor all +night long, with his head buried in his hands. + +The instinct of grief to come, which not even all these long peaceful +months had been able to wholly allay in his faithful heart, had sprung +into full life at the first symptom of danger to Draxy. + +"P'raps it's this way, arter all, the Lord's goin' to do it. O Lord! O +Lord! It'll kill Mr. Kinney, it'll kill him," he kept repeating over and +over, as he rocked to and fro. Hannah eyed him savagely. Her Indian blood +hated groans and tears, and her affection for her master was angered at +the very thought of his being afflicted. + +"I wish it had pleased yer Lord to give ye the sense of a man, Mr. +Sanborn," she said, "while He was a makin' on ye. If ye'd go to bed, now, +instead o' snivelin' round here, you might be good for somethin' in the +mornin', when there'll be plenty to do. Anyhow, I'm not goin' to be +pestered by the sight on ye any longer," and Hannah banged the +kitchen-door violently after her. + +When poor Ike timidly peered into the sitting-room, whither she had +betaken herself, he found her, too, sitting on the floor, in an attitude +not unlike the one she had so scorned in him. But he was too meek to taunt +her. He only said,-- + +"I'm goin' now, Hannah, so ye needn't stay out o' the kitchen for me," and +he climbed slowly up the stairs which led to his room. + +As the rosy day dawned in the east, Draxy's infant son drew his first +mortal breath. His first quivering cry, faint almost as a whisper, yet +sharp and piteous, reached old Ike's ears instantly. He fell on his knees +and remained some minutes motionless, then he rose and went slowly +down-stairs. Hannah met him at the door, her dark face flushed with +emotion which she vainly tried to conceal by sharp words. + +"Hope ye've rested well, Mr. Sanborn. Another time, mebbe ye'll have more +sense. As fine a boy's ye ever see, and Mis' Kinney she's a smilin' into +its face, as nobody's never seen her smile yet, I tell you." + +Ike was gone,--out into the fields, over fences, over brooks, into woods, +trampling down dewy ferns, glistening mosses, scarlet cornels, thickets of +goldenrod and asters,--he knew not where, muttering to himself all the +while, and tossing his arms into the air. At last he returned to the house +saying to himself, "P'raps th' Elder 'll like to have me go down into the +village an' let folks know." + +Elder Kinney was standing bareheaded on the door-steps. His face looked +like the face of a man who had come off a battle-field where victory had +been almost as terrible as defeat. As soon as he saw old Ike running +across the field towards him, he divined all. + +"Loving old heart!" he thought, "Draxy was right," and he held out both +his hands to the old man as he had never done before, and spoke a few +affectionate words, which made tears run down the wrinkled cheeks. Then he +sent him on the errand he knew he craved. + +"You'd better give the news first to Eben Hill, Ike," he called after him. +"It'll be of more use to him than to anybody in the parish." + +It was just two years from Draxy's wedding day, when she stood again in +the aisle of the little village church, dressed in pure white, with the +southern sunlight resting on her beautiful hair. Her husband stood by her +side, holding their infant son in his arms. The child had clear, calm blue +eyes like Draxy's, and an expression of serenity and radiant joy on his +tiny face, which made the people wonder. + +"Reuben Miller Kinney" was his name; and though the parish had hoped that +the child would be named for his father, when they looked at Reuben +Miller's sweet, patient, noble face, and saw its intense happiness as the +words were spoken, they felt that it was better so. + +Again swift months rolled on, and peace and joy brooded over the +parsonage. Draxy's life with her child was something too beautiful to be +told in words; her wifehood was lovely, was intense; but her motherhood +was greater. Day and night her love for her boy protected and guided him, +like pillar of cloud, like pillar of fire. She knew no weariness, no +feebleness; she grew constantly stronger and more beautiful, and the child +grew stronger and more beautiful, with a likeness to her and a oneness +with her which were marvelous. He was a loving and affectionate boy to +all; his father, his grandparents, old Ike, and swarthy Hannah,--all alike +sunned themselves in the delight of his beautiful childhood. But wherever +he was--however amused and delighted--even in his father's arms--his eyes +sought his mother's eyes, and the mute interchange between them was subtle +and constant as between lovers. There was but one drawback on Draxy's +felicity now. She was afraid of her love for her boy. + +"O Seth!" she said,--after little Reuben's birth she for the first time +called her husband by this name; before that, although she lavished on him +all words of endearment, she had never found courage to call him Seth,--"O +Seth!" she said, "I feel now as you did about me before we were married. I +can't make myself think about anything but Reuby. O darling! you don't +think God would take him away from you to punish me, do you?" The Elder +could not comfort her when she was in this frame of mind; in fact, he +himself was sometimes afraid, seeing her utter absorption in the child. +Yet it never for one instant warped her firmness or judiciousness of +control. Draxy could not have comprehended that type of love which can +lose sight for one instant of the best good of the loved one. Her control, +however, was the control of a wise and affectionate companion, never that +of the authoritative parent. Little Reuben never heard the words, "You +must not do thus and so." It was always, "You cannot, because it is not +safe, best, or proper," or, "because if you do, such and such things will +happen." + +"Draxy," said Reuben to her one day, "you never tell Reuby to do anything +without giving him a reason for it. He's the best boy that ever lived, I +do believe, but 'tain't just my idea of obedience for all that." + +Draxy smiled. "I never said a word to him about obeying me in his life; I +never shall. I can't explain it, father dear, but you must let me do my +way. I shall tell him all I know about doing right, and he will decide for +himself more and more. I am not afraid." + +She need not have been. Before Reuby was seven years old his gentle +manliness of behavior was the marvel of the village. "It beats all how +Mis' Kinney's brought that boy o' hern up," was said in the sewing-circle +one day. "She told me herself that she's never so much's said a sharp word +to him; and as for whipping she thinks it's a deadly sin." + +"So do I," spoke up young Mrs. Plummet, the mother of Benjy. "I never did +believe in that; I don't believe in it, even for hosses; it only gets 'em +to go a few rods, and then they're lazier'n ever. My father's broke more +colts than any man in this county, an' he'd never let 'em be struck a +blow. He said one blow spiled 'em, and I guess ye've got more to work on +in a boy than ye have in a colt." + +These discussions often ran high and waxed warm. But Draxy's adherents +were a large majority; and she had so patiently and fully gone over these +disputed grounds with them that they were well fortified with the +arguments and facts which supported her positions. Indeed, it was fast +coming to pass that she was the central force of the life of the village. +"Let me make the songs of the community, and I care not who makes its +laws," was well said. It was song which Draxy supplied to these people's +lives. Not often in verse, in sound, in any shape that could be measured, +but in spirit. She vivified their every sense of beauty, moral and +physical. She opened their eyes to joy; she revealed to them the +sacredness and delight of common things; she made their hearts sing. + +But she was to do more yet for these men and women. Slowly, noiselessly, +in the procession of these beautiful and peaceful days, was drawing near a +day which should anoint Draxy with a new baptism,--set her apart to a +holier work. + +It came, as the great consecrations of life are apt to come, suddenly, +without warning. While we are patiently and faithfully keeping sheep in +the wilderness, the messenger is journeying towards us with the vial of +sacred oil, to make us kings. + +It was on a September morning. Draxy sat at the eastward bay-window of +her sitting-room, reading to Reuby. The child seemed strangely restless, +and slipped from her lap again and again, running to the window to look +out. At last Draxy said, "What is it, Reuby? Don't you want to hear mamma +read any longer?" + +"Where is papa?" replied Reuby. "I want to go and find papa." + +"Papa has gone way down to the Lower Mills, darling; he won't come home +till dinner," said Draxy, looking perplexedly at Reuby's face. She had +never known him to ask for his father in this way before. Still his +restlessness continued, and finally, clasping his mother's hand, he said +earnestly,-- + +"Come and find papa." + +"We can't find him, dear," she replied; "it is too far for Reuby to walk, +but we will go out on the same road papa has gone, and wait for papa to +come;" so saying, she led the child out of the house, and rambled slowly +along the road on which the Elder would return. In a few moments she saw +moving in the distance a large black object she could not define. As it +came nearer she saw that it was several men, walking slowly and apparently +bearing something heavy between them. + +Little Reuby pulled her hand and began to run faster. "Come and find +papa," he said again, in a tone which struck terror to Draxy's heart. At +that instant the men halted. She hurried on. Presently she saw one man +leave the rest and run rapidly towards her. It was old Ike. The rest still +remained motionless and gathered closer around what they were carrying. + +"O Reuby!" groaned Draxy. "Come quicker; find papa," he replied, +impatiently; but old Ike had reached them, and wringing his hands, burst +into tears. "O my Lord!--O Mis' Kinney, yer must go back; they can't bring +him along, an' you 'n' the boy standin' here. O my Lord! O Mis' Kinney, +come right back!" And Ike took hold of her shoulder and of her gown and +almost turned her around. + +"Is Mr. Kinney hurt?" said Draxy in a strange voice, high pitched and +metallic. "I shall not go back. Tell the men to hurry. How dare they lose +time so?" and Draxy tried to run towards them. Old Ike held her by main +force. Sobs choked his voice, but he stammered out: "O Mis' Kinney, ef ye +love Mr. Kinney, go back. He'd tell ye so himself. He won't know ye; the +men won't never move a step till they see you 'n' Reuby goin' first." + +Draxy turned instantly and walked toward the house so swiftly that little +Reuby could not keep up with her. He followed her crying aloud, but she +did not heed him. She flew rather than ran into the house, into the +Elder's study, and dragged a lounge to the very threshold of the door. +There she stood, whiter than any marble, and as still, awaiting the slow, +toiling steps of the overburdened men. Little Reuben stumbled on the steps +and she did not help him. As he came close, clutching her dress in his +pain and terror, she said in a low whisper, "Reuby, it will trouble papa +if he sees us cry. Mamma isn't going to cry." The child stopped instantly +and stood by her side, as calm as she for a moment, then bursting out +again into screams, said: "O mamma, I can't help crying, I can't; but +I'll run away. Don't tell papa I cried." And he ran up-stairs. Draxy did +not see which way he went. Her eyes were fixed on the doorway which Ike +had that moment reached; the men bearing the Elder's body were just behind +him. + +"O Mis' Kinney! can't yer go away jest while we lay him down?" gasped +Ike. "Seem's ef 'twouldn't be so hard." + +Draxy looked past him, as not hearing a word. + +"Bring him in here and lay him on this lounge," she said, in tones so +clear and calm they sent both courage and anguish into every heart. + +Panting, and with grief-stricken faces, the men staggered in and laid the +tall, majestic figure down. As they lifted the head tenderly and propped +it by pillows, Draxy saw the pale, dead face with the sunken eyes and set +lips, and gave one low cry. Then she clasped both hands tight over her +heart and looked up as if she would pierce the very skies whither her +husband had gone. + +"We sent for the doctor right off; he'll be here's soon's he can get +here." + +"He never spoke a word arter we lifted him up. He couldn't ha' suffered +any, Mis' Kinney." + +"P'raps, Mis' Kinney, it'd be a good plan to ondo his clothes afore the +doctor gits here," came in confused and trembling tones from one after +another of the men who stood almost paralyzed in presence of Draxy's +terrible silence. + +"O Mis' Kinney, jest speak a word, can't ye? O Lord! O Lord! she'll die if +she don't. Where's Reuby? I'll fetch him," exclaimed Ike, and left the +room; the men followed him irresolutely, looking back at Draxy, who still +stood motionless, gazing down into the Elder's face. + +"Do not look for Reuby--he has hid," came in a slow, measured whisper from +her lips. "And leave me alone." "Yes, I know. You need not be afraid. I +understand that Mr. Kinney is dead," she added, as the men hesitated and +looked bewilderedly in her face. "I will stay alone with him till the +doctor comes," and Draxy gently closed the door and locked it. In a short +time the little hall and door-yard were crowded with sobbing men and +women. There was little to be told, but that little was told over and +over. The Elder had walked down to the village store with old Ike, and had +just given him some parcels to carry home, saying, "Tell Mrs. +Kinney,"--when a runaway horse had come dashing furiously down the street, +drawing a wagon in which clung, rather than sat, a woman holding a baby in +her arms. The Elder had sprung into the middle of the road, and caught the +horse by the bridle as he swerved a little to one side; but the horse was +too strong and too much frightened to be held by any man's strength. +Rearing high, he had freed his head, and plunging forward had knocked the +Elder down in such a way that both wagon-wheels had run over his neck, +breaking it instantly. + +"He never talked so much like an angel from heaven's he did this mornin'," +sobbed Ike, who looked already decrepit and broken from this sudden blow. +"He was a tellin' me about suthin' new that's jest been discovered in the +sun; I couldn't rightly make it out; but says he, 'Ike, how glorious +'twill be when we can jest fly from one sun to another, all through this +universe o' God's, an' not be a tryin' in these poor little airthly ways +to understand 'bout things.'" + +That Draxy should be all this time alone with her husband's body seemed +dreadful to these sympathizing, simple-hearted people. No sound came from +the room, though the windows were all wide open. + +"O Mr. Miller! don't ye think some on us had better try to git in to her," +said the women; "she don't make no noise." + +"No." replied Reuben, feebly. He, too, was prostrated like Ike by the +fearful blow, and looked years older within the hour. "No: Draxy knows +what's best for her. She's spoke to me once through the door. She hasn't +fainted." + +"When the doctor came, Reuben called to Draxy,-- + +"Daughter, the doctor's come." + +The door opened instantly, but closed as soon as the doctor had entered. +In a few moments it opened again, and the doctor handed a slip of paper to +Reuben. He unfolded it and read it aloud:-- + +"Father dear, please thank all the people for me, and ask them to go home +now. There is nothing they can do. Tell them it grieves me to hear them +cry, and Mr. Kinney would not wish it." + +Slowly and reluctantly the people went, and a silence sadder than the sobs +and grieving voices settled down on the house. Reuben sat on the stairs, +his head leaning against the study-door. Presently he heard a light step +coming down. It was young Mrs. Plummer, the mother of Benjy. She +whispered, "I've found Reuby. He's asleep on the garret floor. He'd +thrown himself down on some old carpet, way out in the darkest corner, +under the eaves. I've covered him up, an' I'm goin' to sit by him till he +wakes up. The longer he sleeps the better. You tell her where he is." + +Reuben nodded; his dulled senses hardly heard the words. When the +study-door next opened, Draxy herself came out, walking with a slow, +measured step which transformed her whole bearing. Her face was perfectly +calm, but colorless as white stone. At sight of her father her lips +quivered, and she stretched out both hands to him; but she only said, +"Where is Reuby?" And as soon as she heard she went quickly up the stairs, +adding, "Do not follow me, father dear; you cannot help me." + +Mrs. Plummer sat in the dark garret, leaning her head against the dusty +rafters, as near as she could get to poor little Reuby. Her eyes were +shut, and tears stood on her cheeks. Suddenly she was startled by Draxy's +low voice, saying,-- + +"Thank you very much, Mrs. Plummer; it was very kind in you to stay here +and not wake him up. I will sit by him now." + +Mrs. Plummer poured forth incoherent words of sympathy and sorrow, but +Draxy hardly seemed to hear her. She stood quietly, making no reply, +waiting for her to go. + +"O Mis' Kinney, Mis' Kinney, do cry a little, can't ye?" exclaimed the +warm-hearted woman; "it scares us to death to see ye this way." + +Draxy smiled. "No, my dear friend. I cannot cry now. I suppose I shall +sometimes, because I am very selfish, and I shall be so lonely; but just +now I am only thinking how happy he is in these first hours in heaven." +The tears stood in her eyes, but her look was as of one who gazed +rapturously inside the pearly gates. Mrs. Plummer stole softly away, +overawed and afraid. As she went out of the house, she said to Reuben: +"Mis' Kinney ain't no mortal woman. She hain't shed a tear yet, and she +jest looks as glorified as the Elder can this minute in sight o' God's +very throne itself. O Mr. Miller, I'm afraid she'll break down. This kind +o' grief is what kills folks." + +"No," said Reuben, "you don't know Draxy. She won't break down. She'll +take care on us all jest the same, but ye won't never see again the same +face you used to see. Oh, I can't be reconciled, I can't!" And Reuben +groaned aloud. + +The next morning, when Draxy came out of the study, her hair was white as +snow. As her father first caught sight of her, he stared wildly for a +moment as at some stranger; then crying out, "O Draxy! O my little girl!" +he tottered and would have fallen if she had not caught him and led him to +a chair. + +"O father dear," she exclaimed, "don't feel so! I wouldn't call him back +this minute if I could," and she smiled piteously. + +"O Draxy--'tain't that," gasped Reuben. "O daughter! you're dyin' and +never lettin' us know it. Your hair's as white's mine." Draxy gave a +startled glance at the mirror, and said, in a much more natural tone than +she had hitherto spoken in: "I don't think that's strange. It's happened +before to people in great trouble. I've read of it: you'll get used to it +very soon, father dear. I'm glad of it; I'll be all in white now," she +added in a lower tone, speaking dreamily, as if to herself,--"they walk in +white; they walk in white." + +Then Reuben noticed that she was dressed in white. He touched her gown, +and looked inquiringly. "Yes, father dear," she said, "always." + +On the day of the funeral, when Draxy entered the church leading little +Reuby by the hand, a visible shudder ran through the congregation. The +news had run like wildfire through the parish, on the morning after the +Elder's death, that Mrs. Kinney's hair had all turned gray in the night. +But nobody was in the least prepared for the effect. It was not gray--it +was silver-white; and as it retained all the silken gloss which had made +it so beautiful the shining of it was marvelous. It kindled her beauty +into something superhuman. The color had left her cheeks also, but in its +place was a clear soft tint which had no pallor in it. She was dressed in +pure white, so also was little Reuby; but for this the parish were +prepared. Very well they knew Draxy's deep-rooted belief that to associate +gloom with the memory of the dead was disloyal alike to them and to +Christ; and so warmly had she imbued most of the people with her +sentiment, that the dismal black garb of so-called mourning was rarely +seen in the village. + +Bareheaded, Draxy and her little son walked from the church to the grave; +their faces the calmest, their steps the steadiest there. Reuben and Jane +walked behind them, bent over and sobbing, and half the congregation were +weeping uncontrollably; but the widowed woman and the fatherless boy +walked with uplifted glances, as if they saw angel-forms in the air by +their side. + +"Tain't nateral; 'tain't noways nateral; thet woman hain't got any nateral +feelin' in her," said Eben Hill, leaning against a grave-stone, and idly +chewing a spray of golden-rod. George Thayer turned upon him like a +blazing sword. + +"Hev ye got any nateral feelin' yourself, Eben Hill, to say that, standin' +here an' lookin' at that woman's white hair an' cheeks, 'n' only last +Sunday she was 's handsome a pictur's ye ever see, her hair a twinklin' in +the sun like a brown beech-tree, an' her cheeks jest like roses? Nateral +feelin's! It's enough to make the Elder rise up afore ye, to hear ye say +sech a thing, Eben Hill; 'n' ef 'twan't jest the funeral that 'tis, I +b'leeve I'd thrash ye right an' left, here'n sight o' yer own mother's +tombstone, ye miserable, sneakin' fool. Ef there was ever a woman that was +carryin' a hull town straight into the Lord's heaven on her own shoulders, +it's Mis' Kinney, an' that blessed boy o' her'n 's goin' to be jest like +her. Look at him now, a workin' his poor little mouth an' lookin' up to +her and tryin' not to cry." + +Poor little Reuby! when the first shovelful of earth fell on the coffin, +his child's heart gave way, and he broke into loud crying, which made the +roughest men there hide their eyes. Draxy caught him up in her arms and +whispered something which quieted him instantly. Then she set him down, +and he stood till the end, looking away from the grave with almost a smile +on his face. He told some one, the next day, that he kept saying over to +himself all that time: "Beautiful gates of precious stones and angels +with harps."--"That's the city, you know, where my papa has gone. It's not +half so far off as we think; and papa is so happy there, he don't even +miss us, though he can see us every minute. And mamma and I are going +there pretty soon; next summer perhaps." + + + +Part II. + + +For the first few days after the funeral, Draxy seemed to sink; the void +was too terrible; only little Reuby's voice roused her from the apathetic +silence in which she would sit by the hour gazing out of the east +bay-window on the road down which she had last seen her husband walk. She +knew just the spot where he had paused and turned and thrown kisses back +to Reuby watching him from the window. + +But her nature was too healthy, too full of energy, and her soul too full +of love to remain in this frame long. She reproached herself bitterly for +the sin of having indulged in it even for a short time. + +"I don't believe my darling can be quite happy even in heaven, while he +sees me living this way," she said sternly to herself one morning. Then +she put on her bonnet, and went down into the village to carry out a +resolution she had been meditating for some days. Very great was the +astonishment of house after house that morning, as Draxy walked quietly +in, as had been her wont. She proposed to the mothers to send their +younger children to her, to be taught half of every day. + +"I can teach Reuby better if I have other children too," she said. "I +think no child ought to be sent into the district school under ten. The +confinement is too much for them. Let me have all the boys and girls +between six and eight, and I'll carry them along with Reuby for the next +two or three years at any rate," she said. + +The parents were delighted and grateful; but their wonder almost swallowed +up all other emotions. + +"To think o' her!" they said. "The Elder not three weeks buried, an' she a +goin' round, jest as calm 'n' sweet's a baby, a gettin' up a school!" + +"She's too good for this earth, that's what she is," said Angy Plummer. "I +should jest like to know if anybody'd know this village, since she came +into 't. Why we ain't one of us the same we used to be. I know I ain't. I +reckon myself's jest about eight years old, if I have got three boys. That +makes me born the summer before her Reuby, 'an that's jest the time I was +born, when my Benjy was seven months old!" + +"You're jest crazy about Mis' Kinney, Angy Plummer," said her mother. "I +b'lieve ye'd go through fire for her quicker 'n ye would for any yer own +flesh an' blood." + +Angy went to her mother and kissed the fretful old face very kindly. +"Mother, you can't say I hain't been a better daughter to you sence I've +knowed Mis' Kinney." + +"No, I can't," grumbled the old woman, "that's a fact; but she's got a +heap o' new fangled notions I don't believe in." + +The school was a triumphant success. From nine until twelve o'clock every +forenoon, twelve happy little children had a sort of frolic of learning +lessons in the Elder's sacred study, which was now Draxy's sitting-room. +Old Ike, who since the Elder's death had never seemed quite clear of +brain, had asked so piteously to come and sit in the room, that Draxy let +him do so. He sat in a big chair by the fire-place, and carved whistles +and ships and fantastic toys for the children, listening all the time +intently to every word which fell from Draxy's lips. He had transferred to +her all the pathetic love he had felt for the Elder; he often followed her +at a distance when she went out, and little Reuby he rarely lost sight of, +from morning till night. He was too feeble now to do much work, but his +presence was a great comfort to Draxy. He seemed a very close link between +her and her husband. Hannah, too, sometimes came into the school at +recess, to the great amusement of the children. She was particularly fond +of looking at the blackboard, when there were chalk-marks on it. + +"Make a mark on me with your white pencil," she would say, offering her +dark cheek to Reuby, who would scrawl hieroglyphics all over it from hair +to chin. + +Then she would invite the whole troop out into the kitchen to a feast of +doughnuts or cookies; very long the recesses sometimes were when the +school was watching Hannah fry the fantastic shapes of sweet dough, or +taking each a turn at the jagged wheel with which she cut them out. + +Reuben also came often to the school-room, and Jane sometimes sat there +with her knitting. A strange content had settled on their lives, in spite +of the sorrow. They saw Draxy calm; she smiled on them as constantly as +ever; and they were very old people, and believed too easily that she was +at peace. + +But the Lord had more work still for this sweet woman's hand. This, too, +was suddenly set before her. Late one Saturday afternoon, as she was +returning, surrounded by her escort of laughing children, from the woods, +where they had been for May-flowers, old Deacon Plummer overtook her. + +"Mis' Kinney, Mis' Kinney," he began several times, but could get no +further. He was evidently in great perplexity how to say the thing he +wished. + +"Mis' Kinney, would you hev-- + +"Mis' Kinney, me and Deacon Swift's been a sayin'-- + +"Mis' Kinney, ain't you got--" + +Draxy smiled outright. She often smiled now, with cordial good cheer, when +things pleased her. + +"What is it, Deacon? out with it. I can't possibly tell unless you make it +plainer." + +Thus encouraged, good Deacon Plummer went on: "Well, Mis' Kinney, it's +jest this: Elder Williams has jest sent word he can't come an' preach +to-morrer, and there ain't nobody anywhere's round thet we can get; and +De'n Swift 'n me, we was a thinkin' whether you wouldn't be willin' some +of us should read one o' the Elder's old sermons. O Mis' Kinney, ye don't +know how we all hanker to hear some o' his blessed words agin." + +Draxy stood still. Her face altered so that the little children crowded +round her in alarm, and Reuby took hold of her hand. Tears came into her +eyes, and she could hardly speak, but she replied,-- + +"Yes, indeed, Mr. Plummer, I should be very glad to have you. I'll look +out a sermon to-night, and you can come up to the house in the morning and +get it." + +"O Mis' Kinney, do forgive me for speakin'. You have allers seem so borne +up, I never mistrusted that't'd do any harm to ask yer," stammered the +poor Deacon, utterly disconcerted by Draxy's tears, for she was crying +hard now. + +"It hasn't done any harm, I assure you. I am very glad to do it," said +Draxy. + +"Yes, sir, my mamma very often cries when she's glad," spoke up Reuby, his +little face getting very red, and his lips quivering. "She's very glad, +sir, if she says so." + +This chivalrous defense calmed poor Draxy, but did not comfort the Deacon, +who hurried away, saying to himself,-- + +"Don't believe there was ever such a woman nor such a boy in this world +before. She never shed a tear when we brought the Elder home dead, nor +even when she see him let down into the very grave; 'n' I don't believe +she's cried afore anybody till to-day; 'n' that little chap a speakin' up +an' tellin' me his ma often cried when she was glad, an' I was to believe +her spite of her crying! I wish I'd made Job Swift go arter her. I'll make +him go arter that sermon anyhow. I won't go near her agin 'bout this +bisness, that's certain;" and the remorse-stricken, but artful deacon +hastened to his brother deacon's house to tell him that it was "all +settled with Mis' Kinney 'bout the sermon, an' she was quite willin';" +and, "O," he added, as if it were quite a second thought, "ye'd better go +up an' git the sermon, Job, in the mornin,' ye're so much nearer, an' +then, 's ye've to do the readin,' maybe she'll have somethin' to explain +to ye about the way it's to be read; th' Elder's writin' wan't any too +easy to make out, 's fur 's I remember it." + +Next morning, just as the first bells were ringing, Deacon Swift knocked +timidly at the door of the Elder's study. Draxy met him with a radiant +face. She had been excited by reading over the sermon she had after long +deliberation selected. The text was,-- + +"Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you." The sermon had been +written soon after their marriage, and was one of her husband's favorites. +There were many eloquent passages in it, which seemed now to take on a new +significance, as coming from the lips of the Elder, absent from his flock +and present with Christ. + +"O Mis' Kinney, I recollect that sermon 's if 'twas only yesterday," said +Deacon Swift. "The hull parish was talkin' on't all the week; ye couldn't +have picked out one they'd be so glad to hear; but dear me! how I'm ever +goin' to read it in any kind o' decent way, I don't know; I never was a +reader, anyhow, 'n' now I've lost my front teeth, some words does pester +me to git out." + +This opened the way for Draxy. Nearly all night she had lain awake, +thinking how terrible it would be to her to hear her husband's beloved +words indistinctly and ineffectively read by Deacon Swift's cracked and +feeble voice. Almost she regretted having given her consent. At last the +thought flashed into her mind, "Why should I not read it myself? I know I +could be heard in every corner of that little church." The more she +thought of it, the more she longed to do it, and the less she shrank from +the idea of facing the congregation. + +"'It's only just like a big family of children,' Seth always used to say, +'and I'm sure I feel as if they were mine now, as much as ever they were +his. I wish I dared do it. I do believe Seth would like it,' and Draxy +fell asleep comforted by the thought. Before breakfast she consulted her +father, and he approved it warmly. + +"I believe your mission isn't done yet, daughter, to these people of your +husband's. The more you speak to 'em the better. It'll be jest like his +voice speaking from heaven to 'em," said Reuben, "an' I shouldn't wonder +if keepin' Elder Williams away was all the Lord's doin', as the blessed +saint used to say." + +Reuben's approval was all that Draxy needed to strengthen her impulse, and +before Deacon Swift arrived her only perplexity was as to the best way of +making the proposition to him. All this difficulty he had himself smoothed +away by his first words. + +"Yes, I know, Deacon Swift," she said. "I've been thinking that perhaps it +would tire you to read for so long a time in a loud voice; and besides, +Mr. Kinney's handwriting is very hard to read." + +Draxy paused and looked sympathizingly in the deacon's face. The mention +of the illegible writing distressed the poor man still more. He took the +sermon from her hand and glanced nervously at the first page. + +"Oh my! Mis' Kinney," he exclaimed, "I can't make out half the words." + +"Can't you?" said Draxy, gently. "It is all as plain as print to me, I +know it so well. But there are some abbreviations Mr. Kinney always used. +I will explain them to you. Perhaps that will make it easier." + +"O Mis' Kinney, Mis' Kinney! I can't never do it in the world," burst out +the poor deacon. "O Mis' Kinney, why can't you read it to the folks? +They'd all like it, I know they would." + +"Do you really think so, Mr. Swift?" replied Draxy; and then, with a +little twinge of conscience, added immediately, "I have been thinking of +that very thing myself, that perhaps, if it wouldn't seem strange to the +people, that would be the best way, because I know the handwriting so +well, and it really is very hard for a stranger to read." + +"Yes, yes, that's the very thing," hastily exclaimed the relieved +deacon,--"that's it, that's it. Why, Mis' Kinney, as for their thinkin' it +strange, there ain't a man in the parish that wouldn't vote for you for +minister twice over if ye wuz only a man. I've heerd 'em all say so more +'n a thousand times sence." Something in Draxy's face cut the Deacon's +sentence short. + +"Very well, Mr. Swift," she said. "Then I will try, since you think it +best. My father thought it would be a good plan too, or else I should not +have been willing," she added, gently. + +"Reuben Miller's daughter" was still as guileless, reverent, potent a +thought in Draxy's heart as when, upon her unconscious childish lips, the +words had been a spell, disarming and winning all hearts to her. + +The news had gone all through the village on Saturday night, that Deacon +Swift was to read one of Elder Kinney's sermons the next day. The whole +parish was present; not a man, not a woman was missing except those who +were kept at home by sickness. A tender solemnity was in every face. Not +often does it happen to a man to be so beloved by a whole community as was +Elder Kinney by this people. + +With some embarrassment and hesitation, Deacon Swift read the hymns and +made one of the prayers; Deacon Plummer made the other. Then there came a +pause. Draxy flushed scarlet and half rose in her pew. She had not thought +to tell the Deacon that he must explain to the people beforehand why she +read the sermon. She had taken it for granted that he would do so; but he +did not comprehend that he ought, and only looked nervously towards her, +waiting for her to come forward. This was the one moment which tried +Draxy's soul; there was almost vexation in her look, as hastily laying +aside her bonnet she walked up to the table in front of the pulpit, and, +turning towards the people, said in her clear, melodious voice,-- + +"Dear friends, I am sorry Deacon Swift did not explain to you that I was +to read the sermon. He asked me to do so because Mr. Kinney's handwriting +is very hard for a stranger to read." + +She paused for a second, and then added: + +"The sermon which I have chosen is one which some of you will remember. It +was written and preached nine years ago. The text is in the beautiful +Gospel of St. John, the 14th chapter and the 27th verse,-- + +"'Peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you.'" + +After pronouncing these words, Draxy paused again, and looking towards her +pew, made a slight sign to Reuby. The child understood instantly, and +walked swiftly to her. + +"Sit in this chair here by mamma, Reuby darling," she whispered, and Reuby +climbed up into the big chair on her right hand, and leaned his fair +golden head against the high mahogany back. Draxy had become conscious, in +that first second, that she could not read with Reuby's wistful face in +sight. Also she felt a sudden yearning for the support of his nearer +presence. + +"Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you," she repeated, and went +on with the sermon. Her tones were low, but clear, and her articulation so +perfect that no syllable was lost; she could have been distinctly heard in +a room twice as large as this. The sight was one which thrilled every +heart that looked on it; no poor laboring man there was so dull of sense +and soul that he did not sit drinking in the wonderful picture: the tall, +queenly woman robed in simple flowing white, her hair a coronet of snowy +silver; her dark blue eyes shining with a light which would have been +flashingly brilliant, except for its steadfast serenity; her mouth almost +smiling, as the clear tones flowed out; sitting quiet, intent, by her +side, the beautiful boy, also dressed in white, his face lighted like hers +by serene and yet gleaming eyes; his head covered with golden curls; his +little hands folded devoutly in his lap. One coming suddenly upon the +scene might well have fancied himself in another clime and age, in the +presence of some rite performed by a mystic priestess clothed in samite. +But the words which fell from the lips were the gentlest words of the +gentlest religion earth has known; and the heart which beat under the +clinging folds of the strange white garb was no priestess' heart, but a +heart full, almost to breaking, of wifehood, of motherhood. + +It does not need experience as an orator to give significance to the +magnetic language of upturned faces. Before Draxy had read ten pages of +the sermon, she was so thrilled by the consciousness that every heart +before her was thrilled too, that her cheeks flushed and her whole face +glowed. + +The sermon had sounded eloquent when the Elder preached it; but now, from +Draxy's lips, it was transcendent. As she read the closing paragraph,-- + +"His peace He leaves with us: his peace He gives unto us: not such peace +as He knew on earth: such peace as He knows now in heaven, on the right +hand of His Father; even that peace He bids us share--that peace, the +peace of God which passeth understanding,"--she seemed to dilate in +stature, and as she let the sermon fall on the table before her, her +lifted eyes seemed arrested in mid air as by a celestial vision. + +Then in a second more, she was again the humble, affectionate Draxy, whom +all the women and all the little children knew and loved; looking round on +them with an appealing expression, she said,-- + +"Dear friends, I hope I have not done wrong in standing up here and taking +it upon me to read such solemn words. I felt that Mr. Kinney would like to +speak to you once more through me." + +Then taking little Reuby by the hand, she walked slowly back to her pew. + +Then Deacon Swift made sad work of reading the hymn,-- + +"Blest be the tie that binds," + +And the choir made sad work of singing it. Nobody's voice could be trusted +for many syllables at a time, but nobody listened to the music. Everybody +was impatient to speak to Draxy. They clustered round her in the aisle; +they crowded into pews to get near her: all the reticence and reserve of +their New England habit had melted away in this wonderful hour. They +thanked her; they touched her; they gazed at her; they did not know what +to do; even Draxy's calm was visibly disturbed by the atmosphere of their +great excitement. + +"O Mis' Kinney, ef ye'll only read us one more! just one more! won't ye, +now? Do say ye will, right off, this arternoon; or read the same one right +over, ef that's any easier for ye. We'd like to hear jest that 'n' nothin' +else for a year to come! O Mis' Kinney! 'twas jest like hearin' the Elder +himself." + +Poor Draxy was trembling. Reuben came to her rescue. + +"I hope you won't take it unkindly of me," he said, "but my daughter's +feeling more than's good for her. She must come home now." And Reuben drew +her hand into his arm. + +The people fell back sorry and conscience-stricken. + +"We orter ha' known better," they said, "but she makes us forgit she's +flesh 'n' blood." + +"I will read you another sermon some time," said Draxy, slowly. "I shall +be very glad to. But not to-day. I could not do it to-day." Then she +smiled on them all, with a smile which was a benediction, and walked away +holding Reuby's hand very tightly, and leaning heavily on her father's +arm. + +The congregation did not disperse; nothing since the Elder's death had so +moved them. They gathered in knots on the church steps and in the aisles, +and talked long and earnestly. There was but one sentiment, one voice. + +"It's a thousand shames she ain't a man," said some of the young men. + +"It 'ud be a thousand times more ef she wuz," retorted Angy Plummer. "I'd +like to see the man that 'ud do what she does, a comin' right close to the +very heart o' yer's ef she was your mother 'n' your sister 'n' your +husband, and a blessed angel o' God, all ter once." + +"But Angy, we only meant that then we could hev her for our minister," +they replied. + +Angy turned very red, but replied, energetically,-- + +"There ain't any law agin a woman's bein' minister, thet I ever heerd on. +Howsomever, Mis' Kinney never'd hear to anythin' o' that kind. I don' no' +for my part how she ever mustered up courage to do what she's done, so +kind o' backward 'n' shy's she is for all her strength. But for my part, I +wouldn't ask for no other preachin' all the rest o' my life, than jest to +hear Mis' Kinney read one o' her husband's sermons every Sunday." + +"Why, Angy Plummer!" burst from more lips than one. But the bold +suggestion was only the half-conscious thought of every one there, and the +discussion grew more and more serious. Slowly the people dispersed to +their homes, but the discussion still continued. Late into night, by many +a fireside, the matter was talked over, and late the next night, and the +next, until a vague hope and a still vaguer purpose sprang up in the +parish. + +"She said she'd read another some day," they reiterated. "Most likely +she'd 's soon do it next Sunday, 'n' sooner, 'cause she'd be more used +to't than ef she waited a spell between." + +"But it won't do to take it for granted she's goin' to, 'n' not git +anybody," said Deacon Swift, in great perplexity. "I think Brother Plummer +'n' me'd better go 'n' ask her." + +"No," said Angy, "let me go. I can talk it over better'n you can. I'll +go." + +And Angy went. The interview between the two women was long. Angy pleaded +as nobody else in the parish could have done; and Draxy's heart was all on +her side. But Draxy's judgment was unconvinced. + +"If I could be sure, Angy, that it would be best for the people, I should +not hesitate. But you know very well, if I begin I shall keep on," she +said. + +She consulted Reuben. His heart, too, was on the people's side, but his +judgment was like hers, perplexed. + +"One thing's very certain, daughter: there is not anybody they can ever +find to settle here, or that they are likely to, who can preach as the +Elder did. His old sermons are worlds better than any new ones they'll +get." + +"Yes, indeed, I know that," said Draxy. "That's what makes me feel as if I +must do it." + +This had been her strongest motive. Only too well she knew what would be +the probable calibre of a man who would come to this poor and lonely +little village which she so loved. + +At last she consented to make the experiment. "I will read for you every +Sunday, two sermons of Mr. Kinney's," she said, "until you hear of some +one whom you would like to settle for your minister." + +Angy Plummer, clapped her hands when her father repeated at tea on +Thursday evening what "Mis' Kinney" had said. + +"That's good's settlin' her," she exclaimed. "Oh, I never thought she'd +come to it," and real tears of joy stood in Angy's eyes. + +"I don't know 'bout that, Angy," replied the Deacon; "there's a good deal +to be thought on, fust 'n' last. Folks '11 talk like everythin', I expect, +'n' say we've got a woman preacher. It wouldn't never do for any great +length o' time; but it will be a blessin' to hear some th' Elder's good +rousin' comfortin' sermons for a spell, arter the stuff we hev been a +havin', 'n' they can't say she's any more 'n' a reader anyhow. That's +quite different from preachin'." + +"Of course it is," said Angy, who was wise enough to keep some of her +thoughts and hopes to herself; "they're's different's any other two +things. I don't suppose anybody'd say you was a settin' up to preach, if +you'd ha' read the sermons, 'n' I don't see why they need to any more o' +Mis' Kinney." And so, on the next Sunday Draxy's ministry to her husband's +people began. Again with softened and gladdened faces the little +congregation looked up to the fair, tall priestess with her snow-white +robes and snow-white hair, and gleaming steadfast eyes, standing meekly +between the communion-table and the chair in which sat her golden-haired +little son. Her voice was clearer and stronger than ever; and there was a +calm peacefulness in her whole atmosphere which had not been there at +first. + +Again the people crowded around, and thanked her, and clasped her hands. +This time she answered them with cordial good cheer, and did not tremble. +To little Reuby also they spoke gratefully. + +"You help too, Reuby, don't you?" said Angy Plummer,--"do you like it?" + +"Very much, ma'am; mamma says I help, but I think she's mistaken," replied +the little fellow, archly. + +"Yes you do, you darling," said Mrs. Plummer, stooping and kissing him +tenderly. Angy Plummer loved Reuby. She never looked at him without +thinking that but for his existence the true mother-heart would perhaps +never have been born in her bosom. + +The reading of the sermons grew easier and easier to Draxy, Sunday by +Sunday. She became conscious of a strange sense of being lifted out of +herself, as soon as she began to speak. She felt more and more as if it +were her husband speaking through her; and she felt more and more closely +drawn into relation with the people. + +"Oh, father dear," she said more than once, "I don't know how I shall ever +give it up when the time comes. It makes me so happy: I feel almost as if +I could see Seth standing right by me and holding my gown while I read. +And father, dear," she proceeded in a lower, slower voice, "I don't know +but you'll think it wrong; I'm almost afraid to tell you, but sometimes I +say words that aren't in the sermons; just a sentence or two, where I +think Seth would put it in if he were here now; and I almost believe he +puts the very words into my head." + +She paused and looked anxiously and inquiringly at her father. + +"No, Draxy," replied Reuben solemnly, "I don't think it wrong. I feel more +and more, every Sunday I listen to you, as if the Lord had set you apart +for this thing; and I don't believe he'd send any other angel except your +husband on the errand of helpin' you." + +The summer passed, and the parish gave no signs of readiness for a new +minister. When Draxy spoke of it, she was met by such heartfelt grief on +all sides that she was silenced. At last she had a long, serious talk with +the deacons, which set her mind more at rest. They had, it seemed, +consulted several neighboring ministers, Elder Williams among the number, +and they had all advised that while the congregation seemed so absorbed in +interest, no change should be made. + +"Elder Williams he sez he'll come over regular for the communion," said +Deacon Plummer, "and for baptisms whenever we want him, and thet's the +main thing, for, thank the Lord, we haint many funerals 'n course of a +year. And Mis' Kinney, ef ye'll excuse my makin' so bold, I'll tell ye +jest what Elder Williams said about ye: sez he, It's my opinion that ef +there was ever a woman born thet was jest cut out for a minister to a +congregation, it's that Elder's wife o' your'n; and sez we to him 'Thet's +jest what the hull town thinks, sir, and it's our opinion that ef we +should try to settle anythin' in the shape of a man in this parish, there +wouldn't be anythin' but empty pews for him to preach to, for the people'd +all be gone up to Mis' Kinney's.'" + +Draxy smiled in spite of herself. But her heart was very solemn. + +"It is a great responsibility, Deacon Plummer," she said, "and I feel +afraid all the time. But my father thinks I ought to do it, and I am so +happy in it, it seems as if it could not be a mistake." + +As months went on, her misgivings grew less and less; and her impulses to +add words of her own to her husband's sermons grew more and more frequent. +She could not but see that she held the hearts of the people in her hands +to mould them like wax; and her intimate knowledge of their conditions and +needs made it impossible for her to refrain from sometimes speaking the +words she knew they ought to hear. Whenever she did so at any length, she +laid her manuscript on the table, that they might know the truth. Her +sense of honesty would not let her do otherwise. It was long before +anybody but Angy Plummer understood the meaning of these intervals. The +rest supposed she knew parts of the sermon by heart. + +But at last came a day when her soul was so stirred within her, that she +rose up boldly before her people and said,-- + +"I have not brought any sermon of Mr. Kinney's to read to you to-day. I am +going to speak to you myself. I am so grieved, so shocked at events which +have taken place in this village, the past week, that I cannot help +speaking about them. And I find among Mr. Kinney's sermons no one which +meets this state of things." + +The circumstances to which Draxy alluded had been some disgraceful scenes +of excitement in connection with the Presidential election. Party spirit +had been growing higher and higher in Clairvend for some years; and when, +on the reckoning of the returns on this occasion, the victorious party +proved to have a majority of but three, sharp quarreling had at once +broken out. Accusations of cheating and lying were freely bandied, and +Deacon Plummer and George Thayer had nearly come to blows on the steps of +the Town House, at high noon, just as the school-children were going home. +Later in the afternoon there had been a renewal of the contest in the +village store, and it had culminated in a fight, part of which Draxy +herself had chanced to see. Long and anxiously she pondered, that night, +the question of her duty. She dared not keep silent. + +"It would be just hypocrisy and nothing less," she exclaimed to herself, +"for me to stand up there and read them one of Seth's sermons, when I am +burning to tell them how shamefully they have behaved. But I suppose it +will be the last time I shall speak to them. They'll never want to hear me +again." + +She did not tell her father of her resolution till they were near the +church. Reuben started, but in a moment he said, deliberately,-- + +"You're quite right, daughter; may the Lord bless you!" + +At Draxy's first words, a thrill of astonishment ran over the whole +congregation. Everybody knew what was coming. George Thayer colored +scarlet to the roots of his hair, and the color never faded till the +sermon was ended. Deacon Plummer coughed nervously, and changed his +position so as to cover his mouth with his hand. Angy put her head down on +the front of the pew and began to cry. + +"Render, therefore, unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's and unto God +the things that are God's," came in clear ringing tones from Draxy's lips. +Then she proceeded, in simple and gentle words, to set forth the right of +every man to his own opinions and convictions; the duty of having earnest +convictions and acting up to them in all the affairs of life. George +Thayer and the Deacon looked easier. Her words seemed, after all, rather a +justification of their vehemence of feeling. + +But when she came to speak of the "things that are God's," her words +pierced their very souls. The only thing that enabled George Thayer to +bear up under it at all was, as he afterwards said in the store, keeping +his "eyes fixed steady on old Plummer," "'cause, you know, boys, I never +jined the church nor made any kind o' profession o' goin' in for any +things o' God's, nohow; not but what I've often wished I could see my way +to: but sez I to myself, ef he kin stan' it I kin, an' so I held out. But +I tell you, boys, I'd rather drive the wust six-hoss team I ever got hold +on down Breakneck Hill 'n the dark, than set there agin under thet woman's +eyes, a blazin' one minnit, 'n fillin' with tears the next: 'n' I don't +care what anybody sez; I'm a goin' to see her an' tell her that she +needn't be afeard o' ever hevin to preach to me s' good s' by my name, in +the meeting 'us agin, by thunder!" + +"Suppose the blessed Saviour had come walking through our streets, looking +for his children last Wednesday," said Draxy, "He would say to himself, +'I shall know them, wherever I find them: I have given them so many +badges, they will be sure to be wearing some of them. They suffer long and +are kind; they envy not, vaunt not, are not puffed up: they are not easily +provoked, think no evil, seek not their own, rejoice in the truth; they do +not behave unseemly.' Alas, would the dear Jesus have turned away, +believing Himself a stranger and friendless in our village? Which one of +you, dear men, could have sprung forward to take him by the hand? What +terrible silence would have fallen upon you as he looked round on your +angry faces!" + +Tears were rolling down little Reuby's face. Slyly he tried to wipe them +away, first with one hand, then with the other, lest his mother should see +them. He had never in his life seen such an expression of suffering on +her face. He had never heard such tones of pain in her voice. He was +sorely perplexed; and the sight of his distressed little face was almost +more than the people could bear. + +When Draxy stopped speaking, Deacon Plummer did a manly thing. He rose +instantly, and saying "Let us pray," poured out as humble and contrite a +petition for forgiveness as ever went up on wings of faith to Heaven. It +cleared the air, like sweet rain; it rolled a burden off everybody's +heart--most of all, perhaps, off Draxy's. + +"He is not angry, after all," she said; "God has laid it to his heart;" +and when, at the end of the services, the old man came up to her and held +out his hand, she took it in both of hers, and said, "Thank you, dear +Deacon Plummer, thank you for helping me so much to-day. Your prayer was +better for the people than my little sermon, a great deal." The deacon +wrung her hands, but did not speak a word, only stooped and kissed Reuby. + +After this day, Draxy had a new hold on the people. They had really felt +very little surprise at her speaking to them as she did. She had slowly +and insensibly to herself grown into the same place which the Elder had +had in their regard; the same in love and confidence, but higher in +reverence, and admiration, for although she sympathized just as lovingly +as he in all their feelings, they never for a moment ceased to feel that +her nature was on a higher plane than his. They could not have put this in +words, but they felt it. + +"Donno, how 'tis," they said, "but Mis' Kinney, even when she's closest to +ye, an' a doin' for ye all the time, don't seem just like a mortal woman." + +"It's easy enough to know how 'tis," replied Angy Plummer, once, in a +moment of unguarded frankness, "Mis Kinney is a kind o' daughter o' God, +somthin' as Jesus Christ was His Son. It's just the way Jesus Christ used +to go round among folks, 's near 's I can make out; 'n' I for one, don't +believe that God jest sent Him, once for all, 'n' haint never sent anybody +else near us, all this time. I reckon He's a sendin' down sons and +daughters to us oftener 'n' we think." + +"Angy Plummer, I call that downright blasphemy," exclaimed her mother. + +"Well, call it what you're a mind to," retorted the crisp Angy. "It's what +I believe." + +"'Tis blasphemy though, to be sayin' it to folks that can't understand," +she muttered to herself as she left the room, "ef blasphemy means what +Mis' Kinney sez it does, to speak stupidly." + +Three years had passed. The novelty of Draxy's relation to her people had +worn off. The neighboring people had ceased to wonder and to talk; and the +neighboring ministers had ceased to doubt and question. Clairvend and she +had a stout supporter in old Elder Williams, who was looked upon as a high +authority throughout the region. He always stayed at Reuben Miller's +house, when he came to the town, and his counsel and sympathy were +invaluable to Draxy. Sometimes he said jocosely, "I am the pastor of +Brother Kinney's old parish and Mis' Kinney is my curate, and I wish +everybody had as good an one." + +It finally grew to be Draxy's custom to read one of her husband's sermons +in the forenoon, and to talk to the people informally in the afternoon. +Sometimes she wrote out what she wished to say, but usually she spoke +without any notes. She also wrote hymns which she read to them, and which +the choir sometimes sang. She was now fully imbued with the feeling that +everything which she could do, belonged to her people. Next to Reuben, +they filled her heart; the sentiment was after all but an expanded and +exalted motherhood. Strangers sometimes came to Clairvend to hear her +preach, for of course the fame of the beautiful white-robed woman-preacher +could not be confined to her own village. This always troubled Draxy very +much. + +"If we were not so far out of the world, I should have to give it up," she +said; "I know it is proper they should come; but it seems to me just as +strange as if they were to walk into the study in the evening when I am +teaching Reuby. I can't make it seem right; and when I see them writing +down what I say, it just paralyzes me." + +It might have seemed so to Draxy, but it did not to her hearers. No one +would have supposed her conscious of any disturbing presence. And more +than one visitor carried away with him written records of her eloquent +words. + +One of her most remarkable sermons was called "The Gospel of Mystery." + +The text was Psalm xix. 2:-- + + "Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge." + +First she dwelt on the sweet meaning of the word Gospel. "Dear friends," +she said, "it is a much simpler word than we realize; it is only 'good +news,' 'good tidings.' We get gospels every day. Our children send us good +news of their lives. What gospels of joy are such letters! And nations to +nations send good news: a race of slaves is set free; a war has ended; +shiploads of grain have been sent to the starving; a good man has been +made ruler; these are good tidings--gospels." + +After dwelling on this first, simplest idea of the word, until every one +of her hearers had begun to think vividly of all the good tidings +journeying in words back and forth between heart and heart, continent and +continent, she spoke of the good news which nature tells without words. +Here she was eloquent. Subtle as the ideas were, they were yet clothed in +the plain speech which the plain people understood: the tidings of the +spring, of the winter, of the river, of the mountain; of gold, of silver, +of electric fire; of blossom and fruit; of seed-time and harvest; of suns +and stars and waters,--these were the "speech" which "day uttered unto +day." + +But "knowledge was greater" than speech: night in her silence "showed" +what day could not tell. Here the faces of the people grew fixed and +earnest. In any other hands than Draxy's the thought would have been too +deep for them, and they would have turned from it wearily. But her +simplicity controlled them always. "Stand on your door-steps on a dark +night," she said,--"a night so dark that you can see nothing: looking out +into this silent darkness, you will presently feel a far greater sense of +how vast the world is, than you do in broad noon-day, when you can see up +to the very sun himself." + +More than one young face in the congregation showed that this sentence +struck home and threw light on hitherto unexplained emotions. "This is +like what I mean," continued Draxy, "by the Gospel of Mystery, the good +tidings of the things we cannot understand. This gospel is everywhere. Not +the wisest man that has ever lived can fully understand the smallest +created thing: a drop of water, a grain of dust, a beam of light, can +baffle his utmost research. So with our own lives, with our own hearts; +every day brings a mystery--sin and grief and death: all these are +mysteries; gospels of mystery, good tidings of mystery; yes, good tidings! +These are what prove that God means to take us into another world after +this one; into a world where all things which perplexed us here will be +explained.... O my dear friends!" she exclaimed at last, clasping her +hands tightly, "thank God for the things which we cannot understand: +except for them, how should we ever be sure of immortality?" + +Then she read them a hymn called "The Gospel of Mystery." Coming after the +sermon, it was sweet and clear to all the people's hearts. Before the +sermon it would have seemed obscure. + + The Gospel of Mystery. + + Good tidings every day, + God's messengers ride fast. + We do not hear one half they say, + There is such noise on the highway, + Where we must wait while they ride past. + + Their banners blaze and shine + With Jesus Christ's dear name, + And story, how by God's design + He saves us, in His love divine, + And lifts us from our sin and shame. + + Their music fills the air, + Their songs sing all of Heaven; + Their ringing trumpet peals declare + What crowns to souls who fight and dare, + And win, shall presently be given. + + Their hands throw treasures round + Among the multitude. + No pause, no choice, no count, no bound, + No questioning how men are found, + If they be evil or be good. + + But all the banners bear + Some words we cannot read; + And mystic echoes in the air, + Which borrow from the songs no share, + In sweetness all the songs exceed. + + And of the multitude, + No man but in his hand + Holds some great gift misunderstood, + Some treasure, for whose use or good + His ignorance sees no demand. + + These are the tokens lent + By immortality; + Birth-marks of our divine descent; + Sureties of ultimate intent, + God's Gospel of Eternity. + + Good tidings every day. + The messengers ride fast; + Thanks be to God for all they say; + There is such noise on the highway, + Let us keep still while they ride past. + +But the sermon which of all others her people loved best was one on the +Love of God. This one she was often asked to repeat,--so often, that she +said one day to Angy, who asked for it, "Why, Angy, I am ashamed to. +Everybody must know it by heart. I am sure I do." + +"Yes, that's jest the way we do know it, Mis' Kinney, by heart," said the +affectionate Angy, "an' that's jest the reason we want it so often. I +never told ye what George Thayer said the last time you read it to us, did +I?" + +"No, Angy," said Draxy. + +"Well, he was singing in the choir that day, 'n place o' his brother, who +was sick; 'n' he jumped up on one o' the seats 'n' swung his hat, jest 's +you was goin' down the aisle, 'n' we all ketched hold on him to pull him +down, 'n' try to hush him; for you can't never tell what George Thayer'll +do when his blood's up, 'n' we was afraid he was agoin' to holler right +out, 's ef he was in the town-'us; but sez he, in a real low, trembly kind +o' voice, + +"'Ye needn't be afraid, I ain't agoin' to whoop;--taint that way I +feel,--but I had to do suthin' or I should bust': 'n' there was reel tears +in his eyes--George Thayer's eyes, Mis' Kinney! Then he jumped down, 'n' +sez he, 'I'll tell ye what that sermon's like: it's jest like one great +rainbow all round ye, and before 'n' behind 'n' everywheres, 'n' the end +on't reaches way to the Throne; it jest dazzles my eyes, that's what it +does.'" + +This sermon had concluded with the following hymn, which Draxy had written +when Reuby was only a few weeks old:-- + + The Love of God. + + Like a cradle rocking, rocking, + Silent, peaceful, to and fro, + Like a mother's sweet looks dropping + On the little face below, + Hangs the green earth, swinging, turning, + Jarless, noiseless, safe and slow; + Falls the light of God's face bending + Down and watching us below. + + And as feeble babes that suffer, + Toss and cry, and will not rest, + Are the ones the tender mother + Holds the closest, loves the best, + So when we are weak and wretched, + By our sins weighed down, distressed, + Then it is that God's great patience + Holds us closest, loves us best. + + O great Heart of God! whose loving + Cannot hindered be nor crossed; + Will not weary, will not even + In our death itself be lost-- + Love divine! of such great loving, + Only mothers know the cost-- + Cost of love, which all love passing, + Gave a Son to save the lost. + +There is little more to tell of Draxy's ministry. It closed as suddenly as +it had begun. + +It was just five years after the Elder's death that she found herself, one +Sunday morning, feeling singularly feeble and lifeless. She was bewildered +at the sensation, for in her apparent health she had never felt it before. +She could hardly walk, could hardly stand. She felt also a strange apathy +which prevented her being alarmed. + +"It is nothing," she said; "I dare say most women are so all the time; I +don't feel in the least ill;" and she insisted upon it that no one should +remain at home with her. It was a communion Sunday and Elder Williams was +to preach. + +"How fortunate it is that Mr. Williams was here!" she thought languidly, +as she seated herself in the eastern bay-window, to watch Reuby down the +hill. He walked between his grandparents, holding each by the hand, +talking merrily and looking up into their faces. + +Draxy watched them until their figures became dim, black specks, and +finally faded out of sight. Then she listened dreamily to the notes of the +slow-tolling bell; when it ceased she closed her eyes, and her thoughts +ran back, far back to the days when she was "little Draxy" and Elder +Kinney was only her pastor. Slowly she lived her life since then over +again, its joy and its sorrow alike softened in her tender, brooding +thoughts. The soft whirring sound of a bird's wings in the air roused her: +as it flew past the window she saw that it was one of the yellow-hammers, +which still built their nests in the maple-grove behind the house. + +"Ah," thought she, "I suppose it can't be one of the same birds we saw +that day. But it's going on errands just the same. I wonder, dear Seth, if +mine are nearly done." + +At that instant a terrible pain shot through her left side and forced a +sharp cry from her lips. She half rose exclaiming, "Reuby, oh, darling!" +and sank back in her chair unconscious. + +Just as Elder Williams was concluding the communion service, the door of +the church was burst open, and old Ike, tottering into the aisle, cried +out in a shrill voice:-- + +"Mis' Kinney's dead! Mis' Kinney's dead!" + +The scene that followed could not be told. With flying feet the whole +congregation sped up the steep hill--Angy Plummer half lifting, half +dragging Reuby, and the poor grandparents supported on each side by strong +men. As they drew near the house, they saw Draxy apparently sitting by the +open window. + +"O mamma! why that's mamma," shrieked Reuby, "she was sitting just so when +we came away. She isn't dead." + +Elder Williams reached the house first, Hannah met him on the threshold, +tearless. + +"She dead, sir. She's cold as ice. She must ha' been dead a long time." + +Old Ike had been rambling around the house, and observing from the outside +that Draxy's position was strange, had compelled Hannah to go into the +room. + +"She was a smilin' just's you see her now," said Hannah, "'n' I couldn't +ha' touched her to move her more'n I could ha' touched an angel." + +There are griefs, as well as joys, to which words offer insult. Draxy was +dead! + +Three days later they laid her by the side of her husband, and the +gray-haired, childless old people, and the golden-haired, fatherless and +motherless boy, returned together broken-hearted to the sunny parsonage. + +On the village a terrible silence, that could be felt, settled down; a +silence in which sorrowing men and women crept about, weeping as those who +cannot be comforted. + +Then week followed after week, and soon all things seemed as they had +seemed before. But Draxy never died to her people. Her hymns are still +sung in the little lonely church; her gospel still lives in the very air +of those quiet hills, and the people smile through their tears as they +teach her name to little children. + + + + +Whose Wife Was She? + + + +I was on my knees before my chrysanthemum-bed, looking at each little +round tight disk of a bud, and trying to believe that it would be a snowy +flower in two weeks. In two weeks my cousin Annie Ware was to be married: +if my white chrysanthemums would only understand and make haste! I was +childish enough to tell them so; but the childishness came of love,--of my +exceeding, my unutterable love for Annie Ware; if flowers have souls, the +chrysanthemums understood me. + +A sharp, quick roll of wheels startled me. I lifted my head. The wheels +stopped at our gate; a hurried step came down the broad garden-path, and +almost before I had had time to spring to my feet, Dr. Fearing had taken +both my hands in his, had said,--"Annie Ware has the fever,"--had turned, +had gone, had shut the garden gate, and the same sharp quick roll of +wheels told that he was far on his way to the next sufferer. + +I do not know how long I stood still in the garden. A miserable sullenness +seemed to benumb my faculties. I repeated,-- + +"Annie Ware has the fever." Then I said,-- + +"Annie Ware cannot die; she is too young, too strong, and we love her +so." + +Then I said again,-- + +"Annie Ware has the fever," and all the time I seemed not to be thinking +about her at all, but about the chrysanthemums, whose tops I still idly +studied. + +For weeks a malignant typhus fever had been slowly creeping about in the +lower part of our village, in all the streets which had been under water +in the spring freshet. + +These streets were occupied chiefly by laboring people, either +mill-operatives, or shopkeepers of the poorer class. It was part of the +cruel "calamity" of their "poverty" that they could not afford to have +homesteads on the high plateau, which lifted itself quite suddenly from +the river meadow, and made our village a by-word of beauty all through New +England. + +Upon this plateau were laid out streets of great regularity, shaded by +grand elms, many of which had been planted by hands that had handled the +ropes of the _Mayflower_. Under the shade of these elms stood large +old-fashioned houses, in that sort of sleepy dignity peculiar to old New +England. We who lived in these houses were also sleepy and dignified. We +knew that "under the hill," as it was called, lived many hundreds of men +and women, who were stifled in summer for want of the breezes which swept +across our heights, cold in winter because the wall of our plateau shut +down upon them the icy airs from the frozen river, and cut off the +afternoon sun. We were sorry for them, and we sent them cold meat and +flannels sometimes; but their life was as remote from our life as if they +never crossed our paths; it is not necessary to go into large cities to +find sharp lines drawn between the well-to-do and the poverty-stricken. +There are, in many small villages, "districts" separated from each other +by as distinct a moral distance as divides Fifth Avenue from the Five +Points. + +And so it had come to pass that while for weeks this malignant fever had +been creeping about on the river shore, we, in our clearer, purer air, had +not felt even a dread of it. There had not been a single case of it west +of the high water mark made by the terrible freshet of the previous +spring. We sent brandy and wine and beef-tea into the poor, comfortless, +grief-stricken houses; and we said at tea-time that it was strange, people +would persist in living down under the bank: what could they expect? and +besides, they were "so careless about drainage and ventilation." + +Now, on the highest and loveliest spot, in the richest and most beautiful +house, the sweetest and fairest girl of all our village lay ill of the +deadly disease. + +"Annie Ware has the fever." I wondered if some fiend were lurking by my +side, who kept saying the words over and over in my ear. With that +indescribable mixture of dulled and preternaturally sharpened sense which +often marks the first moments of such distress, I walked slowly to my +room, and in a short time had made all the necessary preparation for +leaving home. I felt like a thief as I stole slowly down the stairs, with +my travelling-bag in my hand. At the door I met my father. + +"Hey-day, my darling, where now? Off to Annie's, as usual?" + +He had not heard the tidings! Should I tell him? I might never see him +again; only too well I knew the terrible danger into which I was going. +But he might forbid me. + +"Yes, off to Annie's," I said in a gay tone, and kissing him sprang down +the steps. + +I did not see my father again for eighteen days. + +On the steps of my uncle's house I met old Jane, a colored woman who had +nursed Annie Ware when she was a baby, and who lived now in a little +cottage near by, from whose door-steps she could see Annie's window, and +in whose garden she raised flowers of all sorts, solely for the pleasure +of carrying them to Annie every day. + +Jane's face was positively gray with sorrow and fear. She looked at me +with a strange sort of unsympathizing hardness in her eyes. She had never +loved me. I knew what she thought. She was saying to herself: "Why not +this one instead of the other?" + +"O auntie!" I said, "I would die for Annie; you know I would." + +At this she melted. "O honey! don' ye say that. The Lord"--but she could +say no more. She threw her apron up over her head and strode away. + +The doors of the house stood open. I walked through room after room, and +found no human being. At last, at the foot of the stairs in the back part +of the house, I came upon all the servants huddled together in a cowering, +weeping group. Flat on the floor, with his face to the wall, lay black +Cæsar, the coachman. I put my hand on his shoulder. He jerked away +impatiently. + +"Yer jest lemme lone, will yer?" he said in a choking voice; then lifting +up his head, and seeing it was I, he half sprang to his feet, with a look +of shame and alarm, and involuntarily carrying his hand to his head, +said:-- + +"O miss! who's gwine to think yer"--here he too broke down, and buried his +face in his great hands. + +I did not speak, but the little group instinctively opened to let me pass +up the stairs. I had a vague consciousness that they said something as I +turned into a little cross-hall which led to Annie's room; but without +attending to their words I opened her door. The room was empty; the bed +stripped of clothes; the windows wide open. I sank into a chair, and +looked from side to side. I was too late, after all! That was why none of +the servants dared speak to me. A little slipper of Annie's lay on the +floor by the bed. I took it up and turned it over and over in my hands. +Then I became conscious that my Aunt Ann was speaking to me,--was calling +me by name, earnestly, repeatedly, with terror in her voice. + +"My dear, dear child; Helen, Helen, Helen, she is not dead. She is in my +room. Come and see for yourself." + +I had seen my Aunt Ann every day for nineteen years,--I never knew her +until that moment; I never saw her real face until that moment. + +I followed her slowly through rooms and passageways till she reached her +own chamber. The door was open; the room was very dark. On the threshold +she paused, and whispered, "You must not be frightened, darling. She will +not know you. She has not known any one for six hours." + +I knelt down by the bed. In a few moments my eyes became used to the +darkness, and I saw Annie's face lying motionless on the farther edge of +the bed, turned to the wall. It was perfectly white except the lips, which +were almost black, and were swollen and crusted over with the fearful +fever. Her beautiful hair fell in tangled masses, and half covered her +face. + +"She seems to be lying very uncomfortably," said Aunt Ann, "but the doctor +ordered that she should not be disturbed in any way." + +I looked at my aunt's face and listened to her voice in bewilderment. The +whole world had for years called her, and with apparent justice, "a hard +and unsympathizing woman." No human being had ever seen a really free +unconstrained smile on her face, or heard from her lips an impulsive word. +When it was known that the genial, rollicking, open-hearted Henry Ware was +to marry her, everybody shuddered. As years went on, everybody who sat by +Henry Ware's fireside, and was kindled and made welcome by his +undiminished and unconquerable cheeriness, felt at the same time chilled +and paralyzed by the courteous, unexceptionable dignity of Mrs. Ware. Even +I, having the freedom of a daughter in their house, and loving my uncle +hardly less than I loved my father, had never once supposed that anybody +could love Aunt Ann, or that she would permit it. I always felt a little +terror when I saw Annie kiss her, or my uncle put his arm around her. My +own loving, caressing, over-flowing mother had given me by inheritance, +and had taught me by example, a type of love which knew no life without +expression. And very well I knew that that sweet mother of mine, whom the +whole town loved, and who herself loved the whole world, seemed always +turned into stone by the simple presence of Aunt Ann. + +And now Aunt Ann was sitting on the floor by my side, clinging to my hand, +resting my head on her bosom, and, as I felt instantly and instinctively, +revealing in her every tone, look, word, such intensity and passionateness +of feeling as I had never in my whole life seen before. I saw then that +she had always held me side by side with her own child in her heart, and +that she knew the rare quality of the love I had for Annie. + +"I ought not to have let you come here," she said, more as if speaking to +herself than to me; "they, too, have but one." + +"But, Aunt Ann, you could not have kept me out," I whispered. + +"Yes, I knew that, my child," she replied; "but no one else would know +it." + +From that moment there was between my Aunt Ann and me a subtle bond which +partook of all the holiest mysteries of love. There were both motherhood +and the love of lovers in my love for Annie. Annie's mother felt them, and +was willing to have her own motherhood added to and ministered to by them. +From that moment I believe not even her husband seemed so near to her in +her relation with her child as I. + +I will not write out the record of the next two weeks. They seemed, as +they passed, a thousand years; and yet, in looking back on them, they seem +only like one terrible breathless night. My aunt and I alone did all that +was done for Annie. There were whole days and whole nights during which +she talked incessantly, sometimes with such subtle semblance of her own +sweet self that we could hardly believe she did not know what she said; +sometimes with such wild ravings that we shook in terror, and could not +look at her nor at each other. There were other days and nights through +which she lay in a sleep, which seemed-no more like real sleep than the +shrill voice of her ravings had seemed like her real voice. These were +most fearful of all. Through all these days and nights, two men with white +faces and folded arms walked up and down in the rooms below, or crouched +on the thresholds of our doors, listening for sign or word from us. One +was Annie's father, and the other was her lover, George Ware. He was her +second cousin, fifteen years older than she, and had loved her since the +day she was one year old, when at the ceremony of her christening, he, a +proud shy boy of sixteen, had been allowed to carry her up-stairs with her +sweet name resting fresh and new on her little dewy forehead. Ah, seldom +does such love spring and grow and blaze on this earth as had warmed the +very air around Annie from the moment of her birth. George Ware was a man +of rare strength, as this love showed; and with just such faithfulness as +his faithfulness to Annie, he had loved and cared for his mother, who had +been for twenty years a widow. They lived on the outskirts of the town, +in a small house almost buried in the heart of a pine wood. The wood was +threaded in all directions by miles of narrow paths which shone in the +shaded sunlight as if they were satin-floored. For nineteen years it had +been George Ware's joy to roam these paths with his cousin Annie; first, +the baby whom he drew in her wicker wagon; next, the wayward little child +who walked with stumbling steps and clung to his finger; next, the gay +school-girl who brought all her perplexities and all her joys to be +confided to him under the pines; next, the shyer and more silent maiden +who came less often, but lingered helplessly until twilight made the +fragrant aisles solemn and dim as cloisters; at last, the radiant, the +child-like woman, the promised wife! + +No winter could set a barrier across these pine-wood paths. When the whole +country about lay blocked and drifted, and half buried with snow, all +these spicy foot-roads were kept clear and level, and ready for Annie's +feet. Whole days of George Ware's strength went into the work and the joy +of doing this. In open spaces where the snow had drifted deep, he wrought +it into solid walls almost as high on either hand as Annie's head. In dark +nooks, where the spreading pines and hemlocks lay low and wide, he tossed +the snow into fantastic and weird masses on the right and left, and +cleared great spaces where he knew the partridge-berry would be ready with +a tiny scarlet glow to light up the spot. + +This was George Ware's wooing. It never stepped into the glare, the +contention of profaner air. It was not a seeking, a finding, a conquest; +but a slow, sure growth of possession, which had as eternal foundation and +seemed as eternally safe as the results of organic law. + +George's picture hung in Annie's room, opposite the foot of her bed. +Opposite the foot of the bed in her mother's room hung a large engraving +of the Sistine Madonna. I fancied that in Annie's quieter moments her eyes +rested with a troubled look upon this picture, and one day, when she was +in a deep sleep, I exchanged the pictures. I felt as if even lifeless +canvas which had George's face painted upon it, might work her good. + +At last there came a night,--they said it was the fourteenth, but the +words conveyed no meaning to me,--there came a night when Dr. Fearing, who +had been sitting by Annie's bed for two hours, watching her every breath, +sprang suddenly to his feet, and beckoned to my aunt and me to follow him +into the next room. He shut the door, walked very swiftly up to us, looked +first into her face then into mine; then felt her pulse, and then mine, +and then turning to me, said,-- + +"It will have to be you." We looked at him in sudden terror. The tears +were rolling down his wrinkled cheeks. + +"What is it, William?" gasped Aunt Ann. + +"It will have to be you," he went on, looking me in the face, and taking +no notice of her question; "your pulse can be trusted. There has been a +change. When Annie wakes out of this sleep she will know you. It may be in +two hours, and it may not be for six. But if in that first moment she is +alarmed, or agitated in any way, she will die." + +"O William, let me stay. I will be calm," moaned my poor aunt. + +Then I observed, for the first time, that she had called him "William." +And then, for the first and last time, I heard Dr. Fearing call my Aunt +Ann "darling," and I remembered in that instant that it had been said once +in my hearing, that it was because of his love for Mrs. Henry Ware that +Dr. William Fearing had lived and would die a lonely man. + +"Darling," he said, and put one hand on her shoulder, "you would kill your +child. I forbid you to cross the threshold of that room till I come back. +You will thank me to-morrow. Can you not trust me, Ann?" and he looked +down from his full height, this brave old man, into the face of the woman +he had loved, with a look like the look of one who dies to save another. +It was but for one second, and then he was again the physician, and +turning to me, went on, "I have another patient to whom I must instantly +go, and whom I may not be able to leave for hours. You can do all that I +would do,--I believe,"--then he felt my pulse again, and nodding his head +with a sort of grim professional satisfaction, which no amount of emotion +could wholly divert from its delight in the steady nerves and undisturbed +currents of a healthy body,--resumed, "You have but one thing to do: when +she wakes, look perfectly composed; if she speaks, answer her in a +perfectly natural voice; give her two drops of this medicine, and tell her +to go to sleep again. If you do this, she will fall asleep at once. If +you show the least agitation, she may die,--probably will!"--and Dr. +Fearing was gone. + +My aunt sat silently weeping. I kissed her without speaking, and went back +to my chair by Annie's bed. I dropped the two drops of medicine into a +spoon, and propped the spoon carefully on a little silver tray, so that I +could reach it instantly. It was just three o'clock in the morning. Hour +after hour passed. I could not hear Annie's breath. My own dinned in my +ears like the whir of mills. A terror such as I can never describe took +possession of me. What if I were to kill Annie? How could I look composed? +speak naturally? What would she say? If I could but know and have my +answer ready! + +I firmly believe that the dawn of light saved my senses and Annie's life. +When the first red beam shot through the blinds at the farther end of the +room, tears came into my eyes. I felt as if angels were watching outside. +A tiny sunbeam crept between the slats and fell on the carpet. It was no +more than a hair's breadth, but it was companionship to me. Slowly, +steadily it came towards me. I forgot all else in watching it. To this day +I cannot see a slow-moving sunbeam on a crimson floor without a shudder. +The clock struck six, seven, eight, nine. The bells rang for schools; the +distant hum of the town began. Still there was no stir, no symptom of +life, in the colorless face on the pillow. The sunbeam had crept nearly to +my feet. Involuntarily I lifted my right foot and stretched it out-to meet +the golden messenger. Had I dared to move I should have knelt and reached +my hand to it instead. Perhaps even the slight motion I did make, +hastened Annie's waking, for at that instant she turned her head uneasily +on the pillow and opened her eyes. I saw that she knew me. I wondered how +I could have distrusted my own strength to meet her look. I smiled as if +we were at play together, and said,-- + +"Good morning, dear." + +She smiled languidly and said, "How came I in mamma's bed?" + +I said, quietly, "Take this medicine, darling;" and almost before the +drops had passed her lips her eyes closed, and she had fallen asleep +again. + +When Dr. Fearing came into the room at noon, he gave one swift, anxious +glance at her face, and then fell on his knees and folded his face in his +hands. I knew that Annie was safe. + +Then he went into the next room, silently took Aunt Ann by the hand, and +leading her back to Annie's bedside, pointed to the little beads of +moisture on her forehead and said,-- + +"Saved!" + +The revulsion was too much for the poor mother's heart. She sank to the +floor. He lifted her in his arms and carried her out, and for the rest of +that day my Aunt Ann, that "hard and unsympathizing woman," passed from +one strange fainting-fit into another, until we were in almost as great +fear for her life as we had been for Annie's. + +At twilight Annie roused from her sleep again. She was perfectly tranquil, +but too weak to lift even her little hand, which had grown so thin and so +wrinkled that it looked like a wilted white flower lying on the white +counterpane. + +Hour by hour she gained strength under the powerful restoratives which +were used, and still more from the wonderful elasticity of her +temperament. From the very first day, however, an indefinable terror of +misgiving seized me as often as I heard her voice or looked into her eyes. +In vain I said to myself: "It is the weakness after such terrible +illness;" "it is only natural." I felt in the bottom of my heart that it +was more. + +On the fourth day she said suddenly, looking up at the picture of George +Ware,-- + +"Why! Why is Cousin George's picture in here? Where is the Madonna?" + +I replied: "I moved it in here, dear, for you. I thought you would like +it." + +"No," she said, "I like the Madonna best: the dear little baby! Please +carry George back into my room where he belongs." + +My heart stood still with terror. She had never called George Ware her +cousin since their engagement. She especially disliked any allusion to +their relationship. This was her first mention of his name, and it was in +all respects just what it would have been a year before. Dr. Fearing had +forbidden us to allude to him, or to her wedding-day, or, in fact, to any +subject calculated to arouse new trains of thought in her mind. I wondered +afterward that we did not understand from the first how he had feared that +her brain might not fully recover itself, as the rest of her exquisitely +organized body seemed fast doing. + +Day after day passed. Annie could sit up; could walk about her room; she +gained in flesh and color and strength so rapidly that it was a marvel. +She was gentle and gay and loving; her old rare, sweet self in every +little way and trait and expression; not a look, not a smile, not a tone +was wanting; but it was the Annie of last year, and not of this. She made +no allusion to her wedding, the day for which had now passed. She did not +ask for George. The whole year had dropped out of her memory; part of her +brain was still diseased. No human touch could venture to deal with it +without the risk of the most terrible consequences. + +Dr. Fearing's face grew day by day more and more anxious; he was baffled; +he was afraid. He consulted the most eminent physicians who had had +experience in diseases of the brain. They all counseled patience, and +advised against any attempt to hasten her recollections upon any point; +they all had known similar cases, but never one so sharply defined or so +painful as this. Still they were unanimous in advising that nothing should +be said to startle her; that all must be trusted to time. + +Through these terrible days George Ware was braver than any one else. His +faith in the absoluteness of his hold on Annie was too great to be +disturbed. He was by nature as patient as he was resolute. He had not +wooed his wife for eighteen years to lose her now in any way except by +death, he thought. He comforted us all. + +"Do be brave, sweet mother of Annie," he used to say to my poor Aunt Ann; +"all will be well. It is nothing to me to wait another year, after having +waited all these. It is not even hard for me to go without seeing her, if +that is best." + +Nevertheless, his face grew thin and his eye heavy and his form bent, as +week after week passed, and he came daily to the house, only to be told +the same weary thing, that Annie had not asked for him. The physicians had +said that it would be better that she should not see him until she had of +her own accord mentioned his name. Her nerves were still in such a state +that any surprise threw her into palpitation and alarm which did not pass +off for hours. No human being could tell how great might be the shock of +seeing his face; how much it might recall to her; and whether, if it +recalled all, she could bear it. From the outset George believed the +physicians were wrong in this; but he dared not urge his instinct against +their knowledge; and he was patient of nature, and so the days went on, +on, on; and there was no change except that Annie grew steadily better and +our hearts grew steadily sicker and sicker until we almost looked back +with longing on the days when we feared she would die. And yet in every +respect, except the memory of her lover, Annie was the same as before. The +closest scrutiny could discover no other change in her, except perhaps +that she seemed even gayer than she used to seem, and a shade less tender, +but this also was as she had been before she had promised to be George +Ware's wife. + +One morning George brought me a small bunch of lovely wild things from the +pine woods, Tiarella leaves just tipped with claret color by the early +frosts, sprays of Linnea, two or three tiny white maiden's hair ferns, all +tied by a knot of patridge-berry vines thick-set with scarlet berries. + +"Give these to Annie for me, will you, dear Helen?" he said, "and observe +very carefully how she is affected by them." + +I remembered that it was just one year ago that day, that he had asked her +to be his wife, and I trembled to think of what hidden meanings I might be +messenger in carrying her this silent token. But I too felt, as George +did, that she was drifting farther and farther away from the memories we +desired she should regain; and that no physician's knowledge could be so +true as love's instinct; and I asked no counsel of any one, but went +swiftly to Annie with the leaves in my hand. + +"O you darling! How perfectly lovely," she exclaimed with a laugh of +delight. "Why these must have come from George's woods. Have you been up +there?" + +"No, dear," I said, "George brought them for you, this morning." + +"Oh, the good darling!" she exclaimed. "Is it decided about his going to +India?" + +I could not repress a little cry of anguish and terror. A year before, +there had been a plan for his going out to India on a mercantile venture, +which promised great profit. It had been given up, partly because his +mother felt that she could not live without him, partly because he felt +that he could not longer live without Annie. + +"What is it, dear?" she said, in her softest, most sympathizing voice, +with a little flush of alarm on her pale cheek; "what hurt you? are you +ill? Oh, my poor Helen, you are all worn out with nursing me. I will nurse +you presently." + +"Only a little twinge of my old neuralgia, dear," I said faintly; "these +autumn winds are setting it at work again." + +She looked anxiously at me for a few seconds, and then began to untie the +bunch of leaves, and spread out the long vines on the bed. + +"Oh, if I only had some moss," she said. + +I ran to the green-house and brought her handfuls of beautiful dripping +mosses from the rocks in the fernery. She filled a saucer with them, +putting the Tiarella leaves all round the rim, and winding the Linnea +vines in and out as they grow in the woods. Then she leaned back on her +pillows and began breaking the partridge-berry vines into short bits, each +with a scarlet berry on it. These she set upright in the moss, changing +and rearranging them so often that I wondered what could be her purpose, +and leaned forward to see. + +"No, no," she said playfully, pushing me back, "not till it is done." + +Presently she said, "Now look!" + +I looked and saw a perfect, beautifully formed G made by the scarlet +berries on the green moss. + +"There," she said, "I'll send that back to George, to show him that I have +found him in the berries; or, no," she added, "we'll keep it till he comes +to see me. The doctor said I could be carried down-stairs to-morrow, and +then I shall begin to 'receive,'" and she laughed a gay little laugh, and +sank back tired. + +That moment stands out in my memory as the saddest, hardest one of all. I +think at that moment hope died in my heart. + +When I told George of this, and showed him the saucer of moss--for she +had ordered it to be set on the drawing-room table, saying, "It is too +pretty to stay up here with bottles and invalids,"--he buried his face in +his hands for many minutes. When he lifted it, he looked me steadily in +the eye, and said,-- + +"She has utterly forgotten this whole year. But I will win her again." + +Then he knelt down and kissed every little leaf and berry which her hands +had touched, and went away without speaking another word. + +It was decided after this that it could do no harm for him to see her. +Indeed, he now demanded it. His resolution was taken. + +"You need not fear," he said to Dr. Fearing, "that I shall agitate her by +approaching her as if she were my own. She is not my own. But she will +be!" + +We all sat with trembling hands and beating hearts as the hour approached +at which we knew the experiment was to be made. + +Annie had been carried down-stairs, and laid upon a lounge in the western +bay-window of the library. The lounge was covered with dark green damask. +Old Cæsar had so implored to be allowed to carry her down, that Annie had +insisted that he should be gratified; and she went down as she had so +often done in her childhood, with her soft white face lying close to his +shining black one. + +As he put her down, in her rose-colored wrapper, on the dark green damask, +he knelt before her and burst out in spite of himself, into a sort of wild +chant of thanksgiving; but as we entered the door he sprang up ashamed, +and turning to Aunt Ann, said: "Beg pardon, missis, but this rose yere was +too much pink rose for old Cæsar!" + +It was "too much pink rose" for any human eyes to see unmoved. We all +cried: and Annie herself shed a few tears, but finally helped us all by +saying gayly,-- + +"You'll make me ill again if you all go on like this. I hate people that +cry." + +No stranger's eye would have detected the thousandth part of a second's +pause which George Ware's feet made on the threshold of that room when his +eyes first saw Annie. Before the second had ended he was simply the eager, +glad, affectionate cousin, and had taken calmly and lovingly the child's +kiss which Annie gave him as she had given it every day of her life. + +We could not speak. My uncle tried to read his newspaper; my aunt's hands +shook in their pretense of sewing; I threw myself on the floor at the foot +of Annie's lounge and hid my face in its cushions. + +But George Ware's brave voice went steadily on. Annie's sweet glad tones, +weak and low, but still sweeter than any other tones I ever heard, chimed +in and out like fairy bells from upper air. More than an hour passed. I do +not know one word that we said. + +Then George rose, saying: "I must not tire you, little Annie, so I am +going now." + +"Will you come, again to-morrow?" she asked as simply as a little child. + +"Yes, dear, if you are not the worse for this," he replied, and kissed her +forehead and walked very quickly away without looking back. I followed +him instantly into the hall, for I had seen that in his face which had +made me fear that, strong man as he was, he would fall. I found him +sitting on the lowest step of the staircase, just outside the door. + +"My God, Helen," he gasped, "it isn't only this last year she has +forgotten. She has gone back five years." + +"Oh no, dear George," I said; "you are mistaken. She remembers everything +up to a year ago. You know she remembered about your going to India." + +"That is nothing," he said impatiently. "You can't any of you, see what I +mean, I suppose. But I tell you she has forgotten five years of me. She is +to me just as she was when she was fourteen. Do you think I don't know the +face and voice and touch of each day of my darling's life? oh, my God! my +God!" and he sank down on the stair again in a silence which was worse +than groans. I left him there and went back to Annie. + +"How old Cousin George looks," she was saying, as I entered the room; "I +didn't remember that he was so old. Why, he looks as old as you do, sweet +papa. But then," reflectively, "after all, he is pretty old. He is fifteen +years older than I am--and I am nineteen: thirty-four! that is old, is it +not papa?" said she, half petulantly. "Why don't you speak, any of you?" + +"You are getting too tired, my darling," said her father, "and now I shall +carry you up-stairs." + +After Annie was asleep, my Aunt Ann and I sat for hours in the library, +going over and over and over, with weary hopelessness, all her words and +looks, and trying to comfort each other. I think each knew the utter +despair of the other's heart. + +From this time George came and went with all his old familiarity: not a +day passed without his seeing Annie, and planning something for her +amusement or pleasure. Not a day passed without her showing in many ways +that he made a large part of her life, was really a central interest in +it. Even to us who knew the sad truth, and who looked on with intentness +and anxiety hardly less than those with which we had watched her sick-bed +weeks before--even to us it seemed many times as if all must be right. No +stranger but would believe them lovers; not a servant in the house dreamed +but that Miss Annie was still looking forward to her wedding. They had all +been forbidden to allude to it, but they supposed it was only on account +of her weakness and excitability. + +But every day the shadow deepened on George Ware's face. I could see, +though he would not admit it, that the same despair which filled my soul +was settling down upon his. Dr. Fearing, too, who came and spent long +evenings with us, and cautiously watched Annie's every tone and look, grew +more and more uneasy. Dr. ----, one of the most distinguished physicians +of the insane, in the country, was invited to spend a few days in the +house. He was presented to Annie as an old friend of her father's, and won +at once her whole confidence and regard. For four days he studied her +case, and frankly owned himself baffled, and unable to suggest any measure +except the patient waiting which was killing us all. + +To tell this frail and excitable girl, who had more than once fainted at +a sudden noise, that this man whom she regarded only as her loving cousin +had been her promised husband--and that having been within two weeks of +her wedding-day, she had now utterly forgotten it, and all connected with +it--this would be too fearful a risk. It might deprive her forever of her +reason. + +Otherwise, she seemed in every respect, even in the smallest particular, +herself. She recollected her music, her studies, her friends. She was +anxious to resume her old life at all points. Every day she made allusions +to old plans or incidents. She had forgotten absolutely nothing excepting +the loverhood of her lover. Every day she grew stronger, and became more +and more beautiful, There was a slight under-current of arch +mischievousness and half petulance which she had never had before, and +which, added to her sweet sympathetic atmosphere, made her indescribably +charming. As she grew stronger she frolicked with every human being and +every living thing. When the spring first opened and she could be out of +doors, she seemed more like a divine mixture of Ariel and Puck than like a +mortal maiden. + +I found her one day lying at full length on the threshold of the +greenhouse. Twenty great azaleas were in full bloom on the shelves--white, +pink, crimson. She had gathered handfuls of the fallen blossoms, and was +making her gray kitten, which was as intelligent and as well trained as a +dog, jump into the air to catch them as she tossed them up. I sat down on +the grass outside and watched her silently. + +"Oh, you sober old Helen," she said, "you'll be an owl for a thousand +years after you die! Why can't you caper a little? You don't know how nice +it is." + +Just then George came slowly walking down the garden path, his hands +clasped behind him, his head bent forward, and his eyes fixed on the +ground. + +He did not see us. Annie exclaimed,-- + +"There's Cousin George, too! Look at him! Wouldn't you think he had just +heard he was to be executed at twelve to-day! I don't see what ails +everybody." + +"George, George," she called, "come here. For how many years are you +sentenced, dear, and how could you have been so silly as to be found out?" +And then she burst into a peal of the most delicious laughter at his +bewildered look. + +"I don't know, darling, for how many years I am sentenced. We none of us +know," he said, in a tone which was sadder than he meant it should be, and +sobered her loving heart instantly. She sprang to her feet, and threw both +her arms around his right arm, a pretty trick she had kept from her +babyhood, and said,-- + +"Oh you dear, good darling, does anything really trouble you? How +heartless I am. But you don't know how it feels to have been so awfully +ill, and then to get well again. It makes one feel all body and no soul; +but I have soul enough to love you all dearly, you know I have; and I +won't have you troubled; tell me what it is this minute;" and she looked +at him with tears in her eyes. + +One wonders often if there be any limit to human endurance. If there be, +who can say he has reached it? Each year we find that the thing which we +thought had taken our last strength, has left us with strength enough to +bear a harder thing. It seemed so with such scenes as this, in those sunny +spring days when Annie Ware first went out into life again. Each day I +said, "There can never be another moment quite so hard to meet as this!" +and the next day there came a moment which made me forget the one which +had gone before. + +It was an ill fortune which just at this time made it imperatively +necessary for George to go to the West for three months. He had no choice. +His mother's whole property was at stake. No one but he could save it; it +was not certain that he could. His last words to me were,-- + +"I trust more in you, Helen, than in any other human being. Keep my name +constantly in her thought; write me everything which you would tell me if +I were here." + +It had become necessary now to tell the sad story of the result of Annie's +illness to all those friends who would be likely to speak to her of her +marriage. The whole town knew what shadow rested on our hearts; and yet, +as week after week went by, and the gay, sweet, winning, beautiful girl +moved about among people again in her old way, people began to say more +and more that it was, after all, very foolish for Annie Ware's friends to +be so distressed about her; stranger things had happened; she was +evidently a perfectly well woman; and as for the marriage, they had never +liked the match--George Ware was too old and too grave for her; and, +besides, he was her second cousin. + +Oh, the torture of the "ante-mortems" of beloved ones, at which we are +all forced to assist! + +Yet it could not be wondered at, that in this case the whole heart of the +community was alive with interest and speculation. + +Annie Ware's sweet face had been known and loved in every house in our +village. Her father was the richest, most influential man in the county, +and the most benevolent. Many a man and woman had kissed Henry Ware's baby +in her little wagon, for the sake of Henry Ware's good deeds to them or +theirs. And while Mrs. Ware had always repelled persons by her haughty +reticence, Annie, from the first day she could speak until now, had won +all hearts by her sunny, open, sympathizing nature. No wonder that now, +when they saw her again fresh, glad, beautiful, and looking stronger and +in better health than she had ever done, they said that we were wrong, +that Annie and Nature were right, and that all would be well! + +This spring there came to our town a family of wealth and position who had +for many years lived in Europe, and who had now returned to make America +their home. They had taken a furnished house for a year, to make trial of +our air, and also, perhaps, of the society, although rumor, with the usual +jealousy, said that the Neals did not desire any intimacy with their +neighbors. The grounds of the house which they had hired joined my +uncle's, and my Aunt Ann, usually averse to making new acquaintances, had +called upon them at once, and had welcomed them most warmly to her house. +The family consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Neal and two sons, Arthur and Edward. +They were people of culture, and of wide experience; but they were not of +fine organization nor of the highest breeding; and it will ever remain a +mystery to me that there should have seemed to be, from the outset, an +especial bond of intimacy between them and my uncle and aunt. I think it +was partly the sense of relief with which they welcomed a new interest--a +little break in the monotony of anxiety which had been for so many months +corroding their very lives. + +Almost before I knew that the Neals were accepted as familiar friends, I +was startled one morning, while we were at breakfast, by the appearance of +Annie on her pony, looking in at our dining-room window. She had a pretty +way of riding up noiselessly on the green grass, and making her pony, +which was tame as a Newfoundland dog, mount the stone steps, and tap with +his nose on the panes of the long glass door till we opened it. + +I never saw her so angelically beautiful as she was this morning. Her +cheeks were flushed and her dark blue eyes sparkled like gems in the sun. +Presently she said, hesitating a little,-- + +"Edward Neal is at the gate; may I bring him in? I told him he might come, +but he said it was too like burglary;" and she cantered off again without +waiting to hear my mother's permission. + +All that morning Annie Ware and Edward Neal sat with me on our piazza. I +looked and listened and watched like one in a dream, or under a spell. I +foresaw, I foreknew what was to come; with the subtle insight of love, I +saw all. + +Never had I seen Annie so stirred into joyousness by George's presence as +she seemed to be by this boy's. The two together overflowed in a sparkling +current of gayety, which was irresistible. They seemed two divine children +sent out on a mission to set the world at play. What Edward Neal's more +sensuous and material nature lacked, was supplied by the finer, subtler +quality of Annie's. From that first day I could never disguise from myself +that they seemed, so far as mere physical life goes, the absolute +counterparts of each other. + +I need not dwell on this part of my story. When young hearts are drawing +together, summer days speed on very swiftly. George Ware, alas! was kept +at the West week after week, until it came to be month after month. My +uncle and aunt seemed deliberately to shut their eyes to the drift of +events. I think they were so thankful to watch Annie's bounding health and +happiness, to hear glad voices and merry laughs echoing all day in their +house, that they could not allow themselves to ask whether a new kernel of +bitterness, of danger, lay at the core of all this fair seeming. As for +the children, they did not know that they were loving each other as man +and woman. Edward Neal was only twenty-one, Annie but nineteen, and both +were singularly young and innocent of soul. + +And so it came to be once more the early autumn; the maple leaves were +beginning to be red, and my chrysanthemums had again set their tiny round +disks of buds. Edward, and Annie had said no word of love to each other, +but the whole town looked on them as lovers, and people began to reply +impatiently and incredulously to our assurances that no engagement +existed. + +Early in October George came home, very unexpectedly, taking even his +mother by surprise. He told me afterwards that he came at last as one +warned of God. A presentiment of evil, against which he had struggled for +weeks, finally so overwhelmed him that he set off for home without half an +hour's delay. I found him, on the night after his arrival, sitting in his +old place in the big arm-chair at the head of Annie's lounge; she still +clung to some of her old invalid ways, and spent many evenings curled up +like a half-shut pink rose on the green damask cushions. He looked worn +and thin, but glad and eager, and was giving a lively account of his +Western experiences when the library door opened, and coming in +unannounced, with the freedom of one at home, Edward Neal entered. + +"O Edward, here is Cousin George," exclaimed Annie, while a wave of rosy +color spread over her face, and half rising, she took George's hand in +hers as she leaned towards Edward. + +"Oh, I'm so glad to see you, Mr. Ware," said Edward, with that indefinable +tone of gentle respect which marks a very young man's recognition of one +much older, whom he has been led to admire. "Annie has been talking to me +about you all summer. I feel as if I knew you almost as well as she does. +I'm heartily glad to see you." + +A man of finer grain than Edward Neal would have known the whole truth in +that first second, by the blank stern look which spread like a cloud over +George Ware's face; but the open-hearted fellow only thought that he had +perhaps seemed too familiar and went on,-- + +"I beg your pardon, Mr. Ware. It must appear strange to you that I took +the liberty of being so glad; but you don't know how kindly I have been +allowed to feel that your friends here would permit me to call all their +friends mine," and he glanced lovingly and confidently at my aunt and +uncle, who answered by such smiles as they rarely gave. Oh, no wonder they +loved this genial, frank sunny boy, who had brought such light into their +life. + +In a moment George was his courteous self again, and began to express his +pleasure at meeting Mr. Neal, but Annie interrupted him. + +"Oh, now don't be tiresome; of course you are to be just as good friends +with Edward as you are with me: sit down, Edward. He is telling us the +most delicious stories. He is the dearest Cousin George in the world," she +added, stroking his hand which she still kept in hers. + +It gave Edward no more surprise to see her do this than it would have done +to see her sit in her father's lap. Even I felt with a sudden pang that +George Ware seemed at that moment to belong to another generation than +Edward and Annie. + +Edward seated himself on a low cricket at the foot of the lounge, and, +looking up in George's face, said most winningly,-- + +"Please go on, Mr. Ware." Then he turned one full, sweet look of greeting +and welcome upon Annie, who beamed back upon him with such a diffused +smile as only the rarest faces have. Annie's smile was one of her greatest +charms. It changed her whole face; the lips made but a small part of it; +no mortal ever saw it without smiling in answer. + +It was beyond George Ware's power long to endure this. Probably his +instinct felt in both Edward's atmosphere and Annie's more than we did. He +rose very soon and said to me, "If you are going home to-night, Helen, +will you let me walk up with you? I have business in that part of the +town; but I must go now. Perhaps that will hurry you too much?" he added, +with a tone which was almost imploring. + +I was only too glad to go. Our leave-taking was very short. A shade of +indefinable trouble clouded every face but Edward's and Annie's. + +George did not speak until we had left the house. Then he stopped short, +took both my hands in his, with a grasp that both hurt and frightened me, +and exclaimed,-- + +"How dared you keep this from me! How dared you!" + +"O George," I said, "there was nothing to tell." + +"Nothing to tell!" and his voice grew hoarse and loud. "Nothing to tell! +Do you mean to say that you don't know, have not known that Annie loves +that boy, that puppy?" + +I trembled from head to foot. I could not speak. He went on:-- + +"And I trusted you so; O Helen, I can never forgive you." + +I murmured, miserably, for I felt myself in that moment really guilty,-- + +"What makes you think she loves him?" + +"You cannot deceive me, Helen," he replied. "Do not torture me and +yourself by trying. Tell me now, how long this 'Edward' has been sitting +by her lounge. Tell me all." + +Then I told him all. It was not much. He had seen more that evening, and +so had I, than had ever existed before. His presence had been the one +element which had suddenly defined that which before had been hardly +recognized. + +He was very quiet after the first moment of bitterness, and asked me to +forgive his impatient words. When he left me he said,-- + +"I cannot see clearly what I ought to do. Annie's happiness is my only +aim. If this boy can create it, and I cannot--but he cannot: she was as +utterly mine as it is possible for a woman to be. You none of you knew how +utterly! Oh, my God, what shall I do!" and he walked away feebly and +slowly like an old man of seventy. + +The next day Aunt Ann sent for me to come to her. I found her in great +distress. George had returned to the house after leaving me, and had had +almost a stormy interview with my uncle. He insisted upon asking Annie at +once to be his wife; making no reference to the past, but appearing at +once as her suitor. My uncle could not forbid it, for he recognized +George's right, and he sympathized in his suffering. But his terror was +insupportable at the thought of having Annie agitated, and of the possible +results which might follow. He implored George to wait at least a few +weeks. + +"What! and see that young lover at my wife's feet every night!" said +George, fiercely. "No! I will risk all, lose all, if need be. I have been +held back long enough," and he had gone directly from my uncle's room to +Annie herself. + +In a short time Annie had come to her mother in a perfect passion of +weeping, and told her that Cousin George had asked her to be his wife; and +that she had never dreamed of such a thing; and she thought he was very +unkind to be so angry with her; how could she have supposed he cared for +her in that way, when he had been like her elder brother all his life. + +"Why, he seems almost as old as papa," said poor Annie, sobbing and +crying, "and he ought to have known that I should not kiss him and put my +arms around him if--if"--she could not explain; but she knew! + +Annie had gone to her own room, ill. My aunt and I sat together in the +library silently crying; we were wretched. "Oh, if George would only have +waited," said Aunt Ann. + +"I think it would have made no difference, aunty," said I. + +"No, I am afraid not," replied she, and each knew that the other was +thinking of Edward Neal. + +George Ware left town the next day. He sent me a short note. He could not +see any one, he said, and begged me to give a farewell kiss for him to +"the sweet mother of my Annie. For mine she is, and will be in heaven, +though she will be the wife of Edward Neal on earth." + +When I next saw our Annie she was Edward Neal's promised bride. A severe +fit of illness, the result of all these excitements, confined me to my +room for three weeks after George's departure; and I knew only from Aunt +Ann's lips the events which had followed upon it. + +George Ware's presence on that first evening had brought revelation to +Edward Neal as well as to all the other members of that circle. That very +night he had told his parents that Annie would be his wife. + +The next night, while poor George was swiftly borne away, Edward was +sitting in my uncle's library, listening with a blanched cheek to the +story of Annie's old engagement. My uncle's sense of honor would not let +him withhold anything from the man seeking her for his wife. The pain soon +passed by, when he was told that she had that very day refused her cousin, +and betrayed almost resentment at his offer. Edward Neal had not a +sufficiently subtle nature, nor acquaintance enough with psychological +phenomena to be disturbed by any fears for the future. He dismissed it all +as an inexplicable result of the disease, but a fixed fact, and a great +and blessed fortune for him. My uncle, however, was less easily assured. +He insisted upon delay, and upon consulting the same physicians who had +studied Annie's case before. They all agreed that she was now a perfectly +healthy and strong woman, and that to persist in any farther recognition +of the old bond, after she had so intelligently and emphatically +repudiated all thought of such a relation to her cousin, was absurd. Dr. +Fearing alone was in doubt, He said little; but he shook his head and +clasped his hands tight, and implored that at least the marriage should be +deferred for a year. + +Annie herself, however, refused to consent to this: of course no +satisfactory reason could be alleged for any such delay; and she said as +frankly as a little child, "Edward and I have loved each other almost +from the very first; there is nothing for either of us to do in life but +to make each other happy; and we shall not leave papa and mamma: so why +should we wait?" + +They were not married, however, until spring. The whole town stood by in +speechless joy and delight when those two beautiful young beings came out +from the village church man and wife. It was a scene never to be +forgotten. The peculiar atmosphere of almost playful joyousness which they +created whenever they appeared together was something which could not be +described, but which diffused itself like sunlight. + +We all tried resolutely to dismiss memory and misgiving from our hearts. +They seemed disloyalty and sin. George Ware was in India. George Ware's +mother was dead. The cottage among the pines was sold to strangers, and +the glistening brown paths under the trees were neglected and unused. + +Edward and Annie led the same gay child-like lives after their marriage +that they had led before: they looked even younger and gayer and sunnier. +When they dashed cantering through the river meadows, she with rosy cheeks +and pale brown curls flying in the wind, and he with close crisp black +hair, and the rich, dark, glowing skin of a Spaniard, the farming men +turned and rested on their tools, and gazed till they were out of sight. +Sometimes I asked myself wonderingly, "Are they ever still, and tender, +and silent?" "Is this perpetual overflow the whole of love?" But it seemed +treason to doubt in the presence of such merry gladness as shone in +Annie's face, and in her husband's too. It was simply the incarnate +triumph and joy of young life. + +The summer went by; the chrysanthemums bloomed out white and full in my +garden; the frosts came, and then the winter, and then Annie told me one +day that before winter came again she would be a mother. She was a little +sobered as she saw the intense look on my face. + +"Why, darling, aren't you glad? I thought you would be almost as glad as I +am myself?" Annie sometimes misunderstood me now. + +"Glad! O Annie," was all I could say. + +From that day I had but one thought, Annie's baby. Together we wrought all +dainty marvels for its ward-robe; together we planned all possible events +in its life: from the outset I felt as much motherhood to the precious +little unseen one as Annie did. She used to say to me, often,-- + +"Darling, it will be half my baby, and half yours." + +Annie was absolutely and gloriously well through the whole of those +mysterious first months of maternity which are to so many women exhausting +and painful. Every nerve of her body seemed strung and attuned to normal +and perfect harmony. She was more beautiful than ever, stronger than ever, +and so glad that she smiled perpetually without knowing it. For the first +time since the old days, dear Dr. Fearing's face lost the anxious look +with which his eyes always rested upon her. He was more at ease about her +now. + +Before light one Sunday morning in December, a messenger rang furiously +at our bell. We had been looking for such tidings and were not alarmed. It +was a fearful storm; wind and sleet and rain and darkness had attended the +coming of Annie's little "Sunday child" into its human life. + +"A boy--and Miss Annie's all right," old Cæsar said, with a voice almost +as hoarse as the storm outside; and he was gone before we could ask a +question farther. + +In less than an hour I stood on the threshold of Annie's room. But I did +not see her until noon. Then, as I crept softly into the dimly-lighted +chamber, the whole scene so recalled her illness of two years before that +my heart stood still with sudden horror, in spite of all my joy. Now, as +then, I knelt silently at her bedside, and saw the sweet face lying white +and still on the pillow. + +She turned, and seeing me, smiled faintly, but did not speak. + +At her first glance, a speechless terror seized me. This was my Annie! The +woman who for two years had been smiling with my Annie's face had not been +she! The room grew dark. I do not know what supernatural power came to my +aid that I did not faint and fall. + +Annie drew back the bed-clothes with a slow, feeble motion of her right +hand, and pointed to the tiny little head nestled in her bosom. She smiled +again, looked at me gently and steadily for a second, and then shut her +eyes. Presently I saw that she was asleep; I stole into the next room and +sat down with my face buried in my hands. + +In a moment a light step aroused me. Aunt Ann stood before me, her pale +face all aglow with delight. + +"O Helen my darling! She is so well. Thank God! thank God!" and she threw +her arms around me and burst into tears. + +I felt like one turned to stone. Was I mad, or were they? + +What had I seen in that one steady look of Annie's eyes? Was she really +well? I felt as if she had already died! + +Agonizingly I waited to see Dr. Fearing's face. He came in before tea, saw +Annie for a few minutes, and came down-stairs rubbing his hands and +singing in a low tone. + +"I never saw anything like that child's beautiful elasticity in my life," +he said. "We shall have her dancing down-stairs in a month." + +The cloud was utterly lifted from all hearts except mine. My aunt and +uncle looked at each other with swimming eyes. Edward tried to laugh and +look gay, but broke down utterly, and took refuge in the library, where I +found him lying on the floor, with his face buried in Annie's lounge. + +I went home stupefied, bewildered. I could not sleep. A terror-stricken +instinct told me that all was not right. But how should I know more than +physician, mother, husband? + +For ten days I saw my Annie every day for an hour. Her sweet, strange, +gentle, steady look into my eyes when we first met always paralyzed me +with fear, and yet I could not have told why. There was a fathomless +serenity in her face which seemed to me super-human. She said very +little. The doctor had forbidden her to talk. She slept the greater part +of the time, but never allowed the baby to be moved from her arms while +she was awake. + +There was a divine ecstasy in her expression as she looked down into the +little face; it never seemed like human motherhood. + +One day Edward came to me and said,-- + +"Do you think Annie is so well as they say? I suppose they must know; but +she looks to me as if she had died already, and it were only her glorified +angel-body that lies in that bed?" + +I could not speak to him. I knew then that he had seen the same thing that +I had seen: if his strong, rather obtuse material nature had recognized +it, what could so blind her mother and father and the doctor? I burst into +tears and left him. + +At the end of a week I saw a cloud on Dr. Fearing's face. As he left +Annie's room one morning, he stopped me and said abruptly,-- + +"What does Annie talk about?" + +"She hardly speaks at all," I said. + +"Ah," he said. "Well, I have ordered her not to talk. But does she ask any +questions?" he continued. + +"No," I said; "not of me. She has not asked one." + +I saw then that the same vague fear which was filling my heart was taking +shape in his. + +From that moment, he watched her hourly, with an anxiety which soon +betrayed itself to my aunt. + +"William, why does not Annie get stronger?" she said suddenly to him one +day. + +"I do not know why," he answered, with a solemn sadness and emphasis in +his tone which was, as I think, he intended it to be, a partial revelation +to her, and a warning. Aunt Ann staggered to a chair and looked at him +without a word. He answered her look by one equally agonized and silent, +and left the room. + +The baby was now two weeks old. Annie was no stronger than on the day of +his birth. She lay day and night in a tranquil state, smiling with +inexpressible sweetness when she was spoken to, rarely speaking of her own +accord, doing with gentle docility all she was told to do, but looking +more and more like a transfigured saint. All the arch, joyous, playful +look was gone; there was no added age in the look which had taken its +place; neither any sorrow; but something ineffably solemn, rapt, removed +from earth. Sometimes, when Edward came to her bedside, a great wave of +pitying tenderness would sweep over her face, giving it such a heavenly +look that he would fall on his knees. + +"O Helen," he said once, after such a moment as this, "I shall go mad if +Annie does not get well. I do not dare to kiss even her hand. I feel as if +she never had been mine." + +At last the day and the hour and the moment came which I had known would +come. Annie spoke to me in a very gentle voice, and said,-- + +"Helen, darling, you know I am going to die?" + +"Yes dear, I think so," I said, in as quiet a voice as hers. + +"You know it is better that I should, darling?" she said with a trembling +voice. + +"Yes, dear, I know it," I replied. + +She drew a long sigh of relief. "I am so glad, darling; I thought you knew +it, but I could not be sure. I think no one else understands. I hope dear +mamma will never suspect. You will not let her, if you can help it, the +dear doctor will not tell her; he knows, though. Darling, I want you to +have my baby. I think Edward will be willing. He is so young, he will be +happy again before long; he will not miss him. You know we have always +said it was partly your baby. Look at his eyes now, Helen," she said, +turning the little face towards me, and into a full light. + +I started. I had never till that moment seen in them a subtle resemblance +to the eyes of George Ware. We had said that the baby had his mother's +eyes--so he had; but there had always been a likeness between Annie's eyes +and George's though hers were light-blue, and his of a blue so dark that +it was often believed to be black. All the Wares had a very peculiar +luminousness of the eye; it was so marked a family trait that it had +passed into almost proverbial mention, in connection with the +distinguished beauty of the family. "The Ware eye" was always +recognizable, no matter what color it had taken from the admixture of +other blood. + +At that moment I saw, and I knew that Annie had seen, that the baby's eyes +were not so much like her own as like the deeper, sadder, darker eyes of +her cousin--brave, hopeless, dear George, who was toiling under the sun of +India, making a fortune for he knew not whom. + +We neither of us spoke; presently the little unconscious eyes closed in +sweet sleep, and Annie went on, holding him close to her heart. + +"You see, dear, poor mamma will not be able to bear seeing him after I +die. Common mothers would love him for my sake. But mamma is not like +other women. She will come very soon where I am, poor mamma; and then you +will have to take papa home to your house, and papa will have comfort in +little Henry. But he must be your baby, Helen. I shall speak to Edward +about it soon." + +She was not strong enough to talk long. She shed no tears, however, and +looked as calm as if she were telling me of pleasant plans for a coming +earthly summer. I also was perfectly calm, and felt strangely free from +sorrow. Her absolute spirituality bore me up. It was as if I spoke with +her in heaven, thousands of centuries after all human perplexities had +passed away. + +After this day she grew rapidly weaker. She had no pain. There was not a +single physical symptom in her case which the science of medicine could +name or meet. There was literally nothing to be done for her. Neither +tonic nor stimulant produced the least effect. She was noiselessly sinking +out of life, as very old people sometimes die, without a single jar, or +shock, or struggle. Her beautiful serenity and entire freedom from +suffering blinded Aunt Ann's eyes to the fact that she was dying. This was +a great mercy, and we were all careful not by a word or look to rouse her +to the truth. To all her mother's inquiries Annie invariably replied, +"Better, dear mamma, better, only very weak," and Aunt Ann believed, +until the very last, that the spring would make her well again. + +Edward Neal's face during these weeks was like the face of a man lost in a +trackless desert, seeking vainly for some sign of road to save his life. +Sickness and death were as foreign to the young, vital, irrepressible +currents of his life, as if he had been a bird or an antelope. But it was +not now with him the mere bewildered grief of a sensuous animal nature, +such as I should have anticipated that his grief would be. He dimly felt +the truth, and was constantly terrified by it. He came into Annie's +presence more and more reverently each day. He gazed speechlessly into her +eyes, which rested on him always with angelic compassion and tenderness, +but with no more look of human wifely thought than if he and she were +kneeling side by side before God's white throne. Sometimes he dared not +touch even so much as the hand on which his own wedding-ring rested. +Sometimes he would kneel by the bedside and bury his face and weep like a +little child. Then he would throw himself on his horse and gallop away and +not come home until twilight, when he was always found on Annie's lounge +in the library. One night when I went to him there he said, in a tone so +solemn that the voice did not sound like his,-- + +"Helen, there is something I do not understand about Annie. Do people +always seem so when they are going to die? I do not dare to ask her if she +loves me. I feel just as much awe of her as if she had been in heaven. It +seems sometimes as if I must be going mad, for I do not feel in the least +as if she had ever been my wife." + +"She never has, poor boy," I thought, but I only stroked his hair and +said nothing; wondering in my heart at the certainty with which in all +natures love knows how to define, conquer, reclaim his own. + +The day before Annie died she asked for her jewel-case, and spent several +hours in looking over its contents and telling me to whom they should be +given. I observed that she seemed to be searching uneasily for something +she could not find. + +"What is it, dear?" I said. She hesitated for a secondhand then replied,-- + +"Only a little ring I had when I was a girl." + +"When you were a girl, my darling!" I exclaimed. She smiled gently and +said,-- + +"I feel like an old woman now. Oh, here it is," she added, and held it out +to me to open for her the tiny padlock-shaped locket which hung from it. +It had become so tightly fastened together that it was with great +difficulty I could open it. When I did so, I saw lying in the hollow a +little ring of black hair, and I remembered that Annie had worn the ring +when she was twelve years old. + +She asked me to cut a few of the silky hairs from the baby's head, and +then one little curl from her own, and laying them with the other, she +shut the locket and asked for a piece of paper and pencil. She wrote one +word with great difficulty, folded the ring in the paper, wrote another +word on the outside, and laid it in a corner of the jewel-case. Then she +sank back on the pillows, and slipping her left hand under her cheek said +she was very tired, and almost instantly fell into a gentle sleep. She did +not wake until twilight. I was to sleep on the lounge in her room that +night, and when she woke I was preparing it. + +"Darling," she said, "could you sleep as well in my big chair, which can +be tipped back?" + +"Certainly, sweet," I said; "but why?" + +"Because that can be drawn up so much nearer me; it will be like sleeping +together." + +At nine o'clock the nurse brought the baby in and laid him in Annie's +bosom, sound asleep. Annie would not let him lie anywhere else, and was so +grieved at any remonstrance, that the doctor said she must be indulged in +the desire. When she was awake and was not speaking to us, her eyes never +left the baby's face. + +She turned over, with her face to the chair in which I lay, and reached +out her left hand towards me. I took it in mine, and so, with our hands +clasped above the little sleeping baby, we said "good-night" to each +other. + +"I feel much better to-night than I have for some days, dear Helen," she +said; "I should not wonder if we all three slept until morning." + +Very soon I saw that she was asleep. I watched her face for a long time; +it was perfectly colorless and very thin, and yet there was not a look of +illness on it. The ineffable serenity, the holy peace, made it look like +the face of one who had been transfigured, translated; who had not known +and who never could know any death. I cannot account for the sweet calm +which I felt through all these weeks. I shed no tears; I did not seem even +to sorrow. I accepted all, as Annie herself accepted it, without wonder, +without murmur. During the long hours of this last night I lived over +every hour of her precious, beautiful life, as I had known and shared it, +until the whole seemed to me one fragrant and perfect flower, ready to be +gathered and worn in the bosom of angels. At last I fell asleep. + +I was wakened by a low murmur from the baby, who stirred uneasily. Annie's +hand was still locked in mine; as I sought to disengage it cautiously, I +felt, with a sudden horror, that the fingers were lifeless. I sprang to my +feet and bent over her; she did not breathe. Out of that sweet sleep her +body had passed into another which would know no waking, and her soul had +awakened free. Slowly I withdrew the little sleeping baby from her arms +and carried it to the nurse. Then I went to Dr. Fearing's room; he had +slept in the house for a week; I found him dressed, but asleep on a +lounge. He had lain in this way, he told me, for four nights, expecting +that each would be the last. When I touched him on the shoulder he opened +his eyes, without surprise or alarm, and said,-- + +"Did she wake?" + +"No," I replied, and that was all. + +The day was just breaking: as the dark gray and red tints cleared and +rolled away, and left a pale yellow sky, the morning star, which I could +see from Annie's bedside, faded and melted in the pure ether. Even while I +was looking at it it vanished, and I thought that, like it, Annie's bright +soul, disappearing from my sight, had blended in Eternal Day. + + * * * * * + +This was four years ago. My Aunt Ann died, as Annie had said she would, +in a very few months afterward. My uncle came, a broken and trembling man, +to live with us, and Edward Neal gladly gave his little son into my hands, +as Annie had desired. He went abroad immediately, finding it utterly +impossible to bear the sight of the scenes of his lost happiness. He came +back in two years, bringing a bright young wife with him, a sunny-haired +English girl, who, he said, was so marvelously like Annie. She is like the +Annie whom he knew! + +Every day their baby boy is brought to our house to see his brother; but I +think two children of one name never before looked so unlike. + +My little Henry is the centre of his grandfather's life and of mine. He is +a pensive child, and has never been strong; but his beauty and sweetness +are such that we often tremble when we look in his face and remember +Annie. + +George Ware is still in India. Every ship brings brave sweet letters, and +gifts for the baby. I sent him the little paper which I found in the +corner of Annie's jewel-case, bearing his name. I knew that it was for him +when I saw her feeble hands laying the baby's hair and hers together in +the locket. + +In November Annie's grave is snowy with white chrysanthemums. She loved +them better than any other flowers, and I have made the little hillock +almost into a thicket of them. + +In George Ware's last letter he wrote:-- + +"When the baby is ten years old I shall come home. He will not need me +till then; till then, he is better in your hands alone; after that I can +help you." + + + + +The One-Legged Dancers. + + + +Very early one morning in March, ten years ago, I was sitting alone on one +of the crumbling ledges of the Coliseum: larks were singing above my head; +wall-flowers were waving at my feet; a procession of chanting monks was +walking slowly around the great cross in the arena below. I was on the +highest tier, and their voices reached me only as an indistinct wail, like +the notes of a distant Aeolian harp; but the joyous sun and sky and songs, +were darkened and dulled by their presence. A strange sadness oppressed +me, and I sank into a deep reverie. I do not know how long I had been +sitting there, when I was suddenly roused by a cry of pain, or terror, and +the noise of falling stones. I sprang to my feet and, looking over, saw a +young and beautiful woman lying fearfully near the edge of one of the most +insecure of the projecting ledges on the tier below me--the very one from +which I had myself nearly fallen, only a few days before, in stretching +over after some asphodels which were beyond my reach. + +I ran down as fast as possible, but when I reached the spot she had +fainted, and was utterly unconscious. She was alone; I could see no other +human being in the Coliseum. The chanting monks had gone; even the +beggars had not yet come. I tried in vain to rouse her. She had fallen so +that the hot sun was beating full on her face. I dared not leave her +there, for her first unconscious movement might be such that she would +fall over the edge. But I saw that she must have shade and water, or die. +Every instant she grew whiter and her lips looked more rigid. I shouted +aloud, and only the echoes answered me, as if in mockery. A little lark +suddenly flew out from a tuft of yellow wall-flower close by, and burst +into a swift carol of delight as he soared away. At last, with great +efforts, I succeeded in dragging her, by her feet--for I dared not venture +out so far as the spot on which her head lay--to a safer place, and into +the partial shade of a low bush. As I did this, one of her delicate hands +was scratched and torn on the rough stones, and drops of blood came to the +surface. In the other hand were crushed a few spikes of asphodel, the very +flowers, no doubt, which had lured me so near the same dangerous brink. It +seemed impossible to go away and leave her, but it was cruel to delay. My +feet felt like lead as I ran along those dark galleries and down the stone +flights of giddy stairs. Just in the entrance stood one of those +pertinacious sellers of old coins and bits of marble. I threw down a piece +of silver on his little stand, seized a small tin basin in which he had +his choicest coins, emptied them on the ground, and saying, in my poor +Italian, "Lady--ill--water," I had filled the basin at the old stone +fountain near by, and was half way up the first flight of stairs again, +before he knew what had happened. + +When I reached the place where I had left the beautiful stranger she was +not there. Unutterable horror seized me. Had I, after all, left her too +near that crumbling edge? I groaned aloud and turned to run down. A feeble +voice stopped me--a whisper rather than a voice, for there was hardly +strength to speak,-- + +"Who is there?" + +"Oh, thank God," I exclaimed, "you are not dead!" and I sprang to the next +of the cross corridors, from which the sound had come. + +She was there, sitting up, leaning against the wall. She looked almost +more terrified than relieved when she saw me. I bathed her face and hands +in the water, and told her how I had found her insensible, and had drawn +her away from the outer edge before I had gone for the water. She did not +speak for some moments, but looked at me earnestly and steadily, with +tears standing in her large blue eyes. + +Then she said, "I did not know that any one but myself ever came to the +Coliseum so early. I thought I should die here alone; and Robert was not +willing I should come." + +"I owe you my life," she added, bursting into hysterical crying. + +Then in a few moments she half laughed, as if at some droll thought, and +said, "But how could you drag me? You are not nearly so big as I am. The +angels must have helped you;" and holding up the poor crushed asphodels, +she went on: "As soon as I came to myself, I saw the asphodels in my hand, +and I said, 'Asphodel for burial;' and tried to throw them away, so that +if Robert came he would not find me dead with them in my hand, for only +yesterday he said to me, 'Please never pick an asphodel--I can't bear to +see you touch one.'" + +Slowly I soothed her and she recovered her color and strength. The owner +of the basin, followed by a half-dozen chattering vetturini, had climbed +up to us, but we had peremptorily sent them all away. It was evident that +she was not seriously hurt. The terror, rather than the fall, had caused +her fainting. It was probably a sudden dizziness which had come as she +drew back and turned after picking the flowers. Had she fallen in the act +of picking them she must have been dashed to the ground below. At the end +of an hour she was so nearly well, that she walked slowly down the long +stairs, leaning on my arm, and taking frequent rests by the way. I was +about to beckon to one of the vetturini, when she said, "Oh no! my own +carriage is near here, up by the gate of the Palace of the Cæsars. I +rambled on, without thinking at first of coming to the Coliseum: it will +do me good to walk back; every moment of the air makes me feel better." + +So we went slowly on, up the solemn hill, arm in arm like friends, sitting +down now and then on old fallen columns to rest, and looking back at the +silent, majestic ruins, which were brightened almost into a look of life +under the vivid sun. My companion spoke little; the reaction after her +fearful shock had set in; but every few moments her beautiful eyes would +fill with tears as she looked in my face and pressed my arm. I left her at +her apartment on the Via Felice; my own was a mile farther on, in the +Piazza del Popolo, and I would not let her drive so far. + +"It grieves me not to go with you to your door," she said, as she bade me +good-bye, "but I shall come and see you to-morrow and bring my husband." + +"No, you must not," I replied. "To-morrow you will be wise enough--or, if +you are not wise enough, you will be kind enough to me because I ask +it--to lie in bed all day, and I shall come very early in the morning to +see how you are." + +She turned suddenly on the carriage-steps, and, leaning both her hands on +my knees, exclaimed, in a voice full of emotion. + +"Will you let me kiss you? Not even my mother gave me what you have given. +For you have given me back life, when it was too infinitely precious to +lose. Surely you will not think me presuming?" and her cheek flushed a +little. + +"Presuming! my dear child, I loved you the first moment I saw you lying +there on the stones; and I am almost old enough to be your mother, too," I +replied, and I kissed her sweet face warmly. + +This was the beginning of my acquaintance and friendship with Dora +Maynard. + +At eleven o'clock the next morning I went to see her. I was shown into a +room, whose whole air was so unlike that of a Roman apartment, that I +could scarcely believe I had not been transported to English or American +soil. In spite of its elegance, the room was as home-like and cozy as if +it nestled in the Berkshire hills or stood on Worcestershire meadows. The +windows were heavily curtained, and the furniture covered with gay chintz +of a white ground, with moss-rose buds thickly scattered over it between +broad stripes of rose-pink. The same chintz was fluted all around the +cornice of the room, making the walls look less high and stately; the +doorways, also, were curtained with it. Great wreaths and nodding masses +of pampas grass were above the doors; a white heron and a rose-colored +spoonbill stood together on a large bracket in one corner, and a huge gray +owl was perched on what looked like a simple old apple-tree bough, over an +inlaid writing-table which stood at an odd slant near one of the windows. +Books were everywhere--in low swinging shelves, suspended by large green +cords with heavy tassels; on low bracket shelves, in unexpected places, +with deep green fringes or flutings of the chintz; in piles on Moorish +stools or old Venice chests. Every corner looked as if somebody made it a +special haunt and had just gone out. On a round mosaic table stood an +exqusite black-and-gilt Etruscan patera filled with white anemones; on +another table near by stood a silver one filled with the same flowers, +pink and yellow. Each was circled round the edge with fringing masses of +maiden-hair fern. Every lounge and chair had a low, broad foot-stool +before it, ruffled with the chintz; and in one corner of the room were a +square pink and white and green Moorish rug, with ten or a dozen +chintz-covered pillows, piled up in a sort of chair-shaped bed upon it, +and a fantastic ebony box standing near, the lid thrown back, and +battledoors and shuttlecocks, and many other gay-colored games, tossed in +confusion. The walls were literally full of exquisite pictures; no very +large or rare ones, all good for every-day living; some fine old +etchings, exquisite water-colors, a swarthy Campagna herds-boy with a +peacock feather and a scarlet ribbon in his black hat, and for a +companion-picture, the herds-boy of the mountains, fair, rosy, standing +out on a opaline snow-peak, with a glistening Edelweiss in his hand; +opposite these a large picture of Haag's, a camel in the desert, the Arab +wife and baby in a fluttering mass of basket and fringe and shawl and +scarf, on his back; the Arab father walking a few steps in advance, +playing on musical pipes, his tasseled robe blowing back in the wind; on +one side of this a Venice front, and on another a crag of Norway pines; +here and there, small leaves of photographs from original drawings by the +old masters, Leonardo, Raphael, Titian, and Luini; and everywhere, in all +possible and impossible places, flowers and vines. I never saw walls so +decorated. Yellow wall-flowers waved above the picture of the Norway +pines; great scarlet thistles branched out each side of the Venetian +palace; cool maiden-hair ferns seemed to be growing all around the glowing +crimson and yellow picture of the Arabs in the Desert. Afterward I learned +the secret of this beautiful effect; large, flat, wide-mouthed bottles, +filled with water, were hung on the backs of the picture frames, and in +these the vines and flowers were growing; only a worshipper of flowers +would have devised this simple method of at once enshrining them, and +adorning the pictures. + +In one of the windows stood a superbly-carved gilt table, oblong, and with +curiously-twisted legs which bent inward and met a small central shelf +half-way between the top and the floor, then spread out again into four +strange claw-like vases, which bore each two golden lilies standing +upright. On this stood the most singular piece of wood-carving I ever saw. +It was of very light wood, almost yellow in tint; it looked like rough +vine trellises with vines clambering over them; its base was surrounded by +a thick bed of purple anemones; the smaller shelf below was also filled +with purple anemones, and each of the golden lilies held all the purple +anemones it could--not a shade of any other color but the purple and +gold--and rising above them the odd vine trellises in the pale yellow +wood. As I stood looking at this in mute wonder and delight, but sorely +perplexed to make out the design of the carving, I heard a step behind me. +I turned and saw, not my new friend, as I had expected, but her husband. I +thought, in that first instant, I had never seen a manlier face and form, +and I think so to-day. Robert Maynard was not tall; he was not handsome; +but he had a lithe figure, square-shouldered, straight, strong, vitalized +to the last fibre with the swift currents of absolutely healthy blood, and +the still swifter currents of a passionate and pure manhood. His eyes were +blue, his hair and full beard of the bright-brown yellow which we call, +rightly or wrongly, Saxon. He came very quickly toward me with both hands +outstretched and began to speak. "My dear madam," he said, but his voice +broke, and with a sudden, uncontrollable impulse, he turned his back full +upon me for a second, and passed his right hand over his eyes. The next +instant he recovered himself and went on. + +"I do not believe you will wonder that I can't speak, and I do not believe +you will ever wonder that I do not thank you--I never shall," and he +raised both my hands to his lips. + +"Dora is in bed as you bade her to be," he continued. "She is well, but +very weak. She wants to see you immediately, and she has forbidden me to +come back to her room without you. I think, perhaps," he added +hesitatingly, "she is not quite calm enough to talk long. Forgive me for +saying it. I know you love her already." + +"Indeed I do," replied I, "as if I had known her all my life. I will not +stay long;" and I followed him through a small dining-room, also gay with +flowers and vines, to a little room which had one side almost wholly of +glass and opened on a _loggia_ full of orange-trees and oleanders, +geraniums and roses. I will not describe Dora Maynard's bed-room. It was +the dainty room of a dainty woman, but spiritualized and individualized +and made wonderful, just as her sitting-room was, by a creative touch and +a magnetic presence such as few women possess. I believe that she could +not be for twenty-four hours in the barrenest and ugliest room possible, +without contriving to diffuse a certain enchantment through all its +emptiness. + +She looked far more beautiful this morning than she had looked the day +before. I never forgot the picture of her face as I saw it then, lying on +the white pillow and turned toward the door, with the eager expression +which her waiting for me had given it. Neither of us spoke for some +seconds, and when we did speak we took refuge in commonplaces. Our hearts +were too full--mine with a sudden and hardly explicable overflow of +affection toward this beautiful being whom I had saved from dying; hers +with a like affection for me, heightened a thousand fold by the intense +love of love and of living that filled her whole soul and made her +gratitude to me partake almost of the nature of adoration. I think it was +years before she could see me without recalling the whole scene so vividly +that tears would fill her eyes. Often she would suddenly seize both my +hands in hers, kiss them and say, "Oh! but for these dear, strong, brave +little hands, where should I be!" And whenever we parted for a length of +time she was overshadowed by presentiment. "I know it is superstitious and +silly," she would say, "but I cannot shake off the feeling that I am safer +in the same town with you. I believe if any harm were to threaten me you +would be near." + +But the story I am to tell now is not the story of Dora Maynard's life +after I knew her, nor of our friendship and love for each other, rare and +beautiful as they were. It is the story of her girlhood, and of the +strange wood-carving which stood on the gilded table in the bed of purple +anemones. + +One morning in April, as I climbed the long stone stairs which led to her +apartment, I met Anita, the flower-woman who carried flowers to her every +day. Anita looked troubled. + +"What is the matter, my Anita?" said I; "is the Signora ill?" + +"Ah no, thank the Blessed Virgin!" said Anita; "the dearest, most +beautiful of Signoras is well, but I am obliged to tell her to-day that +there are no more anemones. Biagio went yesterday to the farthest corner +of the Villa Doria, to a dark shady spot beyond the Dove-Cote, which the +strangers know not, hoping to find some; but the heavy rains had beaten +them all down--there is no longer one left. And the Signora had tears in +her eyes when I told her; and she did not care for all the other beautiful +flowers; she said none of them could go on the gold table; never yet has +the Signora put any flowers on the gold table except the purple anemones," +and real tears stood in old Anita's eyes. + +"Why, Anita," said I, "I am sure some other flowers would look very pretty +there. I do not believe the Signora will be unhappy about it." + +Anita shook her head and half smiled with a look of pitying compassion. + +"But, Signora, you do not know; that dearest and most beautiful of +Signoras has visions from the angels about her flowers. Holy Virgin! if +she would but come and hang flowers around the Bambino in our church! None +of the Holy Sisters can so weave them as she does; she makes Festa forever +in the house for the Signor; and I think, Signora," crossing herself and +looking sharply at me, "perhaps the gold table is the shrine of her +religion: does the Signora know?" + +I could not help laughing. "Oh no, Anita," I said; "we do not have shrines +in our religion." + +Anita's face clouded. "Iddio mio!" she said, "but the Virgin will keep the +dearest Signora Maynardi. Biagio and I have vowed to keep a candle always +burning for her in Ara Coeli! The dearest, most beautiful of Signoras;" +and Anita walked disconsolately on, down the stairs. + +I found Dora kneeling before the "gold table," arranging great masses of +maiden-hair fern around the wood carving and in the shelf below. As I saw +the rapt and ecstatic expression of her face, I understood why Anita had +believed the gold table to be a shrine. + +"They do not suit it like the anemones," said she, sadly; "and I can have +no more anemones this year." + +"So poor Anita told me just now on the stairs," replied I. "She was almost +crying, she was so sorry she could not get them for you. But I am sure, +dear, the ferns are beautiful on it. I think the pale green looks even +better than the purple with the gold and the pale yellow wood." + +"I like the purple best," said Dora; "besides, we always had purple at +home," and her eyes filled with tears. Then, turning suddenly to me, she +said, "Why have you never asked me what this is? I know you must have +wondered: it looks so strange--this poor little clumsy bit of American +pine, on my gilt table shrined with flowers!" + +"Yes, I have wondered, I acknowledge, for I could not make out the +design," I replied; "but I thought it might have some story connected with +it, which you would tell me if you wished I should know. I did not think +it clumsy; I think it is fantastic, and has a certain sort of weird +life-likeness about it." + +"Do you really think it has any life-like look about it?" and Dora's face +flushed with pleasure. "I think so, but I supposed nobody else could see +anything in it. No one of my acquaintance has ever alluded to it," +continued she, half laughing, half crying, "but I see them trying to +scrutinize it slyly when they are not observed. As for poor old Anita, I +believe she thinks it is our Fetish. She walks round it on tiptoe with her +hands clasped on her apron." + +"But now," she continued, "I will show you the same design in something +else;" and she led the way through her own bedroom to Robert's, which was +beyond. On the threshold she paused, and kissing me, said: "If you can +stay with me to-day, I will tell you the whole story, dear; but I want you +to look at this chintz first." Then she walked to the window, and drawing +out one of the curtains to its full width, held it up for me to see. It +was a green and white chintz, evidently of cheap quality. At first I did +not distinguish any meaning in the pattern; presently I saw that the +figures were all of vines and vine-leaves, linked in a fantastic fashion +together, like those in the wood-carving on the gold table. + +"Oh, yes," I said, "I see; it is exactly like the carving, only it looks +different, being on a flat surface." + +Dora did not speak; she was gazing absently at the chintz she held in her +hand. Her face looked as if her soul were miles and years away. Presently +I saw a tear roll down her cheek. I touched her hand. She started, and +smiling sweetly, said: "Oh! forgive me. Don't think I am crying for any +sorrow; it is for joy. I am so happy, and my life has been so wonderful. +Now would you really have patience to listen to a long story?" she said, +beseechingly; "a long story all about me--and--Robert? I have been +wanting to tell you ever since I knew you. I think you ought to know all +about us." + +For my answer, I sank into a large chair, drew her down into my lap, and +said: "Begin, you dearest child. Nothing could give me such pleasure. +Begin at the beginning." + +She slipped from my lap to a low footstool at my feet, and resting both +her arms on my knees in a graceful way she had, looked up into my face, +and began by a sentence which made me start. + +"I used to work in a factory." My start was so undisguised, so +uncontrollable, that Dora drew back and her cheeks turned red. + +"Perhaps I ought to have told you before." + +"Oh, my dear, beautiful, marvellous child!" I exclaimed; "you cannot so +misjudge me. I was startled only because you had always seemed to me so +much like one born to all possible luxury. I supposed you had been +nurtured on beauty." + +"So I have been," she replied, earnestly, smiling through tears; +"nevertheless, three years ago I was working in a factory in America." + +I did not interrupt her again; hour after hour passed by; not until +twilight was deepening into dusk did the story come to end. I shall try to +give it in Dora's own words--their simplicity adds so much to it; but I +cannot give the heightened effect with which they fell upon my ears as I +looked down into her sweet child-woman's face. + +"I do not remember much about mamma. It is strange, too, that I do not, +because I was thirteen when she died; but I always loved papa best, and +stayed all the time I could in his study. Mamma was very pretty; the +prettiest woman I ever saw; but I don't know how it was, all her +prettiness did not seem to make papa care about her. He was a +clergyman--an Episcopal clergyman--and his father and his father's father +had been too; so you see for three whole generations it had been all books +and study in the family; but mamma's father was a farmer, and mamma was +stronger than papa; she liked to live in the country and be out of doors, +which he hated. I think I know now just how it all was; but it used to +puzzle me till I grew up. When I was sixteen, my Aunt Abby, papa's sister, +told me that mamma was said to be the most beautiful girl in the whole +State, and that papa fell so in love with her when he was just out of +college, that he came very near dying because his father did not wish them +to be married. Poor papa! it was just so always with him; he had such a +poor feeble body that any trouble or worry made him ill. I can see now +that it was because he and all his family had been such scholars, and +lived in the house, and sat still all their lives; their bodies were not +good for anything: and I am thankful enough that my body is like mamma's; +but I don't know what good it would do me, either, if dear papa hadn't +taught me all his ways of seeing things and feeling things. Mamma never +seemed to care much about anything, except when Dick or Abby were sick, +and she always used to go to sleep in church while papa was saying the +most beautiful things; sometimes it used to make me almost hate her. I +hated everybody that didn't listen to him. But Aunt Abby said once that +very few people could understand him, and that was the reason we never +stayed long in one place. People got tired of hearing him preach. This +made me so angry I did not speak to Aunt Abby for two years, except when I +was obliged to. But I see now that she was right. As I read over papa's +sermons I see that they would seem very strange to common men and women. +He saw much more in every little thing than people generally do. I used to +tell him sometimes he 'saw double,' and he would sigh and say that the +world was blind, and did not see half; he never could take any minute by +itself; there was the past to cripple it and the future to shadow it. +Poor, poor papa! I really think I have learned in a very strange way to +understand his capacity for sadness. I understand it by my own capacity +for joy. I often smile to think how I used to accuse him of seeing double, +for it is the very thing which Robert says to me again and again when a +sight or a sound gives me such intense pleasure that I can hardly bear it. +And I see that while I have nearly the same sensitiveness to all +impressions from things or from people which he had, my body compels the +impressions to be joyous. This is what I owe mamma. If papa could have +been well and strong, he would have sung joy such as no poet has ever sung +since suns began to shine. + +"But most that he wrote was sad; and I am afraid most that he taught the +people was sad too, or, at any rate, not hopeful as it ought to be in this +beautiful, blessed world, which 'God so loved' and loves. So perhaps it +was better for people that papa never preached in any one parish more than +three or four years. Probably God took care to send next a man who would +make everybody take courage again. However, it was very hard for mamma, +and very hard for us; although for us there was excitement and fun in +getting into new houses and getting acquainted with new people; but the +worst thing was that we had very little money, and it used it up so to +move from place to place, and buy new things. I knew all about this before +I was ten years old as well as if I had been forty; and by the time I was +twelve, I was a perfect little miser of both clothes and money--I had such +a horror of the terrible days, which sometimes came, when we sorely wanted +both. + +"Early in the spring after I was thirteen--my birthday was in December--we +went to live in a little place called Maynard's Mills. It was a suburban +village near the largest manufacturing town in the State. The other two +homes which I could remember had been very small country villages, where +none of the people were rich, and only a few attended the Episcopal +church. In Maynard's Mills there were many rich people, and almost +everybody went to our church. The whole place was owned by Mr. Maynard, +Robert's father. He had gone out there to live near his mills, and the +place was so beautiful that family after family of the rich mill-owners +had moved out there. At first they used to go into town to church; but it +was a long drive, cold in winter and hot in summer, and so Mr. Maynard +built a beautiful chapel near his house and sent for papa to come and +preach in it. Mr. Maynard had been his classmate in college and loved him +very much, just because they were 'so different,' papa said, and I think +it must have been so, for Mr. Maynard is the merriest man I ever saw. He +laughs as soon as he sees you, whether there is anything to laugh at or +not, and he makes you feel just like laughing yourself, simply by asking +you how you do. I never saw papa so happy as he was the day Mr. Maynard's +letter came asking him to go there. + +"It was a very kind letter, and the salary, of which Mr. Maynard spoke +almost apologetically, saying that it would be increased in a few years as +the village grew, was more than twice as large as papa had ever received, +and there was a nice parsonage besides. + +"We moved in April. I always associate our moving with blue hepaticas, for +I carried a great basketful of them, which I had taken up roots and all, +in the woods, the morning we set out; and what should I find under papa's +study window but a great thicket of wild ferns and cornel bushes +growing--just the place for my hepaticas, and I set them out before I went +into the house. The house was very small, but it was so pretty that papa +and I were perfectly happy in it. Poor mamma did not like the closets and +the kitchen. The house we had left was a huge, old-fashioned house, with +four square rooms on a floor; one of these was the kitchen, and mamma +missed it very much. But she lived only a few days after we moved in. I +never knew of what disease she died. She was ill but a few hours and +suffered great pain. They said she had injured herself in some way in +lifting the furniture. It was all so sudden and so terrible, and we were +surrounded by such confusion and so many strange faces, that I do not +remember anything about it distinctly. I remember the funeral, and the +great masses of white and purple flowers all over the table on which the +coffin stood, and I remember how strangely papa's face looked. + +"And then Aunt Abby came to live with us, and we settled down into such a +new, different life, that it seemed to me as if it had been in some other +world that I had known mamma. My sister Abby was two years old, and my +darling brother Nat was ten, when mamma died. It is very hard to talk +about dear Nat, I love him so. He is so precious, and his sorrow is so +sacred, that I am hardly willing to let strangers pity him, ever so +tenderly. When he was a baby he sprang out of mamma's lap, one day, as she +was reaching up to take something from the mantel piece. He fell on the +andiron-head and injured his spine so that he could never walk. He is +twenty years old now; his head and chest and arms are about as large as +those of a boy of sixteen, but all the rest of his poor body is shrunken +and withered; he has never stood upright, and he cannot turn himself in +his chair or bed. But his head and face are beautiful. It is not only I +who think so. Artists have seen him sitting at the window, or being drawn +about in his little wagon, and have begged permission to paint his face, +for the face of a saint or of a hero, in their pictures. It is the face of +both saint and hero; and after all that must be always so, I think; for +how could a man be one without being the other? I know some very brave men +have been very bad men, but I do not call them heroes. Nat is the only +hero I ever knew; if I were a poet I would write a poem about him. It +should be called 'THE CROWNLESS KING.' Oh, how he _does_ reign over +suffering, and loss, and humiliation, and what a sweet kingdom spreads out +around him wherever he is! He does everybody good, and everybody loves +him. Poor papa used to say sometimes, 'My son is a far better preacher +than I; see, I sit at his feet to learn;' and it was true. Even when he +was a little fellow Nat used to keep up papa's courage. Many a time, when +papa looked dark and sad, Nat would call to him, 'Dear papa, will you +carry me up and down a little while by the window? I want the sky.' Then, +while they were walking, Nat would say such sweet things about the beauty +of the sky, and the delight it gave him to see it, that the tears would +come into papa's eyes, and he would say, 'Who would think that we could +ever forget for a moment this sky which is above us?' and he would go away +to his study comforted. + +"As I said, when mamma died, Nat was ten and I was thirteen. From that +time I took all the care of him. Aunt Abby, was not strong, and she did +not love children. She was just, and she meant to be always kind to us; +but that sort of kindness is quite different from loving-kindness. Poor +Nat never could bear to have her do anything for him, and so it very soon +came about that I took all the care of him. It was not hard, for he was +never ill; he suffered constant pain but in spite of it he was always +cheerful, always said he felt well, and never had any of the small +ailments and diseases which healthy children are apt to have. 'I +shouldn't know what to do without the ache, Dot,' he said to me one day +when he was only twelve years old. 'I've got so used to it, I should miss +it as much as I should miss you said it helps me to be good. I don't think +I should dare have it go away.' A few years later he wrote some lovely +little verses called 'The Angel of Pain,' which I will show you. Our life +after mamma died was very happy and peaceful. It makes me grieve for her, +even now, to think how little she was missed. We had all loved her. She +was always pleasant and good, and took the best possible care of us and of +everything; but she was not one of those persons whose presence makes +itself necessary to people. It seems hardly right to say such a thing, but +I really think papa seemed more cheerful without her, after the first. I +think that while she lived he was always groping and reaching after +something in her which did not exist. The hourly sight of her reminded him +hourly of his ideal of what a wife might be, and he was forever hoping +that she might come a little nearer to it--enter a little more into his +world of thought and feeling. This is how it has looked to me since I have +been married, and can understand just how terrible it must be to have the +person whom you love best, disappoint you in any way. + +"Nat was in all my classes in school. Although he was three years younger +he was much cleverer than I, and had had nothing to do, poor dear, all his +life, but lie in his chair and read. I used to draw him to and from school +in a little wagon; the boys lifted it up and down the steps so carefully +it did not jar him; and papa had a special desk built for him, so high +that part of the wagon could roll under it, and the lid could rest just +wherever Nat needed it for writing or studying. When we went home, there +was always a sort of procession with us; a good many of the children had +to go in the same direction, but many went simply to walk by Nat's wagon +and talk with him. Whenever there was a picnic or a nutting frolic, we +always took him; the boys took turns in drawing him; nobody would hear a +word of his staying at home; he used to sit in his wagon and look on while +the rest played, and sometimes he would be left all alone for a while, but +his face was always the happiest one there. At school the boys used to +tell him everything, and leave things to his decision. Almost every day, +somebody would call out, at recess or intermission, 'Well, I'll leave it +to Nat'--or 'I'll tell Nat.' One day somebody shouted, 'Take it before the +king--let's call him King Nat.' But it almost made Nat cry. He exclaimed, +'Oh, boys, please don't ever say that again;' and they never did. He had a +great deal more influence over them than any teacher. He could make them +do anything. Sometimes the teachers themselves used to come to him +privately and tell him of things they did not like, which the boys were +getting into the way of doing, and ask him to try to stop them. If Nat had +not been a saint, as I said before, all this would have spoiled him; but +he never thought of its being any special power in him. He used to think +it was only because the boys were so kind-hearted that they could not bear +to refuse any request which a poor cripple made. + +"When I think how happy those days were and how fast the darkest days of +our lives were drawing near, it makes me shrink from happiness almost as +much as from grief. It seems only grief's forerunner. On the evening of my +sixteenth birthday, we were all having a very merry time in papa's study, +popping corn over the open fire. We had wheeled Nat near the fire, and +tied the corn-popper on a broom-handle, so that he could shake the popper +himself; and I never saw him laugh so heartily at anything. Papa laughed +too, quite loud, which was a thing that did not happen many times a year. +It was the last time we heard the full sound of dear papa's voice. Late +that night he was called out to see a poor man, one of the factory +operatives, who was dying. It was a terrible snow-storm, and papa had been +so heated over the fire and in playing with us that he took a severe cold. +The next morning he could not speak aloud. The doctor said it was an acute +bronchitis and would pass off; but it did not, and in a very few weeks it +was clear that he was dying of consumption. Probably the cold only +developed a disease which had been long there. + +"I can't tell you about the last months of papa's life. I think I shall +never be able to speak of them. We saw much worse days afterward, but none +that seemed to me so hard to bear; even when I thought Nat and I would +have to go to the almshouse it was not so hard. The love which most +children divide between father and mother I concentrated on my father. I +loved him with an adoration akin to that which a woman feels for her +husband, and with the utmost of filial love added. Nat loved him almost as +much. The most touching thing I ever saw was to see Nat from his wagon, +or wheeled chair, reaching out to take care of papa in the bed. Nobody +else could give him his medicine so well; nobody could prepare his meals +for him, after he was too weak to use a knife and fork, so well as Nat. +How he could do all this with only one hand--for he could not bend himself +in his chair enough to use the hand farthest from the bed--nobody could +understand; but he did, and the very last mouthful of wine papa swallowed +he took, the morning he died, from poor Nat's brave little hand, which did +not shake nor falter, though the tears were rolling down his cheeks. + +"Papa lived nearly a year; but the last nine months he was in bed, and he +never spoke a loud word after that birthday night when we had been so +happy in the study. He died in November, on a dreary stormy day. I never +shall forget it. He had seemed easier that morning, and insisted on our +all going out to breakfast together and leaving him alone, the doors being +open between the study and the dining-room. We had hardly seated ourselves +at the table when his bell rang. Aunt Abby reached him first. It could not +have been a minute, but he did not know her. For the first and only time +in my life I forgot Nat, and was out of the room when I heard him sob. +Dear Nat! not even then would he think of himself. I turned back. 'Oh, +don't stop to take me, Dot,' he said. 'Run!' But I could not; and when I +reached the door, pushing his chair before me, all was over. However, the +doctor said that, even if we had been there at the first, papa could not +have bid us good-by; that the death was from instantaneous suffocation, +and that he probably had no consciousness of it himself. Papa's life had +been insured for five thousand dollars and he had saved, during the three +years we had lived at Maynard's Mills, about one thousand more. This was +all the money we had in the world. + +"Mr. Maynard had been very kind throughout papa's illness. He had +persuaded the church to continue the salary; every day he had sent +flowers, and grapes, and wine, and game, and everything he could think of +that papa could eat; and, what was kindest of all, he had come almost +every day to talk with him and cheer him up. But he did not mean to let +his kindness stop here. The day after the funeral he came to see us, to +propose to adopt me. I forgot to say that Aunt Abby was to be married soon +and would take little Abby with her; so they were provided for, and the +only question was about Nat and me. + +"Fortunately, dear Nat was in the dining-room and did not see Mr. Maynard +when he came. I have told you what a merry man Mr. Maynard is, and how +kind he is, but he is also a very obstinate and high-tempered man. He had +never loved Nat; I do not know why; I think he was the only human being +who ever failed to love him. He pitied him, of course; but he was so +repelled by his deformity that he could not love him. As soon as Mr. +Maynard said, 'Now, my dear child, you must come to my house and make it +your home always,' I saw that he intended to separate me from Nat. + +"I replied, 'I cannot leave Nat, Mr. Maynard. I thank you very much; you +are very good; but it would break my heart to leave him, and I am sure +papa would never forgive me if I should do it.' + +"He made a gesture of impatience. He had foreseen this, and come prepared +for it; but he saw that I promised to prove even more impracticable than +he had feared. + +"'You have sacrificed your whole life already to that miserable +unfortunate boy,' he said, 'and I always told your father he ought not to +permit it.' + +"At this I grew angry, and I replied:-- + +"'Mr. Maynard, Nat does more for us all, every hour of his life, than we +ever could do for him: dear papa used to say so too.' + +"No doubt papa had said this very thing to Mr. Maynard often, for tears +came into his eyes and he went on:-- + +"'I know, I know--he is a wonderful boy, and we might all learn a lesson +of patience from him; but I can't have the whole of your life sacrificed +to him. I will provide for him amply; he shall have every comfort which +money can command.' + +"'But where?' said I. + +"'In an institution I know of, under the charge of a friend of mine.' + +"'A hospital!' exclaimed I; and the very thought of my poor Nat, who had +been the centre of a loving home-circle, of a merry school playground, +ever since he could remember--the very thought of his finding himself +alone among diseased people, and tended by hired attendants, so overcame +me that I burst into floods of tears. + +"Mr. Maynard, who hated the presence of tears and suffering, as mirthful +people always do, rose at once and said kindly, 'Poor child, you are not +strong enough to talk it over yet; but as your aunt must go away so soon, +I thought it better to have it all settled at once.' + +"'It is settled, Mr. Maynard,' said I, in a voice that half frightened me. +'I shall never leave Nat--never, so long as I live.' + +"'Then you'll do him the greatest unkindness you can--that's all,' replied +Mr. Maynard angrily, and walked out of the room. I locked myself up in my +own room and thought the whole matter over. How I could earn my own living +and Nat's, I did not know. We should have about four hundred dollars a +year. I had learned enough in my childhood of poverty to know that we need +not starve while we had that; but simply not starving is a great way off +from really living; and I felt convinced that it would be impossible for +me to keep up courage or hope unless I could contrive, in some way, to +earn money enough to surround our home with at least a semblance of the +old atmosphere. We must have books; we must have a flower sometimes; we +must have sun and air. + +"At last an inspiration came to me. Down stairs, in the saddened empty +study, sat little Miss Penstock, the village dressmaker, sewing on our +gloomy black dresses. She lived all alone in a very small house near Mr. +Maynard's mill. I remembered that I had heard her say how lonely she found +it living by herself since her married sister, who used to live with her, +had gone to the West. Since then, Miss Penstock had sometimes consented to +go for a few days at a time to sew in the houses of her favorite +employers, just to keep from forgetting how to speak,' the poor little +woman said. But she disliked very much to do this. She was a gentlewoman; +and though she accepted with simple dignity the necessity of earning her +bread, it was bitterly disagreeable to her to sit as a hired sewer in +other people's houses. She liked to come to our house better than to any +other. We also were poor. My Aunt Abby was a woman of great simplicity, +and a quiet, stately humility, like Miss Penstock's own; and they enjoyed +sitting side by side whole days, sewing in silence. Miss Penstock had +always spoken with a certain sort of tender reverence to Nat, and I +remembered that he liked to be in the room where she sewed. All these +thoughts passed through my mind in a moment. I sprang to my feet and +exclaimed, 'That is it--that is it!' and I ran hastily down to the study. +Miss Penstock was alone there. She looked up in surprise at my +breathlessness and my red eyes. I knelt down by her side and took the work +out of her hands. + +"'Dear Miss Penstock,' said I, 'would you rent part of your house?' + +"She looked up reflectively, took off her spectacles with her left hand, +and tapped her knees slowly with them, as she always did when puzzling +over a scanty pattern. + +"'I don't know, Dora, but I might; I've thought of it; it's awful lonely +for me as 'tis. But it's such a risk taking in strangers; is it any +friends of yours you're thinking of?' + +"'Nat and me,' said I, concisely. Miss Penstock's spectacles dropped from +her fingers, and she uttered an ejaculation I never heard from her lips on +any other occasion. 'Good Heavens!' + +"'Yes,' said I, beginning to cry, 'Nat and me! I've got to take care of +Nat, and if you would only let us live with you I think I could manage +beautifully.' Then I told her the whole story of Mr. Maynard's proposal. +While we were talking Aunt Abby came in. The problem was no new one to +her. Papa and she had talked it over many a time in the course of the past +sad year. It seemed that he had had to the last a strong hope that Mr. +Maynard would provide for us both. Poor papa! as he drew near the next +world, all the conventionalities and obligations of this seemed so small +to him, he did not shrink from the thought of dependence upon others as he +would have done in health. + +"'But I always told him,' said Aunt Abby, 'that Mr. Maynard wasn't going +to do anything for Nat beyond what money'd do. He'd give him a thousand a +year, or two, if need be, but he'd never set eyes on him if he could help +it.' + +"'Aunt Abby,' exclaimed I, 'please don't say another word about Mr. +Maynard's helping Nat. I'd die before Nat should touch a cent of his +money.' + +"'There is no use talking that way,' said Aunt Abby, whose tenderest +mercies were often cruelly worded. 'Mr. Maynard's a good, generous man, +and I'm sure he's been the saving of us all. But that's no reason he +should set up to take you away from Nat now; and I know well enough Nat +can't live without you; but I don't see how it's to be managed. And Aunt +Abby sighed. Then I told her my plans; they grew clearer and clearer to me +as I unfolded them; the two gentle-faced spinster women looked at me with +surprise. Miss Penstock wiped her eyes over and over. + +"'If I could only be sure I wasn't going against your best interests to +let you come,' said she. + +"'Oh, Miss Penstock,' exclaimed I, 'don't think so--don't dare to say no +for that reason; for I tell you, I shall go away to some other town with +Nat if you don't take us; there is no other house here that would do; +think how much better it would be for Nat to stay among friends.' + +"'It's lucky I am their guardian,' said Aunt Abby, with an unconscious +defiance in her tone. 'There can't anybody hinder their doing anything I +am willing to have them do. My brother wanted to have Mr. Maynard, too; +but I told him no; I'd either be whole guardian or none.' + +"'I think good Aunt Abby had had a dim foreboding that Mr. Maynard's +kindness might take a shape which it would be hard to submit to. Great as +her gratitude was, her family pride resented dictation, and resented also +the implied slight to poor Nat. As I look back now, I can see that, except +for this reaction of feeling, she never would have consented so easily to +my undertaking all I undertook, in going to housekeeping alone with that +helpless child, on four hundred dollars a year. Before night it was all +settled, and Miss Penstock went home two hours before her time, 'so +stirred up, somehow,' as she said, 'to think of those blessed children's +coming to live in my house, I couldn't see to thread a needle.' After tea +Mr. Maynard came again: Aunt Abby saw him alone. When she came up-stairs +she had been crying, but her lips were closed more rigidly than I ever saw +them. Aunt Abby could be as determined as Mr. Maynard. All she said to me +of the interview was, 'I don't know now as he'll really give in that he +can't have things as he wants to. For all his laughing and for all his +goodness, I don't believe he is any too comfortable to live with. I +shouldn't wonder if he never spoke to one of us again.' + +"But Mr. Maynard was too well-bred a man for any such pettiness as that. +His resentment showed itself merely in a greater courtesy than ever, +combined with a careful absence of all inquiries as to our plans. It hurt +me very much, for I knew how it would have hurt dear papa. But I knew, +too, that I was right and Mr. Maynard was wrong, and that comforted me. + +"Four weeks from the day papa was buried, the pretty parsonage was locked +up, cold, dark, empty. Aunt Abby had gone with little Abby to her new +home, and Nat and I were settled at Miss Penstock's. The night before we +moved, Mr. Maynard left a note at the door for me. It contained five +hundred dollars and these words:-- + +"'Miss Dora will not refuse to accept this from one who hoped to be her +father.' + +"But I could not take it. I sent it back to him with a note like this:-- + +"'DEAR MR. MAYNARD:--I shall never forget that you were willing to be my +father, and I shall always be grateful to you; but I cannot take money +from one who is displeased with me for doing what I think right. I promise +you, however, for papa's sake and for Nat's, that if I ever need help I +will ask it of you, and not of any one else.' + + * * * * * + +"The next time I saw Mr. Maynard he put both his hands on my shoulders and +said: 'You are a brave girl; I wish I could forgive you; but remember your +promise.' And that was the last word Mr. Maynard spoke to me for three +years. + +"Our new home was so much pleasanter than we supposed it could be, that at +first, in spite of our grief, both Nat and I were almost gay. It was like +a sort of picnic, or playing at housekeeping. The rooms were sunny and +cozy. Rich people in splendid houses do not dream how pleasant poor +people's little rooms can be, if the sun shines in and there are a few +pretty things. We kept all the books which could ever be of use to Nat, +and a picture of the Sistine Madonna which Mr. Maynard had given us on the +last Christmas Day, and papa's and mamma's portraits. The books, and +these, made our little sitting-room look like home. We had only two rooms +on the first floor; one of these was a tiny one, but it held our little +cooking-stove and a cupboard, with our few dishes; the other we called +'sitting-room;' it had to be dear Nat's bedroom also, because he could not +be carried up and down stairs. But I made a chintz curtain, which shut off +his bed from sight, and really made the room look prettier, for I put it +across a corner and had a shelf put up above it, on which Nat's stuffed +owl sat. My room was over Nat's, and a cord went up from his bed to a +bell over mine, so that he could call me at any moment if he wanted +anything in the night. Then we had one more little chamber, in which we +kept the boxes of papa's sermons, and some trunks of old clothes, and +things which nobody wanted to buy at the auction, and papa's big chair and +writing-table. We would not sell those. I thought perhaps some day we +should have a house of our own--I could not imagine how; but if we did we +should be glad of that chair and table, and so Aunt Abby let us keep them, +though they were of handsome wood, beautifully carved, and would have +brought a good deal of money. For these four rooms we paid Miss Penstock +three dollars a month; the rent would have been a dollar a week, but she +said it was really worth a dollar a month to her to have people who would +not trouble her nor hurt the house; and as Aunt Abby thought so too, I +believed her. + +"My plan was to have Nat keep on at school, and to take in sewing myself, +or to work for Miss Penstock. For the first year all went so smoothly that +I was content. I used to draw Nat to and from school twice a day, and that +gave me air and exercise. Everybody was very kind in giving me sewing, and +I earned four and five dollars a week. We did not have to buy any clothes, +and so we laid up a little money. But the next year people did not give me +so much sewing; they had given it to me the first year because they were +sorry for us, but now they had forgotten. Very often I would sit idle a +whole week, with no work. Then I used to read and study, but I could not +enjoy anything, because I was so worried. I felt that trouble was coming. +Early in the fall dear Nat was taken ill--the first illness of his life. +It was a slow fever. He was ill for three months. I often wonder how I +lived through those months. When he recovered he seemed better than ever. +The doctor said he had passed a sort of crisis and would always be +stronger for it. The doctor was very kind. Several nights he sat up with +Nat and made me go to bed, and he would not let me pay him a cent, though +he came every day for weeks. When I urged him to let us pay the bill he +grew half angry, and said, 'Do you think I am going to take money from +your father's daughter?' and then I felt more willing to take it for +papa's sake. But the medicines had cost a great deal, and I had not earned +anything; and so, at the end of the second year, we had been obliged to +take quite a sum out of our little capital. I did not tell Nat, and I did +not go to Mr. Maynard. I went on from day to day, in a sort of stupor, +wondering what would happen next. I was seventeen years old, but I knew of +nothing I could do except to sew; I did not know enough to teach. All this +time I never once thought of the mills. I used to watch the men and women +going in and out, and envy them, thinking how sure they were of their +wages; and yet it never crossed my mind that I could do the same thing. I +am afraid it was unconscious pride which prevented my thinking of it. + +"But the day came. It was in the early spring. I had been to the +grave-yard to set out some fresh hepaticas on papa's grave. His grave and +mamma's were in an inclosure surrounded by a high, thick hedge of pines +and cedars close to the public street As I knelt down, hidden behind the +trees, I heard steps and voices. They paused opposite me. The persons were +evidently looking over the fence. Then I distinguished the voice of our +kind doctor. + +"'Poor Kent!' he said, 'how it would distress him to see his children now! +That Nat barely pulled through his fever; but he seems to have taken a new +turn since then and is stronger than ever. But I am afraid they are very +poor.' + +"To my astonishment, the voice that replied was Mr. Maynard's. + +"'Of course they are,' said he impatiently; 'but nobody will ever have a +chance to help them till the last cent's gone. That Dora would work her +fingers off in the mills rather than ask or receive help.' + +"'But good heavens! Maynard, you'd never stand by and see Tom Kent's +daughter in the mills?' exclaimed the doctor. + +"I could not hear the reply, for they were walking away. But the words 'in +the mills' rang in my ears. A new world seemed opening before me. I had no +particle of false pride; all I wanted was to earn money honestly. I could +not understand why I had never thought of this way. I knew that many of +the factory operatives, who were industrious and economical, supported +large families of children on their wages. 'It would be strange enough if +I could not support Nat and myself,' thought I, and I almost ran home, I +was so glad. I said nothing to Nat; I knew instinctively that it would +grieve him. + +"The next day after I left him at school I went to the largest mill and +saw the overseer. He was a coarse, disagreeable man; but he had known my +father and he treated me respectfully. He said they could not give me very +good wages at first; but if I learned readily, and was skillful in tending +the looms, I might in time make a very good living. The sums that he named +seemed large, tried by my humble standard. Even at the beginning I should +earn more than I had been able to for many months at my needle. After tea +I told Nat. He lay very still for some moments; the tears rolled down his +cheeks; then he reached up both hands and drew my face down to his, and +said, 'Dear sister, it would be selfish to make it any harder for you than +it must be at best. But oh, Dot, Dot! do you think you can dream what it +is for me to have to lie here and be such a burden on you?' + +"'Oh, Nat!' I said, 'if you don't want to break my heart, don't speak so. +I don't have to earn any more for two than I should have to alone; it does +not cost anything for you; and if it did, you darling, don't you know that +I could not live without you? you are all I have got in the world.' Nat +did not reply; but all that evening his face looked as I never saw it +before. Nat was fifteen; instinct was beginning to torture him with a +man's sense of his helplessness, and it was almost more than even his +childlike faith and trust could bear. + +"The next day I told Miss Penstock. She had been as kind to us as a mother +through this whole year and a half, and I really think we had taken the +place of children in her lonely old heart. But she never could forget that +we were her minister's children; she always called me Miss Dora, and does +to this day. She did not interrupt me while I told her my plan, but the +color mounted higher and higher in her face. As soon as I stopped +speaking, she exclaimed:-- + +"'Dora Kent, are you mad--a girl with a face like yours to go into the +mills? you don't know what you're about.' + +"'Yes I do, dear Pennie,' I said (Nat had called her Pennie ever since his +sickness, when she had taken tender care of him night and day). 'I know +there are many rude, bad men there, but I do not believe they will trouble +me. At any rate I can but try. I must earn more money, Pennie; you know +that as well as I do.' + +"She did indeed know it; but it was very hard for her to give approbation +to this scheme. It was not until after a long argument that I induced her +to promise not to write to Aunt Abby till I had tried the experiment for +one month. + +"The next day I went to the mill. Everything proved much better than I had +feared. Some of the women in the room in which I was placed had belonged +to papa's Sunday-school, and they were all very kind to me, and told the +others who I was; so from the outset I felt myself among friends. In two +weeks I had grown used to the work; the noise of the looms did not +frighten or confuse me, and it did not tire me to stand so many hours. I +found that I should soon be able to do most of my work mechanically, and +think about what I pleased in the mean time. So I hoped to be able to +study at home and recite my lessons to myself in the mill. The only thing +that troubled me was that I could not take Nat to and from school, and he +had to be left alone sometimes. But I found a very pleasant and faithful +Irish boy, who was glad to earn a little money by drawing him back and +forth, often staying with him after school till I came home at six +o'clock. This boy was the son of the Irish gardener on the overseer's +place. The overseer was an Englishman; his name was Wilkins. He is the +only human being I ever disliked so that it was hard to speak to him. His +brother, too, the agent who had charge of all Mr. Maynard's business, was +almost as disagreeable as he. They both looked like bloated frogs; their +wide, shapeless mouths, flat noses, and prominent eyes, made me shudder +when I looked at them. + +"Little Patrick soon grew fond of Nat, as everybody did who came into +close contact with him; and he used often to stay at our house till late +at night, hearing Nat's stories, and watching him draw pictures on the +blackboard. One of the things I had kept was a great blackboard which papa +had made for him. It was mounted on a stout standard, so that it could be +swung close in front of his chair or wagon, and he would lie there and +draw for hours together. Some of the pictures he drew were so beautiful I +could not bear to have them rubbed out. It seemed almost like killing +things that were alive. Whenever I dared to spend a penny for anything not +absolutely needful, I always bought a sheet of drawing-paper or a crayon; +for Nat would rather have them than anything else in the world--even than +a book--unless the book had pictures. + +"One night, when I went home, I found him sitting up very straight in his +wagon, with his cheeks crimson with excitement. Patrick was with him, and +the table and the whole floor were covered with queer, long, jointed +paste-board sheets, with pieces of gay-colored calicoes, pasted on them. +Patrick looked as excited as Nat, and as soon as I opened the door he +exclaimed, 'Och, Miss Dora, see how he's plazed with um.' I was almost +frightened at Nat's face. 'Why Nat, dear,' said I, 'what are they? I don't +think they are very pretty;' and I picked up one of the queer things and +looked at it. 'The colors are bright and pretty, but I am sure almost all +the patterns are hideous.' + +"'Of course they are,' shouted Nat hysterically. 'That's just it. That's +what pleases me so,' and he burst out crying. I was more frightened still. +Trampling the calicoes under my feet, I ran and knelt by his chair, and +put my arms around him. 'Oh, Nat, Nat, what is the matter?' cried I. +'Patrick, what have you done to him?' Poor Patrick could not speak; he was +utterly bewildered; he began hastily picking up the prints and shuffling +them out of sight. + +"'Don't you touch one!' screamed Nat, lifting up his head again, with +tears rolling down his cheeks. 'Dot, Dot,' he went on, speaking louder and +louder, 'don't you see? those are patterns; Patrick says Mr. Wilkins buys +them. I can earn money too; I can draw a million times prettier ones than +those.' + +"Like lightning the thing flashed through my brain. Of course he could. He +drew better ones every day of his life, by dozens, on the old blackboard, +with crumbling bits of chalk. Again and again I had racked my brains to +devise some method by which he might be taught, as artists are taught, and +learn to put his beautiful conceptions into true shapes for the world to +see. But I knew that materials and instruction were both alike out of our +reach, and I had hoped earnestly that such longing had never entered his +heart. I sat down and covered my face with my hands. + +"'You see, sister,' said Nat in a calmer tone, sobered himself by my +excitement--'you see, don't you?' + +"'Yes, dear, I do see,' said I; 'you will earn much more money than I ever +can, and take care of me, after all.' + +"To our inexperience, it seemed as if a mine had opened at our feet. Poor +Patrick stood still, unhappy and bewildered, twisting one of the +pattern-books in his hand. + +"'An' is it these same that Misther Nat'll be afther tryin' to make?' said +he. + +"'Oh no, Patrick,' said Nat, laughing, 'only the pictures from which these +are to be made.' + +"Then we questioned Patrick more closely. All he knew was that Mr. +Wilkins' sister made many of the drawings; Patrick had seen them lying in +piles on Mr. Wilkins' desk; some of them colored, some of them merely in +ink. The pieces of paper were about the size of these patterns, some six +or eight inches square. + +"'Will I ask Miss Wilkins to come and show yees?' said Patrick. + +"'No, no,' said we both, hastily; 'you must not tell anybody. Of course +she would not want other people to be drawing them too.' + +"'Especially if she can't make anything better than these,' said Nat, +pityingly. Already his tone had so changed that I hardly recognized it. In +that moment the artist-soul of my darling brother had felt its first +breath of the sweetness of creative power. + +"Patrick promised not to speak of it to a human being; as he was going out +of the door he turned back, with a radiant face, and said: 'An 'twas +meself that only thought maybe the calikers'd amuse him for a minnit with +their quare colors,' and he almost somerseted off the door-steps, uttering +an Irish howl of delight. + +"'You've made our fortunes! there'll always be calicoes wanted, and I can +draw fifty patterns a day, and I'll give you half of the first pay I get +for them,' called the excited Nat; but Patrick was off. + +"We sat up till midnight. I was scarcely less overwrought than Nat. He +drew design after design and rejected them as not quite perfect. + +"'You know,' he said, 'I must send something so very good to begin with, +that they can't help seeing at first sight how good it is.' + +"'But not so good that you can't ever make another equal to it,' suggested +I out of my practical but inartistic brain. + +"'No danger of that, Dot,' said Nat, confidently. 'Dot, there isn't +anything in this world I can't make a picture of, if I can have paper +enough, and pencils and paint.' + +"At last he finished three designs which he was willing to send. They +were all for spring or summer dresses. One was a curious block pattern, +the blocks of irregular shapes, but all fitting into each other, and all +to be of the gayest colors. Here and there came a white block with one +tiny scarlet dot upon it; 'That's for a black-haired girl, Dot,' said Nat; +'you couldn't wear it.' + +"The second was a group of ferns tied by a little wreath of pansies; +nothing could be more beautiful. The third was a fantastic mixture of +pine-tassels and acorns. I thought it quite ugly, but Nat insisted on it +that it would be pretty for a summer muslin; and so it was the next year, +when it was worn by everybody, the little plumy pine-tassels of a bright +green (which didn't wash at all), and the acorns all tumbling about on +your lap, all sides up at once. + +"It was one o'clock before we went to bed, and we might as well have sat +up all night, for we did not sleep. The next morning I got up before light +and walked into town, to a shop where they sold paints. I had just time to +buy a box of water-colors and get back to the mill before the bell stopped +ringing. All the forenoon the little white parcel lay on the floor at my +feet. As often as I looked at it, I seemed to see Nat's pictures dancing +on the surface. I had given five dollars for the box; I trembled to think +what a sum that was for us to spend on an uncertainty; but I had small +doubt. At noon I ran home; I ate little dinner--Nat would not touch a +mouthful. 'You must see the pansies and ferns done before you go,' he +said. + +"And before my hour was up they were so nearly done that I danced around +Nat's chair with delight. + +"'I know Mr. Wilkins never saw anything so pretty in his life,' said Nat, +calmly. + +"The thought of Mr. Wilkins was a terrible damper to me. Nat had not seen +him: I had. + +"'Nat,' said I, slowly, 'Mr. Wilkins won't know that it is pretty. He is +not a man; he is a frog, and he looks as if he lied. I believe he will +cheat us.' + +"Nat looked shocked. 'Why Dora, I never in my life heard you speak so. You +shall not take them to him. I will have Patrick take me there.' + +"'No, no, dear,' I exclaimed, 'I would not have you see Mr. Wilkins for +the world. He is horrible. But I am not afraid of him.' + +"I meant that I would not for the world have him see Nat. He was coarse +and brutal enough to be insulting to a helpless cripple, and I knew it. +But Nat did not dream of my reason for insisting so strongly on going +myself, and he finally yielded. + +"I took the pictures to the overseer's office at noon. I knew that 'Agent +Wilkins,' as he was called to distinguish him from his brother, was always +there at that time. He looked up at me, as I drew near the desk, with an +expression which almost paralyzed me with disgust. But for Nat's sake I +kept on. I watched him closely as he looked at the pictures. I thought I +detected a start of surprise, but I could not be sure. Then he laid them +down, saying carelessly, 'I am no judge of these things; I will consult +some one who is, and let you know to-morrow noon if we can pay your +brother anything for the designs.' + +"'Of course you know that the market is flooded with this sort of thing, +Miss Kent,' he added, as I was walking away. I made no reply; I was +already revolving in my mind a plan for taking them to another mill in +town, whose overseer was a brother of one of papa's wardens. The next day +at noon I went to the office; my heart beat fast, but I tried to believe +that I did not hope. Both the brothers were there. The overseer spoke +first, but I felt that the agent watched me sharply. + +"'So your lame brother drew these designs, did he, Miss Dora?' + +"'My brother Nat drew them, sir; I have but one brother, said I, trying +hard to speak civilly. + +"'Well' said he, 'they are really very well done--quite remarkable, +considering that they are the work of a child who has had no instruction; +they would have to be rearranged and altered before we could use them, but +we would like to encourage him and to help you too,' he continued, +patronizingly, 'and so we shall buy them just as they are.' + +"'My brother Nat is not a child,' replied I, 'and we do not wished to be +helped. If the designs are not worth money, will you be so good as to give +them back to me?' and I stepped nearer the desk and stretched out my hand +toward the pictures which were lying there. But Agent Wilkins snatched +them up quickly, and casting an angry glance at his brother, exclaimed:-- + +"'Oh, you quite mistake my brother, Miss Kent; the designs are worth money +and we are glad to buy them; but they are not worth so much as they would +be if done by an experienced hand. We will give you ten dollars for the +three,' and he held out the money to me. Involuntarily I exclaimed, 'I had +not dreamed that they would be worth so much.' Nat could earn then in four +hours' work as much as I could in a week; in that one moment the whole of +life seemed thrown open for us. All my distrust vanished. And when the +agent added, kindly, 'Be sure and bring us all the designs which your +brother makes. I think we shall want to buy as many as he will draw; he +certainly has rare talent,'--I could have fallen on the floor at his feet +to thank him, so grateful did I feel for this new source of income for us, +and still more for the inexpressible pleasure for my poor Nat. + +"From that day Nat was a changed boy. He would not go to school in the +afternoons, but spent the hours from two till five in drawing. I had a +cord arranged from our room to Miss Penstock's, so that he could call her +if at any moment he needed help, and she was only too glad to have him in +the house. When I reached home at six, I always found him lying back in +his chair with his work spread out before him, and such a look of content +and joy on his face, that more than once it made me cry instead of +speaking when I bent over to kiss him. 'Oh, Dot--oh, Dot!' he used to say +sometimes, 'it isn't all for the sake of the money, splendid as that is; +but I do feel as if I should yet do something much better than making +designs for calicoes. I feel it growing in me. Oh, if I could only be +taught; if there were only some one here who could tell me about the +things I don't understand!' + +"'But you shall be taught, dear,' I replied; 'we will lay up all the +money you earn. I can earn enough for us to live on, and then, with your +money, in a few years we can certainly contrive some way for you to +study.' + +"It seemed not too visionary a hope, for Nat's designs grew prettier and +prettier, and the agent bought all I carried him. One week I remember he +paid me thirty dollars; and as he handed it to me, seeing how pleased I +looked, he said,-- + +"'Your brother is getting quite rich, is he not, Miss Kent?' Something +sinister in his smile struck me at that moment as it had not done for a +long time, and I resolved to go more seldom to the office. + +"We did not lay up so much as we hoped to; we neither of us had a trace of +the instinct of economy or saving. I could not help buying a geranium or +fuchsia to set in the windows; Nat could not help asking me to buy a book +or a picture sometimes, and his paints and pencils and brushes and paper +cost a good deal in the course of six months. Still we were very happy and +very comfortable, and the days flew by. Our little room was so cozy and +pretty, that Miss Penstock's customers used often to come in to see it; +and if they happened to come when Nat was there, they almost always sent +him something afterward; so, at the end of two years you never would have +known the bare little room. We had flowers in both windows, and as each +window had sun, the flowers prospered; and we had a great many pretty +pictures on the walls, and Nat's sketches pinned up in all sorts of odd +places. A big beam ran across the ceiling in the middle, and that was +hung full of charcoal sketches, with here and there a sheet just painted +in bars of bright color--no meaning to them, except to 'light up,' Nat +said. I did not understand him then, but I could see how differently all +the rest looked after the scarlet and yellow were put by their side. Some +of our pictures had lovely frames to them, which Nat had carved out of old +cigar-boxes that Patrick brought him. Sometimes he used to do nothing but +carve for a week, and he would say, 'Dot, I do not believe drawing is the +thing I want to do, after all. I want more; I hate to have everything +flat.' Then he would get discouraged and think all he had done was good +for nothing. 'I never can do anything except to draw till I go somewhere +to be taught,' he would say, and turn back to the old calico patterns with +fresh zeal. + +"One day a customer of Miss Penstock's brought Nat a book about grapes, +which had some pictures of the different methods of grape-culture in +different countries. One of these pictures pleased him very much. It +showed the grape-vines looped on low trees, in swinging festoons. He had +the book propped up open at that picture day after day, and kept drawing +it over and over on the blackboard and on paper till I was tired of the +sight of it. It did not seem to me remarkably pretty. But Nat said one +day, when I told him so,-- + +"'It isn't the picture itself, but what I want to make from it. Don't you +see that the trees look a little like dancers whirling round, holding each +other by the hand--one-legged dancers?' + +"I could not see it. 'Well,' said Nat, 'look at this, and see if you can +see it any better;' and he drew out of his portfolio a sheet with a rough +charcoal sketch of six or seven low, gnarled, bare trees, with their +boughs inter-locked in such a fantastic manner that the trees seemed +absolutely reeling about in a crazy dance. I laughed as soon as I saw it. +'There!' said Nat triumphantly; 'now, if I can only get the vines to go +just as I want them to, in and out, you see that will dress up the +dancers.' He worked long over this design. The fancy seemed to have taken +possession of his brain. He gave names to the trees, but he called them +all men: 'It's a jolly crew of old kings,' he said; 'that's Sesostris at +the head, and there's Herod; that old fellow with the gouty stomach under +his left arm.' Nat was now so full of freaks and fun, that our little room +rang with laughter night after night. Patrick used to sit on the floor +sometimes, with his broad Irish mouth stiffened into a perpetual grin at +the sight of the mirth, which, though he could not comprehend it, he found +contagious. + +"'But what will you do with it, Nat?' said I. 'It will never do for a +calico pattern.' + +"'I don't know,' said he reflectively; 'I might make it smaller and hide +the faces, and not make the limbs of the trees look so much like legs, and +call it the "vine pattern," and I guess old Wilkins would think it was +graceful, and I dare say Miss Wilkins would wear it, if nobody else did.' + +"'Oh! Nat, Nat, how can you,' exclaimed I, 'when they have been so good to +pay us so much money?' + +"'I know it,' said Nat, 'it's too bad; I'm ashamed now. But doesn't this +look like the two Wilkins brothers? You said they looked like frogs?' he +ran on, holding up a most ludicrous picture of two tall, lank frogs +standing behind a counter, and stretching out four front legs like greedy +hands across the counter, with a motto coming out of the right-hand frog's +mouth: 'More designs, if you please, Mr. Kent--something light and +graceful for summer wear.' + +"These were the words of a note which Mr. Wilkins had sent to Nat a few +weeks before. I laughed till the tears ran down my cheeks, for really the +frogs did look like the brothers Wilkins. The picture haunted my mind for +weeks afterward, and seemed somehow to revive my old distrust of them. + +"A few days after this Nat had finished a set of designs 'for summer +wear,' as the order said, and among them he had put in the 'One-Legged +Dancers.' + +"'It'll do no harm to try it,' said he. 'I think it would be lovely +printed in bright-green on a white ground, and nobody but you and me would +ever see the kings' legs in it.' + +"It really was pretty; still I could not help seeing legs and heads and +King Herod's stomach in it; and, moreover, it was entirely too large a +figure for that year's fashions in calico or muslin. However, I said +nothing and carried it with the rest. When I went the next day, Mr. +Wilkins said, as he handed me the money,-- + +"'Oh, by the way, Miss Kent, one of the drawings has been mislaid. I +suppose it is of no consequence; we could not use it; it was quite too +large a figure, and seemed less graceful than your brother's work usually +is; it was a picture of grape-vines.' + +"'Oh,' said I, 'I told Nat I didn't believe that would be good for +anything. No, it is not of the least consequence.' + +"When I repeated this to Nat, he did not seem surprised at their refusal +of the design; they had already refused several others in the course of +the year. But he seemed singularly disturbed at the loss of the drawing. +At last he urged me to go and ask if it had not been found. + +"'I may do something with it yet, Dot,' he said. 'I know it is a good +design for something, if not for calico, and I don't believe they have +lost it. It is very queer.' + +"But Mr. Wilkins assured me, with great civility and many expressions of +regret, that the design was lost: that they had made careful search for it +everywhere. + +"The thing would have passed out of my mind in a short time but for Nat's +pertinacious reference to it. Every few days he would say, 'It is very +queer, Dot, about the One-Legged Dancers. How could such a thing be lost? +They never lost a drawing before. I believe Miss Wilkins has got it, and +is going to paint a big picture from it herself!' + +"'Why, Nat!' I exclaimed, 'aren't you ashamed? that would be stealing.' + +"'I don't care, Dot,' he said again and again, 'I never shall believe that +paper was lost.' + +"I grew almost out of patience with him; I never knew him to be unjust to +any one, and it grieved me that he should be so to people who had been our +benefactors. + +"About four months later, one warm day in April, I walked over to the +town after my day's work was done, to buy a gown for myself, and a new box +of paints for Nat. I did not go to town more than two or three times a +year, and the shop-windows delighted me as much as if I had been only +eleven years old. As I walked slowly up and down, looking at everything, I +suddenly started back at the sight of a glossy green and white chintz, +which was displayed conspicuously in the central window of one of the +largest shops. There they were, just as Nat had drawn them on the missing +paper, 'The One-Legged Dancers!' Nat was right. It was a pretty pattern, a +very pretty pattern for a chintz; and there was--I laughed out in spite of +myself, as I stood in the crowd on the sidewalk--yes, there was the ugly +great knot in one of the trees which had made King Herod's stomach. But +what did it mean? No chintzes were made in any of Mr. Maynard's mills, +nor, so far as I knew, in any mill in that neighborhood. I was hot with +indignation. Plainly Nat's instinct had been a true one. The Wilkinses had +stolen the design and had sold it to some other manufacturers, not +dreaming that the theft could ever be discovered by two such helpless +children as Nat and I. + +"I went into the shop and asked the price of the chintz in the window. + +"'Oh, the grape-vine pattern? that is a new pattern, just out this spring; +it is one of the most popular patterns we ever had. A lovely thing, miss,' +said the clerk, as he lifted down another piece of it. + +"'I will take one yard,' said I with a choking voice. I was afraid I +should cry in the shop. 'Do you know where this chintz is made?' I added. + +"The clerk glanced at the price-ticket and read me the name. It was made +by a firm I had never heard of, in another State. No wonder the Wilkinses +thought themselves safe. + +"When I showed Nat the chintz he seemed much less excited than I expected. +He was not so very much surprised; and, to my great astonishment, he was +not at first sure that it would be best to let the Wilkinses know that we +had discovered their cheating. But I was firm; I would have no more to do +with them. My impulse was to go to Mr. Maynard. Although during these +three years he had never come to see us, I felt sure that, in the bottom +of his heart, there still was a strong affection for us; and, above all, +he was a just man. He would never keep in his employ for one day any +person capable of such wrong as the Wilkinses had done us. + +"'But,' persisted Nat, 'you do not know that either of the Mr. Wilkinses +had anything to do with it. They may both have honestly supposed it was +lost. It's much more likely that their sister stole it.' + +"I had not thought of this before. Poor Miss Wilkins! Nat's artistic soul +had been so outraged by some of her flagrant calicoes that he believed her +capable of any crime. + +"At last I consented to go first to the Wilkinses themselves, and I +promised to speak very calmly and gently in the beginning, and betray no +suspicion of them. I carried the chintz. When I entered the office, the +overseer was talking in one corner with a gentleman whose back was turned +to me. The agent sat by the counter. + +"'Mr. Wilkins,' said I, 'do you remember the grape-vine pattern my brother +drew last winter--the one which you refused?' + +"The instant I spoke, I saw that he did remember. I saw that he was +guilty, and I saw it all with such certainty that it enabled me to be very +calm. + +"'Let me see,' said he, trying to pretend to be racking his memory; 'the +grape-vine pattern? It seems to me that I do recall something about a +design with that name. Did you say we refused it?' + +"'Yes, you refused it, but you did not return the drawing. You said it had +been lost,' I replied. + +"'Ah, yes, yes--now I recollect,' he said, recovering himself somewhat; +'we made great search for the drawing; I remember all about it now;' and +he paused as if waiting civilly to know what more there could possibly be +to be said on that point. But I watched him closely and saw that he was +agitated. I looked him steadily in the eye and did not speak, while I +slowly opened my little bundle and unrolled the piece of chintz. + +"'Can you possibly explain this mystery, then, sir, that here is my +brother's design printed on this chintz?' said I, in a clear, distinct +tone, holding out the yard of chintz at its full length. As I said the +words 'my brother's design,' the gentleman who had been talking with the +overseer turned quickly round, and I saw that it was Mr. Maynard's +youngest son Robert, who a year before had come home from Germany, and had +recently been taken into the firm as partner. He stepped a little nearer +me, and was evidently listening to my words. + +"'Come into this room, Mr. Maynard, if you please, and we will finish +discussing the matter we were speaking of,' said Overseer Wilkins, turning +pale, and speaking very hurriedly, and trying to draw Mr. Maynard into the +inner office-room. + +"'And--if you will call some other time, Miss Kent,' said Agent Wilkins, +turning away from me and walking toward Mr. Maynard, in his anxiety to +prevent my being seen or heard, 'I will try to attend to this matter; but +just now I have not another moment to spare,' and he began at once to talk +in a loud and voluble manner. + +"I do not know how I had strength and courage to do what I did then; I do +not know where the voice came from with which I spoke then; Robert has +always said that I looked like a young lioness, and that my voice sounded +like the voice of one crying 'fire.' I stepped swiftly up to him, and +before the astounded Wilkins could speak a word, I had held up the chintz +and exclaimed, 'But Mr. Maynard will have time to spare, and I thank God +he is here. Mr. Maynard, this design is one of my brother's drawing; he +has made most of the calico designs printed in your father's mills for a +year and a half: I brought this one to the agent; he said it was not good +for anything, but he stole the paper and sold it, and here it is!' and +then suddenly my strength all disappeared, great terror seized me, and I +burst into tears. Both the agent and the overseer began to speak at once. + +"'Be silent,' thundered Robert, in the most commanding tone I ever heard +out of human lips. 'Be silent, both of you!' Then he took the chintz away +from me, and taking both my hands in his, led me to a chair, saying, in a +voice as sweet and gentle as the other was terrible, 'Pray be calm, my +dear young lady--this matter shall be looked into. Sit down and do not try +to speak for a few minutes.' + +"Then he walked over to the brothers; even through my tears I could see +how terrified they looked; they seemed struck dumb with fright; he spoke +to them now in the most courteous manner, but the courtesy was almost +worse than the anger had been before. + +"'I shall have to ask you for the use of the office for a short time, +gentlemen. This is an affair I prefer to investigate immediately, and I +would like to see this young lady alone.' They both began to speak again, +but he interrupted them. + +"'I will send for you presently; not a word more now, if you please;' and +in spite of themselves they were obliged to walk out of the room. As they +turned to shut the door their faces frightened me. + +"'Oh!' I exclaimed; 'oh, Mr. Maynard, they will kill Nat I must go home at +once,' and I rose trembling in every nerve. He made me sit down again, and +brought me a glass of wine, and said, 'Do not be afraid, my dear child, +they will not dare harm your brother. Drink this, and tell me your whole +story.' + +"Then I told him all. He interrupted me only once, to ask me about the +prices paid us for two or three especial patterns which he happened to +recollect. When I stopped, he jumped up from his chair and walked up and +down in front of me, ejaculating, 'By Jove! this is infernal--I never +heard of such a contemptible bit of rascality in my life. I have told my +father ever since I came home that these men had bad faces, and I have +looked carefully for traces of cheating in their accounts. But they were +too cowardly to try it on a large scale.' + +"He then told me that the originality and beauty of the designs which the +Wilkinses had furnished the firm of late had attracted general attention; +that they had said the best ones were the work of a sister in England, the +others of the sister living with them. When he told me the prices which +had been paid for them, I could not help groaning aloud and burying my +face in my hands. 'Oh, my poor Nat!' I exclaimed, 'you might have had +everything you wanted for that.' + +"'But he shall have it still, Miss Kent,' said Robert--'I shall give you a +check for the whole amount before you leave this room, and I do assure you +that your brother has a fortune in his talent for drawing. Probably this +work is only the beginning of what he will do.' + +"As Robert opened the office-door for me to pass out, I saw the two Mr. +Wilkinses standing together at the gate through which I must go. Robert +answered my look of alarm by saying, 'I shall walk home with you, Miss +Kent. They shall not annoy you.' + +"As we came near, they both lifted their hats with obsequious, angry bows. +Robert did not look at them, but said in a low tone, as we passed, 'Go to +the office and wait there till I return.' + +"When he bade me good-by at my door, he said, 'I shall go now to find my +father, and if he is at home the brothers Wilkins will be dismissed from +our employ in less than one hour,' I looked after him as long as I could +see him. Then I went into our little sitting-room, sank into a chair, and +sat motionless, turning the check over and over in my hand, and wondering +if I really were awake and alive, or if all were a dream. In a few moments +Nat came home. As Patrick lifted the wagon up over the door-steps, and Nat +caught sight of my face, he called out, 'Oh, sister, what is the +matter--are you ill?' I ran to him and put the check into his hands, but +it was some minutes before I could speak. The wonderful fortune did not +overwhelm Nat as it had me. He was much stronger than I. Every stroke of +his pencil during the last year had developed and perfected his soul. He +was fast coming to have that consciousness of power which belongs to the +true artist, and makes a life self-centred. + +"'I have felt that all this would come, dear,' he said, 'and more than +this too,' he added dreamily, 'we shall go on; this is only the outer gate +of our lives,' + +"He prophesied more truly than he knew when he said that--my dear blessed +artist-souled martyr! + +"I need not dwell on the details of the next half-year. A few words can +tell them; and then, again, worlds of words could not tell them. + +"Three months from the day I carried the piece of chintz into the +overseer's office, Robert and I were married in the beautiful chapel where +papa used to preach. All the mills were shut, and the little chapel was +crowded with the workmen and workwomen. When we came out they were all +drawn up in lines on the green, and Robert and Mr. Maynard both made them +little speeches. Nat and Miss Penstock and Patrick were in Mr. Maynard's +carriage, and Robert and I stood on the ground by the carriage-door. After +the people had gone, Mr. Maynard came up to me and put both his hands on +my shoulders, just as he had done three years before, and said, 'You were +a brave girl, but you had to take me for your father, after all.' + +"Nat's wedding-present to me was a wood-carving of the 'One-Legged +Dancers'--the one which stands on the little gilt table. I shall never be +separated from it. + +"When I first found out how very rich Robert was, I was afraid; it seemed +to me almost wrong to have so much money. But I hope we shall not grow +selfish. And I cannot but be grateful for it, when I see what it has done +for my darling brother. He is living now in a beautiful apartment in New +York. Patrick is with him, his devoted servant, and Miss Penstock has gone +to keep house for them. Nat is studying and working hard; the best artists +in the city are his friends, and his pictures are already known and +sought. When Robert first proposed this arrangement, Nat said, 'Oh no, no! +I cannot accept such a weight of obligation from any man, not even from a +brother.' + +"Robert rose and knelt down by Nat's chair, and even then he was so far +above him he had to bend over. + +"'Nat,' said he, in a low tone, 'I never knelt to any human being before: +I didn't kneel to Dora when I asked her to give herself to me, for I was +sure I could so give myself to her as to make her happy; but it is to +you, after all, that I owe it that she is mine; I never can forget it for +an hour, and I never can repay you--no, not in my whole life-time, nor +with all my fortune.' + +"Then he told him that the sum which it would need to support him and Miss +Penstock and Patrick in this way was so small, in comparison with our +whole income, that it was not worth mentioning. 'And at any rate,' he +said, 'it is useless for you to remonstrate, Nat, for I have already made +fifty thousand dollars' worth of stock so entirely yours, that you cannot +escape from it. The papers are all in my father's hands, and the income +will be paid to you, or left subject to your order, quarterly. If you do +not spend it, nobody else will;' and then Robert bent down lower, and +lifting Nat's thin hands tenderly in his, pressed them both against his +check, in the way I often did. It was one of the few caresses Nat loved. I +stood the other side of the chair, and I stooped down and kissed him, and +said:-- + +"'And, Nat, I cannot be quite happy in any other way.' + +"So Nat yielded. + +"It was hard to come away and leave him. For some time I clung to the hope +that he might come with us; but the physicians all said it would be +madness for him to run the risk of a sea-voyage. However, I know that for +him, the next best thing to seeing Europe himself is to see it through my +eyes. I write to him every week, and I shall carry home to him such +art-treasures as he has never dreamed of possessing. + +"Next year we shall go home, and then he will come back to Maynard's +Mills and live with us. Robert is having a large studio built for him on +the north side of the house, with a bed-room and little sitting-room +opening out of it. Miss Penstock, too, will always live with us; we shall +call her 'housekeeper,' to keep her contented, and Patrick is to stay as +Nat's attendant. Poor fellow, he is not quite full-witted, we think; but +he loves Nat so devotedly that he makes a far better servant than a +cleverer boy would with a shade less affection. + +"And now you have heard the story of my life, dear friend," said Dora, as +she rose from the seat and lighted the rose-colored tapers in two low +swinging Etruscan candlesticks just above our heads--"all that I can tell +you," she added slowly. "You will understand that I cannot speak about the +happiest part of it. But you have seen Robert. The only thing that +troubles me is that I have no sorrow. It seems dangerous. Dear Nat, +although he has all he ever hoped for, need not fear being too happy, +because he has the ever-present pain, to make him earnest and keep him +ready for more pain. I said so to him the day before I came away, and he +gave me those verses I told you of, called 'The Angel of Pain,'" + +Then she repeated them to me:-- + + The Angel of Pain. + + Angel of Pain, I think thy face + Will be, in all the heavenly place, + The sweetest face that I shall see, + The swiftest face to smile on me. + All other angels faint and tire; + Joy wearies, and forsakes desire; + Hope falters, face to face with Fate, + And dies because it cannot wait; + And Love cuts short each loving day, + Because fond hearts cannot obey + That subtlest law which measures bliss + By what it is content to miss. + But thou, O loving, faithful Pain-- + Hated, reproached, rejected, slain-- + Dost only closer cling and bless + In sweeter, stronger steadfastness. + Dear, patient angel, to thine own + Thou comest, and art never known + Till late, in some lone twilight place + The light of thy transfigured face + Sudden shines out, and, speechless, they + Know they have walked with Christ all day. + +When she had done we sat for some time silent. Then I rose, and kissing +her, still silent, went out into the unlighted room where the gilt table +stood. A beam of moonlight fell, broad and white, across its top, and +flickered on the vine-leaves and the ferns. In the dim weird light their +shapes were more fantastic than ever. + +The door into the outer hall stood open. As I went toward it, I saw old +Anita toiling slowly up the stairs, with a flat basket on her head. Her +wrinkled face was all aglow with delight. As soon as she reached the +threshold she set the basket down, and exclaiming, "Oh look, look, +Signora!" lifted off the cover. It was full of fresh and beautiful +anemones of all colors. She moved a few on top and showed me that those +beneath were chiefly purple ones. + +"Iddio mio! will not the dearest of Signoras be pleased now!" she said. +"The saints wish that she shall have all she desires; did not my Biagio's +brother come in from Albano this morning? and as I was in the Piazza +Navona, buying oranges, I heard him calling from a long way off, 'Ho +Anita, my Anita, here are anemones for your beautiful Signora with the +bright hair.' + +"They grow around an old tomb a mile away from his vineyard, and he set +out from his home long before light to get them for me; for he once saw +the Signora and he had heard me say that she never could have enough of +anemones. Iddio mio! but my heart is glad of them. Ah, the dearest of +Signoras!" and, with a tender touch, Anita laid the cool vine-leaves +lightly back upon the anemones and hurried on in search of Dora. + + + + +How One Woman Kept Her Husband. + + + +Why my sister married John Gray, I never could understand. I was +twenty-two and she was eighteen when the marriage took place. They had +known each other just one year. He had been passionately in love with her +from the first day of their meeting. She had come more slowly to loving +him: but love him she did, with a love of such depth and fervor as are +rarely seen. He was her equal in nothing except position and wealth. He +had a singular mixture of faults of opposite temperaments. He had the +reticent, dreamy, procrastinating inertia of the bilious melancholic man, +side by side with the impressionable sensuousness, the sensitiveness and +sentimentalism of the most sanguine-nervous type. There is great charm in +such a combination, especially to persons of a keen, alert nature. My +sister was earnest, wise, resolute. John Gray was nonchalant, shrewd, +vacillating. My sister was exact, methodical, ready. John Gray was +careless, spasmodic, dilatory. My sister had affection. He had tenderness. +She was religious of soul; he had a sort of transcendental perceptivity, +so to speak, which kept him more alive to the comforts of religion than +to its obligations. My sister would have gone to the stake rather than +tell a lie. He would tell a lie unhesitatingly, rather than give anybody +pain. My sister lived earnestly, fully, actively, in each moment of the +present. It never seemed quite clear whether he were thinking of to-day, +yesterday, or to-morrow. She was upright because she could not help it. He +was upright,--when he was upright,--because of custom, taste, and the +fitness of things. What fatal discrepancies! what hopeless lack of real +moral strength, enduring purpose, or principle in such a nature as John +Gray's! When I said these things to my sister, she answered always, with a +quiet smile, "I love him." She neither admitted nor denied my accusations. +The strongest expression she ever used, the one which came nearest to +being an indignant repelling of what I had said, was one day, when I +exclaimed:-- + +"Ellen, I would die before I'd risk my happiness in the keeping of such a +man." + +"My happiness is already in his keeping," said she in a steady voice, "and +I believe his is in mine. He is to be my husband and not yours, dear; you +do not know him as I do. You do not understand him." + +But it is not to give an analysis of her character or of his, nor to give +a narrative of their family history, that I write this tale. It is only +one episode of their life that I shall try to reproduce here, and I do it +because I believe that its lesson is of priceless worth to women. + +Ellen had been married fourteen years, and was the mother of five +children, when my story begins. The years had gone in the main peacefully +and pleasantly. The children, three girls and two boys, were fair and +strong. Their life had been a very quiet one, for our village was far +removed from excitements of all kinds. It was one of the suburban villages +of ----, and most of the families living there were the families of +merchants or lawyers doing business in the town, going in early in the +morning, and returning late at night. There is usually in such communities +a strange lack of social intercourse; whether it be that the daily +departure and return of the head of the family keeps up a perpetual +succession of small crises of interest to the exclusion of others, or that +the night finds all the fathers and brothers too tired to enjoy anything +but slippers and cigars, I know not; but certain it is that all such +suburban villages are unspeakably dull and lifeless. There is barely +feeling enough of good neighborhood to keep up the ordinary interchange of +the commonest civilities. + +Except for long visits to the city in the winter, and long journeys in the +summer, I myself should have found life insupportably tedious. But Ellen +was absolutely content. Her days were unvaryingly alike, a simple routine +of motherly duties and housekeeping cares. Her evenings were equally +unvaried, being usually spent in sewing or reading, while her husband, in +seven evenings out of ten, dozed, either on the sofa, or on one of the +children's little beds in the nursery. His exquisite tenderness to the +children, and his quiet delight in simply being where they were, were the +brightest points in John Gray's character and life. + +Such monotony was not good for either of them. He grew more and more +dreamy and inert. She insensibly but continually narrowed and hardened, +and, without dreaming of such a thing, really came to be less and less a +part of her husband's inner life. Faithful, busy, absorbed herself in the +cares of each day, she never observed that he was living more and more in +his children and his reveries, and withdrawing more and more from her. She +did not need constant play and interchange of sentiment as he did. +Affectionate, loyal, devoted as she was, there was a side of husband's +nature which she did not see nor satisfy, perhaps, never could. But +neither of them knew it. + +At this time Mr. Gray was offered a position of importance in the city, +and it became necessary for them to move there to live. How I rejoiced in +the change. How bitterly I regretted it before two years had passed. + +Their city home was a beautiful one, and their connections and +associations were such as to surround them at once with the most desirable +companionships. At first it was hard for Ellen to readjust her system of +living and to accustom herself to the demands of even a moderately social +life. But she was by nature very fond of all such pleasures, and her house +soon became one of the pleasantest centres, in a quiet way, of the +comparatively quiet city. John Gray expanded and brightened in the new +atmosphere; he had always been a man of influence among men. All his +friends,--even his acquaintances,--loved him, and asked his advice. It was +a strange thing that a man so inert and procrastinating in his own +affairs, should be so shrewd and practical and influential in the affairs +of others, or in public affairs. This, however, was no stranger than many +other puzzling incongruities in John Gray's character. Since his college +days he had never mingled at all in general society until this winter, +after their removal to town; and it was with delight that I watched his +enjoyment of people, and their evident liking and admiration for him. His +manners were singularly simple and direct; his face, which was not wholly +pleasing in repose, was superbly handsome when animated in conversation; +its inscrutable reticence which baffled the keenest observation when he +was silent, all disappeared and melted in the glow of cordial +good-fellowship which lighted every feature when he talked. I grew very +proud of my brother as I watched him in his new sphere and surroundings; +and I also enjoyed most keenly seeing Ellen in a wider and more +appreciative circle. I spent a large part of the first winter in their +house, and shared all their social pleasures, and looked forward to ever +increasing delight, as my nieces should grow old enough to enter into +society. + +Early in the spring I went to the West and passed the entire summer with +relatives; I heard from my sister every week; her letters were always +cheerful and natural, and I returned to her in the autumn, full of +anticipations of another gay and pleasant winter. + +They met me in New York, and I remembered afterwards, though in the +excitement of the moment I gave it no second thought, that when John +Gray's eyes first met mine, there was in them a singular and indefinable +expression, which roused in me an instant sense of distrust and +antagonism. He had never thoroughly liked me. He had always had an +undercurrent of fear of me. He knew I thought him weak: he felt that I had +never put full confidence in him. That I really and truly loved him was +small offset for this. Would it not be so to all of us? + +This part of my story is best told in few words. I had not been at home +one week before I found that rumor had been for some months coupling John +Gray's name with the name of Mrs. Emma Long, a widow who had but just +returned to----, after twelve years of married life in Cuba. John had +known her in her girlhood, but there had never been any intimacy or even +friendship between them. My sister, however, had known her well, had +corresponded with her during all her life at the South, and had invited +her to her house immediately upon her return to----. Emma Long was a +singularly fascinating woman. Plain and sharp and self-asserting at +twenty-two, she had become at thirty-five magnetic and winning, full of +tact, and almost beautiful. We see such surprising developments +continually: it seems as if nature did her best to give every woman one +period of triumph and conquest; perhaps only they know its full sweetness +to whom it comes late. In early youth it is accepted unthinkingly, as is +the sunshine,--enjoyed without deliberation, and only weighed at its +fullness when it is over. But a woman who begins at thirty to feel for the +first time what it is to have power over men, must be more or less than +woman not to find the knowledge and the consciousness dangerously sweet. + +I never knew--I do not know to-day, whether Emma Long could be justly +called a coquette. That she keenly enjoyed the admiration of men, there +was no doubt. Whether she ever were conscious of even a possible harm to +them from their relation to her, there was always doubt, even in the minds +of her bitterest enemies. I myself have never doubted that in the affair +between her and John Gray she was the one who suffered most; she was the +one who had a true, deep sentiment, and not only never meant a wrong, but +would have shrunk, for his sake, if not for her own, from the dangers +which she did not foresee, but which were inevitable in their intimacy. I +think that her whole life afterward proved this. I think that even my +sister believed it. + +Mrs. Long had spent six weeks in my sister's house, and had then +established herself in a very beautiful furnished house on the same +street. Almost every day Mrs. Long's carriage was at my sister's door, to +take my sister or the children to drive. Almost every evening Mrs. Long +came with the easy familiarity of an habituated guest in the house, to sit +in my sister's parlor, or sent with the easy familiarity of an old friend +for my sister and her husband to come to her, or to go with her to the +theatre or to the opera. + +What could be more natural?--what could be more delightful, had the +relation been one which centred around my sister instead of around my +sister's husband? What could be done, what offense could be taken, what +obstacle interposed, so long as the relation appeared to be one which +included the whole family? Yet no human being could see John Gray five +minutes in Emma Long's presence without observing that his eyes, his +words, his consciousness were hers. And no one could observe her in his +presence without seeing that she was kindled, stimulated, as she was in no +other companionship. + +All this the city had been seeing and gossiping over for four months. All +this, with weary detail, was poured into my ears by kind friends. + +My sister said no word. For the first time in my life there was a barrier +between us I dared not pass. Her every allusion to Mrs. Long was in the +kindest and most unembarrassed manner. She fell heartily and graciously +into every plan which brought them together: she not only did this, she +also fully reciprocated all entertainments and invitations; it was as +often by Ellen's arrangement as by Mrs. Long's that an evening or a day +was spent by the two families together. Her manner to Mrs. Long was +absolutely unaltered. Her manner to John was absolutely unaltered. When +during an entire evening he sat almost motionless and often quite +speechless, listening to Mrs. Long's conversation with others, Ellen's +face never changed. She could not have seemed more unconscious if she had +been blind. There were many bonds of sympathy between John Gray and Emma +Long, which had never existed between him and his wife. They were both +passionately fond of art, and had studied it. Ellen's taste was +undeveloped, and her instinctive likings those of a child. But she +listened with apparent satisfaction and pleasure to long hours of +conversation, about statues, pictures, principles of art, of which she was +as unable to speak as one of her own babies would have been. Mrs. Long +was also a woman who understood affairs; and one of her great charms to +men of mind was the clear, logical, and yet picturesque and piquant way in +which she talked of men and events. Ellen listened and laughed as heartily +as any member of the circle at her repartee, her brilliant +characterization, her off-hand description. + +To John Gray all this was a new revelation. He had never known this sort +of woman. That a woman could be clever as men are clever, and also be +graceful, adorned, and tender with womanliness, he had not supposed. + +Ah, poor Emma Long! not all my loyalty to my sister ever quite stifled in +my heart the question whether there was not in Mrs. Long's nature +something which John Gray really needed--something which Ellen, +affectionate, wise, upright, womanly woman as she was, could never give to +any man. + +The winter wore on. Idle and malicious tongues grew busier and busier. +Nothing except the constant presence of my sister wherever her husband and +Mrs. Long were seen together, prevented the scandal from taking the most +offensive shape. But Ellen was so wise, so watchful, that not even the +most malignant gossip-monger, could point to anything like a clandestine +intercourse between the two. + +In fact, they met so constantly either in Mrs. Long's house or my +sister's, that there was small opportunity for them to meet elsewhere. I +alone knew that on many occasions when Mrs. Long was spending the evening +at our house, Ellen availed herself of one excuse and another to leave +them alone for a great part of the time. But she did this so naturally, +that is, with such perfect art, that not until long afterward did I know +that it had been intentional. This was one great reason of my silence +during all these months. In her apparent ignorance and unsuspiciousness of +the whole thing, she seemed so gay, so happy, so sweet and loving, how +could I give her a pain? And if she did not see it now, she might never +see it. It could never surely become any more apparent. No man could give, +so far as simple manner was concerned, more unmistakable proof of being +absorbed in passionate love for a woman, than John Gray gave in Emma +Long's presence. I began to do Ellen injustice in my thoughts. I said, +"After all, she has not much heart; no woman who loved a man passionately +could look on unmoved and see him so absorbed in another." + +How little I knew! Towards spring Ellen suddenly began to look ill. She +lost color and strength, and a slight cough which she had had all winter +became very severe. Her husband was alarmed. We all were distressed. Our +old family physician, Dr. Willis, changed color when he felt Ellen's +pulse, and said, involuntarily,-- + +"My dear child, how long have you had such fever as this?" + +Ellen changed color too, under his steady look, and replied,-- + +"I think, doctor, I have had a little fever for some weeks. I have not +felt really well since the autumn, and I have been meaning for some time +to have a long consultation with you. But we will not have it now," she +added playfully, "I have a great deal to tell you which these good people +are not to hear. We will talk it over some other time," and she looked at +him so meaningly that he understood the subject must be dropped. + +That night she told me that she wished me to propose to John to go over +with me and spend the evening at Mrs. Long's; that she had sent for Dr. +Willis, and she wished to have a long talk with him without John's knowing +it. + +"Dear," said I hastily, "I will not go to Mrs. Long's with John. I hate +Mrs. Long." + +"Why, Sally, what do you mean! I never heard you so unjust. Emma is one of +the very sweetest women I ever saw in my life. How can you say such a +thing! Everybody loves and admires her. Don't go if you feel so. I never +dreamed that you disliked her. But I thought John would be less likely to +suspect me of any desire to have him away, if you proposed going there; +and I must have him out of the house. I cannot talk with the doctor if he +is under the roof." She said these last words with an excited emphasis so +unlike her usual manner, that it frightened me. But I thought only of her +physical state; I feared that she suspected the existence of some terrible +disease. + +I went with John to Mrs. Long's almost immediately after tea. He accepted +the proposal with unconcealed delight; and I wondered if Ellen observed +the very nonchalant way in which he replied when she said she did not feel +well enough to go. He already liked better to see Mrs. Long without his +wife's presence, cordial and unembarrassed as her manner always was. His +secret consciousness was always disturbed by it. + +When we reached Mrs. Long's house, we learned that she had gone out to +dinner. John's face became black with the sudden disappointment, and quite +forgetting himself, he exclaimed: "Why, what does that mean? She did not +tell me she was going." + +The servant stared, but made no reply. I was confused and indignant; but +John went on: "We will come in and wait. I am sure it is some very +informal dinner, and Mrs. Long will soon be at home." + +I made no remonstrance, knowing that it might annoy and disturb Ellen to +have us return. John threw himself into a chair in front of the fire, and +looked moodily into the coals, making no attempt at conversation. I took +up a book. Very soon John rose, sauntered abstractedly about the room, +took up Mrs. Long's work-basket, and examined every article in it, and at +last sat down before her little writing-desk, which stood open. Presently +I saw that he was writing. More than an hour passed. I pretended to read; +but I watched my brother-in-law's face. I could not mistake its language. +Suddenly there came a low cry of delight from the door, "Why, John!" + +Mrs. Long had entered the house by a side door, and having met no servant +before reaching the drawing-room, was unprepared for finding any one +there. From the door she could see John, but could not see me, except in +the long mirror, to which she did not raise her eyes, but in which I saw +her swift movement, her outstretched hands, her look of unspeakable +gladness. In less than a second, however, she had seen me, and with no +perceptible change of manner had come rapidly towards me, holding out her +left hand familiarly to him, as she passed him. Emma Long was not a +hypocrite at heart, but she had an almost superhuman power of acting. It +was all lost upon me, however, on that occasion. I observed the quick +motion with which John thrust into a compartment of the desk, the sheet on +which he had been writing; I observed the clasp of their hands as she +glided by him; I observed her face; I observed his; and I knew as I had +never fully known before how intensely they loved each other. + +My resolution was taken. Cost what it might, come what might, I would +speak fully and frankly to my sister the next day. I would not longer +stand by and see this thing go on. At that moment I hated both John Gray +and Emma Long. No possible pain to Ellen seemed to me to weigh for a +moment against my impulse to part them. + +I could not talk. I availed myself of the freedom warranted by the +intimacy between the families, and continued to seem absorbed in my book. +But I lost no word, no look, which passed between the two who sat opposite +me. I never saw Emma Long look so nearly beautiful as she did that night. +She wore a black velvet dress, with fine white lace ruffles at the throat +and wrists. Her hair was fair, and her complexion of that soft pale tint, +with a slight undertone of brown in it, which is at once fair and warm, +and which can kindle in moments of excitement into a brilliance far +outshining any brunette skin. She talked rapidly with much gesture. She +was giving John an account of the stupidity of the people with whom she +had been dining. Her imitative faculty amounted almost to genius. No +smallest peculiarity of manner or speech escaped her, and she could become +a dozen different persons in a minute. John laughed as he listened, but +not so heartily as he was wont to laugh at her humorous sayings. He had +been too deeply stirred in the long interval of solitude before she +returned. His cheeks were flushed and his voice unsteady. She soon felt +the effect of his manner, and her gayety died away; before long they were +sitting in silence, each looking at the fire. I knew I ought to make the +proposition to go home, but I seemed under a spell; I was conscious of a +morbid desire to watch and wait. At length Mrs. Long rose, saying,-- + +"If it will not disturb Sally's reading, I will play for you a lovely +little thing I learned yesterday." + +"Oh, no," said I. "But we must go as soon as I finish this chapter." + +She passed into the music-room and looked back for John to follow her; but +he threw himself at full length on the sofa, and said,-- + +"No, I will listen here." + +My quickened instinct saw that he dared not go; also that he had laid his +cheek in an abandonment of ecstasy on the arm of the sofa on which her +hand had been resting. Even in that moment I had a sharp pang of pity for +him, and the same old misgiving of question, whether my good and sweet and +almost faultless Ellen could be loved just in the same way in which Emma +Long would be! + +As soon as she had finished the nocturne, a sad, low sweet strain, she +came back to the parlor. Not even for the pleasure of giving John the +delight of the music he loved would she stay where she could not see his +face. + +But I had already put down my book, and was ready to go. Our good-nights +were short and more formal than usual. All three were conscious of an +undefined constraint in the air. Mrs. Long glanced up uneasily in John's +face as we left the room. Her eyes were unutterably tender and childlike +when a look of grieved perplexity shadowed them. Again my heart ached for +her and for him. This was no idle caprice, no mere entanglement of senses +between two unemployed and unprincipled hearts. It was a subtle harmony, +organic, spiritual, intellectual, between two susceptible and intense +natures. The bond was as natural and inevitable as any other fact of +nature. And in this very fact lay the terrible danger. + +We walked home in silence. A few steps from our house we met Dr. Willis +walking very rapidly. He did not recognize us at first. When he did, he +half stopped as if about to speak, then suddenly changed his mind, and +merely bowing, passed on. A bright light was burning in Ellen's room. + +"Why, Ellen has not gone to bed!" exclaimed John. + +"Perhaps some one called," said I, guiltily. + +"Oh, I dare say," replied he; "perhaps the doctor has been there. But it +is half-past twelve," added he, pulling out his watch as we entered the +hall. "He could not have stayed until this time." + +I went to my own room immediately. In a few moments I heard John come up, +say a few words to Ellen, and then go down-stairs, calling back, as he +left her room,-- + +"Don't keep awake for me, wifie, I have a huge batch of letters to answer. +I shall not get through before three o'clock." + +I crept noiselessly to Ellen's room. It was dark. She had extinguished the +gas as soon as she had heard us enter the house! I knew by the first sound +of her voice that she had been weeping violently and long. I said,-- + +"Ellen, I must come in and have a talk with you." + +"Not to-night, dear. To-morrow I will talk over everything. All is +settled. Good-night. Don't urge me to-night, Sally. I can't bear any +more." + +It is strange--it is marvellous what power there is in words to mean more +than words. I knew as soon as Ellen had said, "Not to-night, dear," that +she divined all I wanted to say, that she knew all I knew, and that the +final moment, the crisis, had come. Whatever she might have to tell me in +the morning, I should not be surprised. I did not sleep. All night I +tossed wearily, trying to conjecture what Ellen would do, trying to +imagine what I should do in her place. + +At breakfast Ellen seemed better than she had seemed for weeks. Her eyes +were bright and her cheeks pink; but there was an ineffable, almost solemn +tenderness in her manner to John, which was pathetic. Again the suspicion +crossed my mind that she knew that she must die. He too was disturbed by +it; he looked at her constantly with a lingering gaze as if trying to read +her face; and when he bade us good-by to go to the office, he kissed her +over and over as I had not seen him kiss her for months. The tears came +into her eyes, and she threw both arms around his neck for a second,--a +very rare thing for her to do in the presence of others. + +"Why, wifie," he said, "you musn't make it too hard for a fellow to get +off!--Doesn't she look well this morning, Sally?" turning to me. "I was +thinking last night that I must take her to the mountains as soon as it +was warm enough. But such cheeks as these don't need it." And he took her +face in his two hands with a caress full of tenderness, and sprang down +the steps. + +Just at this moment Mrs. Long's carriage came driving swiftly around the +corner, and the driver stopped suddenly at sight of John. + +"Oh, Mr. Gray, Mr. Gray!" called Emma, "I was just coming to take Ellen +and the children for a turn, and we can leave you at the office on our +way." + +"Thank you," said John, "but there are several persons I must see before +going to the office, and it would detain you too long. I am already much +too late," and without a second look he hurried on. + +I saw a slight color rise in Mrs. Long's cheek, but no observer less +jealous than I would have detected it; and there was not a shade less +warmth than usual in her manner to Ellen. + +Ellen told her that she could not go herself, but she would be very glad +to have some of the children go; and then she stood for some moments, +leaning on the carriage-door and talking most animatedly. I looked from +one woman to the other. Ellen at that moment was more beautiful than Mrs. +Long. The strong, serene, upright look which was her most distinguishing +and characteristic expression, actually shone on her face. I wished that +John Gray had stopped to see the two faces side by side. Emma Long might +be the woman to stir and thrill and entrance the soul; to give stimulus to +the intellectual nature; to rouse passionate emotion; but Ellen was the +woman on whose steadfastness he could rest,--in the light of whose sweet +integrity and transparent truthfulness he was a far safer, and would be a +far stronger man than with any other woman in the world. + +As the carriage drove away with all three of the little girls laughing and +shouting and clinging around Mrs. Long, a strange pang seized me. I looked +at Ellen. She stood watching them with a smile which had something +heavenly in it. Turning suddenly to me, she said: "Sally, if I were dying, +it would make me very happy to know that Emma Long would be the mother of +my children." + +I was about to reply with a passionate ejaculation, but she interrupted +me. + +"Hush, dear, hush. I am not going to die,--I have no fear of any such +thing. Come to my room now, and I will tell you all." + +She locked the door, stood for a moment looking at me very earnestly, then +folded me in her arms and kissed me many times; then she made me sit in a +large arm-chair, and drawing up a low foot-stool, sat down at my feet, +rested both arms on my lap, and began to speak. I shall try to tell in her +own words what she said. + +"Sally, I want to tell you in the beginning how I thank you for your +silence. All winter I have known that you were seeing all I saw, feeling +all I felt, and keeping silent for my sake. I never can tell you how much +I thank you; it was the one thing which supported me. It was an +unspeakable comfort to know that you sympathized with me at every point; +but to have had the sympathy expressed even by a look would have made it +impossible for me to bear up. As long as I live, darling, I shall be +grateful to you. And, moreover, it makes it possible for me to trust you +unreservedly now. I had always done you injustice, Sally. I did not think +you had so much self-control." + +Here she hesitated an instant. It was not easy for her to mention John's +name; but it was only for a second that she hesitated. With an impetuous +eagerness unlike herself, she went on. + +"Sally, you must not blame John. He has struggled as constantly and nobly +as a man ever struggled. Neither must you blame Emma. They have neither of +them done wrong. I have watched them both hour by hour. I know my +husband's nature so thoroughly that I know his very thoughts almost as +soon as he knows them himself. I know his emotions before he knows them +himself. I saw the first moment in which his eyes rested on Emma's face as +they used to rest on mine. From that day to this I have known every phase, +every step, every change of his feeling towards her; and I tell you, +Sally, that I pity John from the bottom of my heart. I understand it all +far better than you can, far better than he does. He loves her at once far +more and far less than you believe, and he loves me far more than you +believe! You will say, in the absolute idealization of your inexperienced +heart, that this is impossible. I know that it is not, and I wish I could +make you believe it, for without believing it you cannot be just to John. +He loves me to-day, in spite of all this, with a sort of clinging +tenderness born of this very struggle. He would far rather love me with +all his nature if he could, but just now he cannot. I see very clearly +where Emma gives him what he needs, and has never had in me. I have +learned many things from Emma Long this winter. I can never be like her. +But I need not have been so unlike her as I was. She has armed me with +weapons when she least suspected it. But she is not after all, on the +whole, so nearly what John needs as I am. If I really believed that he +would be a better man, or even a happier one with her as his wife, I +should have but one desire, and that would be to die. But I think that it +is not so. I believe that it is in my power to do for him, and to be to +him, what she never could. I do not wonder that you look pityingly and +incredulously. You will see. But in order to do this, I must leave him." + +I sprang to my feet. "Leave him! Are you mad?" + +"No, dear, not at all; very sane and very determined. I have been for six +months coming to this resolve. I began to think of it in a very few hours +after I first saw him look at Emma as if he loved her. I have thought of +it day and night since, and I know I am right. If I stay, I shall lose his +love. If I go, I shall keep it, regain it, compel it." She spoke here +more hurriedly. "I have borne now all I can bear without betraying my +pain to him. I am jealous of Emma. It almost kills me to see him look at +her, speak to her." + +"My poor, poor darling!" I exclaimed; "and I have been thinking you did +not feel it!" + +She smiled sadly, and tossed back the sleeve of her wrapper so as to show +her arm to the shoulder. I started. It was almost emaciated. I had again +and again in the course of the winter asked her why she did not wear her +usual style of evening dress, and she had replied that it was on account +of her cough. + +"It is well that my face does not show loss of flesh as quickly as the +rest of my body does," she said quietly. "I have lost thirty-five pounds +of flesh in four months, and nobody observed it! Yes, dear," she went on, +"I have felt it. More than that, I have felt it increasingly every hour, +and I can bear no more. Up to this time I have never by look or tone shown +to John that I knew it. He wonders every hour what it means that I do not. +I have never by so much as the slightest act watched him. I have seen +notes in Emma's handwriting lying on his desk, and I have left the house +lest I might be tempted to read them! I know that he has as yet done no +clandestine thing, but at any moment I should have led them both into it +by showing one symptom of jealousy. And I should have roused in his heart +a feeling of irritation and impatience with me, which would have done in +one hour more to intensify his love for her, and to change its nature from +a pure, involuntary sentiment into an acknowledged and guilty one, than +years and years of free intercourse could do. But I have reached the +limit of my physical endurance. My nerves are giving away. I am really +very ill, but nothing is out of order in my body aside from the effects of +this anguish. A month more of this would make me a hopelessly broken-down +woman. A month's absence from the sight of it will almost make me well." + +I could not refrain from interrupting her. + +"Ellen, you are mad! you are mad! You mean to go away and leave him to see +her constantly alone, unrestrained by your presence? It has almost killed +you to see it. How can you bear imagining it, knowing it?" + +"Better than I can bear seeing it, far better. Because I have still +undiminished confidence in the real lastingness of the bond between John +and me. Emma Long would have been no doubt a good, a very good wife for +him. But I am the mother of his children, and just so surely as right is +right, and wrong is wrong, he will return to me and to them. All wrong +things are like diseases, self-limited. It is wrong for a man to love any +woman better than he loves his wife; I don't deny that, dear," she said, +half smiling through her tears at my indignant face; "but a man may seem +to do it when he is really very far from it. He may really do it for days, +for months--for years, perhaps; but if he be a true man, and his wife a +true wife, he will return. John is a true husband and a still truer +father: that I am the mother of his five children, he can never forget. If +I had had no children, it would be different. If I had ever been for one +moment an unloving wife, it would be different; but I am his; I believe +that he is mine; and that I shall live to remind you of all these things, +Sally, after time has proved them true." + +I was almost dumb with surprise. I was astounded. To me it seemed that her +plan was simply suicidal. I told her in the strongest words I could use of +the scene of the night before. + +"I could tell you of still more trying scenes than that, Sally. I know far +more than you. But if I knew ten times as much, I should still believe +that my plan is the only one. Of course I may fail. It is all in God's +hands. We none of us know how much discipline we need. But I know one +thing: if I do not regain John in this way, I cannot in any. If I stay I +shall annoy, vex, disturb, torture him! Once the barriers of my silence +and concealment are broken down, I shall do just what all other jealous +women have done since the world began. There are no torments on earth like +those which a jealous woman inflicts, except those which she bears! I will +die sooner than inflict them on John. Even if the result proves me +mistaken, I shall never regret my course, for I know that the worst is +certain if I remain. But I have absolute faith,"--and her face was +transfigured with it as she spoke,--"John is mine. If I could stay by his +side through it all and preserve the same relation with him which I have +all winter, all would sooner or later be well. I wish I were strong +enough. My heart is, but my body is not, and I must go." + +When she told me the details of her plan, I was more astounded than ever. +She had taken Dr. Willis into her full confidence. (He had been to us +father and physician both ever since our father's death.) He entirely +approved of her course. He was to say--which indeed he could do +conscientiously--that her health imperatively required an entire change of +climate, and that he had advised her to spend at least one year abroad. It +had always been one of John's and Ellen's air-castles to take all the +children to England and to Germany for some years of study. She proposed +to take the youngest four, leaving the eldest girl, who was her father's +especial pet and companion, to stay with him. A maiden aunt of ours was to +come and keep the house, and I was to stay with the family. This was the +hardest of all. + +"Ellen, I cannot!" I exclaimed. "Do not--oh, do not trust me. I shall +never have strength. I shall betray all some day and ruin all your hopes." + +"You cannot, you dare not, Sally, when I tell you that my life's whole +happiness lies in your silence. John is unobservant and also unsuspicious. +He has never had an intimate relation with you. You will have no +difficulty. But you must be here,--because, dear, there is another +reason," and here her voice grew very unsteady, and tears ran down her +cheeks. + +"In spite of all my faith, I do not disguise from myself the possibility +of the worst. I cannot believe my husband would ever do a dishonorable +thing. I do not believe that Emma Long would. And yet, when I remember +what ruin, has overtaken many men and women whom we believed upright, I +dare not be wholly sure. And I must know that some one is here who would +see and understand if a time were approaching at which it would be +needful for me to make one last effort with and for my husband face to +face with him. Unless that comes, I do not wish you to allude to the +subject in your letters. I think I know just how all things will go. I +believe that in one year, or less, all will be well. But if the worst is +to come, you with your instincts will foresee it, and I must be told. I +should return then at once. I should have power, even at the last moment, +I believe, to save John from disgrace. But I should lose his love +irrecoverably; it is to save that that I go." + +I could say but few words. I was lifted up and borne out of myself, as it +were, by my sister's exaltation. She seemed more like some angel-wife than +like a mortal woman. Before I left her room at noon, I believed almost as +fully as she did in the wisdom and the success of her plan. + +There was no time to be lost. Every day between the announcement of her +purpose and the carrying of it out, would be a fearful strain on Ellen's +nerves. Dr. Willis had a long talk with John in his office while Ellen was +talking with me. John came home to dinner looking like a man who had +received a mortal blow. Dr. Willis had purposely given him to understand +that Ellen's life was in great danger. So it was, but not from the cough! +At first John's vehement purpose was to go with them. But she was prepared +for this. His business and official relations were such that it was next +to impossible for him to do it, and it would at best involve a great +pecuniary sacrifice. She overruled and remonstrated, and was so firm in +her objections to every suggestion of his of accompanying or following +her, that finally, in spite of all his anxiety, John seemed almost piqued +at her preference for going alone. In every conversation on the subject I +saw more and more clearly that Ellen was right. He did love her--love her +warmly, devotedly. + +Two weeks from the day of my conversation with her they sailed for +Liverpool. The summer was to be spent in England, and the winter in Nice +or Mentone. + +Alice, the eldest daughter, a loving, sunshiny girl of twelve, was +installed in her mother's room. This was Ellen's especial wish. She knew +that in this way John would be drawn to the room constantly. All her own +little belongings were given to Alice. + +"Only think, Auntie," said she, "mamma has given me, all for my own, her +lovely toilette set, and all the Bohemian glass on the bureau, and her +ivory brushes! She says when she comes home she shall refurnish her room +and papa's too!" + +Oh, my wise Ellen. Could Emma Long have done more subtly! + +Early on the first evening after John returned from New York, having seen +them off, I missed him. I said bitterly to myself, "At Mrs. Long's, I +suppose," and went up-stairs to find Alice. As I drew near her room I +heard his voice, reading aloud. I went in. He and Alice were lying +together on a broad chintz-covered lounge, as I had so often seen him and +Ellen. + +"Oh, Auntie, come here," said Alice, "hear mamma's letter to me! She gave +it to papa in New York. She says it is like the sealed orders they give to +captains sometimes, not to be opened till they are out at sea. It is all +about how I am to fill her place to papa. And there are ever so many +little notes inside, more orders, which even papa himself is not to see! +only I suppose he'll recognize the things when I do them!" + +At that moment, as I watched John Gray's face, with Alice's nestled close, +and his arms clasped tight around her, while they read Ellen's letter, a +great load rolled off my heart. I went through many dark days afterward, +but I never could quite despair when I remembered the fatherhood and the +husbandhood which were in his eyes and his voice that night + +The story of the next twelve months could be told in few words, so far as +its external incidents are concerned. It could not be told in a thousand +volumes, if I attempted to reproduce the subtle undercurrents of John +Gray's life and mine. Each of us was living a double life; he more or less +unconsciously; I with such sharpened senses, such overwrought emotions, +that I only wonder that my health did not give way. I endured vicariously +all the suspense and torment of the deepest jealousy, with a sense of more +than vicarious responsibility added, which was almost more than human +nature could bear. Ellen little knew how heavy would be the burden she +laid upon me. Her most express and explicit direction was that the +familiar intimacy between our family and Mrs. Long's was to be preserved +unaltered. This it would have been impossible for me to do if Mrs. Long +had not herself recognized the necessity of it, for her own full enjoyment +of John's society. But it was a hard thing; my aunt, the ostensible head +of our house, was a quiet woman who had nothing whatever to do with +society, and who felt in the outset a great shrinking from the brilliant +Mrs. Long. I had never been on intimate terms with her, so that John and +Alice were really the only members of the household who could keep up +precisely the old relation. And so it gradually came about that to most of +our meetings under each other's roofs, strangers were asked to fill up the +vacant places, and in spite of all Emma Long's efforts and mine, there was +a change in the atmosphere of our intercourse. But there was intimacy +enough to produce the effect for which Ellen was most anxious, i.e., to +extend the shelter of our recognition to the friendship between John and +Emma, and to remove from them both all temptation to anything clandestine +or secret. They still saw each other almost daily; they still shared most +of each other's interests and pleasures; they still showed most +undisguised delight in each other's presence. Again and again I went with +them to the opera, to the theatre, and sat through the long hours, +watching, with a pain which seemed to me hardly less than Ellen's would +have been, their constant sympathy with each other in every point of +enjoyment, their constant forgetfulness of every one else. + +But there was, all this time, another side to John Gray's life, which I +saw, and Emma Long did not see. By every steamer came packages of the most +marvelous letters from Ellen: letters to us all; but for John, a diary of +every hour of her life. Each night she spent two hours in writing out the +record of the day. I have never seen letters which so reproduced the +atmosphere of the day, the scene, the heart. They were brilliant and +effective to a degree that utterly astonished me; but they were also +ineffably tender and loving, and so natural in their every word, that it +was like seeing Ellen face to face to read them. At first John did not +show them even to me; but soon he began to say, "These are too rare to be +kept to myself; I must just read you this account;" or, "Here is a page I +must read," until it at last became his habit to read them aloud in the +evenings to the family, and even to more intimate friends who chanced to +be with us. He grew proud beyond expression of Ellen's talent for writing; +and well he might. No one who listened to them but exclaimed, "There never +were such letters before!" I think there never were. And I alone knew the +secret of them. + +But these long, brilliant letters were not all. In every mail came also +packages for Alice--secret, mysterious things which nobody could see, but +which proved to be sometimes small notes, to be given to papa at +unexpected times and places; sometimes little fancy articles, as a +pen-wiper, or a cigar-case, half worked by Ellen, to be finished by Alice, +and given to papa on some especial day, the significance of which "only +mamma knows;" sometimes a pressed flower, which was to be put by papa's +plate at breakfast, or put in papa's button-hole as he went out in the +morning. I was more and more lost in astonishment at the subtle and +boundless art of love which could so contrive to reach across an ocean, +and surround a man's daily life with its expression. There were also in +every package, letters to John from all the children: even the baby's +little hand was guided to write by every mail, "Dear papa, I love you +just as much as all the rest do!" or, "Dear papa, I want you to toss me +up!" More than once I saw tears roll down John's face in spite of him, as +he slowly deciphered these illegible little scrawls. The older children's +notes were vivid and loving like their mother's. It was evident that they +were having a season of royal delight in their journey, but also evident +that their thoughts and their longings were constantly reverting to papa. +How much Ellen really indited of these apparently spontaneous letters I do +not know; but no doubt their tone was in part created by her. They showed, +even more than did her own letters, that papa was still the centre of the +family life. No sight was seen without the wish--"Oh, if papa were here!" +and even little Mary, aged five, was making a collection of pressed leaves +for papa, from all the places they visited. Louise had already great +talent for drawing, and in almost every letter came two or three childish +but spirited little pictures, all labelled "Drawn for papa!" "The true +picture of our courier in a rage, for papa to see." "The washerwoman's +dog, for papa," etc., etc. Again and again I sat by, almost trembling with +delight, and saw John spend an entire evening in looking over these little +missives and reading Ellen's letters. Then again I sat alone and anxious +through an entire evening, when I knew he was with Emma Long. But even +after such an evening, he never failed to sit down and write pages in his +journal-letter to Ellen--a practice which he began of his own accord, +after receiving the first journal-letter from her. + +"Ha! little Alice," he said, "we'll keep a journal too, for mamma, won't +we! She shall not out-do us that way." And so, between Alice's letters and +his, the whole record of our family life went every week to Ellen; and I +do not believe, so utterly unaware was John Gray of any pain in his wife's +heart about Emma Long, I do not believe that he ever in a single instance +omitted to mention when he had been with her, where, and how long. + +Emma Long wrote too, and Ellen wrote to her occasional affectionate notes; +but referring her always to John's diary-letters for the details of +interest. I used to study Mrs. Long's face while these letters were read +to her. John's animated delight, his enthusiastic pride, must, it seemed +to me, have been bitter to her. But I never saw even a shade of such a +feeling in her face. There was nothing base or petty in Emma Long's +nature, and, strange as it may seem, she did love Ellen. Only once did I +ever see a trace of pique or resentment in her manner to John, and then I +could not wonder at it. A large package had come from Ellen, just after +tea one night, and we were all gathered in the library, reading our +letters and looking at the photographs--(she always sent unmounted +photographs of the place from which she wrote, and, if possible, of the +house in which they were living, and the children often wrote above the +windows, "_Papa's_ and mamma's room," etc, etc.)--hour after hour passed. +The hall clock had just struck ten, when the door-bell rang violently. +"Good heavens!" exclaimed John, springing up, "that must be Mrs. Long; I +totally forgot that I had promised to go with her to Mrs. Willis's party. +I said I would be there at nine; tell her I am up-stairs dressing," and he +was gone before the servant had had time to open the door. Mrs. Long came +in, with a flushed face and anxious look. "Is Mr. Gray ill?" she said. "He +promised to call for me at nine, to go to Mrs. Willis's, and I have been +afraid he might be ill." + +Before I could reply, the unconscious Alice exclaimed,-- + +"Oh, no; papa isn't ill; he is so sorry, but he forgot all about the party +till he heard you ring the bell. We were so busy over mamma's letters." + +"John will be down in a moment," added I. "He ran up-stairs to dress as +soon as you rang." + +For one second Emma Long's face was sad to see. Such astonishment, such +pain, were in it, my heart ached for her. Then a look of angry resentment +succeeded the pain, and merely saying, "I am very sorry; but I really +cannot wait for him. It is now almost too late to go," she had left the +room and closed the outer door before I could think of any words to say. + +I ran up to John's room, and told him through the closed door. He made no +reply for a moment, and then said,-- + +"No wonder she is vexed. It was unpardonable rudeness. Tell Robert to run +at once for a carriage for me." + +In a very few moments he came down dressed for the party, but with no +shadow of disturbance on his face. He was still thinking of the letters. +He took up his own, and putting it into an inside breast-pocket, said, as +he kissed Alice, "Papa will take mamma's letter to the party, if he can't +take mamma!" + +I shed grateful tears that night before I went to sleep. How I longed to +write to Ellen of the incident; but I had resolved not once to disregard +her request that the whole subject be a sealed one. And I trusted that +Alice would remember to tell it. Well I might! At breakfast Alice said,-- + +"Oh, papa, I told mamma that you carried her to the party in your +breast-pocket; that is, you carried her letter!" + +I fancied that John's cheek flushed a little as he said,-- + +"You might tell mamma that papa carries her everywhere in his +breast-pocket, little girlie, and mamma would understand." + +I think from that day I never feared for Ellen's future. I fancied, too, +that from that day there was a new light in John Gray's eyes. Perhaps it +might have been only the new light in my own; but I think when a man knows +that he has once, for one hour, forgotten a promise to meet a woman whose +presence has been dangerously dear to him, he must be aware of his dawning +freedom. + +The winter was nearly over. Ellen had said nothing to us about returning. + +"Dr. Willis tells me that, from what Ellen writes to him of her health, he +thinks it would be safer for her to remain abroad another year," said John +to me one morning at breakfast. + +"Oh, she never will stay another year!" exclaimed I. + +"Not unless I go out to stay with her," said John, very quietly. + +"Oh, John, could you?" and, "Oh, papa, will you take me?" exclaimed Alice +and I in one breath. + +"Yes," and "yes," said John, laughing, "and Sally too, if she will go." + +He then proceeded to tell me that he had been all winter contemplating +this; that he believed they would never again have so good an opportunity +to travel in Europe, and that Dr. Willis's hesitancy about Ellen's health +had decided the question. He had been planning and deliberating as +silently and unsuspectedly as Ellen had done the year before. Never once +had it crossed my mind that he desired it, or that it could be. But I +found that he had for the last half of the year been arranging his affairs +with a view to it, and had entered into new business connections which +would make it not only easy, but profitable, for him to remain abroad two +years. He urged me to go with them, but I refused. I felt that the father +and the mother and the children ought to be absolutely alone in this +blessed reunion, and I have never regretted my decision, although the old +world is yet an unknown world to me. + +John Gray was a reticent and undemonstrative man, in spite of all the +tenderness and passionateness in his nature. But when he bade me good-by +on the deck of the steamer, as he kissed me he whispered:-- + +"Sally, I shall hold my very breath till I see Ellen. I never knew how I +loved her before." And the tears stood in his eyes. + +I never saw Emma Long after she knew that John was to go abroad to join +Ellen. I found myself suddenly without courage to look in her face. The +hurry of my preparations for Alice was ample excuse for my not going to +her house, and she did not come to ours. I knew that John spent several +evenings with her, and came home late, with a sad and serious face, and +that was all. A week before he sailed she joined a large and gay party for +San Francisco and the Yosemite. In all the newspaper accounts of the +excursion, Mrs. Long was spoken of as the brilliant centre of all +festivities. I understood well that this was the first reaction of her +proud and sensitive nature under an irremediable pain. She never returned +to ----, but established herself in a Southern city, where she lived in +great retirement for a year, doing good to all poor and suffering people, +and spending the larger part of her fortune in charity. Early in the +second year there was an epidemic of yellow fever: Mrs. Long refused to +leave the city, and went as fearlessly as the physicians to visit and +nurse the worst cases. But after the epidemic had passed by, she herself +was taken ill, and died suddenly in a hospital ward, surrounded by the +very patients whom she had nursed back to health. Nothing I could say in +my own words would give so vivid an idea of the meeting between John Gray +and his wife, as the first letter which I received from little Alice:-- + +"DARLING AUNTIE,-- + +"It is too bad you did not come too. The voyage was horrid. Papa was so +much sicker than I, that I had to take care of him all the time; but my +head ached so that I kept seeing black spots if I stooped over to kiss +papa; but papa said, I was just like another mamma. + +"Oh, Auntie, only think, there was a mistake about the letters, and mamma +never got the letter to tell her that we were coming; and she was out on +the balcony of the hotel when we got out of the carriage, and first she +saw me; and the lady who was with her said she turned first red and then +so white the lady thought she was sick; and then the next minute she saw +papa, and she just fell right down among all the people, and looked as if +she was dead; and the very first thing poor papa and I saw, when we got +up-stairs, was mamma being carried by two men, and papa and I both thought +she was dead; and papa fell right down on his knees, and made the men put +mamma down on the floor, and everybody talked out loud, and papa never +spoke a word, but just looked at mamma, and nobody knew who papa was till +I spoke, and I said,-- + +"'That's my mamma, and papa and I have just come all the way from +America,"--and then a gentleman told me to kiss mamma, and I did; and then +she opened her eyes; and just as soon as she saw papa, she got a great +deal whiter and her head fell back again, and I was so sure she was dying, +that I began to cry out loud, and I do think there were more than a +hundred people all round us; but Louise says there were only ten or +twelve; and then the same gentleman that told me to kiss mamma took hold +of papa, and made him go away; and they carried mamma into a room, and +laid her on a bed, and said we must all go out; but I wouldn't: I got +right under the bed, and they didn't see me; and it seemed to me a +thousand years before anybody spoke; and at last I heard mamma's voice, +just as weak as a baby's--but you know nobody could mistake mamma's voice; +and said she, 'Where is John--I saw John;' and then the gentleman +said,--oh, I forgot to tell you he was a doctor,--he said,-- + +"'My dear madam, calm yourself'--and then I cried right out again, and +crept out between his legs and almost knocked him down; and said I, 'Don't +you try to calm my mamma; it is papa--and me too, mamma!' and then mamma +burst out crying; and then the old gentleman ran out, and I guess papa was +at the door, for he came right in; and then he put his arms round mamma, +and they didn't speak for so long, I thought I should die; and all the +people were listening, and going up and down in the halls outside, and I +felt so frightened and ashamed, for fear people would think mamma wasn't +glad to see us. But papa says that is always the way when people are more +glad than they can bear; and the surprise, too, was too much for anybody. +But I said at the tea-table that I hoped I should never be so glad myself +as long as I lived; and then the old gentleman,--he's a very nice old +gentleman, and a great friend of mamma's, and wears gold spectacles,--he +said, 'My dear little girl, I hope you _may_ be some day just as glad,' +and then he looked at papa and mamma and smiled,--and mamma almost cried +again! Oh, altogether it was a horrid time; the worst I ever had; and so +different from what papa and I thought it would be. + +"But it's all over now, and we're all so happy, we laugh so all the time, +that papa says it is disgraceful; that we shall have to go off and hide +ourselves somewhere where people can't see us. + +"But Auntie, you don't know how perfectly splendid mamma is. She is the +prettiest lady in the hotel, Louise says. She is ever so much fatter than +she used to be. And the baby has grown so I did not know her, and her +curls are more than half a yard long. Louise and Mary have got their hair +cut short like boys, but their gowns are splendid; they say it was such a +pity you had any made for me at home. But oh, dear Auntie, don't think I +shall not always like the gowns you made for me. Charlie isn't here; he's +at some horrid school a great way off; I forget the name of the place. But +we are all going there to live for the summer. Mamma said we should keep +house in an 'apartment,' and I was perfectly horrified, and I said, +'Mamma, in one room?' and then Louise and Mary laughed till I was quite +angry; but mamma says that here an 'apartment' means a set of a good many +rooms, quite enough to live in. I don't believe you can have patience to +read this long letter; but I haven't told you half; no, not one half of +half. Good-by, you darling aunty. ALICE. + +"P.S.--I wish you could just see mamma. It isn't only me that thinks she +is so pretty; papa thinks so too. He just sits and looks, and looks at +her, till mamma doesn't quite like it, and asks him to look at baby a +little!" + +Ellen's first letter was short. Her heart was too full. She said at the +end,-- + +"I suppose you will both laugh and cry over Alice's letter. At first I +thought of suppressing it. But it gives you such a graphic picture of the +whole scene that I shall let it go. It is well that I had the excuse of +the surprise for my behavior, but I myself doubt very much if I should +have done any better, had I been prepared for their coming. + +"God bless and thank you, dear Sally, for this last year, as I cannot. + +"ELLEN." + +These events happened many years ago. My sister and I are now old women. +Her life has been from that time to this, one of the sunniest and most +unclouded I ever knew. + +John Gray is a hale old man; white-haired and bent, but clear-eyed and +vigorous. All the good and lovable and pure in his nature have gone on +steadily increasing: his love for his wife is still so full of sentiment +and romance that the world remarks it. + +His grandchildren will read these pages, no doubt, but they will never +dream that it could have been their sweet and placid and beloved old +grandmother who, through such sore straits in her youth, kept her husband! + + + + +Esther Wynn's Love-Letters. + + + +My uncle, Joseph Norton, lived in a very old house. It was one of those +many mansions in which that father of all sleepers, George Washington, +once slept for two nights. This, however, was before the house came into +the possession of our family, and we seldom mentioned the fact. + +The rooms were all square, and high; many of the walls were of wood +throughout, panelled from the floor to the ceiling, and with curious china +tiles set in around the fire-places. In the room in which I always slept +when I visited there, these wooden walls were of pale green; the tiles +were of blue and white, and afforded me endless study and perplexity, +being painted with a series of half-allegorical, half-historical, +half-Scriptural representations which might well have puzzled an older +head than mine. The parlors were white, with gold ornaments; the library +was of oak, with mahogany wainscoting, and so were the two great central +halls, upper and lower. The balustrade of the staircase was of apple-tree +wood, more beautiful than all the rest, having fine red veins on its dark +polished surface. These halls were lined with portraits of dead Nortons, +men and women, who looked as much at home as if the grand old house had +always borne their name. And well they might, for none of the owners who +had gone before had been of as gentle blood as they; and now they would +probably never be taken down from the walls, for my uncle had bought the +house, and my uncle's son would inherit it; and it had never yet been +known that a Norton of our branch of Nortons had lived wastefully or come +to want. + +My uncle had married very late in life: he was now a gray-haired man, with +little children around his knee. It was said once in my presence, by some +one who did not know I listened, that his heart had been broken when he +was little more than a boy, by the faithlessness of a woman older than +himself, and that he would never have married if he had not seen that +another heart would be broken if he did not. Be that as it may, his +bearing towards his wife was always of the most chivalrous and courteous +devotion, so courteous as perhaps to confirm this interpretation of his +marriage. + +My aunt was an uninteresting woman, of whom, if she were not in sight, one +never thought; but she had great strength of affection and much good sense +in affairs. Her children loved her; her husband enjoyed the admirably +ordered system of her management, and her house was a delightful one to +visit. Although she did not contribute to the flavor of living, she never +hindered or thwarted those who could. There was freedom in her presence, +from the very fact that you forgot her, and that she did not in the least +object to being forgotten. Such people are of great use in the world; and +make much comfort. + +At the time when the strange incidents which I am about to tell occurred, +my aunt had been married twelve years, and had four children; three girls, +Sarah, Hilda, and Agnes, and a baby boy, who had as yet no name. Sarah was +called "Princess," and her real name was never heard. She was the oldest, +and was my uncle's inseparable companion. She was a child of uncommon +thoughtfulness and tenderness. The other two were simply healthy, happy +little creatures, who gave no promise of being any more individual than +their serene, quiet mother. + +I was spending the winter in the family, and going to school, and between +my uncle and me there had grown up an intimate and confidential friendship +such as is rare between a man of sixty and a girl of fifteen. I understood +him far better than his wife did; and his affection for me was so great +and so caressing that he used often to say, laughingly, "Nell, my girl, +you'll never have another lover like me!" + +We were sitting at breakfast one morning when Princess came in, holding a +small letter in her hand. + +"Look, papa mia!" she said; "see this queer old letter I found on the +cellar stairs. It looks a hundred years old." + +My uncle glanced up, carelessly at first, but as soon as he saw the paper +he stretched out his hand for it, and looked eager. It did indeed seem as +if it were a hundred years old; yellow, crumpled, torn. It had been folded +in the clumsy old way which was customary before the invention of +envelopes; the part of the page containing the address had been torn out. +He read a few words, and the color mounted in his cheek. + +"Where did you say you found it, Princess?" he said. + +"On the cellar stairs, papa; I went down to find Fido, and he was playing +with it." + +"What is it, Joseph?" said Aunt Sarah, in tones a shade more eager than +their wont. + +"I do not know, my dear," replied my uncle; "it is very old," and he went +on reading with a more and more sobered face. + +"Robert," said he, turning to the waiter, "do you know where this paper +could have come from? Have any old papers been carried down from the +garret, to light the fire in the furnace?" + +"No, sir," said Robert, "not that I know, sir." + +"There are whole barrels of old papers under the eaves in the garret," +said Aunt Sarah; "I have always meant to have them burned up; I dare say +this came out of one of them, in some way;" and she resumed her habitual +expression of nonchalance. + +"Perhaps so," said Uncle Jo, folding up the paper and putting it in his +pocket. "I will look, after breakfast." + +She glanced up, again surprised, and said, "Why? is it of any importance?" + +"Oh, no, no," said he hastily, with a shade of embarrassment in his voice, +"it is only an old letter, but I thought there might be more from the same +person." + +"Who was it?" said Aunt Sarah, languidly. + +"I don't know; only the first name is signed," said he evasively; and the +placid lady asked no more. The children were busy with Fido, and breakfast +went on, but I watched my uncle's face. I had never seen it look just as +it looked then. What could that old yellow letter have been? My magnetic +sympathy with my uncle told me that he was deeply moved. + +At dinner-time my uncle was late, and Aunt Sarah said, with a little less +than her usual dignity, "I never did see such a man as Mr. Norton, when he +takes a notion in his head. He's been all the morning rummaging in clouds +of dust in the garret, to find more of those old letters." + +"Who wrote it, Auntie?" said I. + +"Heaven knows," said she; "some woman or other, fifty years ago. He says +her name was Esther." + +"Did you read it?" I asked tremblingly. Already I felt a shrinking sense +of regard for the unknown Esther. + +Aunt Sarah looked at me with almost amused surprise. "Read it, child? no, +indeed! What do I care what that poor soul wrote half a century ago. But +your uncle's half out of his head about her, and he's had all the servants +up questioning them back and forth till they are nearly as mad as he is. +Cook says she has found several of them on the cellar stairs in the last +few weeks; but she saw they were so old she threw them into the fire, and +never once looked at them; and when she said that, your uncle just +groaned. I never did see such a man as he is when he gets a notion in his +head,"--she repeated, hopelessly. + +My uncle came in flushed and tired. Nothing was said about the letters +till, just as dinner was over, he said suddenly:-- + +"Robert, if you find any more of these old papers anywhere, bring them to +me at once. And give orders to all the servants that no piece of old +paper with writing on it is to be destroyed without my seeing it." + +"Yes, sir," said Robert, without changing a muscle of his face, but I saw +that he too was of Mrs. Norton's opinion as to his master's oddity when he +once got a notion in his head. + +"Who was the lady, papa?" said little Agnes. "Did you know her?" + +"My dear, the letter is as old as papa is himself," said he. "I think the +lady died when papa was a little baby." + +"Then what makes you care so much, papa?" persisted Agnes. + +"I can't tell you, little one," said he, kissing her, and tossing her up +in the air; but he looked at me. + +In the early twilight that afternoon I found my uncle lying with closed +eyes on the lounge in the library. He was very tired by his long +forenoon's work in the garret. I sat down on the floor and stroked his +dear old white hair. + +"Pet," he said, without opening his eyes, "that letter had the whole soul +of a woman in it." + +"I thought so, dear," said I, "by your face." + +After a long interval he said: "I could not find a word more of her +writing; I might have known I should not;" and again, after a still longer +silence, "Would you like to read it, Nell?" + +"I am not sure, Uncle Jo," I said. "It seems hardly right. I think she +would not so much mind your having it, because you are a man; but another +woman! no, uncle dear, I think the letter belongs to you." + +"Oh, you true woman-hearted darling," he said, kissing me; "but some day +I think I shall want you to read it with me. She would not mind your +reading it, if she knew you as I do." + +Just then Aunt Sarah came into the room, and we said no more. + +Several days passed by, and the mysterious letter was forgotten by +everybody except my uncle and me. + +One bitterly cold night we were sitting around a blazing coal fire in the +library. It was very late. Aunt Sarah was asleep in her chair; my uncle +was reading. Suddenly the door opened and Robert came in, bringing a +letter on his little silver tray: it was past eleven o'clock; the evening +mail had been brought in long before. + +"Why, what is that, Robert?" said Uncle Jo, starting up a little alarmed. + +"One of them old letters, sir," replied Robert; "I just got it on the +cellar stairs, sir." + +My uncle took the letter hastily. Robert still stood as if he had more to +say; and his honest, blank face looked stupefied with perplexity. + +"If you please, sir," he began, "it's the queerest thing ever I saw. That +letter's been put on them stairs, sir, within the last five minutes." + +"Why, Robert, what do you mean?" said my uncle, thoroughly excited. + +"Oh dear," groaned Aunt Sarah, creeping out of her nap and chair, "if you +are going into another catechism about those old letters, I am going to +bed;" and she left the room, not staying long enough to understand that +this was a new mystery, and not a vain rediscussing of the old one. + +It seemed that Robert had been down cellar to see that the furnace fire +was in order for the night. As soon as he reached the top of the stairs, +in coming up, he remembered that he had not turned the outside damper +properly, and went back to do it. + +"I wasn't gone three minutes, sir, and when I came back there lay the +letter, right side up, square in the middle of the stairs; and I'd take my +Bible oath, sir, as 'twan't there when I went down." + +"Who was in the hall when you went down, Robert?" said my uncle sternly. + +"Nobody, sir. Every servant in the house had gone to bed, except Jane" (my +aunt's maid), "and she was going up the stairs over my head, sir, when I +first went down into the cellar. I know she was, sir, for she called +through the stairs to me, and she says, 'Master'll hear you, Robert.' You +see, sir, Jane and me didn't know as it was so late, and we was frightened +when we heard the clock strike half-past eleven." + +"That will do, Robert," said Uncle Jo. "You can go," and Robert +disappeared, relieved but puzzled. There seemed no possible explanation of +the appearance of the letter there and then, except that hands had placed +it there during the brief interval of Robert's being in the cellar. There +were no human hands in the house which could have done it. Was a restless +ghost wandering there, bent on betraying poor Esther's secrets to +strangers? What did it, what could it mean? + +"Will you read this one with me, Nell?" said my uncle, turning it over +reverently and opening it. + +"No," I said, "but I will watch you read it;" and I sat down on the floor +at his feet. + +The letter was very short; he read it twice without speaking; and then +said, in an unsteady voice: "This is an earlier letter than the other, I +think. This is a joyous one; poor Esther! I believe I know her whole +story. But the mystery is inexplicable! I would take down these walls if I +thought I could get at the secret." + +Long past midnight we sat and talked it all over; and racked our brains in +vain to invent any theory to account for the appearance of the letters on +that cellar stairway. My uncle's tender interest in the poor dead Esther +was fast being overshadowed by the perplexing mystery. + +A few days after this, Mary the cook found another of the letters when she +first went down-stairs in the morning, and Robert placed it by my uncle's +plate, with the rest of his mail. It was the strangest one of all, for +there was not a word of writing in it that could be read. It was a foreign +letter; some lines of the faded old postmarks were still visible on the +back. The first page looked as if it had been written over with some sort +of sympathetic ink; but not a word could be deciphered. Folded in a small +piece of the thinnest of paper was a mouldy and crumbling flower, of a +dull-brown color; on the paper was written,--"Pomegranate blossom, from +Jaffa," and a few lines of poetry, of which we could make out only here +and there a word. + +Even Aunt Sarah was thoroughly aroused and excited now. Robert had been in +the cellar very late on the previous night, and was sure that at that time +no papers were on the stairs. + +"I never go down them stairs, sir," said Robert, "without looking--and +listening too," he added under his breath, with a furtive look back at the +cook, who was standing in the second doorway of the butler's pantry. The +truth was, Robert had been afraid of the cellar ever since the finding of +the second letter: and all the servants shared his uneasiness. + +Between eleven at night and seven the next morning, this mute ghostly waif +from Palestine, with the half-century old dust of a pomegranate flower in +its keeping, had come up that dark stairway. It appeared now that the +letters were always found on the fourth stair from the top. This fact had +not before been elicited, but there seemed little doubt about it. Even +little Princess said,-- + +"Yes, papa, I am sure that the one I found was on that stair; for I now +remember Fido came up with only just one or two bounds to the top, as soon +as he saw me." + +We were very sober. The little children chattered on; it meant nothing to +them, this breath from such a far past. But to hearts old enough to +comprehend, there was something infinitely sad and suggestive in it. I +already felt, though I had not read one word of her writing, that I loved +the woman called Esther; as for my uncle, his very face was becoming +changed by the thought of her, and the mystery about the appearance of the +letters. He began to be annoyed also; for the servants were growing +suspicious, and unwilling to go into the cellar. Mary the cook declared +that on the morning when she found this last letter, something white +brushed by her at the foot of the stairs; and Robert said that he had for +a long time heard strange sounds from that staircase late at night. + +Just after this, my aunt went away for a visit; and several days passed +without any further discoveries on the stairs. My uncle and I spent long +hours in talking over the mystery, and he urged me to read, or to let him +read to me, the two letters he had. + +"Pet," he said, "I will tell you something. One reason they move me so is, +that they are strangely like words written by a woman whom I knew thirty +years ago. I did not believe two such women had been on the earth." + +I kissed his hand when he said this; yet a strange unwillingness to read +Esther's letters withheld me. I felt that he had right, and I had not. + +But the end of the mystery was near. It was revealed, as it ought to have +been, to my uncle himself. + +One night I was wakened out of my first sleep by a very cautious tap at my +door, and my uncle's voice, saying,-- + +"Nell--Nell, are you awake?" + +I sprang to the door instantly. + +"O uncle, are you ill?" (My aunt had not yet returned.) + +"No, pet. But I want you down-stairs. Dress yourself and come down into +the library." + +My hands trembled with excitement as I dressed. Yet I was not afraid: I +knew it was in some way connected with "Esther," though my uncle had not +mentioned her name. + +I found him sitting before the library table, which was literally covered +with old letters, such as we had before seen. + +"O uncle!" I gasped as soon as I saw them. + +"Yes, dear! I have got them all. There was no ghost!" + +Then he told me in few words what had happened. It seemed that he had gone +down himself into the cellar, partly to satisfy himself that all was right +with the furnace, partly with a vague hope of finding another of the +letters. He had found nothing, had examined the furnace, locked the door +at the head of the cellar stairs, and gone up to his bed-room. While he +was undressing, a strange impulse seized him to go back once more, and see +whether it might not happen to him as it had to Robert, to find a letter +on returning after a few moments' interval. + +He threw on his wrapper, took a candle, and went down. The first thing he +saw, on opening the door, which he had himself locked only five minutes +before, was a letter lying on the same fourth stair! + +"I confess, Nell," said he, "for a minute I felt as frightened as black +Bob. But I sat down on the upper step, and resolved not to go away till I +had discovered how that letter came there, if I stayed till day-light!" + +Nearly an hour passed, he said; the cold wind from the cellar blew up and +swayed the candle-flame to and fro. All sorts of strange sounds seemed to +grow louder and louder, and still he sat, gazing helplessly in a sort of +despair at that motionless letter, which he had not lifted from the stair. +At last, purely by accident, he looked up to the staircase overhead--the +front stairs, down which he had just come from his room. He jumped to his +feet! There, up among the dark cobwebbed shadows, he thought he saw +something white. He held up the candle. It was, yes, it was a tiny corner +of white paper wedged into a crack; by standing on the beam at the side he +could just reach it. He touched it,--pulled it;--it came out +slowly,--another of Esther's letters. They were hid in the upper +staircase! The boards had been worn and jarred a little away from each +other, and the letters were gradually shaken through the opening; some +heavier or quicker step than usual giving always the final impetus to a +letter which had been for days slowly working down towards the fated +outlet. + +Stealthily as any burglar he had crept about his own house, had taken up +the whole of the front staircase carpet, and had with trouble pried off +one board of the stair in which the letters were hid. There had been a +spring, he found, but it was rusted and would not yield. He had carefully +replaced the carpet, carried the letters into the library, and come for +me; it was now half-past one o'clock at night. + +Dear, blessed Uncle Jo! I am an old woman now. Good men and strong men +have given me love, and have shown me of their love for others; but never +did I feel myself so in the living presence of incarnate love as I did +that night, sitting with my white-haired uncle, face to face with the +faded records of the love of Esther Wynn. + +It was only from one note that we discovered her last name. This was +written in the early days of her acquaintance with her lover, and while +she was apparently little more than a child. It was evident that at first +the relation was more like one of pupil and master. For some time the +letters all commenced scrupulously "my dear friend," or "my most beloved +friend." It was not until years had passed that the master became the +lover; we fancied, Uncle Jo and I, as we went reverently over the +beautiful pages, that Esther had grown and developed more and more, until +she was the teacher, the helper, the inspirer. We felt sure, though we +could not tell how, that she was the stronger of the two; that she moved +and lived habitually on a higher plane; that she yearned often to lift the +man she loved to the freer heights on which her soul led its glorified +existence. + +It was strange how little we gathered which could give a clew to her +actual history or to his. The letters almost never gave the name of the +place, only the day and year, many of them only the day. There was dearth +of allusions to persons; it was as if these two had lived in a separate +world of their own. When persons were mentioned at all, it was only by +initials. It was plain that some cruel, inexorable bar separated her from +the man she loved; a bar never spoken of--whose nature we could only +guess,--but one which her strong and pure nature felt itself free to +triumph over in spirit, however submissive the external life might seem. + +Their relation had lasted for many years; so many, that that fact alone +seemed a holy seal and testimony to the purity and immortality of the bond +which united them. Esther must have been a middle-aged woman when, as the +saddened letters revealed, her health failed and she was ordered by the +physicians to go to Europe. The first letter which my uncle had read, the +one which Princess found, was the letter in which she bade farewell to +her lover. There was no record after that; only two letters which had come +from abroad; one was the one that I have mentioned, which contained the +pomegranate blossom from Jaffa, and a little poem which, after long hours +of labor, Uncle Jo and I succeeded in deciphering. The other had two +flowers in it--an Edelweiss which looked as white and pure and immortal as +if it had come from Alpine snows only the day before; and a little crimson +flower of the amaranth species, which was wrapped by itself, and marked +"From Bethlehem of Judea." The only other words in this letter were, "I am +better, darling, but I cannot write yet." + +It was evident that there had been the deepest intellectual sympathy +between them. Closely and fervently and passionately as their hearts must +have loved, the letters were never, from first to last, simply lovers' +letters. Keen interchange of comment and analysis, full revelation of +strongly marked individual life, constant mutual stimulus to mental growth +there must have been between these two. We were inclined to think, from +the exquisitely phrased sentences and rare fancies in the letters, and +from the graceful movement of some of the little poems, that Esther must +have had ambition as a writer. Then, again, she seemed so wholly, simply, +passionately, a woman, to love and be loved, that all thought of anything +else in her nature or her life seemed incongruous. + +"Oh," groaned Uncle Jo, after reading one of the most glowing letters, +"oh, was there really ever in any other man's arms but mine a woman who +could say such things as these between kisses? O Nell, Nell, thank God +that you haven't the dower of such a double fire in your veins as Esther +had!" + +All night we sat reading, and reading, and reading. When the great clock +in the hall struck six, we started like guilty persons. + +"Oh, my childie," said Uncle Jo, "how wrong this has been in me! Poor +little pale face, go to bed now, and remember, I forbid you to go to +school to-day; and I forbid your getting up until noon. I promise you I +will not look at another letter. I will lock them all up till to-morrow +evening, and then we will finish them." + +I obeyed him silently. I was too exhausted to speak; but I was also too +excited to sleep. Until noon I lay wide awake on the bed, in my darkened +room, living over Esther Wynn's life, marvelling at the inexplicable +revelation of it which had been put into our hands, and wondering, until +the uncertainty seemed almost anguish, what was that end which we could +never know. Did she die in the Holy Land? or did she come home well and +strong? and did her lover die some day, leaving his secret treasure of +letters behind him, and poor stricken Esther to go to her grave in fear +lest unfriendly hands might have gained possession of her heart's records? +He was a married man we felt sure. Had the wife whom he did not love paced +up and down and up and down for years over these dumb witnesses to that of +which she had never dreamed? The man himself, when he came to die, did he +writhe, thinking of those silent, eloquent, precious letters which he must +leave to time and chance to destroy or protect? Did men carry him, dead, +down the very stairs on which he had so often knelt unseen and wafted +kisses towards the hidden Esther? + +All these conjectures and questions, and thousands more, hurried in wild +confusion through my brain. In vain I closed my eyes, in vain I pressed my +hands on my eyelids; countless faces, dark, light, beautiful, plain, +happy, sad, threatening, imploring, seemed dancing in the air around my +bed, and saying, "Esther, Esther!" + +We knew she was fair; for there was in one of the letters a tiny curl of +pale brown hair; but we believed from many expressions of hers that she +had no beauty. Oh, if I could but have known how she looked! + +At last I fell asleep, and slept heavily until after dark. This refreshed +my overwrought nerves, and when at nine o'clock in the evening I joined my +uncle in the library, I was calmer than he. + +We said very few words. I sat on his knee, with one arm around his neck, +and hand in hand we reverently lifted the frail, trembling sheets. + +We learned nothing new; in fact, almost any one of the letters was a +rounded revelation of Esther's nature, and of the great love she bore--and +there was little more to learn. There were more than a hundred of the +letters, and they embraced a period of fifteen years. We arranged them in +piles, each year by itself; for some years there were only two or three; +we wondered whether during those years they had lived near each other, and +so had not written, or whether the letters had been destroyed. When the +last letter was laid where it belonged, we looked at each other in +silence, and we both sighed. + +Uncle Jo spoke first. + +"Childie, what shall we do with them?" + +"I do not know, uncle," I said. "I should feel very guilty if we did not +make sure that no one else read them. I should feel very guilty myself, +except that I have read them with you. They seem to me to belong to you, +somehow." + +Uncle Jo kissed me, and we were silent again. Then he said, "There is but +one way to make sure that no human being will ever read them--that is, to +burn them; but it is as hard for me to do it as if they had been written +to me." + +"Could you not put them back in the stair, and nail it up firmly?" said I. + +It was a stormy night. The wind was blowing hard, and sleet and snow +driving against the windows. At this instant a terrible gust rattled the +icy branches of the syringa-bushes against the window, with a noise like +the click of musketry, and above the howling of the wind there came a +strange sound which sounded like a voice crying, "Burn, burn!" + +Uncle Jo and I both heard it, and both sprang to our feet, white with a +nervous terror. In a second he recovered himself, and said, laughing, "Pet +we are both a good deal shaken by this business. But I do think it will be +safer to burn the letters. Poor, poor Esther. I hope she is safe with her +lover now." + +"Oh, do you doubt it?" said I; "I do not." + +"No," said he, "I do not, either. Thank God!" + +"Uncle Jo," said I, "do you think Esther would mind if I copied a few of +these letters, and two or three of the poems? I so want to have them that +it seems to me I cannot give them up; I love her so, I think she would be +willing." + +The storm suddenly died away, and the peaceful silence around us was +almost as startling as the fierce gust had been before. I took it as an +omen that Esther did not refuse my wish, and I selected the four letters +which I most desired to keep. I took also the pomegranate blossom, and the +Edelweiss, and the crimson Amaranth from Bethlehem. + +"I think Esther would rather that these should not be burned," I said. + +"Yes; I think so too," replied Uncle Jo. + +Then we laid the rest upon the fire. The generous hickory logs seemed to +open their arms to them. In a few seconds great panting streams of fire +leaped up and rushed out of our sight, bearing with them all that was +perishable of Esther Wynn's letters. Just as the crackling shadowy shapes +were falling apart and turning black, my uncle sprang to an Indian cabinet +which stood near, and seizing a little box of incense-powder which had +been brought from China by his brother, he shook a few grains of it into +the fire. A pale, fragrant film rose slowly in coiling wreaths and clouds +and hid the last moments of the burning of the letters. When the incense +smoke cleared away, nothing could be seen on the hearth but the bright +hickory coals in their bed of white ashes. + +"I shall make every effort," said Uncle Jo, "to find out who lived in this +house during those years. I presume I can, by old records somewhere." + +"Oh, uncle," I said, "don't. I think they would rather we did not know any +more." + +"You sweet woman child!" he exclaimed. "You are right. Your instinct is +truer than mine. I am only a man, after all! I will never try to learn who +it was that Esther loved." + +"I am very glad," he added, "that this happened when your Aunt Sarah was +away. It would have been a great weariness and annoyance to her to have +read these letters." + +Dear, courteous Uncle Jo! I respected his chivalrous little artifice of +speech, and tried to look as if I believed he would have carried the +letters to his wife if she had been there. + +"And I think, dear," he hesitatingly proceeded, "we would better not speak +of this. It will be one sacred little secret that you and your old uncle +will keep. As no more letters will be found on the stairs, the whole thing +will be soon forgotten." + +"Oh yes, uncle," replied I; "of course it would be terrible to tell. It +isn't our secret, you know; it is dear Esther Wynn's." + +I do not know why it was that I locked up those four letters of Esther +Wynn's and did not look at them for many months. I felt very guilty in +keeping them; but a power I could not resist seemed to paralyze my very +hand when I thought of opening the box in which they were. At last, long +after I had left Uncle Jo's house, I took them out one day, and in the +quiet and warmth of a summer noon I copied them slowly, carefully, word +for word. Then I hid the originals in my bosom, and walked alone, without +telling any one whither I was going, to a wild spot I knew several miles +away, where a little mountain stream came foaming and dashing down +through a narrow gorge to empty itself into our broad and placid river. I +sat down on a mossy granite boulder, and slowly tore the letters into +minutest fragments. One by one I tossed the white and tiny shreds into the +swift water, and watched them as far as I could see them. The brook lifted +them and tossed them over and over, lodged them in mossy crevices, or on +tree roots, then swept them all up and whirled them away in dark depths of +the current from which they would never more come to the surface. It was a +place which Esther would have loved, and I wondered, as I sat there hour +after hour, whether it were really improbable, that she knew just then +what I was doing for her. I wondered, also, as I often before had +wondered, if it might not have been by Esther's will that the sacred hoard +of letters, which had lain undiscovered for so many years, should fall at +last into the hands of my tender and chivalrous Uncle Jo. It was certainly +a strange thing that on the stormy night which I have described, when we +were discussing what should be done with the letters, both Uncle Jo and I +at the same instant should have fancied we heard the words "Burn, burn!" + +The following letter is the earliest one which I copied. It is the one +which Robert found so late at night and brought to us in the library:-- + +"FRIDAY EVENING. + +"SWEETEST:--It is very light in my room to-night. The full moon and the +thought of you! I see to write, but you would forbid me--you who would +see only the moonlight, and not the other. Oh, my darling! my darling! + +"I have been all day in fields and on edges of woods. I have never seen +just such a day: a June sun, and a September wind; clover and butter-cups +under foot, and a sparkling October sky overhead. I think the earth +enjoyed it as a sort of masquerading frolic. The breeze was so strong that +it took the butterflies half off their air-legs, and they fairly reeled +about in the sun. As for me, I sat here and there, on hillocks and stones, +among ferns, and white cornels, and honey-bees, and bobolinks. I was the +only still thing in the fields. I waited so long in each spot, that it was +like being transplanted when I moved myself to the north or the south. And +I discovered a few things in each country in which I lived. For one thing, +I observed that the little busy bee is not busy all the while; that he +does a great amount of aimless, idle snuffing and tasting of all sorts of +things besides flowers; especially he indulges in a running accompaniment +of gymnastics among the grass-stalks, which cannot possibly have anything +to do with honey. I watched one fellow to-day through a series of positive +trapeze movements from top to bottom and bottom to top of a grass-tangle. +When he got through he shook himself, and smoothed off his legs exactly as +the circus-men do. Then he took a long pull at a clover well. + +"Ah, the clover! Dearest! you should have seen how it swung to-day. The +stupidest person in the world could not have helped thinking that it kept +time to invisible band-playing, and was trying to catch hold of the +buttercups. I lay down at full length and looked off through the stems, +and then I saw for the first time how close they were, and that they +constantly swayed and touched, and sometimes locked fast together for a +second. Stately as a minuet it looked, but joyous and loving as the +wildest waltz I ever danced in your arms, my darling. Oh, how dare we +presume to be so sure that the flowers are not glad as we are glad! On +such a day as to-day I never doubt it; and I picked one as reverently and +hesitatingly as I would ask the Queen of the Fairies home to tea if I met +her in a wood. + +"Laughing, are you, darling? Yes, I know it. Poor soul! You cannot help +being a man, I suppose. Nor would I have you help it, my great, strong, +glorious one! How I adore the things which you do, which I could not do. +Oh, my sweet master! Never fear that I do you less reverence than I +should. All the same, I lie back on my ferny hillock, and look you in the +eye, and ask you what you think would become of you if you had no little +one of my kind to bring you honey! And when I say this--you--ah, my +darling, now there are tears in my eyes, and the moonlight grows dim. I +cannot bear the thinking what you would do when I said those words! +Good-night! Perhaps in my sleep I will say them again, and you will be +there to answer. In the morning I shall write out for you to-day's clover +song. + +"YOUR OWN." + +The clover song was not in the letter. We found it afterward on a small +piece of paper, so worn and broken in the folds that we knew it must have +been carried for months in a pocket-book. + + A Song of Clover. + + I wonder what the Clover thinks?-- + Intimate friend of Bob-o-links, + Lover of Daisies slim and white, + Waltzer with Butter-cups at night; + Keeper of Inn for travelling Bees, + Serving to them wine dregs and lees, + Left by the Royal Humming-birds, + Who sip and pay with fine-spun words; + Fellow with all the lowliest, + Peer of the gayest and the best; + Comrade of winds, beloved of sun, + Kissed by the Dew-drops, one by one; + Prophet of Good Luck mystery + By sign of four which few may see; + Symbol of Nature's magic zone, + One out of three, and three in one; + Emblem of comfort in the speech + Which poor men's babies early reach; + Sweet by the roadsides, sweet by sills, + Sweet in the meadows, sweet on hills, + Sweet in its white, sweet in its red, + Oh, half its sweet cannot be said; + Sweet in its every living breath, + Sweetest, perhaps, at last, in death! + Oh, who knows what the Clover thinks? + No one! unless the Bob-o-links! + +The lines which were written on the paper inclosing the pomegranate flower +from Jaffa we deciphered with great trouble. The last verse we were not +quite sure about, for there had been erasures. But I think we were right +finally. + + Pomegranate blossom! Heart of fire! + I dare to be thy death, + To slay thee while the summer sun + Is quickening thy breath; + To rob the autumn of thy wine;-- + Next year of all ripe seeds of thine, + That thou mayest bear one kiss of mine + To my dear love before my death. + + For, Heart of fire, I too am robbed + Like thee! Like thee, I die, + While yet my summer sun of love + Is near, and warm, and high; + The autumn will run red with wine; + The autumn fruits will swing and shine; + But in that little grave of mine + I shall not see them where I lie. + + Pomegranate blossom! Heart of fire! + This kiss, so slow, so sweet, + Thou bearest hence, can never lose + Even in death its heat. + Redder than autumns can run with wine, + Warmer than summer suns can shine, + Forever that dear love of mine + Shall find thy sacred hidden sweet! + +The next letter which I copied was one written five years after the first; +it is not so much a letter as an allegory, and so beautiful, so weird, +that we wondered Esther did not set it to tune as a poem. + +"SUNDAY MORNING. + +"MY DARLING:--Even this blazing September sun looks dull to me this +morning. I have come from such a riotous dream. All last night I walked in +a realm of such golden splendor, that I think even in our fullest noon I +shall only see enough light to grope by for days and days. + +"I do not know how to tell you my dream. I think I must put it in shape +of a story of two people; but you will know, darling, that in my dream it +was you and I. And I honestly did dream it, love, every word just as I +shall write it for you; only there are no words which so glow and light +and blaze as did the chambers through which we walked. I had been reading +about the wonderful gold mines of which every one is talking now, and this +led to my dream. + +"You can laugh if you like, sweet master mine, but I think it is all true, +and I call it + +"The Mine of Gold. + +"There is but one true mine of gold; and of it no man knows, and no woman, +save those who go into it. Neither can they who go tell whether they sink +into the earth's heart or are caught up into the chambers of the air, or +led to the outer pavilions of the sea. Suddenly they perceive that all +around, above, below them is gold: rocks of gold higher than they can see; +caves whose depths are bright with gold; lakes of gold which is molten and +leaps like fire, but in which flowers can be dipped and not wither; sands +of gold, soft and pleasant to touch; innumerable shapes of all things +beautiful, which wave and change, but only from gold to gold; air which +shines and shimmers like refiner's gold; warmth which is like the glow of +the red gold of Ophir; and everywhere golden silence! + +"Hand in hand walk the two to whom it is given to enter here: of the gold, +they may carry away only so much as can be hid in their bosoms; grains +which are spilled, or are left on their garments, turn to ashes; only to +each other may they speak of these mysteries; but all men perceive that +they have riches, and that their faces shine as the faces of angels. + +"Suddenly it comes to pass that one day a golden path leads them farther +than they have ever gone before, and into a vast chamber, too vast to be +measured. Its walls, although they are of gold, are also like crystal. +This is a mystery. Only three sides are walled. The fourth side is the +opening of a gallery which stretches away and away, golden like a broad +sunbeam: from out the distance comes the sound of rushing waters; however +far they walk in that gallery, still the golden sunbeam stretches before +them; still the sound of the waters is no nearer: and so would the sunbeam +and the sound of the waters be forever, for they are Eternity. + +"But there is a fourth mystery. On the walls of crystal gold, on all +sides, shine faces; not dead faces, not pictured faces; living +faces--warm, smiling, reflected faces. + +"Then it is revealed to the two who walk hand in hand that these are the +faces of all who have ever entered in, as they, between the walls of +crystal gold; flashing faces of the sons of God looking into eyes of +earthly women;--these were the first: and after them, all in their +generations until to-day, the sons of men with the women they have loved. +The men's faces smile; but the faces of the women have in them a joy +greater than a smile. + +"Presently the two who walk hand in hand see their own faces added to the +others, with the same smile, the same joy; and it is revealed to them that +these faces are immortal. Through all eternity they will shine on the +walls of crystal gold; and those who have once looked on them can never +more see in each other change or loss of beauty. + +"If as they walk there, in the broad sunbeam, an angel meets them, bearing +the tokens of a golden bowl that is broken and a silver cord that is +unloosed, they follow him without grief or fear, thinking on that chamber +of crystal gold! + +"Good-by, darling! + +"ESTHER." + +The third letter was written three years after this one. Sadness was +beginning to cloud the free, joyous outpourings of Esther's heart. +Probably this sadness was one of the first symptoms of the failure of her +health. It was from this letter chiefly--although there were expressions +in others which deepened the impression--that we inferred that her lover +had tried to stimulate in her an intellectual ambition. + +"WEDNESDAY EVENING. + +"DEAR ONE:--Your last letter gave me great pain. It breaks my heart to see +you looking so earnestly and expectantly into my future. Beloved, that I +have grown and developed so much in the last seven years is no proof that +I can still keep on growing. If you understood, darling, you would see +that it is just the other way. I have grown year by year, hour by hour, +because hour by hour I have loved you more. That is all! I have felt the +growth. I know it, as clearly as you do. But I know the secret of it as +you do not; and I know the limit of it, as you cannot. I cannot love you +more, precious one! Neither would I if I could! One heart-beat more in a +minute, and I should die! But all that you have so much loved and cared +for, dear, calling it intellectual growth and expansion in me, has been +only the clearing, refining, and stimulating of every faculty, every +sense, by my love for you. When I have said or written a word which has +pleased you thus, if there were any special fitness or eloquence in the +word, it was only because I sought after what would best carry my thought +to you, darling; what would be best frame, best setting, to keep the +flowers or the sky which I had to see alone,--to keep them till you could +see them too! Oh, dear one, do understand that there is nothing of me +except my heart and my love! While they were wonderingly, tremblingly, +rapturously growing within me, under the sweet warmth of your love, no +wonder I changed day by day. But, precious one, it is ended. The whole +solemn, steadfast womanhood within me recognizes it. Beloved master, in +one sense you can teach me no more! I am content. I desire nothing. One +moment of full consciousness of you, of life, of your love, is more than +all centuries of learning, all eternities of inspiration. I would rather +at this moment, dear, lay my cheek on your hand, and sit in my old place +by your knee, and feel myself the woman you have made me, than know all +that God knows, and make a universe! + +"Beloved, do not say such things to me any more; and whenever you feel +such ambition and hope stirring in your heart, read over this little +verse, and be sure that your child knew what she said when she wrote +it:-- + + "The End of Harvest. + + "O Love, who walkest slow among my sheaves, + Smiling at tint and shape, thy smile of peace, + But whispering of the next sweet year's increase,-- + O tender Love, thy loving hope but grieves + My heart! I rue my harvest, if it leaves + Thee vainly waiting after harvests cease, + Like one who has been mocked by title lease + To barren fields. + + Dear one, my word deceives + Thee never. Hearts one summer have. Their grain + 'Is sown not that which shall be!' + + Can new pain + Teach me of pain? Or any ecstasy + Be new, that I should speak its name again? + My darling, all there was or is of me + Is harvested for thine Eternity! + + ESTHER." + +The fourth letter was the one which Princess had found, the first which my +uncle had read--Esther's farewell to her lover before going abroad. No +wonder that it so moved him! + +"SUNDAY NIGHT. + +"MY DARLING:--I implore you not to come. Have I not loved you enough, all +these years long, for you to trust me, and believe that it is only because +I love you so much that I cannot, cannot see you now? Dear, did I ever +before ask you to forego your wish for mine? Did I ever before withhold +anything from you, my darling? Ah, love, you know--oh, how well you know, +that always, in every blissful moment we have spent together, my bliss +has been shadowed by a little, interrupted by a little, because my soul +was forever restlessly asking, seeking, longing, for one more joy, +delight, rapture, to give to you! + +"Now listen, darling. You say it is almost a year since we met; true, but +if it were yesterday, would you remember it any more clearly? Why, my +precious one, I can see over again at this moment each little movement +which you made, each look your face wore; I can hear every word; I can +feel every kiss; very solemn kisses they were too, love, as if we had +known. + +"You say we may never meet again. True. But if that is to be so, all the +more I choose to leave with you the memory of the face you saw then, +rather than of the one you would see to-day. Be compassionate, darling, +and spare me the pain of seeing your pain at sight of my poor changed +face. I hope it is not vanity, love, which makes me feel this so strongly. +Being so clearly and calmly conscious as I am that very possibly my +earthly days are near their end, it does not seem as if mere vanity could +linger in my soul. And you know you have always said, dearest, that I had +none. I know I have always wondered unspeakably that you could find +pleasure in my face, except occasionally, when I have felt, as it were, a +great sudden glow and throb of love quicken and heat it under your gaze; +then, as I have looked up in your eyes, I have sometimes had a flash of +consciousness of a transfiguration in the very flesh of my face, just as I +have a sense of rapturous strength sometimes in the very flesh and bone of +my right hand, when I strike on the piano some of Beethoven's chords. But +I know that, except in the light of your presence, I have no beauty. I +had not so much to lose by illness as other women. But, dear one, that +little is gone. I can read in the pitying looks of all my friends how +altered I am. Even if I did not see it with my own eyes, I should read it +in theirs. And I cannot--oh, I cannot read it in yours! + +"If I knew any spell which could make you forget all except some one rare +moment in which you said in your heart, 'she never looked so lovely +before!' oh, how firmly I would bind you by it! All the weary indifferent, +or unhappy looks, love, I would blot out from your memory, and have the +thought of me raise but one picture in your mind. I would have it as if I +had died, and left of my face no record on earth except one wonderful +picture by some great master, who had caught the whole beauty of the one +rarest moment of my life. Darling, if you look back, you will find that +moment; for it must have been in your arms; and let Love be the master who +will paint the immortal picture! + +"As for this thin, pale, listless body, which just now answers to the name +of me, there is nothing in or about it which you know. Presently it will +be carried like a half-lifeless thing on board a ship; the winds will blow +roughly on it and it will not care. If God wills, darling, I will come +back to you well and strong. If I cannot come well and strong, I hope +never to come at all. + +"Don't call me cruel. You would feel the same. I also should combat the +resolve in you, as you do in me. But in my heart I should understand. I +should sympathize, and I should yield. + +"God bless you, darling. I believe He will, for the infinite goodness of +your life. I thank Him daily that He has given it to me to bless you a +little. If I had seen you to say farewell, my beloved, I should not have +kissed you many times, as has been our wont. That is for hours of joy. I +should have kissed you three times--only three times--on your beautiful, +strong, gentle lips, and each kiss would have been a separate sacrament, +with a bond of its own. I send them to you here, love, and this is what +they mean! + + "Three Kisses of Farewell. + + "Three, only three my darling, + Separate, solemn, slow; + Not like the swift and joyous ones + We used to know + When we kissed because we loved each other + Simply to taste love's sweet, + And lavished our kisses as the summer + Lavishes heat,-- + But as they kiss whose hearts are wrung, + When hope and fear are spent, + And nothing is left to give, except + A sacrament! + + "First of the three, my darling, + Is sacred unto pain; + We have hurt each other often; + We shall again, + When we pine because we miss each other, + And do not understand + How the written words are so much colder + Than eye and hand. + I kiss thee, dear, for all such pain + Which we may give or take; + Buried, forgiven, before it comes + For our love's sake! + + "The second kiss, my darling, + Is full of joy's sweet thrill; + We have blessed each other always; + We always will. + We shall reach until we feel each other, + Past all of time and space; + We shall listen till we hear each other + In every place; + The earth is full of messengers, + Which love sends to and fro; + I kiss thee, darling, for all joy + Which we shall know! + + "The last kiss, oh, my darling, + My love--I cannot see + Through my tears, as I remember + What it may be. + We may die and never see each other, + Die with no time to give + Any sign that our hearts are faithful + To die, as live. + Token of what they will not see + Who see our parting breath, + This one last kiss, my darling, seals + The seal of death!" + +It was on my sixteenth birthday that I copied these letters and poems of +Esther Wynn's. I kept them, with a few other very precious things, in a +curious little inlaid box, which came from Venice, and was so old that in +many places its sides were worm-eaten. It was one of my choicest +treasures, and I was never separated from it. + +When I was twenty years old I had been for two years a happy wife, for one +year a glad mother, and had for some time remembered Esther only in the +vague, passing way in which happy souls recall old shadows of the griefs +of other hearts. As my boy entered on a second summer he began to droop a +little, and the physician recommended that we should take him to the +sea-side; so it came to pass that on the morning of my twentieth birthday +I was sitting, with my baby in my arms, on a rocky sea-shore, at one of +the well-known summer resorts of the New Hampshire coast. Near me sat a +woman whose face had interested me strangely ever since my arrival. She +seemed an invalid; but there was an atmosphere of overflowing vitality +about her, in spite of her feebleness, which made her very presence +stimulating and cheering to every one. I had longed to speak with her, but +as yet had not done so. While I sat watching her face and my baby's, and +the face of the sea, she was joined by her husband, who had just come from +a walk in the fields, and had brought her a large bouquet of red clover +and feathery grasses. She took it eagerly with great delight, and +exclaimed:-- + + "I wonder what the Clover thinks? + Intimate friend of Bob-o-links!" + +I could not control the sudden start with which I heard these words. Who +was this that knew Esther Wynn's verses by heart? I could hardly refrain +from speaking to her at once, and betraying all. But I reflected instantly +that I must be very cautious; it would be almost impossible to find out +what I longed to know without revealing how my own acquaintance with the +verses had come about. Days passed before I ventured to allude to the +subject; but one evening, as we were walking together, she stooped and +picked a clover-blossom, and said,-- + +"I really think I love red clover better than any wild flower we have." + +"I thought so," said I, "when I saw you take that big bunch your husband +brought you the other morning. That was before I knew you: I felt almost +rude, I watched you so, in spite of myself." + +"But I had watched you quite as much," said she, smiling; "I thought then +of giving you a part of the clover. Edward always brings me huge bouquets +of it every day; he knows so well how I love it." + +"I heard you quote a little couplet of verse about it then," said I, +looking away from her, that she might not see my face: "I was so near you +I could not help hearing what you said." + +"Oh, yes," said she, + + "I wonder what the Clover thinks? + Intimate friend of Bob-o-links'-- + +"I do not know but that old clover-song is the real reason I love clover +so. My mother taught it to me when I was a little child. It is all very +quaint and sweet. Would you like to hear it?" + +I felt myself color scarlet, but I replied,-- + +"Oh, yes, pray repeat it." + +When she had repeated the verses she went on speaking, to my great relief, +saving me from the necessity of saying anything. + +"That was written a great many years ago, by an aunt of my mother's. My +mother has a little manuscript book bound in red morocco, very faded and +worn, which my grandmother kept on her bureau till she died, last year; +and it has in it this little clover-song and several others, with Aunt +Esther's diary while she was abroad. She died abroad; died in Jerusalem, +and was buried there. There was something mysteriously sad in her life, I +think: grandmother always sighed when she spoke of her, and used to read +in the little red book every day. She was only her half-sister, but she +said she loved her better than she did any sister of her own. Once I asked +grandmamma to tell me about her, but she said, 'There is nothing to tell, +child. She was never married: she died the autumn before your mother was +born, and your mother looked very much like her when she was young. She is +like her, too, in many ways,' and that was all grandmamma would ever say. +But we always called her Aunt Esther, and know all her verses by heart, +and the diary was fascinating. It seems strange to read such vivid written +records of people you never saw; don't you think so?" + +"Yes, it must, very," said I. + +She went on: "I always had a very special love for this old Aunt Esther, +which I could hardly account for. I am to have the little red book when my +mother dies; and"--she hesitated a moment--"and I named my first baby for +her, Esther Wynn. The baby only lived to be a few weeks old, and I often +think, as I look at her little grave-stone, of the other one, so many +thousand miles away, alone in a strange land, bearing the same name." + +On my way home I stopped for a few days' visit at Uncle Jo's. Late one +night, sitting in my old place at his feet in the library, I told him this +sequel to the romance of the letters. + +"Oh, childie, how could you help showing that you knew about her?" said +he. "You must have betrayed it." + +"No, I am sure I did not," I said. "I never spoke about it after that day, +and she was too absorbed herself in the reminiscences to observe my +excitement." + +"What was your friend's name?" said Uncle Jo. + +I told him. He sprang from his chair, and walked rapidly away to the end +of the library; presently he came back, and standing before me, said,-- + +"Nell! Nell! your friend's mother is the woman of whom I once spoke to +you! I might have known that the subtle kinship I felt between Esther Wynn +and her was no chance resemblance. I never heard of the name 'Wynn,' +however. But you said she was only a half-sister; that accounts for it. I +might have known! I might have known!" he exclaimed, more to himself than +to me, and buried his face in his hands I stole away quietly and left him; +but I heard him saying under his breath, "Her aunt! I might have known!" + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Saxe Holm's Stories, by Helen Hunt Jackson + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10926 *** diff --git a/10926-h/10926-h.htm b/10926-h/10926-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2d04949 --- /dev/null +++ b/10926-h/10926-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,9944 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?> +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> + +<html> + +<head> +<title>Saxe Holm's Stories, by Helen Hunt Jackson</title> + +<style type="text/css"> + <!-- + + body { + margin .5em; + font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; + } + + h1, h2, h3, h4 { + text-align: center; + font-weight: bold; + font-variant: small-caps + } + + .smallcaps { font-variant: small-caps } + + a { text-decoration: none; } + a:hover { background-color: #ffffcc } + + hr { + height: 1px; + } + + p.abs { + width: 80%; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + } + + ul { + list-style-type: none; + } +--> +</style> +</head> + +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10926 ***</div> + +<h1 class="title">Saxe Holm's Stories</h1> + +<h2 class="author">[by Helen Hunt Jackson]</h2> + + + <h3>1873</h3> + + +<br /><br /> + +<div class="chapter" id="toc"> +<h2>Content.</h2> + +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> + + + +<ul> +<li><a href="#ch01">Draxy Miller's Dowry</a></li> +<li><a href="#ch02">The Elder's Wife</a></li> +<li><a href="#ch03">Whose Wife Was She?</a></li> +<li><a href="#ch04">The One-Legged Dancers</a></li> +<li><a href="#ch05">How One Woman Kept Her Husband</a></li> +<li><a href="#ch06">Esther Wynn's Love-Letters</a></li> +</ul> + + +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> + + +</div> + + +<br /><br /> +<div class="chapter" id="ch01"> +<h2>Draxy Miller's Dowry.</h2> + + + +<h3>Part I.</h3> + + +<p>When Draxy Miller's father was a boy, he read a novel in which the heroine +was a Polish girl, named Darachsa. The name stamped itself indelibly upon +his imagination; and when, at the age of thirty-five, he took his +first-born daughter in his arms, his first words were--"I want her called +Darachsa."</p> + +<p>"What!" exclaimed the doctor, turning sharply round, and looking out above +his spectacles; "what heathen kind of a name is that?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Reuben!" groaned a feeble voice from the baby's mother; and the nurse +muttered audibly, as she left the room, "There ain't never no luck comes +of them outlandish names."</p> + +<p>The whole village was in a state of excitement before night. Poor Reuben +Miller had never before been the object of half so much interest. His +slowly dwindling fortunes, the mysterious succession of his ill-lucks, had +not much stirred the hearts of the people. He was a retice'nt man; he +loved books, and had hungered for them all his life; his townsmen +unconsciously resented what they pretended to despise; and so it had +slowly come about that in the village where his father had lived and died, +and where he himself had grown up, and seemed likely to live and die, +Reuben Miller was a lonely man, and came and went almost as a stranger +might come and go. His wife was simply a shadow and echo of himself; one +of those clinging, tender, unselfish, will-less women, who make pleasant, +and affectionate, and sunny wives enough for rich, prosperous, +unsentimental husbands, but who are millstones about the necks of +sensitive, impressionable, unsuccessful men. If Jane Miller had been a +strong, determined woman, Reuben would not have been a failure. The only +thing he had needed in life had been persistent purpose and courage. The +right sort of wife would have given him both. But when he was discouraged, +baffled, Jane clasped her hands, sat down, and looked into his face with +streaming eyes. If he smiled, she smiled; but that was just when it was of +least consequence that she should smile. So the twelve years of their +married life had gone on slowly, very slowly, but still surely, from bad +to worse; nothing prospered in Reuben's hands. The farm which he had +inherited from his father was large, but not profitable. He tried too long +to work the whole of it, and then he sold the parts which he ought to have +kept. He sunk a great portion of his little capital in a flour-mill, which +promised to be a great success, paid well for a couple of years, and then +burnt down, uninsured. He took a contract for building one section of a +canal, which was to pass through part of his land; sub-contractors cheated +him, and he, in his honesty, almost ruined himself to right their wrong. +Then he opened a little store; here, also, he failed. He was too honest, +too sympathizing, too inert. His day-book was a curiosity; he had a vein +of humor which no amount of misfortune could quench; and he used to enter +under the head of "given" all the purchases which he knew were not likely +to be paid for. It was at sight of this book, one day, that Jane Miller, +for the first and only time in her life, lost her temper with Reuben.</p> + +<p>"Well, I must say, Reuben Miller, if I die for it," said she, "I haven't +had so much as a pound of white sugar nor a single lemon in my house for +two years, and I do think it's a burnin' shame for you to go on sellin' +'em to them shiftless Greens, that'll never pay you a cent, and you know +it!"</p> + +<p>Reuben was sitting on the counter smoking his pipe and reading an old +tattered copy of Dryden's translation of Virgil. He lifted his clear blue +eyes in astonishment, put down his pipe, and, slowly swinging his long +legs over the counter, caught Jane by the waist, put both his arms round +her, and said,--</p> + +<p>"Why, mother, what's come over you! You know poor little Eph's dyin' of +that white swellin'. You wouldn't have me refuse his mother anything we've +got, would you?"</p> + +<p>Jane Miller walked back to the house with tears in her eyes, but her +homely sallow face was transfigured by love as she went about her work, +thinking to herself,--</p> + +<p>"There never was such a man's Reuben, anyhow. I guess he'll get interest +one o' these days for all he's lent the Lord, first and last, without +anybody's knowin' it."</p> + +<p>But the Lord has His own system of reckoning compound interest, and His +ways of paying are not our ways. He gave no visible sign of recognition of +indebtedness to Reuben. Things went harder and harder with the Millers, +until they had come to such a pass that when Reuben Miller went after the +doctor, in the early dawn of the day on which little Draxy was born, he +clasped his hands in sorrow and humiliation before he knocked at the +doctor's door; and his only words were hard words for a man of +sensitiveness and pride to speak:--</p> + +<p>"Doctor Cobb, will you come over to my wife? I don't dare to be sure I can +ever pay you; but if there's anything in the store "--</p> + +<p>"Pshaw, pshaw, Reuben, don't speak of that; you'll be all right in a few +years," said the kind old doctor, who had known Reuben from his boyhood, +and understood him far better than any one else did.</p> + +<p>And so little Draxy was born.</p> + +<p>"It's a mercy it's a girl at last," said the village gossips. "Mis' +Miller's had a hard time with them four great boys, and Mr. Miller so +behindhand allers."</p> + +<p>"And who but Reuben Miller'd ever think of givin' a Christian child such a +name!" they added.</p> + +<p>But what the name was nobody rightly made out; nor even whether it had +been actually given to the baby, or had only been talked of; and between +curiosity and antagonism, the villagers were so drawn to Reuben Miller's +store, that it began to look quite like a run of custom.</p> + +<p>"If I hold out a spell on namin' her," said Reuben, as in the twilight of +the third day he sat by his wife's bedside; "if I hold out a spell on +namin' her, I shall get all the folks in the district into the store, and +sell out clean," and he laughed quizzically, and stroked the little +mottled face which lay on the pillow. "There's Squire Williams and Mis' +Conkey both been in this afternoon; and Mis' Conkey took ten pounds of +that old Hyson tea you thought I'd never sell; and Squire Williams, he +took the last of those new-fangled churns, and says he, 'I expect you'll +want to drive trade a little brisker, Reuben, now there's a little girl to +be provided for; and, by the way, what are you going to call her?'</p> + +<p>"'Oh, it's quite too soon to settle, that,' said I, as if I hadn't a name +in my head yet. And then Mis' Conkey spoke up and said: 'Well, I did hear +you were going to name her after a heathen goddess that nobody over heard +of, and I do hope you will consider her feelings when she grows up.'</p> + +<p>"'I hope I always shall, Mis' Conkey,' said I; and she didn't know what to +say next. So she picked up her bundle of tea, and they stepped off +together quite dignified.</p> + +<p>"But I think we'll call her Darachsa, in spite of 'em all, Jane," added +Reuben with a hesitating half laugh.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Reuben!" Jane said again. It was the strongest remonstrance on which +she ever ventured. She did not like the name; but she adored Reuben. So +when the baby was three months old, she was carried into the meeting-house +in a faded blue cashmere cloak, and baptized in the name of the Father, +and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, "Darachsa Lawton Miller."</p> + +<p>Jane Miller's babies always thrived. The passive acquiescence of her +nature was a blessing to them. The currents of their blood were never +rendered unhealthful by overwrought nerves or disturbed temper in their +mother. Their infancy was as placid and quiet as if they had been kittens. +Not until they were old enough to understand words, and to comprehend +deprivations, did they suffer because of their poverty. Then a serious +look began to settle upon their faces; they learned to watch their father +and mother wistfully, and to wonder what was wrong; their childhood was +very short.</p> + +<p>Before Draxy was ten years old she had become her father's inseparable +companion, confidant, and helper. He wondered, sometimes almost in terror, +what it meant, that he could say to this little child what he could not +say to her mother; that he often detected himself in a desire to ask of +this babe advice or suggestion which he never dreamed of asking from his +wife.</p> + +<p>But Draxy was wise. She had the sagacity which comes from great tenderness +and loyalty, combined with a passionate nature. In such a woman's soul +there is sometimes an almost supernatural instinct. She will detect danger +and devise safety with a rapidity and ingenuity which are incredible. But +to such a nature will also come the subtlest and deepest despairs of which +the human heart is capable. The same instinct which foresees and devises +for the loved ones will also recognize their most hidden traits, their +utmost possibilities, their inevitable limitations, with a completeness +and infallibility akin to that of God Himself. Jane Miller, all her life +long, believed in the possibility of Reuben's success; charged his +failures to outside occasions, and hoped always in a better day to come. +Draxy, early in her childhood, instinctively felt, what she was far too +young consciously to know, that her father would never be a happier man; +that "things" would always go against him. She had a deeper reverence for +the uprightness and sweet simplicity of his nature than her mother ever +could have had. She comprehended, Jane believed; Draxy felt, Jane saw. +Without ever having heard of such a thing as fate, little Draxy recognized +that her father was fighting with it, and that fate was the stronger! Her +little arms clasped closer and closer round his neck, and her serene blue +eyes, so like his, and yet so wondrously unlike, by reason of their latent +fire and strength, looked this unseen enemy steadfastly in the face, day +by day.</p> + +<p>She was a wonderful child. Her physical health was perfect. The first ten +years of her life were spent either out of doors, or in her father's lap. +He would not allow her to attend the district school; all she knew she +learned from him. Reuben Miller had never looked into an English grammar +or a history, but he knew Shakespeare by heart, and much of Homer; a few +odd volumes of Walter Scott's novels, some old voyages, a big family +Bible, and a copy of Byron, were the only other books in his house. As +Draxy grew older, Reuben now and then borrowed from the minister books +which he thought would do her good; but the child and he both loved Homer +and the Bible so much better than any later books, that they soon drifted +back to them. It was a little sad, except that it was so beautiful, to +see the isolated life these two led in the family. The boys were good, +sturdy, noisy boys. They went to school in the winter and worked on the +farm in the summer, like all farmers' boys. Reuben, the oldest, was +eighteen when Draxy was ten; he was hired, by a sort of indenture, for +three years, on a neighboring farm, and came home only on alternate +Sundays. Jamie, and Sam, and Lawton were at home; young as they were, they +did men's service in many ways. Jamie had a rare gift for breaking horses, +and for several years the only ready money which the little farm had +yielded was the price of the colts which Jamie raised and trained so +admirably that they sold well. The other two boys were strong and willing, +but they had none of their father's spirituality, or their mother's +gentleness. Thus, in spite of Reuben Miller's deep love for his children, +he was never at ease in his boys' presence; and, as they grew older, +nothing but the influence of their mother's respect for their father +prevented their having an impatient contempt for his unlikeness to the +busy, active, thrifty farmers of the neighborhood.</p> + +<p>It was a strange picture that the little kitchen presented on a winter +evening. Reuben sat always on the left hand of the big fire-place, with a +book on his knees. Draxy was curled up on an old-fashioned cherry-wood +stand close to his chair, but so high that she rested her little dimpled +chin on his head. A tallow candle stood on a high bracket, made from a +fungus which Reuben had found in the woods. When the candle flared and +dripped, Draxy sprang up on the stand, and, poised on one foot, reached +over her father's head to snuff it. She looked like a dainty fairy +half-floating in the air, but nobody knew it. Jane sat in a high-backed +wooden rocking-chair, which had a flag bottom and a ruffled calico +cushion, and could only rock a very few inches back and forth, owing to +the loss of half of one of the rockers. For the first part of the evening, +Jane always knitted; but by eight o'clock the hands relaxed, the needles +dropped, the tired head fell back against the chair, and she was fast +asleep.</p> + +<p>The boys were by themselves in the farther corner of the room, playing +checkers or doing sums, or reading the village newspaper. Reuben and Draxy +were as alone as if the house had been empty. Sometimes he read to her in +a whisper; sometimes he pointed slowly along the lines in silence, and the +wise little eyes from above followed intently. All questions and +explanations were saved till the next morning, when Draxy, still curled up +like a kitten, would sit mounted on the top of the buckwheat barrel in the +store, while her father lay stretched on the counter, smoking. They never +talked to each other, except when no one could hear; that is, they never +spoke in words; there was mysterious and incessant communication between +them whenever they were together, as there is between all true lovers.</p> + +<p>At nine o'clock Reuben always shut the book, and said, "Kiss me, little +daughter." Draxy kissed him, and said, "Good-night, father dear," and that +was all. The other children called him "pa," as was the universal custom +in the village. But Draxy even in her babyhood had never once used the +word. Until she was seven or eight years old she called him "Farver;" +after that, always "father dear." Then Reuben would wake Jane up, sighing +usually, "Poor mother, how tired she is!" Sometimes Jane said when she +kissed Draxy, at the door of her little room, "Why don't you kiss your pa +for good-night?"</p> + +<p>"I kissed father before you waked up, ma," was always Draxy's quiet +answer.</p> + +<p>And so the years went on. There was much discomfort, much deprivation in +Reuben Miller's house. Food was not scarce; the farm yielded enough, such +as it was, very coarse and without variety; but money was hard to get; the +store seemed to be absolutely unremunerative, though customers were not +wanting; and the store and the farm were all that Reuben Miller had in the +world. But in spite of the poor food; in spite of the lack of most which +money buys; in spite of the loyal, tender, passionate despair of her +devotion to her father, Draxy grew fairer and fairer, stronger and +stronger. At fourteen her physique was that of superb womanhood. She had +inherited her body wholly from her father. For generations back, the +Millers had been marked for their fine frames. The men were all over six +feet tall, and magnificently made; and the women were much above the +average size and strength. On Draxy's fourteenth birthday she weighed one +hundred and fifty pounds, and measured five feet six inches in height. Her +coloring was that of an English girl, and her bright brown hair fell below +her waist in thick masses. To see the face of a simple-hearted child, +eager but serene, determined but lovingly gentle, surrounded and glorified +by such splendid physical womanhood, was a rare sight. Reuben Miller's +eyes filled with tears often as he secretly watched his daughter, and said +to himself, "Oh, what is to be her fate! what man is worthy of the wife +she will be?" But the village people saw only a healthy, handsome girl, +"overgrown," they thought, and "as queer as her father before her," they +said, for Draxy, very early in life, had withdrawn herself somewhat from +the companionship of the young people of the town.</p> + +<p>As for Jane, she loved and reverenced Draxy, very much as she did Reuben, +with touching devotion, but without any real comprehension of her nature. +If she sometimes felt a pang in seeing how much more Reuben talked with +Draxy than with her, how much more he sought to be with Draxy than with +her, she stifled it, and, reproaching herself for disloyalty to each, set +herself to work for them harder than before.</p> + +<p>In Draxy's sixteenth year the final blow of misfortune fell upon Reuben +Miller's head.</p> + +<p>A brother of Jane's, for whom, in an hour of foolish generosity, Reuben +had indorsed a note of a considerable amount, failed. Reuben's farm was +already heavily mortgaged. There was nothing to be done but to sell it. +Purchasers were not plenty nor eager; everybody knew that the farm must be +sold for whatever it would bring, and each man who thought of buying hoped +to profit somewhat, in a legitimate and Christian way, by Reuben's +extremity.</p> + +<p>Reuben's courage would have utterly forsaken him now, except for Draxy's +calmness. Jane was utterly unnerved; wept silently from morning till +night, and implored Reuben to see her brother's creditors, and beg them +to release him from his obligation. But Draxy, usually so gentle, grew +almost stern when such suggestions were made.</p> + +<p>"You don't understand, ma," she said, with flushing cheeks. "It is a +promise. Father must pay it. He cannot ask to have it given back to him."</p> + +<p>But with all Draxy's inflexibility of resolve, she could not help being +disheartened. She could not see how they were to live; the three rooms +over the store could easily be fitted up into an endurable dwelling-place; +but what was to supply the food which the farm had hitherto given them? +There was literally no way open for a man or a woman to earn money in that +little farming village. Each family took care of itself and hired no +service, except in the short season of haying. Draxy was an excellent +seamstress, but she knew very well that the price of all the sewing hired +in the village in a year would not keep them from starving. The Store must +be given up, because her father would have no money with which to buy +goods. In fact, for a long time, most of his purchases had been made by +exchanging the spare produce of his farm at large stores in the +neighboring towns. Still Draxy never wavered, and because she did not +waver Reuben did not die. The farm was sold at auction, with the stock, +the utensils, and all of the house-furniture which was not needed to make +the store chambers habitable. The buyer boasted in the village that he had +not given more than two thirds of the real value of the place. After +Reuben's debts were all paid, there remained just one thousand dollars to +be put into the bank.</p> + +<p>"Why, father! That is a fortune," said Draxy, when he told her. "I did +not suppose we should have anything, and it is glorious not to owe any man +a cent."</p> + +<p>It was early in April when the Millers moved into the "store chambers." +The buyer of their farm was a hard-hearted, penurious man, a deacon of the +church in which Draxy had been baptized. He had never been known to give a +penny to any charity excepting Foreign Missions. His wife and children had +never received at his hands the smallest gift. But even his heart was +touched by Draxy's cheerful acquiescence in the hard change, and her +pathetic attempts to make the new home pleasant. The next morning after +Deacon White took possession, he called out over the fence to poor Reuben, +who stood listlessly on the store steps, trying not to look across at the +house which had been his.</p> + +<p>"I say, Miller, that gal o' your'n is what I call the right sort o' woman, +up an' down. I hain't said much to her, but I've noticed that she set a +heap by this garding; an' I expect she'll miss the flowers more'n +anything; now my womenfolks they won't have anythin' to do with such +truck; an' if she's a mind to take care on't jest's she used ter, I'm +willin'; I guess we shall be the gainers on't."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Deacon White; Draxy'll be very glad," was all Reuben could +reply. Something in his tone touched the man's flinty heart still more; +and before he half knew what he was going to say, he had added,--</p> + +<p>"An' there's the vegetable part on't, too, Miller. I never was no hand to +putter with garden sass. If you'll jest keep that up and go halves, fair +and reg'lar, you're welcome."</p> + +<p>This was tangible help. Reuben's face lighted up.</p> + +<p>"I thank you with all my heart," he replied. "That'll be a great help to +me; and I reckon you'll like our vegetables, too," he said, half smiling, +for he knew very well that nothing but potatoes and turnips had been seen +on Deacon White's table for years.</p> + +<p>Then Reuben went to find Draxy; when he told her, the color came into her +face, and she shut both her hands with a quick, nervous motion, which was +habitual to her under excitement.</p> + +<p>"Oh, father, we can almost live off the garden," said she. "I told you we +should not starve."</p> + +<p>But still new sorrows, and still greater changes, were in store for the +poor, disheartened family. In June a malignant fever broke out in the +village, and in one short month Reuben and Jane had laid their two +youngest boys in the grave-yard. There was a dogged look, which was not +all sorrow, on Reuben's face as he watched the sexton fill up the last +grave. Sam and Jamie, at any rate, would not know any more of the +discouragement and hardship of life.</p> + +<p>Jane, too, mourned her boys not as mothers mourn whose sons have a +birthright of gladness. Jane was very tired of the world.</p> + +<p>Draxy was saddened by the strange, solemn presence of death. But her +brothers had not been her companions. She began suddenly to feel a sense +of new and greater relationship to them, now that she thought of them as +angels; she was half terrified and bewildered at the feeling that now, for +the first time, they were near to her.</p> + +<p>On the evening after Sam's funeral, as Reuben was sitting on the store +steps, with his head buried in his hands, a neighbor drove up and threw +him a letter.</p> + +<p>"It's been lyin' in the office a week or more, Merrill said, and he +reckoned I'd better bring it up to you," he called out, as he drove on.</p> + +<p>"It might lie there forever, for all my goin' after it," thought Reuben to +himself, as he picked it up from the dust; "it's no good news, I'll be +bound."</p> + +<p>But it was good news. The letter was from Jane's oldest sister, who had +married only a few years before, and gone to live in a sea-port town on +the New England coast. Her husband was an old captain, who had retired +from his seafaring life with just money enough to live on, in a very +humble way, in an old house which had belonged to his grandfather. He had +lost two wives; his children were all married or dead, and in his +loneliness and old age he had taken for his third wife the gentle, quiet +elder sister who had brought up Jane Miller. She was a gray-haired, +wrinkled spinster woman when she went into Captain Melville's house; but +their life was by no means without romance. Husband and home cannot come +to any womanly heart too late for sentiment and happiness to put forth +pale flowers.</p> + +<p>Emma Melville wrote offering the Millers a home; their last misfortune had +but just come to her knowledge, for Jane had been for months too much out +of heart to write to her relatives. Emma wrote:--</p> + +<p>"We are very poor, too; we haven't anything but the house, and a little +money each year to buy what we need to eat and wear, the plainest sort. +But the house is large; Captain Melville and me never so much as set foot +up-stairs. If you can manage to live on the upper floor, you're more than +welcome, we both say; and we hope you won't let any pride stand in the way +of your coming. It will do us good to have more folks in the house, and it +ain't as if it cost us anything, for we shouldn't never be willing, +neither me nor Captain Melville, to rent the rooms to strangers, not while +we've got enough to live on without."</p> + +<p>There was silence for some minutes between Reuben and Jane and Draxy after +this letter had been read. Jane looked steadily away from Reuben. There +was deep down in the patient woman's heart, a latent pride which was +grievously touched. Reuben turned to Draxy; her lips were parted; her +cheeks were flushed; her eyes glowed. "Oh, father, the sea!" she +exclaimed. This was her first thought; but in a second more she added, +"How kind, how good of Aunt Emma's husband!"</p> + +<p>"Would you like to go, my daughter?" said Reuben, earnestly. + +"Why, I thought of course we should go!" exclaimed Draxy, turning with a +bewildered look to her mother, who was still silent. "What else is the +letter sent for? It means that we must go."</p> + +<p>Her beautiful simplicity was utterly removed from any false sense of +obligation. She accepted help as naturally from a human hand as from the +sunshine; she would give it herself, so far as she had power, just as +naturally and just as unconsciously.</p> + +<p>There was very little discussion about the plan. Draxy's instinct overbore +all her father's misgiving, and all her mother's unwillingness.</p> + +<p>"Oh, how can you feel so, Ma," she exclaimed more than once. "If I had a +sister I could not. I love Aunt Emma already next to you and father; and +you don't know how much we can do for her after we get there, either. I +can earn money there, I know I can; all we need."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Melville had written that there were many strangers in the town in +the summer, and that she presumed Draxy could soon find all the work she +wished as seamstress; also that there were many chances of work for a man +who was accustomed to gardening, as, of course, Reuben must be.</p> + +<p>Draxy's sanguine cheerfulness was infectious; even Jane began to look +forward with interest to the new home; and Reuben smiled when Draxy sang. +Lawton and Reuben were to be left behind; that was the only regret; but it +was merely anticipating by a very little the separation which was +inevitable, as the boys had both become engaged to daughters of the +farmers for whom they had been working, and would very soon take their +positions as sons-in-law on these farms.</p> + +<p>The store was sold, the furniture packed, and Reuben Miller, with his wife +and child, set his face eastward to begin life anew. The change from the +rich wheat fields and glorious forests of Western New York, to the bare +stony stretches of the Atlantic sea-board, is a severe one. No adult heart +can make it without a struggle. When Reuben looked out of the car windows +upon the low gray barrens through which he was nearing his journey end, +his soul sank within him. It was sunset; the sea glistened like glass, and +was as red as the sky. Draxy could not speak for delight; tears stood in +her eyes, and she took hold of her father's hand. But Reuben and Jane saw +only the desolate rocks, and treeless, shrubless, almost--it seemed to +them--grassless fields, and an unutterable sense of gloom came over them. +It was a hot and stifling day; a long drought had parched and shriveled +every living thing; and the white August dust lay everywhere.</p> + +<p>Captain Melville lived in the older part of the town near the water. The +houses were all wooden, weather-beaten, and gray, and had great patches of +yellow lichen on their walls and roofs; thin rims of starved-looking grass +edged the streets, and stray blades stood up here and there among the old +sunken cobble-stones which made the pavements.</p> + +<p>The streets seemed deserted; the silence and the sombre color, and the +strange low plashing of the water against the wharves, oppressed even +Draxy's enthusiastic heart. Her face fell, and she exclaimed +involuntarily, "Oh, what a lonesome place!" Checking herself, she added, +"but it's only the twilight makes it look so, I expect."</p> + +<p>They had some difficulty in finding the house. The lanes and streets +seemed inextricably tangled; the little party was shy of asking direction, +and they were all disappointed and grieved, more than they owned to +themselves, that they had not been met at the station. At last they found +the house. Timidly Draxy lifted the great brass knocker. It looked to her +like splendor, and made her afraid. It fell more heavily than she supposed +it would, and the clang sounded to her over-wrought nerves as if it filled +the whole street. No one came. They looked at the windows. The curtains +were all down. There was no sign of life about the place. Tears came into +Jane's eyes. She was worn out with the fatigue of the journey.</p> + +<p>"Oh dear, oh dear," she said, "I wish we hadn't come."</p> + +<p>"Pshaw, mother," said Reuben, with a voice cheerier than his heart, "very +likely they never got our last letter, and don't know we were to be here +to-day," and he knocked again.</p> + +<p>Instantly a window opened in the opposite house, and a jolly voice said, +"My gracious," and in the twinkling of an eye the jolly owner of the jolly +voice had opened her front door and run bareheaded across the street, and +was shaking hands with Reuben and Jane and Draxy, all three at once, and +talking so fast that they could hardly understand her.</p> + +<p>"My gracious I my gracious! Won't Mrs. Melville be beat! Of course you're +her folks she was expecting from the West, ain't you? I mistrusted it +somehow as soon as I heard the big knock. Now I'll jest let you in the +back door. Oh my, Mis' Melville'll never get over this; to think of her +be'n' away, an' she's been lookin' and looking and worryin' for two weeks, +because she didn't hear from you; and only last night Captain Melville he +said he'd write to-day if they didn't hear.'"</p> + +<p>"We wrote," said Draxy, in her sweet, low voice, "we wrote to Aunt Emma +that we'd come to-day."</p> + +<p>"Now did you!" said the jolly voice. "Well, that's jest the way. You see +your letter's gone somewhere else, and now Mis' Melville she's gone +to"--the rest of the sentence was lost, for the breathless little woman was +running round the house to the back door.</p> + +<p>In a second more the upper half of the big old-fashioned door had swung +open, to Draxy's great delight, who exclaimed, "Oh, father, we read about +such doors as this in that Knickerbocker book, don't you remember?"</p> + +<p>But good Mrs. Carr was drawing them into the house, giving them neighborly +welcome, all the while running on in such voluble ejaculatory talk that +the quiet, saddened, recluse-like people were overwhelmed with +embarrassment, and hardly knew which way to turn. Presently she saw their +confusion and interrupted herself with--</p> + +<p>"Well, well, you're jest all tired out with your journey, an' a cup o' +tea's the thing you want, an' none o' my talk; but you see Mis' Melville +'n me's so intimate that I feel's if I'd known you always, 'n I'm real +glad to see you here, real glad; 'n I'll bring the tea right over; the +kettle was a boilin' when I run out, 'n I'll send Jim right down town for +Captain Melville; he's sure to be to the library. Oh, but won't Mis' +Melville be beat," she continued, half way down the steps; and from the +middle of the street she called back, "'an she ain't coming home till +to-morrow night."</p> + +<p>Reuben and Jane and Draxy sat down with as bewildered a feeling as, if +they had been transported to another world. The house was utterly unlike +anything they had ever seen; high ceilings, wainscoted walls, wooden +cornices and beams, and wooden mantels with heads carved on the corners. +It seemed to them at first appallingly grand. Presently they observed the +bare wooden floors, the flag-bottomed chairs, and faded chintz cushions, +the row of old tin utensils, and plain, cheap crockery in the glass-doored +cupboard, and felt more at home.</p> + +<p>"You know Aunt Emma said they were poor, too," said Draxy, answering her +own unspoken thought as well as her father's and mother's.</p> + +<p>Reuben pushed his hair off his warm forehead and sighed.</p> + +<p>"I suppose we might go up-stairs, mother," he said; "that's to be our +house, as I understand it"</p> + +<p>Draxy bounded at the words. With flying steps she ascended the stairs and +opened the first door. She stood still on the threshold, unable to move +from astonishment. It was still light enough to see the room. Draxy began +to speak, but broke down utterly, and bursting out crying, threw herself +into the arms of her father who had just reached the top of the stairs.</p> + +<p>"Oh, father, it's all fixed for a sitting-room! Father dear, I told you!"</p> + +<p>This was something they had not dreamed of. They had understood the offer +to be merely of rooms in which they could live rent-free. In fact, that +had been Captain Melville's first intention. But his generous sailor's +heart revolted from the thought of stripping the rooms of furniture for +which he had no use. So Emma had rearranged the plain old-fashioned +things, and adding a few more which could be spared as well as not, had +fitted up a sitting-room and two bed-rooms with all that was needed for +comfort. Reuben and Jane and Draxy were all crying when Mrs. Carr came +back with her pitcher of smoking tea. Reuben tried to explain to her why +they were crying, but she interrupted him with,--</p> + +<p>"Well, now, I understand it jest's if 'twas to me it'd all happened; an' I +think it's lucky after all that Mis' Melville wasn't here, for she's +dreadful easy upset if people take on. But now you drink your tea, and get +all settled down's quick's you can, for Captain Melville 'll be here any +minute now I expect, an' he don't like tantrums."</p> + +<p>This frightened Draxy, and made a gloomy look come on Reuben's face. But +the fright and the gloom disappeared in one minute and forever when the +door burst open, and a red-faced, white-haired old man, utterly out of +breath, bounced into the room, and seizing Reuben by the hand gasped out, +puffing between the words like a steam-engine:--</p> + +<p>"Wreck me, if this isn't a hard way to make port. Why, man, we've been +looking for some hail from you for two weeks, till we began to think you'd +given us the go-by altogether. Welcome to Melville Harbor, I say, +welcome!" and he had shaken Reuben's hand, and kissed Jane and turned to +Draxy all in a breath. At the first full sight of Draxy's face he started +and felt dumb. He had never seen so beautiful a woman. He pulled out a red +silk handkerchief and wiped his face nervously as she said, "Kiss me too, +uncle," but her warm lips were on his cheek before he had time to analyze +his own feelings. Then Reuben began to say something, about gratitude, and +the old sailor swore his favorite oath again: "Now, may I be wrecked if I +have a word o' that. We're glad enough to get you all here; and as for the +few things in the rooms, they're of no account anyhow."</p> + +<p>"Few things! Oh, uncle," said Draxy, with a trembling voice, and before he +knew what she was about to do she had snatched his fat, weather-beaten old +hand and kissed it. No woman had ever kissed John Melville's hand before. +From that moment he looked upon Draxy as a princess who had let him once +kiss hers!</p> + +<p>Captain Melville and Reuben were friends before bed-time. Reuben's gentle +simplicity and unworldliness, and patient demeanor, roused in the rough +sailor a sympathy like that he had always felt for women. And to Reuben +the hearty good cheer, and brisk, bluff sailor ways were infinitely +winning and stimulating.</p> + +<p>The next day Mrs. Melville came home. In a short time the little household +had adjusted itself, and settled down into its routine of living. When, in +a few days, the great car-load of the Millers' furniture arrived, Capt. +Melville insisted upon its all going to the auction-rooms excepting the +kitchen furniture, and a few things for which Jane had especial +attachment. It brought two hundred dollars, which, in addition to the +price of the farm, and the store and its stock, gave Reuben just nineteen +hundred dollars to put in the Savings Bank.</p> + +<p>"And I am to be counted at least two thousand more, father dear, so you +are not such a very poor man after all," said Draxy, laughing and dancing +around him.</p> + +<p>Now Draxy Miller's real life began. In after years she used to say, "I +was born first in my native town; second, in the Atlantic Ocean!" The +effect of the strong sea air upon her was something indescribable; joy +seemed to radiate from her whole being. She smiled whenever she saw the +sea. She walked on the beach; she sat on the rocks; she learned to swim in +one lesson, and swam so far out that her uncle dared not follow, and +called to her in imploring terror to return. Her beauty grew more and more +radiant every day. This the sea gave to her body. But there was a far +subtler new life than the physical, a far finer new birth than the birth +of beauty,--which came to Draxy here. This, books gave to her soul. Only a +few years before, a free library had been founded in this town, by a rich +and benevolent man. Every week hundreds of volumes circulated among the +families where books were prized, and could not be owned. When Draxy's +uncle first took her into this library, and explained to her its purpose +and regulations, she stood motionless for a few moments, looking at +him--and at the books: then, with tears in her eyes, and saying, "Don't +follow me, uncle dear; don't mind me, I can't bear it," she ran swiftly +into the street, and never stopped until she had reached home and found +her father. An hour later she entered the library again, leading her +father by the hand. She had told him the story on the way. Reuben's thin +cheeks were flushed. It was almost more than he too could bear. Silently +the father and daughter walked up and down the room, looking into the +alcoves. Then they sat down together, and studied the catalogue. Then +they rose and went out, hand in hand as they had entered, speaking no +word, taking no book. For one day the consciousness of this wealth filled +their hearts beyond the possibility of one added desire. After that, Draxy +and her father were to be seen every night seated at the long table in the +reading-room. They read always together, Draxy's arm being over the back +of her father's chair. Many a man and many a woman stopped and looked long +at the picture. But neither Draxy nor her father knew it.</p> + +<p>At the end of two years, Draxy Miller had culture. She was ignorant still, +of course; she was an uneducated girl; she wept sometimes over her own +deficiencies; but her mind was stored with information of all sorts; she +had added Wordsworth to her Shakespeare; she had journeyed over the world +with every traveller whose works she could find; and she had tasted of +Plato and Epictetus. Reuben's unfailing simplicity and purity of taste +saved her from the mischiefs of many of the modern books. She had hardly +read a single novel; but her love of true poetry was a passion.</p> + +<p>In the mean time she had become the favorite seamstress of the town. Her +face, and voice, and smile would alone have won way for her; but in +addition to those, she was a most dexterous workwoman. If there had only +been twice as many days in a year, she would have been--glad. Her own +earnings in addition to her father's, and to their little income from the +money in the bank, made them comfortable; but with Draxy's expanded +intellectual life had come new desires: she longed to be taught.</p> + +<p>One day she said to her father, "Father dear, what was the name of that +canal contractor who borrowed money of you and never paid it?"</p> + +<p>Reuben looked astonished, but told her.</p> + +<p>"Is he alive yet?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes," said Reuben, "and he's rich now. There was a man here only last +week who said he'd built him a grand house this year."</p> + +<p>Draxy shut her hands nervously. "Father, I shall go and get that money."</p> + +<p>"You, child! Why it's two days' journey; and he'd never pay you a cent. I +tried times enough," replied Reuben.</p> + +<p>"But I think perhaps he would be more likely to pay it to a woman; he +would be ashamed," said Draxy, "especially if he is rich now, and I tell +him how much we need it."</p> + +<p>"No, no, child; I shouldn't hear to your going; no more would mother; and +it would be money wasted besides," said Reuben, with sternness unusual for +him.</p> + +<p>Draxy was silent. The next morning she went to the railway station and +ascertained exactly how much the journey would cost. She was disheartened +at the amount. It would be difficult for her to save so much out of a +whole year's earnings. That day Draxy's face was sad. She was sewing at +the house of one of her warmest friends. All her employers were her +friends, but this one was a woman of rare intelligence and culture, who +had loved Draxy ever since the day she had found her reading a little +volume of Wordsworth, one of the Free Library books, while she was eating +her dinner in the sewing-room.</p> + +<p>Draxy looked her gratitude, but said nothing. Not the least of her +charms, to the well-bred people who employed her, was her exquisite +reticence, her gentle and unconscious withdrawal into herself, in spite of +all familiarity with which she might be treated.</p> + +<p>A few days later Mrs. White sent a note to Draxy with the thirty dollars +inclosed, and this note to Mr. Miller:--</p> + +<p>"MR. MILLER--DEAR SIR:--</p> + +<p>"This money has been contributed, by Draxy's friends. You do not know how +much we all prize and esteem your daughter and wish to help her. I hope +you will be willing that she should use this money for the journey on +which her heart is so set. I really advise you as a friend to let her make +the effort to recover that money; I think she will get it.</p> + +<p>"Truly, your friend,</p> + +<p>"A. WHITE."</p> + +<p>This note brought tears of pride to Reuben's eyes. Draxy watched him +closely, and said:--</p> + +<p>"Father dear, I should like to go to-morrow."</p> + +<p>Her preparations had already been made. She knew beforehand that her cause +was won; that her father's sense of justice would not let him interfere +with her use of the gift for the purpose for which it was made.</p> + +<p>It was on a clear cold morning in January that Draxy set out. It was the +second journey of her life, and she was alone for the first time; but she +felt no more fear than if she had been a sparrow winging its way through a +new field. The morning twilight was just fading away; both the east and +the west were clear and glorious; the east was red, and the west pale +blue; high in the west stood the full moon, golden yellow; below it a long +narrow bar of faint rose-color; below that, another bar of fainter purple; +then the low brown line of a long island; then an arm of the sea; the +water was gray and still; the ice rims stretched far out from the coast, +and swayed up and down at the edges, as the waves pulsed in and out. +Flocks of gulls were wheeling, soaring in the air, or lighting and +floating among the ice fragments, as cold and snowy as they. Draxy leaned +her head against the side of the car and looked out on the marvelous +beauty of the scene with eyes as filled with calm delight as if she had +all her life journeyed for pleasure, and had had nothing to do but feed +and develop her artistic sense.</p> + +<p>A company of travelling actors sat near her; a dozen tawdry women and +coarse men, whose loud voices and vulgar jests made Draxy shudder. She did +not know what they could be; she had never seen such behavior; the men +took out cards and began to play; the women leaned over, looked on, and +clapped the men on their shoulders. Draxy grew afraid, and the expression +of distress on her face attracted the conductor's notice. He touched her +on the shoulder.</p> + +<p>"I'll take you into the next car, Miss, if you don't like to be near these +people. They're only actors; there's no harm in them, but they're a rough +set."</p> + +<p>"Actors," said Draxy, as the kind conductor lifted her from one platform +to another. "I never thought they were like that. Do they play +Shakespeare?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know, I'm sure," said the conductor, puzzled enough: "but I dare +say they do."</p> + +<p>"Then I'm glad I never went to the theatre," thought Draxy, as she +settled herself in her new seat. For a few moments she could not banish +her disturbed and unhappy feeling. She could not stop fancying some of the +grand words which she most loved in Shakespeare, repeated by those +repulsive voices.</p> + +<p>But soon she turned her eyes to the kindling sky, and forgot all else. The +moon was slowly turning from gold to silver; then it would turn from +silver to white cloud, then to film, then vanish away. Draxy knew that day +and the sun would conquer. "Oh, if I only understood it," sighed Draxy. +Then she fell to thinking about the first chapter in Genesis; and while +she looked upon that paling moon, she dreamed of other moons which no +human eyes ever saw. Draxy was a poet; but as yet she had never dared to +show even to her father the little verses she had not been able to help +writing. "Oh, how dare I do this; how dare I?" she said to herself, as +alone in her little room, she wrote line after line. "But if nobody ever +knows, it can do no harm. It is strange I love it, though, when I am so +ashamed."</p> + +<p>This morning Draxy had that mysterious feeling as if all things were new, +which so often comes to poetic souls. It is at once the beauty and the +burden, the exhaustion and the redemption of their lives. No wonder that +even common men can sometimes see the transfiguration which often comes to +him before whose eyes death and resurrection are always following each +other, instant, perpetual, glorious. Draxy took out her little diary. +Folded very small, and hid in the pocket of it, was a short poem that she +had written the year before on a Tiarella plant which had blossomed in +her window. Mrs. White had brought it to her with some ferns and mosses +from the mountains; and all winter long it had flowered as if in summer. +Draxy wondered why this golden moon reminded her of the Tiarella. She did +not know the subtle underlying bonds in nature. These were the Tiarella +verses:--</p> + +<blockquote><p> My little Tiarella,<br /> +If thou art my own,<br /> +Tell me how thus in winter<br /> +Thy shining flowers have blown.<br /> +Art thou a fairy smuggler,<br /> +Defying law?<br /> +Didst take of last year's summer<br /> +More than summer saw?<br /> +Or hast thou stolen frost-flakes<br /> +Secretly at night?<br /> +Thy stamens tipped with silver,<br /> +Thy petals spotless white,<br /> +Are so like those which cover<br /> +My window-pane;<br /> +Wilt thou, like them, turn back at noon<br /> +To drops again?</p> + +<p>Oh, little Tiarella,<br /> +Thy silence speaks;<br /> +No more my foolish question<br /> +Thy secret seeks.<br /> +The sunshine on my window<br /> +Lies all the day.<br /> +How shouldst thou know that summer<br /> +Has passed away?<br /> +The frost-flake's icy silver<br /> +Is dew at noon for thee.<br /> +O winter sun! O winter frost,<br /> +Make summer dews for me!</p></blockquote> + +<p>After reading these over several times, Draxy took out her pencil, and +very shyly screening herself from all observation, wrote on the other side +of the paper these lines:</p> + +<blockquote><h4>The Morning Moon.</h4> + +<p> The gold moon turns to white;<br /> +The white moon fades to cloud;<br /> +It looks so like the gold moon's shroud,<br /> +It makes me think about the dead,<br /> +And hear the words I have heard read,<br /> + By graves for burial rite.</p> + +<p> I wonder now how many moons<br /> +In just such white have died;<br /> +I wonder how the stars divide<br /> +Among themselves their share of light;<br /> +And if there were great years of night<br /> + Before the earth saw noons.</p> + +<p> I wonder why each moon, each sun,<br /> +Which ever has been or shall be,<br /> +In this day's sun and moon I see;<br /> +I think perhaps all of the old<br /> +Is hidden in each new day's hold;<br /> + So the first day is not yet done!</p> + +<p> And then I think--our dust is spent<br /> +Before the balances are swung;<br /> +Shall we be loneliest among<br /> +God's living creatures? Shall we dare<br /> +To speak in this eternal air<br /> + The only discontent?</p></blockquote> + +<p>Then she shut the book resolutely, and sat up straight with a little +laugh, saying to herself, "This is a pretty beginning for a business +journey!"</p> + +<p>Far better than you knew, sweet Draxy! The great successes of life are +never made by the men and women who have no poetic comprehension in their +souls.</p> + +<p>Draxy's first night was spent at the house of a brother of Captain +Melville's, to whom her uncle had given her a letter. All went smoothly, +and her courage rose. The next day at noon she was to change cars in one +of the great railroad centres; as she drew near the city she began to feel +uneasy. But her directions were explicit, and she stepped bravely out into +the dismal, dark, underground station, bought her ticket, and walked up +and down on the platform with her little valise in her hand, waiting for +the train.</p> + +<p>In a few moments it thundered in, enveloped in a blinding, stifling smoke. +The crowd of passengers poured out. "Twenty minutes for refreshments," was +shouted at each car, and in a moment more there was a clearing up of the +smoke, and a lull in the trampling of the crowd. Draxy touched the +conductor on the arm.</p> + +<p>"Is this the train I am to take, sir?" she said showing him her ticket.</p> + +<p>He glanced carelessly at it. "No, no," said he; "this is the express; +don't stop there. You must wait till the afternoon accommodation."</p> + +<p>"But what time will that train get there?" said Draxy, turning pale.</p> + +<p>"About ten o'clock, if it's on time," said the conductor, walking away. He +had not yet glanced at Draxy, but at her "Oh, what shall I do!" he turned +back; Draxy's face held him spellbound, as it had held many a man before. +He stepped near her, and taking the ticket from her hand, turned it over +and over irresolutely. "I wish I could stop there, Miss," he said. "Is it +any one who is sick?"--for Draxy's evident distress suggested but one +explanation.</p> + +<p>"Oh no," replied Draxy, trying in vain to make her voice steady. "But I am +all alone, and I know no one there, and I am afraid--it is so late at +night. My friends thought I should get there before dark."</p> + +<p>"What are you going for, if you don't know anybody?" said the conductor, +in a tone less sympathizing and respectful. He was a man more used to +thinking ill than well of people.</p> + +<p>Draxy colored. But her voice became very steady.</p> + +<p>"I am Reuben Miller's daughter, sir, and I am going there to get some +money which a bad man owed my father. We need the money, and there was no +one else to go for it."</p> + +<p>The conductor had never heard of Una, but the tone of the sentence, "I am +Reuben Miller's daughter," smote upon his heart, and made him as reverent +to the young girl as if she had been a saint.</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon, Miss," he said involuntarily.</p> + +<p>Draxy looked at him with a bewildered expression, but made no reply. She +was too childlike to know that for the rough manner which had hurt her he +ought to ask such pardon.</p> + +<p>The conductor proceeded, still fingering the ticket:--</p> + +<p>"I don't see how I can stop there. It's a great risk for me to take. If +there was only one of the Directors on board now." Draxy looked still more +puzzled. "No," he said, giving her back the ticket: "I can't do it no +how;" and he walked away.</p> + +<p>Draxy stood still in despair. In a few minutes he came back. He could not +account for its seeming to him such an utter impossibility to leave that +girl to go on her journey at night.</p> + +<p>"What shall you do?" said he.</p> + +<p>"I think my father would prefer that I should find some proper place to +spend the night here, and go on in the morning," replied Draxy; "do you +not think that would be better, sir?" she added, with an appealing, +confiding tone which made the conductor feel more like her knight than +ever.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I think so, and I will give you my card to take to the hotel where I +stay," said he, and he plunged into the crowd again.</p> + +<p>Draxy turned to a brakeman who had drawn near.</p> + +<p>"Has the conductor the right to stop the train if he chooses?" said she.</p> + +<p>"Why yes, Miss, he's right enough, if that's all. Of course he's got to +have power to stop the train any minute. But stoppin' jest to let off a +passenger, that's different."</p> + +<p>Draxy closed her lips a little more firmly, and became less pale. When the +conductor came back and gave her his card, with the name of the hotel on +it, she thanked him, took the card, but did not stir. He looked at her +earnestly, said "Good day, Miss," lifted his hat, and disappeared. Draxy +smiled. It yet wanted ten minutes of the time for the train to go. She +stood still, patiently biding her last chance. The first bell rang--the +steam was up--the crowd of passengers poured in; at the last minute but +one came the conductor. As he caught sight of Draxy's erect, dignified +figure, he started; before he could speak, Draxy said, "I waited, sir, for +I thought at the last minute a director might come, or you might change +your mind."</p> + +<p>The conductor laughed out, and seizing Draxy's valise, exclaimed, "By +George, I will stop the train for you, Miss Miller! Hang me if I don't; +jump in!" and in one minute more Draxy was whirling out of the dark +station into the broad sunlight, which dazzled her.</p> + +<p>When the conductor first--came through the car he saw that Draxy had been +crying. "Do her good," he thought to himself; "it always does do women +good; but I'll be bound she wouldn't ha' cried if I'd left her."</p> + +<p>Half an hour later he found her sound asleep, with her head slipping +uneasily about on the back of the seat. Half ashamed of himself, he +brought a heavy coat and put it under her head for a pillow. Seeing a +supercilious and disagreeable smile on the face of a fashionable young man +in the seat before Draxy, he said sharply: "She's come a long journey, and +was put under my care."</p> + +<p>"I guess that's true enough to pass muster," he chuckled to himself as he +walked away. "If ever I'd ha' believed a woman could make me stop this +train for her! An', by George, without askin' me to either!"</p> + +<p>Draxy slept on for hours. The winter twilight came earlier than usual, for +the sky was overcast. When she waked, the lamps were lighted, and the +conductor was bending over her, saying: "We're most there, Miss, and I +thought you'd better get steadied on your feet a little before you get +off, for I don't calculate to make a full stop."</p> + +<p>Draxy laughed like a little child, and put up both hands to her head as if +to make sure where she was. Then she followed the conductor to the door +and stood looking out into the dim light.</p> + +<p>The sharp signal for "down brakes," made experienced passengers spring to +their feet. Windows opened; heads were thrust out. What had happened to +this express train? The unaccustomed sound startled the village also. It +was an aristocratic little place, settled by wealthy men whose business +was in a neighboring city. At many a dinner-table surprised voices said: +"Why, what on earth is the down express stopping here for? Something must +have broken."</p> + +<p>"Some director or other to be put off," said others; "they have it all +their own way on the road."</p> + +<p>In the mean time Draxy Miller was walking slowly up the first street she +saw, wondering what she should do next. The conductor had almost lifted +her off the train; had shaken her hand, said "God bless you, Miss," and +the train was gone, before she could be sure he heard her thank him. "Oh, +why did I not thank him more before we stopped," thought Draxy.</p> + +<p>"I hope she'll get her money," thought the conductor. "I'd like to see the +man that wouldn't give her what she asked for."</p> + +<p>So the benediction and protection of good wishes, from strangers as well +as from friends, floated on the very air through which Draxy walked, all +unconscious of the invisible blessings.</p> + +<p>She walked a long way before she met any one of whom she liked to ask +direction. At last she saw an elderly man standing under a lamp-post, +reading a letter. Draxy studied his face, and then stopped quietly by his +side without speaking. He looked up.</p> + +<p>"I thought as soon as you had finished your letter, sir, I would ask you +to tell me where Stephen Potter lives."</p> + +<p>It was marvelous what an ineffable charm there was in the subtle mixture +of courtesy and simplicity in Draxy's manner.</p> + +<p>"I am going directly by his house myself, and will show you," replied the +old gentleman. "Pray let me take your bag, Miss."</p> + +<p>"Was it for you," he added, suddenly recollecting the strange stopping of +the express train, "was it for you the express train stopped just now?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir," said Draxy. "The conductor very kindly put me off."</p> + +<p>The old gentleman's curiosity was strongly roused, but he forbore asking +any further questions until he left Draxy on the steps of the house, when +he said: "are they expecting you?"</p> + +<p>"Oh no, sir," said Draxy quietly. "I do not know them."</p> + +<p>"Most extraordinary thing," muttered the old gentleman as he walked on. He +was a lawyer, and could not escape from the professional habit of looking +upon all uncommon incidents as clews.</p> + +<p>Draxy Miller's heart beat faster than usual as she was shown into Stephen +Potter's library. She had said to the servant simply, "Tell Mr. Potter +that Miss Miller would like to see him alone."</p> + +<p>The grandeur of the house, the richness of the furniture, would have +embarrassed her, except that it made her stern as she thought of her +father's poverty. "How little a sum it must be to this man," she thought.</p> + +<p>The name roused no associations in Stephen Potter; for years the thought +of Reuben Miller had not crossed his mind, and as he looked in the face of +the tall, beautiful girl who rose as he entered the room, he was utterly +confounded to hear her say,--</p> + +<p>"I am Reuben Miller's daughter. I have come to see if you will pay me the +money you owe him. We are very poor, and need it more than you probably +can conceive."</p> + +<p>Stephen Potter was a bad man, but not a hard-hearted bad man. He had been +dishonest always; but it was the dishonesty of a weak and unscrupulous +nature, not without generosity. At that moment a sharp pang seized him. He +remembered the simple, upright, kindly face of Reuben Miller. He saw the +same look of simple uprightness, kindled by strength, in the beautiful +face of Reuben Miller's daughter. He did not know what to say. Draxy +waited in perfect composure and silence. It seemed to him hours before he +spoke. Then he said, in a miserable, shuffling way,--</p> + +<p>"I suppose you think me a rich man."</p> + +<p>"I think you must be very rich," said Draxy, gently.</p> + +<p>Then, moved by some strange impulse in the presence of this pure, +unworldly girl, Stephen Potter suddenly spoke out, for the first time +since his boyhood, with absolute sincerity.</p> + +<p>"Miss Miller, you are your father over again. I reverenced your father. I +have wronged many men without caring, but it troubled me to wrong him. I +would give you that money to-night, if I had it, or could raise it. I am +not a rich man. I have not a dollar in the world. This house is not mine. +It may be sold over my head any day. I am deep in trouble, but not so deep +as I deserve to be," and he buried his face in his hands.</p> + +<p>Draxy believed him. And it was true. At that moment Stephen Potter was +really a ruined man, and many others were involved in the ruin which was +impending.</p> + +<p>Draxy rose, saying gravely, "I am very sorry for you, Mr. Potter. We +heard that you were rich, or I should not have come. We are very poor, but +we are not unhappy, as you are."</p> + +<p>"Stay, Miss Miller, sit down; I have a thing which might be of value to +your father;" and Mr. Potter opened his safe and took out a bundle of old +yellow papers. "Here is the title to a lot of land in the northern part of +New Hampshire. I took it on a debt years ago, and never thought it was +worth anything. Very likely it has run out, or the town has taken +possession of the land for the taxes. But I did think the other day, that +if worst came to worst, I might take my wife up there and try to farm it. +But I'd rather your father should have it if it's good for anything. I +took it for three thousand dollars, and it ought to be worth something. I +will have the legal transfer made in the morning, and give it to you +before you leave."</p> + +<p>This was not very intelligible to Draxy. The thin and tattered old paper +looked singularly worthless to her. But rising again, she said simply as +before, "I am very sorry for you, Mr. Potter; and I thank you for trying +to pay us! Will you let some one go and show me to the hotel where I ought +to sleep?"</p> + +<p>Stephen Potter was embarrassed. It cut him to the heart to send this +daughter of Reuben Miller's out of his house to pass the night. But he +feared Mrs. Potter very much. He hesitated only a moment.</p> + +<p>"No, Miss Miller. You must sleep here. I will have you shown to your room +at once. I do not ask you to see my wife. It would not be pleasant for you +to do so." And he rang the bell. When the servant came, he said,--</p> + +<p>"William, have a fire kindled in the blue room at once; as soon as it is +done, come and let me know."</p> + +<p>Then he sat down near Draxy and asked many questions about her family, all +of which she answered with childlike candor. She felt a strange sympathy +for this miserable, stricken, wicked man. When she bade him good-night, +she said again, "I am very sorry for you, Mr. Potter. My father would be +glad if he could help you in any way."</p> + +<p>Stephen Potter went into the parlor where his wife sat, reading a novel. +She was a very silly, frivolous woman, and she cared nothing for her +husband, but when she saw his face she exclaimed, in terror, "What was it, +Stephen?"</p> + +<p>"Only Reuben Miller's daughter, come two days' journey after some money I +owe her father and cannot pay," said Stephen, bitterly.</p> + +<p>"Miller? Miller?" said Mrs. Potter, "one of those old canal debts?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Stephen.</p> + +<p>"Well, of course all those are outlawed long ago," said she. "I don't see +why you need worry about that; she can't touch you."</p> + +<p>Stephen looked scornfully at her. She had a worse heart than he. At that +moment Draxy's face and voice, "I am very sorry for you, Mr. Potter," +stood out in the very air before him.</p> + +<p>"I suppose not," said he, moodily; "I wish she could! But I shall give her +a deed of a piece of New Hampshire land which they may get some good of. +God knows I hope she may," and he left the room, turning back, however, to +add, "She is to sleep here to-night. I could not have her go to the hotel. +But you need take no trouble about her."</p> + +<p>"I should think not, Stephen Potter," exclaimed Mrs. Potter, sitting bolt +upright in her angry astonishment; "I never heard of such impudence as her +expecting"--</p> + +<p>"She expected nothing. I obliged her to stay," interrupted Stephen, and +was gone.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Potter's first impulse was to go and order the girl out of her house. +But she thought better of it. She was often afraid of her husband at this +time; she dimly suspected that he was on the verge of ruin. So she sank +back into her chair, buried herself in her novel, and soon forgot the +interruption.</p> + +<p>Draxy's breakfast and dinner were carried to her room, and every +provision made for her comfort. Stephen Potter's servants obeyed him +always. No friend of the family could have been more scrupulously served +than was Draxy Miller. The man-servant carried her bag to the station, +touched his hat to her as she stepped on board the train, and returned to +the house to say in the kitchen: "Well, I don't care what she come for; +she was a real lady, fust to last, an' that's more than Mr. Potter's got +for a wife, I tell you."</p> + +<p>When Stephen Potter went into his library after bidding Draxy good-by, he +found on the table a small envelope addressed to him. It held this note:--</p> + +<p>"MR. POTTER:--I would not take the paper [the word 'money' had been +scratched out and the word 'paper' substituted] for myself; but I think I +ought to for my father, because it was a true debt, and he is an old man +now, and not strong.</p> + +<p>"I am very sorry for you, Mr. Potter, and I hope you will become happy +again. DRAXY MILLER."</p> + +<p>Draxy had intended to write, "I hope you will be 'good' again," but her +heart failed her. "Perhaps he will understand that 'happy' means good," +she said, and so wrote the gentler phrase. Stephen Potter did understand; +and the feeble outreachings which, during the few miserable years more of +his life, he made towards uprightness, were partly the fruit of Draxy +Miller's words.</p> + +<p>Draxy's journey home was uneventful. She was sad and weary. The first +person she saw on entering the house was her father. He divined in an +instant that she had been unsuccessful. "Never mind, little daughter," he +said, gleefully, "I am not disappointed; I knew you would not get it, but +I thought the journey 'd be a good thing for you, may be."</p> + +<p>"But I have got something, father dear," said Draxy; "only I'm afraid it +is not worth much."</p> + +<p>"'Taint likely to be if Steve Potter gave it," said Reuben, as Draxy +handed him the paper. He laughed scornfully as soon as he looked at it. +"'Taint worth the paper it's writ on," said he, "and he knew it; if he +hain't looked the land up all these years, of course 'twas sold at vendue +long ago."</p> + +<p>Draxy turned hastily away. Up to this moment she had clung to a little +hope.</p> + +<p>When the family were all gathered together in the evening, and Draxy had +told the story of her adventures, Reuben and Captain Melville examined the +deed together. It was apparently a good clear title; it was of three +hundred acres of land. Reuben groaned, "Oh, how I should like to see land +by the acre once more." Draxy's face turned scarlet, and she locked and +unlocked her hands, but said nothing. "But it's no use thinking about it," +he went on; "this paper isn't worth a straw. Most likely there's more than +one man well under way on the land by this time."</p> + +<p>They looked the place up on an atlas. It was in the extreme northeast +corner of New Hampshire. A large part of the county was still marked +"ungranted," and the township in which this land lay was bounded on the +north by this uninhabited district. The name of the town was Clairvend.</p> + +<p>"What could it have been named for?" said Draxy. "How pleasantly it +sounds."</p> + +<p>"Most likely some Frenchman," said Captain Melville. "They always give +names that 're kind o' musical."</p> + +<p>"We might as well burn the deed up. It's nothing but a torment to think of +it a lyin' round with it's three hundred acres of land," said Reuben in an +impulsive tone, very rare for him, and prolonging the "three hundred" +with a scornful emphasis; and he sprang up to throw the paper into the +fire.</p> + +<p>"No, no, man," said Captain Melville; "don't be so hasty. No need of +burning things up in such a roomy house's this! Something may come of that +deed yet. Give it to Draxy; I'm sure she's earned it, if there's anything +to it. Put it away for your dowry, dear," and he snatched the paper from +Reuben's hands and tossed it into Draxy's lap. He did not believe what he +said, and the attempt at a joke brought but a faint smile to any face. The +paper fell on the floor, and Draxy let it lie there till she thought her +father was looking another way, when she picked it up and put it in her +pocket.</p> + +<p>For several days there were unusual silence and depression in the +household. They had really set far more hope than they knew on this +venture. It was not easy to take up the old routine and forget the air +castle. Draxy's friend, Mrs. White, was almost as disappointed as Draxy +herself. She had not thought of the chance of Mr. Potter's being really +unable to pay. She told her husband, who was a lawyer, the story of the +deed, and he said at once: "Of course it isn't worth a straw. If Potter +didn't pay the taxes, somebody else did, and the land's been sold long +ago."</p> + +<p>Mrs. White tried to comfort herself by engaging Draxy for one month's +steady sewing, and presenting her with a set of George Eliot's novels. And +Draxy tried steadily and bravely to forget her journey, and the name of +Clairvend.</p> + +<p>About this time she wrote a hymn, and showed it to her father. It was the +first thing of the kind she had ever let him see, and his surprise and +delight showed her that here was one way more in which she could brighten +his life. She had not thought, in her extreme humility, that by hiding her +verses she was depriving him of pleasure. After this she showed him all +she wrote, but the secret was kept religiously between them.</p> + +<blockquote><h4> Draxy's Hymn.</h4> + +<p> I cannot think but God must know<br /> + About the thing I long for so;<br /> + I know He is so good, so kind,<br /> + I cannot think but He will find<br /> + Some way to help, some way to show<br /> + Me to the thing I long for so.</p> + +<p> I stretch my hand--it lies so near:<br /> + It looks so sweet, it looks so dear.<br /> + "Dear Lord," I pray, "Oh, let me know<br /> + If it is wrong to want it so?"<br /> + He only smiles--He does not speak:<br /> + My heart grows weaker and more weak,<br /> + With looking at the thing so dear,<br /> + Which lies so far, and yet so near.</p> + +<p> Now, Lord, I leave at thy loved feet<br /> + This thing which looks so near, so sweet;<br /> + I will not seek, I will not long--<br /> + almost fear I have been wrong.<br /> + I'll go, and work the harder, Lord,<br /> + And wait till by some loud, clear word<br /> + Thou callest me to thy loved feet,<br /> + To take this thing so dear, so sweet.</p></blockquote> + + + +<h3>Part II.</h3> + + +<p>As the spring drew near, a new anxiety began to press upon Draxy. Reuben +drooped. The sea-shore had never suited him. He pined at heart for the +inland air, the green fields, the fragrant woods. This yearning always was +strongest in the spring, when he saw the earth waking up around him; but +now the yearning became more than yearning. It was the home-sickness of +which men have died. Reuben said little, but Draxy divined all. She had +known it from the first, but had tried to hope that he could conquer it.</p> + +<p>Draxy spent many wakeful hours at night now. The deed of the New Hampshire +land lay in her upper bureau drawer, wrapped in an old handkerchief. She +read it over, and over, and over. She looked again and again at the faded +pink township on the old atlas. "Who knows," thought she, "but that land +was overlooked and forgotten? It is so near the 'ungranted lands,' which +must be wilderness, I suppose!" Slowly a dim purpose struggled in Draxy's +brain. It would do no harm to find out. But how? No more journeys must be +taken on uncertainties. At last, late one night, the inspiration came. +Who shall say that it is not an unseen power which sometimes suggests to +sorely tried human hearts the one possible escape? Draxy was in bed. She +rose, lighted her candle, and wrote two letters. Then she went back to bed +and slept peacefully. In the morning when she kissed her father good-by, +she looked wistfully in his face. She had never kept any secret from him +before, except the secret of her verses. "But he must not be disappointed +again," said Draxy; "and there is no real hope."</p> + +<p>She dropped her letter into the post-office and went to her work.</p> + +<p>The letter was addressed--</p> + +<p>"To the Postmaster of Clairvend,</p> + +<p>"New Hampshire."</p> + +<p>It was a very short letter.</p> + +<p>"DEAR SIR:--I wish to ask some help from a minister in your town. If there +is more than one minister, will you please give my letter to the kindest +one. Yours truly,</p> + +<p>"DRAXY MILLER."</p> + +<p>The letter inclosed was addressed--</p> + +<p>"To the Minister of Clairvend."</p> + +<p>This letter also was short.</p> + +<p>"DEAR SIR:--I have asked the Postmaster to give this letter to the kindest +minister in the town.</p> + +<p>"I am Reuben Miller's daughter. My father is very poor. He has not known +how to do as other men do to be rich. He is very good, sir. I think you +can hardly have known any one so good. Mr. Stephen Potter, a man who owed +him money, has given us a deed of land in your town. My father thinks the +deed is not good for anything. But I thought perhaps it might be; and I +would try to find out. My father is very sick, but I think he would get +well if he could come and live on a farm. I have written this letter in +the night, as soon as I thought about you; I mean as soon as I thought +that there must be a minister in Clairvend, and he would be willing to +help me.</p> + +<p>"I have not told my father, because I do not want him to be disappointed +again as he was about the deed.</p> + +<p>"I have copied for you the part of the deed which tells where the land is; +and I put in a stamp to pay for your letter to me, and if you will find +out for us if we can get this land, I shall be grateful to you all my +life. DRAXY MILLER."</p> + +<p>Inclosed was a slip of paper on which Draxy had copied with great care the +description of the boundaries of the land conveyed by the deed. It was all +that was necessary. The wisest lawyer, the shrewdest diplomatist in the +land never put forth a subtler weapon than this simple girl's simple +letter.</p> + +<p>It was on the morning of the 3d of April that Draxy dropped her letter in +the office. Three days later it was taken out of the mail-bag in the +post-office of Clairvend. The post-office was in the one store of the +village. Ten or a dozen men were lounging about curiosity about the odd +name was soon swallowed up in curiosity as to the contents of the letter. +The men of Clairvend had not been so stirred and roused by anything since +the fall election. Luckily for Draxy's poor little letter, there was but +one minister in the village, and the only strife which rose was as to who +should carry him the letter. Finally, two of the most persistent set out +with it, both declaring that they had business on that road, and had meant +all along to go in and see the Elder on their way home.</p> + +<p>Elder Kinney lived in a small cottage high up on a hill, a mile from the +post-office, and on a road very little travelled. As the men toiled up +this hill, they saw a tall figure coming rapidly towards them.</p> + +<p>"By thunder! there's the Elder now! That's too bad," said little Eben +Hill, the greatest gossip in the town.</p> + +<p>The Elder was walking at his most rapid rate; and Elder Kinney's most +rapid rate was said to be one with which horses did not easily keep up. +"No, thank you, friend, I haven't time to ride to-day," he often replied +to a parishioner who, jogging along with an old farm-horse, offered to +give him a lift on the road.</p> + +<p>"Elder! Elder! here's a letter we was a bringin' up to you!" called out +both of the men at once as he passed them like a flash, saying hurriedly +"Good evening! good evening!" and was many steps down the hill beyond them +before he could stop.</p> + +<p>"Oh, thank you!" he said, taking it hastily and dropping it into his +pocket. "Mrs. Williams is dying, they say; I cannot stop a minute," and +he was out of sight while the baffled parishioners stood confounded at +their ill-luck.</p> + +<p>"Now jest as like's not we shan't never know what was in that letter," +said. Eben Hill, disconsolately. "Ef we'd ha'gone in and set down while he +read it, we sh'd ha' had some chance."</p> + +<p>"But then he mightn't ha' read it while we was there," replied Joseph +Bailey resignedly; an' I expect It ain't none o' our business anyhow, one +way or t'other."</p> + +<p>"It's the queerest thing's ever happened in this town," persisted Eben; +"what's a girl--that is, if 'tis a girl--got to do writin' to a minister +she don't know? I don't believe it's any good she's after."</p> + +<p>"Wal, ef she is, she's come to the right place; and there's no knowin' but +that the Lord's guided her, Eben; for ef ever there was a man sent on this +airth to do the Lord's odd jobs o' looking arter folks, it's Elder +Kinney," said Joseph.</p> + +<p>"That's so," answered Eben in a dismal tone, "that's so; but he's dreadful +close-mouthed when he's a mind to be. You can't deny that!"</p> + +<p>"Wal, I dunno's I want ter deny it," said Joseph, who was beginning, in +Eben's company, to grow ashamed of curiosity; "I dunno's it's anything +agin him," and so the men parted.</p> + +<p>It was late at night when Elder Kinney went home from the bedside of the +dying woman. He had forgotten all about the letter. When he undressed, it +fell from his pocket, and lay on the floor. It was the first thing he saw +in the morning. "I declare!" said the Elder, and reaching out a long arm +from the bed, he picked it up.</p> + +<p>The bright winter sun was streaming in on the Elder's face as he read +Draxy's letter. He let it fall on the scarlet and white counterpane, and +lay thinking. The letter touched him unspeakably. Elder Kinney was no +common man; he had a sensitive organization and a magnetic power, which, +if he had had the advantages of education and position, would have made +him a distinguished preacher. As a man, he was tender, chivalrous, and +impulsive; and even the rough, cold, undemonstrative people among whom his +life had been spent had, without suspecting it, almost a romantic +affection for him. He had buried his young wife and her first-born +still-born child together in this little village twelve years before, and +had ever since lived in the same house from which they had been carried to +the grave-yard. "If you ever want any other man to preach to you," he said +to the people, "you've only to say so to the Conference. I don't want to +preach one sermon too many to you. But I shall live and die in this house; +I can't ever go away. I can get a good livin' at farmin'--good as +preachin', any day!"</p> + +<p>The sentence, "I am Reuben Miller's daughter," went to his heart as it +had gone to every man's heart who had heard it before from Draxy's +unconscious lips. But it sunk deeper in his heart than in any other.</p> + +<p>"If baby had lived she would have loved me like this perhaps," thought the +Elder, as he read the pathetic words over and over. Then he studied the +paragraph copied from the deed. Suddenly a thought flashed into his mind. +He knew something about this land. It must be--yes, it must be on a part +of this land that the sugar-camp lay from which he had been sent for, five +years before, to see a Frenchman who was lying very ill in the little log +sugar-house. The Elder racked his brains. Slowly it all came back to him. +He remembered that at the time some ill-will had been shown in the town +toward this Frenchman; that doubts had been expressed about his right to +the land; and that no one would go out into the clearing to help take care +of him. Occasionally, since that time, the Elder had seen the man hanging +about the town. He had an evil look; this was all the Elder could +remember.</p> + +<p>At breakfast he said to old Nancy, his housekeeper: "Nancy, did you ever +know anything about that Frenchman who had a sugar-camp out back of the +swamp road? I went to see him when he had the fever a few years ago."</p> + +<p>Nancy was an Indian woman with a little white blood in her veins. She +never forgot an injury. This Frenchman had once jeered at her from the +steps of the village store, and the village men had laughed.</p> + +<p>"Know anythin' about him? Yes, sir. He's a son o' Satan, an' I reckon he +stays to hum the great part o' the year, for he's never seen round here +except jest sugarin' time."</p> + +<p>The Elder laughed in spite of himself. Nancy's tongue was a member of +which he strongly disapproved; but his efforts to enforce charity and +propriety of speech upon her were sometimes rendered null and void by his +lack of control of his features. Nancy loved her master, but she had no +reverence in her composition, and nothing gave her such delight as to make +him laugh out against his will. She went on to say that the Frenchman came +every spring, bringing with him a gang of men, some twelve or more, "all +sons o' the same father, sir; you'd know 'em's far's you see 'em." They +took a large stock of provisions, went out into the maple clearing, and +lived there during the whole sugar season in rough log huts. "They do say +he's jest carried off a good thousand dollar's worth o' sugar this very +week," said Nancy.</p> + +<p>The Elder brought his hand down hard on the table and said "Whew!" This +was Elder Kinney's one ejaculation. Nancy seldom heard it, and she knew it +meant tremendous excitement. She grew eager, and lingered, hoping for +further questions; but the Elder wanted his next information from a more +accurate and trustworthy source than old Nancy. Immediately after +breakfast he set out for the village; soon he slackened his pace, and +began to reflect. It was necessary to act cautiously; he felt +instinctively sure that the Frenchman had not purchased the land. His +occupation of it had evidently been acquiesced in by the town for many +years; but the Elder was too well aware of the slack and unbusinesslike +way in which much of the town business was managed, to attach much weight +to this fact. He was perplexed--a rare thing for Elder Kinney. He stopped +and sat down on the top of a stone wall to think. In a few minutes he saw +the steaming heads of a pair of oxen coming up the hill. Slowly the cart +came in sight: it was loaded with sugar-buckets; and there, walking by +its side, was--yes! it was--the very Frenchman himself.</p> + +<p>Elder Kinney was too much astonished even to say "Whew!"</p> + +<p>"This begins to look like the Lord's own business," was the first +impulsive thought of his devout heart. "There's plainly something to be +done. That little Draxy's father shall get some o' the next year's sugar +out o' that camp, or my name isn't Seth Kinney;" and the Elder sprang from +the wall and walked briskly towards the Frenchman. As he drew near him, +and saw the forbidding look on the fellow's face, he suddenly abandoned +his first intention, which was to speak to him, and, merely bowing, passed +on down the hill.</p> + +<p>"He's a villain, if I know the look of one," said honest Elder. "I'll +think a little longer. I wonder where he stores his buckets. Now, there's +a chance," and Elder Kinney turned about and followed the plodding cart up +the hill again. It was a long pull and a tedious one; and for Elder Kinney +to keep behind oxen was a torture like being in a straight waistcoat. One +mile, two miles, three miles! the Elder half repented of his undertaking; +but like all wise and magnetic natures, he had great faith in his first +impulses, and he kept on.</p> + +<p>At last the cart turned into a lane on the right-hand side of the road.</p> + +<p>"Why, he's goin' to old Ike's," exclaimed the Elder. "Well, I can get at +all old Ike knows, and it's pretty apt to be all there is worth knowin'," +and Elder Kinney began, in his satisfaction, to whistle</p> + +<p> "Life is the time to serve the Lord,"</p> + +<p>in notes as clear and loud as a bob-o'-link's.</p> + +<p>He walked on rapidly, and was very near overtaking the Frenchman, when a +new thought struck him. "Now, if he's uneasy about himself,--and if he +knows he ain't honest, of course he's uneasy,--he'll may be think I'm on +his track, and be off to his 'hum,' as Nancy calls it," and the Elder +chuckled at the memory, "an' I shouldn't have any chance of ketchin' him +here for another year." The Elder stood still again. Presently he jumped a +fence, and walking off to the left, climbed a hill, from the top of which +he could see old Ike's house. Here, in the edge of a spruce grove, he +walked back and forth, watching the proceedings below. "Seems little too +much like bein' a spy," thought the good man, "but I never felt a clearer +call in a thing in my life than I do in this little girl's letter," and he +fell to singing</p> + +<p> "Rise, my soul, and stretch thy wings,"</p> + +<p>till the crows in the wood were frightened by the strange sound, and came +flying out and flapping their great wings above his head.</p> + +<p>The Frenchman drove into old Ike's yard. Ike came out of the house and +helped him unload the buckets, and carry them into an old corn-house which +stood behind the barn: As soon as the Frenchman had turned his oxen's head +down the lane, the Elder set out for the house, across the fields. Old Ike +was standing in the barn-door. When he saw the tall figure striding +through the pasture, he ran to let down the bars, and hurried up to the +Elder and grasped both his hands. Not in all Elder Kinney's parish was +there a single heart which beat so warmly for him as did the heart of this +poor lonely old man, who had lived by himself in this solitary valley ever +since the Elder came to Clairvend.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Elder, Elder," said he, "it does me reel good to see your face. Be ye +well, sir?" looking closely at him.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Ike, thank you, I'm always well," replied the Elder absently. He was +too absorbed in his errand to have precisely his usual manner, and it was +the slight change which Ike's affectionate instinct felt. But Ike saved +him all perplexity as to introducing the object of his visit by saying at +once, picking up one of the sugar-buckets which had rolled off to one +side, "I'm jest pilin' up Ganew's sugar-buckets for him. He pays me well +for storin' 'em, but I kind o' hate to have anythin' to do with him. Don't +you remember him, sir--him that was so awful bad with the fever down'n the +clearin' five years ago this month? You was down to see him, I know."</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes, I remember," said the Elder, with a manner so nonchalant that +he was frightened at his own diplomacy. "He was a bad fellow, I thought,"</p> + +<p>Ike went on: "Wall, that's everybody's feelin' about him: and there ain't +no great thing to show for 't nuther. But they did say a while back that +he hadn't no reel right to the land. He turned up all of a sudden, and +paid up all there was owin' on the taxes, an' he's paid 'em regular ever +sence. But he hain't never showed how the notes come to be signed by some +other name. Yes, sir, the hull lot--it's nigh on ter three hundred acres, +such's 'tis; a good part on't 's swamp though, that ain't wuth a +copper--the hull lot went to a man down in York State, when the Iron +Company bust up here, and for two or three year the chap he jest sent up +his note for the taxes, and they've a drefful shiftless way o' lettin' +things go in this ere town, 's you know, sir; there wan't nobody that +knowed what a sugar orchard was a lyin' in there, or there'd been plenty +to grab for it; but I don't s'pose there's three men in the town'd ever +been over back o' Birch Hill till this Ganew he come and cut a road in, +and had his sugar-camp agoin' one spring, afore anybody knew what he was +arter. But he's paid all up reg'lar, and well he may, sez everybody, for +he can't get his sugar off, sly's he is, w'thout folks gettin' some kind +o' notion about it, an' they say's he's cleared thousands an' thousands o' +dollars. I expect they ain't overshot the mark nuther, for he's got six +hundred new buckets this spring, and Bill Sims, he's been in with 'em the +last two years, 'n he says there ain't no sugar orchard to compare, except +Squire White's over in Mill Creek, and he's often taken in three thousand +pounds off his'n."</p> + +<p>Ike sighed as he paused, breathless. "It's jest my luck, allers knockin' +about 'n them woods 's I am, not to have struck trail on that air orchard. +I could ha' bought it's well's not in the fust on't, if it had been put up +to vendue, 's't oughter ben, an' nobody knowin' what 'twas wuth."</p> + +<p>Elder Kinney was almost overcome by this unhoped-for corroboration of his +instincts; clearing up of his difficulties. His voice sounded hoarse in +his own ears as he replied:--</p> + +<p>"Well, Ike, the longest lane has a turnin'. It's my belief that God +doesn't often let dishonest people prosper very long. We shall see what +becomes of Ganew. Where does he live? I'd like to see him."</p> + +<p>"Well, he don't live nowhere, 's near's anybody can find out. He's in the +camp with the gang about six weeks, sometimes eight; they say's it's a +kind of settlement down there, an' then he's off again till sugarin' comes +round; but he's dreadful sharp and partikler about the taxes, I tell you, +and he's given a good deal too, fust and last, to the town. Folks say he +wants to make 'em satisfied to let him alone. He's coming up here again +to-morrow with two more loads of buckets, sir: if 'twouldn't be too much +trouble for you to come here agin so soon," added poor Ike, grasping at +the chance of seeing the Elder again.</p> + +<p>"Well, I think perhaps I'll come," replied the Elder, ashamed again of the +readiness with which he found himself taking to tortuous methods, "if I'm +not too busy. What time will he be here?"</p> + +<p>"About this same time," said Ike. "He don't waste no time, mornin' nor +evenin'."</p> + +<p>The Elder went away soon, leaving poor Ike half unhappy.</p> + +<p>"He's got somethin' on his mind, thet's plain enough," thought the loving +old soul. "I wonder now ef it's a woman; I've allus thought the Elder +war'nt no sort of man to live alone all his days."</p> + +<p>"Dear, good little Draxy," thought the Elder, as he walked down the road. +"How shall I ever tell the child of this good luck, and how shall I manage +it all for the best for her?"</p> + +<p>Draxy's interests were in good hands. Before night Elder Kinney had +ascertained that there had never been any sale of this land since it was +sold to "the New York chap," and that Ganew's occupation of it was +illegal. After tea the Elder sat down and wrote two letters.</p> + +<p>The first one was to Draxy, and ran as follows:--</p> + +<p>"MY DEAR CHILD:--</p> + +<p>"I received your letter last night, and by the Lord's help I have found +out all about your father's land today. But I shall write to your father +about it, for you could not understand.</p> + +<p>"I wish the Lord had seen fit to give me just such a daughter as you are.</p> + +<p>"Your friend,</p> + +<p>"SETH KINNEY."</p> + +<p>The letter to Reuben was very long, giving in substance the facts which +have been told above, and concluding thus:--</p> + +<p>"I feel a great call from the Lord to do all I can in this business, and I +hope you won't take it amiss if I make bold to decide what's best to be +done without consulting you. This fellow's got to be dealt with pretty +sharp, and I, being on the ground, can look after him better than you can. +But I'll guarantee that you'll have possession of that land before many +weeks." He then asked Reuben to have an exact copy of the deed made out +and forwarded to him; also any other papers which might throw light on the +transfer of the property, sixteen years back. "Not that I calculate +there'll be any trouble," he added; "we don't deal much in lawyer's tricks +up here, but it's just as well to be provided."</p> + +<p>The Elder went to the post-office before breakfast to post this letter. +The address did not escape the eyes of the postmaster. Before noon Eben +Hill knew that the Elder had written right off by the first mail to a +"Miss Draxy Miller."</p> + +<p>Meantime the Elder was sitting in the doorway of old Ike's barn waiting +for the Frenchman; ten o'clock came, eleven, twelve--he did not appear.</p> + +<p>The Elder's uneasiness grew great, but he talked on and on till poor Ike +was beside himself with delight. At last the distant creak of the wheels +was heard. "There he is," exclaimed Ike. "I'm thinking, sir, that it's a +kind o' providential dispensation thet's hendered him all this time; it's +done me such a sight o' good to hear you talk."</p> + +<p>The Elder smiled tenderly on poor old Ike.</p> + +<p>"Everything is a dispensation, Ike, accordin' to my way o' thinkin';" and +again he thought involuntarily of "little Draxy." + +Ganew assented with a half-surly civility to Elder Kinney's proposition to +ride down with him.</p> + +<p>"I've got a matter of business to talk over with you, Mr. Ganew,"--said +the Elder, "and I came up here on purpose to find you."</p> + +<p>The man turned his stolid black eyes full on the Elder, but made no reply. +It was indeed an evil face. The Elder was conscious that impulses which +he feared were unchristian were rising rapidly in his breast. He had +wished a few times before in his life that he was not a minister. He +wished it now. He would have liked to open his conversation with Ganew +after the manner of the world's people when they deal with thieves. And +again he thought involuntarily of "little Draxy," and her touching "we are +very poor."</p> + +<p>But when he spoke, he spoke gently and slowly.</p> + +<p>"I have some news for you which will be very disagreeable, Mr. Ganew." +Here the Frenchman started, with such a terrified, guilty, malignant look +on his face, that the Elder said to himself: "Good God, I believe the man +knows he's in danger of his life. Stealin's the least of his crimes, I'll +venture."</p> + +<p>He proceeded still more gently. "The owners of the land which you've been +using as your own in this town, have written to inquire about it, and have +put the business in my hands."</p> + +<p>Ganew was silent for a moment. Then trying to speak in an indignant tone, +he said,--</p> + +<p>"Using as my own! I don't know what you mean, Mr. Parson. I have paid my +taxes all regular, and I've got the title-deeds of the land, every acre of +it. I can't help whoever's been writing to you about it; it's all my +land."</p> + +<p>But his face twitched with nervous excitement, and the fright and anger in +his serpent-like black eyes were ugly to see.</p> + +<p>"No, Mr. Ganew, it is not," said the Elder; "and you know it. Now you jest +listen to me; I know the whole truth about the matter, an' all the time +you spend fightin' off the truth'll be wasted, besides addin' lyin' to +havin' been a thief. The owners of the land'll be here, I expect before +long; but they've put it all in my hands, an' I can let you off if I +choose."</p> + +<p>"Let me off! What the devil do you mean?" said Ganew.</p> + +<p>"Why, you don't suppose there's goin' to be nothin' said about all the +thousands o' dollars' wuth of sugar you've carried off here, do"--</p> + +<p>The next thing Elder Kinney knew he was struggling up to his feet in the +middle of the road; he was nearly blinded by blood trickling from a cut on +his forehead, and only saw dimly that Ganew was aiming another blow at him +with his heavy-handled ox-goad.</p> + +<p>But the Frenchman had reckoned without his host. Elder Kinney, even half +stunned, was more than a match for him. In a very few minutes Ganew was +lying in the bottom of his own ox-cart, with his hands securely tied +behind him with a bit of his own rope and the Elder was sitting calmly +down on a big boulder, wiping his forehead and recovering his breath; it +had been an ugly tussle, and the Elder was out of practice.</p> + +<p>Presently he rose, walked up to the cart, and leaning both his arms on the +wheel, looked down on his enemy.</p> + +<p>The Frenchman's murderous little black eyes rolled wildly, but he did not +struggle. He had felt in the first instant that he was but an infant in +the Elder's hands.</p> + +<p>"Ye poor, miserable, cowardly French,--sinner ye," said the Elder, +struggling for an epithet not unbecoming his cloth. "Did you think you was +goin' to get me out o' yer way's easy's that, 's I dare say ye have better +folks than me, before now!"</p> + +<p>Ganew muttered something in a tongue the Elder did not understand, but the +sound of it kindled his wrath anew.</p> + +<p>"Well, call on your Master, if that's what you're doin', 's much's you +like. He don't generally look out for anybody much who's so big a fool's +you must be, to think you was goin' to leave the minister o' this parish +dead in a ditch within stone's throw o' houses and nobody find you out," +and the Elder sat down again on the boulder. He felt very dizzy and faint; +and the blood still trickled steadily from his forehead. Ganew's face at +this moment was horrible. Rage at his own folly, hate of the Elder, and +terror which was uncontrollable, all contended on his livid features.</p> + +<p>At last he spoke. He begged abjectly to be set free. He offered to leave +the town at once and never return if the Elder would only let him go.</p> + +<p>"What an' give up all your land ye've got such a fine clear title to?" +said the Elder, sarcastically. "No; we'll give ye a title there won't be +no disputin' about to a good berth in Mill Creek jail for a spell!"</p> + +<p>At this the terror mastered every other emotion in the Frenchman's face. +What secret reason he had for it all, no one could know but himself; what +iniquitous schemes already waiting him in other places, what complications +of dangers attendant on his identification and detention. He begged, he +besought, in words so wildly imploring, so full of utter unconditional +surrender, that there could be no question as to their sincerity. The +Elder began, in spite of himself, to pity the wretch; he began also to ask +whether after all it would not be the part of policy to let him go. After +some minutes he said, "I can't say I put much confidence in ye yet, Mr. +Ganew; but I'm inclined to think it's the Lord's way o' smoothin' things +for some o' his children, to let you kind o' slink off," and somehow Elder +Kinney fancied he heard little Draxy say, "Oh, sir, let the poor man go." +There was something marvelous in his under-current of consciousness of +"little Draxy."</p> + +<p>He rose to his feet, picked up the heavy ox-goad, struck the near ox +sharply on the side, and walking on a little ahead of the team, said: +"I'll just take ye down a piece, Mr. Ganew, till we're in sight of Jim +Blair's, before I undo ye. I reckon the presence o' a few folks'll +strengthen your good resolutions." "An' I mistrust I ain't quite equal to +another handlin,'" thought the Elder to himself, as he noted how the sunny +road seemed to go up and down under his feet. He was really far more hurt +than he knew.</p> + +<p>When they were in sight of the house, he stopped the oxen, and leaning +again on the wheel, and looking down on Ganew, had one more talk with him, +at the end of which he began cautiously to untie the rope. He held the +ox-goad, however, firmly grasped in his right hand, and it was not without +a little tremor that he loosed the last knots. "Suppose the desperate +critter sh'd have a knife," thought the Elder.</p> + +<p>He need not have feared. A more crestfallen, subdued, wretched being than +Paul Ganew, as he crawled out of that cart, was never seen. He had his own +secret terror, and it had conquered him. "It's more'n me he's afraid of," +said the Elder to himself. "This is the Lord's doin', I reckon. Now, Mr. +Ganew, if you'll jest walk to the heads o' them oxen I'll thank ye," said +he: "an' 's I feel some tired, I'll jump into the cart; an' I'll save ye +carryin' the ox-goad," he added, as he climbed slowly in, still holding +the murderous weapon in his hand. Nothing could extinguish Seth Kinney's +sense of humor.</p> + +<p>"If we meet any folks," he proceeded, "we've only to say that I've had a +bad hurt, and that you're very kindly takin' me home."</p> + +<p>Ganew walked on like a man in a dream. He was nearly paralyzed with +terror. They met no human being, and very few words passed between them. +When the cart stopped at the Elder's door, Ganew stood still without +turning his head. The Elder went up to him and said, with real kindness of +tone,</p> + +<p>"Mr. Ganew, I expect you can't believe it, but I don't bear ye the least +ill-will."</p> + +<p>A faint flicker of something like grateful surprise passed over the hard +face, but no words came.</p> + +<p>"I hope the Lord'll bring ye to himself yet," persisted the good man, +"and forgive me for havin' had anything but pity for ye from the first +on't. Ye won't forget to send me a writing for Bill Sims that the rest of +the buckets in the camp belong to me?"</p> + +<p>Ganew nodded sullenly and went on, and the Elder walked slowly into the +house.</p> + +<p>After dark, a package was left at the Elder's door. It contained the +order on Bill Sims, and a letter. Some of the information in the letter +proved useful in clearing up the mystery of Ganew's having known of this +tract of land. He had been in Potter's employ, it seemed, and had had +access to his papers. What else the letter told no one ever knew; but the +Elder's face always had a horror-stricken look when the Frenchman's name +was mentioned, and when people sometimes wondered if he would ever be seen +again in Clairvend, the emphasis of the Elder's "Never! ye may rely on +that! Never!" had something solemn in it.</p> + +<p>In less than forty-eight hours the whole village knew the story. "The +sooner they know the whole on't the better, and the sooner they'll be +through talkin'," said the Elder, and nobody could have accused him of +being "close-mouthed" now. He even showed "the little gal's letter," as +the townspeople called it, to anybody who asked to see it. It hurt him to +do this, more than he could see reason for, but he felt a strong desire to +have the village heart all ready to welcome "little Draxy" and her father +when they should come. And the village heart was ready! Hardly a man, +woman, or child but knew her name and rejoiced in her good fortune. "Don't +yer remember my tellin' yer that night," said Josiah Bailey to Eben Hill, +"that she'd come to the right place for help when she come to Elder +Kinney?"</p> + +<p>When Draxy took Elder Kinney's letter out of the post-office, her hands +trembled. She walked rapidly away, and opened the letter as soon as she +reached a quiet street. The Elder had not made it so clear as he thought +he had, in his letter to the "child," which way matters had gone. Draxy +feared. Presently she thought, "He says 'your father's land.' That must +mean that we shall have it." But still she had sad misgivings. She almost +decided to read the inclosed letter which was unsealed; she could not have +her father disappointed again; but her keen sense of honor restrained her.</p> + +<p>Reuben had grown really feeble. There were many days now when he could not +work, but sat listlessly on a ledge of rocks near the house, and watched +the restless waves with a sense of misery as restless as they. When Draxy +reached home this night and found that her father was not in the house, +she ran over to the "Black Ledge." There she found him. She sat down by +his side, not knowing how to begin. Presently he said: "I wish I loved +this water, daughter,--it is very beautiful to look at; but I'm thinkin' +it's somethin' like human beings; they may be ever so handsome to look on, +but if you don't love 'em you don't, and that's the end on't, an' it don't +do ye no sort o' good to be where they are."</p> + +<p>"The woods and fields used to do you good, father," said Draxy.</p> + +<p>Reuben was astonished. Draxy was not wont to allude to the lost and +irrecoverable joys. But he only sighed.</p> + +<p>"Read this letter, father dear," said Draxy, hurriedly pushing it into his +hand; "I wrote up to a good old minister to find out, and here's his +answer."</p> + +<p>Reuben looked bewildered. Draxy's words did not make themselves clear. +But the first words of Elder Kinney's letter did. The paper fell from his +hands.</p> + +<p>"Oh, daughter! daughter! it can't be true! It can't!" and Reuben Miller +covered his eyes and cried. Draxy did not cry. One of the finest traits in +her nature was her instantaneous calmness of exterior under sudden and +intense excitement.</p> + +<p>"Yes; father, it is true. It must be. I have believed it from the first! +Oh do, do read the letter," said Draxy, and she forced the letter into his +hands again.</p> + +<p>"No, no, daughter. Read it to me. I can't see the words," replied Reuben, +still weeping. He was utterly unmanned. Then Draxy read the letter aloud +slowly, distinctly, calmly. Her voice did not tremble. She accepted it +all, absolutely, unconditionally, as she had accepted everything which had +ever happened to her. In Draxy's soul the past never confused the present; +her life went on from moment to moment, from step to step as naturally, as +clearly, as irrevocably as plants grow and flower, without hinderance, +without delay. This it was which had kept her serene, strong: this is true +health of nature.</p> + +<p>After a time Reuben grew calmer; Draxy's presence always helped him. They +sat on the rocks until twilight fell, and the great red lamp in the +light-house was lighted.</p> + +<p>"Father, dear," said Draxy, "I think there are light-houses all along our +lives, and God knows when it is time to light the lamps."</p> + +<p>Reuben clasped Draxy's hand tighter, and turned his eyes upon her with a +look whose love was almost reverent.</p> + +<p>Lights shone until morning from the windows of Captain Melville's house. +The little family had sat together until long after midnight, discussing +this new and wonderful turn in their affairs. Jane and Reuben were +bewildered and hardly happy yet; Draxy was alert, enthusiastic, ready as +usual; poor Captain Melville and his wife were in sore straits between +their joy in the Millers' good fortune, and their pain at the prospect of +the breaking up of the family. Their life together had been so beautiful, +so harmonious.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Draxy," said the Captain, "how shall we ever live without you?"</p> + +<p>"Oh! but you will come up there, uncle." said Draxy; "and we shall keep +you after we once get you."</p> + +<p>Captain Melville shook his head. He could never leave the sea. But full +well he knew that the very salt of it would have lost its best savor to +him when this sweet, fair girl had gone out from his house.</p> + +<p>The "good-nights" were sadly and solemnly said. "Oh!" thought Draxy, "does +joy always bring pain in this world?" and she fell asleep with tears on +her cheeks.</p> + +<p>Reuben sat up until near dawn, writing to Elder Kinney. He felt strangely +strong. He was half cured already by the upland air of the fields he had +never seen. The next morning Draxy said, "Do you not think, father, I +ought to write a note too, to thank the kind minister, or will you tell +him how grateful I am?"</p> + +<p>"Put a postscript to my letter, daughter. That will be better," said +Reuben.</p> + +<p>So Draxy wrote at the bottom of the last page:--</p> + +<p>"DEAR MR. KINNEY:--I do not know any words to thank you in; and I think +you will like it better if I do not try. My father seems almost well +already. I am sure it was the Lord that helped you to find out about our +land. I hope we can come very soon.</p> + +<p>"Your grateful friend,</p> + +<p>"DRAXY MILLER."</p> + +<p>When the Elder read this second note of Draxy's, he said aloud, "God bless +her! she's one o' His chosen ones, that child is," and he fell to +wondering how she looked. He found himself picturing her as slight and +fair, with blue eyes, and hair of a pale yellow. "I don't believe she's +more than fourteen at most;" thought he, "she speaks so simple, jest like +a child; an' yet, she goes right to the pint, 's straight's any woman; +though I don't know, come to think on't, 's ever I knew a woman that could +go straight to a pint," reflected the Elder, whose patience was often +sorely tried by the wandering and garrulous female tongues in his parish. +The picture of "Little Draxy" grew strangely distinct in his mind; and his +heart yearned towards her with a yearning akin to that which years before +he had felt over the little silent form of the daughter whose eyes had +never looked into his.</p> + +<p>There was no trouble with the town in regard to the land. If there had +been any doubts, Elder Kinney's vigorous championship of the new claimant +would have put them down. But the sympathy of the entire community was +enlisted on Reuben's side. The whole story from first to last appealed to +every man's heart; and there was not a father in town that did not rest +his hand more lovingly on his little girl's head at night, when he sat in +his door-way talking over "them Millers," and telling about Draxy's +"writin' to th' Elder."</p> + +<p>Before the first of May all was settled. Elder Kinney had urged Mr. Miller +to come at once to his house, and make it a home until he could look about +and decide where he would establish himself.</p> + +<p>"I am a lonely man," he wrote; "I buried my wife and only child many years +ago, and have lived here ever since, with only an old Indian woman to take +care of me. I don't want to press you against your will; and there's a +house in the village that you can hire; but it will go against me sorely +not to have you in my house at the first. I want to see you, and to see +your little daughter; I can't help feeling as if the Lord had laid out for +us to be friends more than common."</p> + +<p>Reuben hesitated. The shyness of his nature made him shrink from other +men's houses. But Draxy inclined strongly to the Elder's proposition. "Oh, +think father, how lonely he must be. Suppose you hadn't mother nor me, +father dear!" and Draxy kissed her father's cheek; "and think how glad you +have been that you came to live with uncle," she added.</p> + +<p>Reuben looked lovingly at Captain Melville, but said nothing.</p> + +<p>"I'll tell ye what I think, Reuben;" said the Captain. "It's my belief +that you'n that parson'll take to each other. His letters sound like your +talk. Somehow, I've got an uncommon respect for that man, considerin' he's +a parson: it's my advice to ye, to take up with his offer."</p> + +<p>"And it seems no more than polite, father," persisted Draxy: "after he +has done so much for us. We need not say how long we will stay in his +house, you know."</p> + +<p>"Supposin' you go up first, Draxy," said Reuben, hesitatingly, "an' see +how 'tis. I always did hate Injuns."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" said Draxy; she had hardly observed the mention of that feature in +the Elder's household, and she laughed outright. Her ideas of the +ancestral savage were too vague to be very alarming. "If she has lived all +these years with this good old minister, she must be civilized and kind," +said Draxy. "I'm not afraid of her."</p> + +<p>"But I think it would be a great deal better for me to go first," she +continued, more and more impressed with the new idea. "Then I can be sure +beforehand about everything, and get things all in order for you; and +there'll be Mr. Kinney to take care of me; I feel as if he was a kind of +father to everybody." And Draxy in her turn began to wonder about the +Elder's appearance as he had wondered about hers. Her mental picture was +quite as unlike the truth as was his. She fancied him not unlike her +father, but much older, with a gentle face, and floating white hair. Dim +purposes of how she might make his lonely old age more cheerful, floated +before her mind. "It must be awful," thought she, "to live years and years +all alone with an Indian."</p> + +<p>When Elder Kinney read Reuben's letter, saying that they would send their +daughter up first to decide what would be best for them to do, he brought +his hand down hard on the table and said "Whew!" again.</p> + +<p>"Well, I do declare," thought he to himself, "I'm afraid they're dreadful +shiftless folks, to send that girl way up here, all alone by herself; and +how's such a child's that goin' to decide anything, I should like to +know?"</p> + +<p>He read again the letter Reuben had written. "My daughter is very young, +but we lean upon her as if she was older. She has helped us bear all our +misfortunes, and we have more confidence in her opinions than in our own +about everything." The Elder was displeased.</p> + +<p>"Lean on her;' I should think you did! Poor little girl! Well, I can look +out for her; that's one comfort." And the Elder wrote a short note to the +effect that he would meet their "child" at the railway station, which was +six miles from their town; that he would do all he could to help her; and +that he hoped soon to see Mr. and Mrs. Miller under his roof.</p> + +<p>The words of the note were most friendly, but there was an indefinable +difference between it and all the others, which Draxy felt without knowing +that she felt it, and her last words to her father as she bade him good-by +from the car window were: "I don't feel so sure as I did about our staying +with Mr. Kinney, father. You leave it all to me, do you, dear, even if I +decide to buy a house?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, daughter," said Reuben, heartily; "all! Nothing but good's ever come +yet of your way o' doin' things."</p> + +<p>"An' I don't in the least hanker after that Injun," he called out as the +cars began to move. Draxy laughed merrily. Reuben was a new man already. +They were very gay together, and felt wonderfully little fear for people +to whom life had been thus far so hard.</p> + +<p>There was not a misgiving in Draxy's heart as she set out again on a two +days' journey to an unknown place. "Oh how different from the day when I +started before," she thought as she looked out on the water sparkling +under the bright May sun. She spent the first night, as before, at the +house of Captain Melville's brother, and set out at eight the following +morning, to ride for ten hours steadily northward. The day was like a day +of June. The spring was opening early; already fruit-trees were white and +pink; banks were green, and birds were noisy.</p> + +<p>By noon mountains came in sight. Draxy was spellbound. "They are grander +than the sea," thought she, "and I never dreamed it; and they are loving, +too. I should like to rest my cheek on them."</p> + +<p>As she drew nearer and nearer, and saw some tops still white with snow, +her heart beat faster, and with a sudden pang almost of +conscience-stricken remorse, she exclaimed, "Oh, I shall never, never once +miss the sea!"</p> + +<p>Elder Kinney had borrowed Eben Hill's horse and wagon to drive over for +Draxy. He was at the station half an hour before the train was due. It had +been years since the steady currents of his life had been so disturbed and +hurried as they were by this little girl.</p> + +<p>"Looks like rain, Elder; I 'spect she'll have to go over with me arter +all," said George Thayer, the handsomest, best-natured stage-driver in the +whole State of New Hampshire. The Elder glanced anxiously at the sky.</p> + +<p>"No, I guess not, George," he replied. "'Twon't be anything more'n a +shower, an' I've got an umbrella and a buffalo-robe. I can keep her dry."</p> + +<p>Everybody at the station knew Draxy's story, and knew that the Elder had +come to meet her. When the train stopped, all eyes eagerly scanned the +passengers who stepped out on the platform. Two men, a boy, and three +women, one after the other; it was but a moment, and the train was off +again.</p> + +<p>"She hain't come," exclaimed voice after voice. The Elder said nothing; he +had stood a little apart from the crowd, watching for his ideal Draxy; as +soon as he saw that she was not there, he had fallen into a perplexed +reverie as to the possible causes of her detention. He was sorely anxious +about the child. "Jest's like's not, she never changed cars down at the +Junction," thought he, "an' 's half way to Montreal by this time," and +the Elder felt hot with resentment against Reuben Miller.</p> + +<p>Meantime, beautiful, dignified, and unconscious, Draxy stood on the +platform, quietly looking at face after face, seeking for the white hair +and gentle eyes of her trusted friend, the old minister.</p> + +<p>George Thayer, with the quick instinct of a stage-driver, was the first to +see that she was a stranger.</p> + +<p>"Where d'ye wish to go, ma'am?" said he, stepping towards her.</p> + +<p>"Thank you," said Draxy, "I expected some one to meet me," and she looked +uneasy; but reassured by the pleasant face, she went on: "the minister +from Clairvend village was to meet me here."</p> + +<p>George Thayer said, two hours afterward, in recounting his share of the +adventure, "I tell ye, boys, when she said that ye might ha' knocked me +down with a feather. I hain't never heard no other woman's voice that's +got jest the sound to't hern has; an' what with that, an' thinkin' how +beat the Elder'd be, an' wonderin' who in thunder she was anyhow, I don't +believe I opened my dum lips for a full minute; but she kind o' smiled, +and sez she, 'Do you know Mr. Kinney?' and that brought me to, and jest +then the Elder he come along, and so I introduced 'em."</p> + +<p>It was not exactly an introduction, however. The Elder, entirely absorbed +in conjecture as to poor little Draxy's probable whereabouts, stumbled on +the platform steps and nearly fell at her very feet, and was recalled to +himself only to be plunged into still greater confusion by George Thayer's +loud "Hallo! here he is. Here's Elder Kinney. Here's a lady askin' for +you, Elder!"</p> + +<p>Even yet it did not dawn upon Elder Kinney who this could be; his little +golden-haired girl was too vividly stamped on his brain; he looked gravely +into the face of this tall and fine-looking young woman and said kindly, +"Did you wish to see me, ma'am?"</p> + +<p>Draxy smiled. She began to understand. "I am afraid you did not expect to +see me so tall, sir," she said. "I am Reuben Miller's daughter,--Draxy," +she added, smiling again, but beginning in her turn to look confused. +Could this erect, vigorous man, with a half-stern look on his dark-bearded +face, be the right Mr. Kinney? her minister? It was a moment which neither +Elder Kinney nor Draxy ever forgot. The unsentimental but kindly George +gave the best description of it which could be given.</p> + +<p>"I vow, boys, I jest wish ye could ha' seen our Elder; an' yet, I dunno's +I do wish so, nuther. He stood a twistin' his hat, jest like any o' us, +an' he kind o' stammered, an' I don't believe neither on 'em knew a word +he said; an' her cheeks kep' gittin' redder'n redder, an' she looked's ef +she was ready to cry, and yet she couldn't keep from larfin, no how. Ye +see she thought he was an old man and he thought she was a little gal, an' +somehow't first they didn't either of 'em feel like nobody; but when I +passed 'em in the road, jest out to Four Corners, they was talkin' as easy +and nateral as could be; an' the Elder he looked some like himself, and +she--wall, boys, you jest wait till you see her; that's all I've got to +say. Ef she ain't a picter!"</p> + +<p>The drive to the village seemed long, however, to both Draxy and the +Elder. Their previous conceptions of each other had been too firmly rooted +to be thus overthrown without a great jar. The Elder felt Draxy's +simplicity and child-like truthfulness more and more with each word she +spoke; but her quiet dignity of manner was something to which he was +unused; to his inexperience she seemed almost a fine lady, in spite of her +sweet and guileless speech. Draxy, on the other hand, was a little +repelled by the Elder's whole appearance. He was a rougher man than she +had known; his pronunciation grated on her ear; and he looked so strong +and dark she felt a sort of fear of him. But the next morning, when Draxy +came down in her neat calico gown and white apron, the Elder's face +brightened.</p> + +<p>"Good morning, my child," he said. "You look as fresh as a pink." The +tears came into Draxy's eyes at the word "child," said as her father said +it.</p> + +<p>"I don't look so old then, this morning, do I, sir?" she asked in a +pleading tone which made the Elder laugh. He was more himself this +morning. All was well. Draxy sat down to breakfast with a lighter heart.</p> + +<p>When Draxy was sitting she looked very young. Her face was as childlike as +it was beautiful: and her attitudes were all singularly unconscious and +free. It was when she rose that her womanhood revealed itself to the +perpetual surprise of every one. As breakfast went on the Elder gradually +regained his old feeling about her; his nature was as simple, as +spontaneous as hers; he called her "child" again several times in the +course of the meal. But when at the end of it Draxy rose, tall, erect, +almost majestic in her fullness of stature, he felt again singularly +removed from her.</p> + +<p>"'Ud puzzle any man to say whether she's a child or a woman," said the +Elder to himself. But his face shone with pleasure as he walked by her +side out into the little front yard. Draxy was speechless with delight. In +the golden east stretched a long range of mountains, purple to the top; +down in the valley, a mile below the Elder's house, lay the village; a +little shining river ran side by side with its main street. To the north +were high hills, some dark green and wooded, some of brown pasture land.</p> + +<p>"Oh, sir," said Draxy, "is there any other spot in your mountain land so +beautiful as this?"</p> + +<p>"No, not one," said the Elder, "not one;" and he, too, looked out silently +on the scene.</p> + +<p>Presently Draxy exclaimed, with a sigh, "Oh, it makes me feel like crying +to think of my father's seeing this!"</p> + +<p>"Shall I tell you now about my father, sir?" she continued; "you ought to +know all about us, you have been so good."</p> + +<p>Then sitting on the low step of the door, while the Elder sat in an +arm-chair in the porch, Draxy told the story of her father's life, and, +unconsciously, of her own. More than once the Elder wiped his eyes; more +than once he rose and walked up and down before the door, gazing with +undefined but intense emotion at this woman telling her pathetic story +with the simple-hearted humility of a child. Draxy looked younger than +ever curled up in the doorway, with her hands lying idle on her white +apron. The Elder was on the point of stroking her hair. Suddenly she rose, +and said, "But I am taking too much of your time, sir; will you take me +now to see the house you spoke of, which we could hire?" She was again the +majestic young woman. The Elder was again thrown back, and puzzled.</p> + +<p>He tried to persuade her to give up all idea of hiring the house: to make +his house their home for the present. But she replied steadfastly, "I must +look at the house, sir, before I decide." They walked down into the +village together. Draxy was utterly unconscious of observation, but the +Elder knew only too well that every eye of Clairvend was at some +window-pane studying his companion's face and figure. All whom they met +stared so undisguisedly that, fearing Draxy would be annoyed, he said,--</p> + +<p>"You mustn't mind the folks staring so at you. You see they've been +talkin' the matter all over about the land, an' your comin', for a month, +an' it's no more than natural they should want to know how you look;" and +he, too, looked admiringly at Draxy's face.</p> + +<p>"Oh," said Draxy (it was a new idea to her mind), "I never thought of +that."</p> + +<p>"I hope they are all glad we are coming, sir," added she, a moment after.</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, yes; they're glad enough. 'Taint often anything happens up here, +you know, and they've all thought everything of you since your first +letter came."</p> + +<p>Draxy colored. She had not dreamed of taking a whole village into her +confidence. But she was glad of the friendliness; and she met every +inquisitive gaze after this with an open, responsive look of such beaming +good-will that she made friends of all whom she saw. One or two stopped +and spoke; most were afraid to do so, unconsciously repelled, as the Elder +had been at first, by something in Draxy's dress and bearing which to +their extreme inexperience suggested the fine lady. Nothing could have +been plainer than Draxy's cheap gray gown; but her dress always had +character: the tiniest knot of ribbon at her throat assumed the look of a +decoration; and many a lady for whom she worked had envied her the +expression of her simple clothes.</p> + +<p>The house would not answer. Draxy shook her head as soon as she saw it, +and when the Elder told her that in the spring freshets the river washed +into the lower story, she turned instantly away, and said, "Let us go +home, sir; I must think of something else."</p> + +<p>At dinner Draxy was preoccupied, and anxious. The expression of perplexity +made her look older, but no less beautiful. Elder Kinney gazed at her +more steadily than he knew; and he did not call her "child" again.</p> + +<p>After dinner he took her over the house, explaining to her, at every turn, +how useless most of the rooms were to him. In truth, the house was +admirably adapted for two families, with the exception that there was but +one kitchen. "But that could be built on in a very few days, and would +cost very little," said the Elder eagerly. Already all the energies of his +strong nature were kindled by the resolve to keep Draxy under his roof.</p> + +<p>"I suppose it might be so built that it could be easily moved off and +added to our own house when we build for ourselves," said Draxy, +reflectively.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes," said the Elder, "no sort o' trouble about that," and he glowed +with delight. He felt sure that his cause was gained.</p> + +<p>But he found Draxy very inflexible. There was but one arrangement of which +she would think for a moment. It was, that the Elder should let to them +one half of his house, and that the two families should be entirely +distinct. Until the new kitchen and out-buildings were finished, if the +Elder would consent to take them as boarders, they would live with him; +"otherwise, sir, I must find some one in the village who will take us," +said Draxy in a quiet tone, which Elder Kinney knew instinctively was not +to be argued with. It was a novel experience for the Elder in more ways +than one. He was used to having his parishioners, especially the women, +yield implicitly to his advice. This gentle-voiced girl, who said to him, +"Don't you think, sir?" in an appealing tone which made his blood quicken, +but who afterward, when she disagreed with him, stood her ground +immovably even against entreaties, was a phenomenon in his life. He began +to stand in awe of her. When some one said to him on the third day after +Draxy's arrival: "Well, Elder, I don't know what she'd ha' done without +you," he replied emphatically, "Done without me! You'll find out that all +Reuben Miller's daughter wants of anybody is jest to let her know exactly +how things lay. She ain't beholden to anybody for opinions. She's as +trustin' as a baby, while you're tellin' her facts, but I'd like to see +anybody make her change her mind about what's best to be done; and I +reckon she's generally right; what's more, she's one of the Lord's +favorites, an' He ain't above guidin' in small things no mor'n in great."</p> + +<p>No wonder Elder Kinney was astonished. In forty-eight hours Draxy had +rented one half of his house, made a contract with a carpenter for the +building of a kitchen and out-buildings on the north side of it, engaged +board at the Elder's table for her parents and herself for a month, and +hired Bill Sims to be her father's head man for one year. All the while +she seemed as modestly grateful to the Elder as if he had done it all for +her. On the afternoon of the second day she said to him:--</p> + +<p>"Now, sir, what is the nearest place for me to buy our furniture?"</p> + +<p>"Why, ain't you goin' to use mine--at least's far's it goes?" said the +poor Elder. "I thought that was in the bargain."</p> + +<p>Draxy looked disturbed. "Oh, how careless of me," she said; "I am afraid +nothing was said about it. But we cannot do that; my father would dislike +it; and as we must have furniture for our new house, we might as well have +it now. I have seven hundred dollars with me, sir; father thought I might +decide to buy a house, and have to pay something down."</p> + +<p>"Please don't be angry with me," she added pleadingly, for the Elder +looked vexed. "You know if I am sure my father would prefer a thing, I +must do it."</p> + +<p>The Elder was disarmed.</p> + +<p>"Well, if you are set on buyin' furniture," he said, "I shouldn't wonder +if you'd have a chance to buy all you'd want cheap down at Squire +Williams's sale in Mill Creek. His wife died the night your first letter +came, an' I heard somebody say he was goin' to sell all out; an' they've +always been well-to-do, the Williamses, an' I reckon you'd fancy some o' +their things better'n anything you'd get at the stores."</p> + +<p>Already the Elder began to divine Draxy's tastes; to feel that she had +finer needs than the women he had known. In less than an hour he was at +the door with Eben Hill's horse and wagon to take Draxy to Squire +Williams's house.</p> + +<p>"Jest more o' the same Providence that follows that girl," thought he when +he saw Draxy's eyes fairly dilate with pleasure as he led her into the +old-fashioned parlor, where the furniture was piled and crowded ready for +the auction.</p> + +<p>"Oh, will they not cost too much for me, dear Mr. Kinney?" whispered +Draxy.</p> + +<p>"No, I guess not," he said, "there ain't much biddin' at these sort of +sales up here," and he mentally resolved that nothing Draxy wanted should +cost too much for her.</p> + +<p>The sale was to be the next day. Draxy made a careful list of the things +she would like to buy. The Elder was to come over and bid them off for +her.</p> + +<p>"Now you just go over 'em again," said the Elder, "and mark off what you'd +like to have if they didn't cost anything, because sometimes things go +for's good 's nothing, if nobody happens to want 'em." So Draxy made a +second list, and laughing a little girlish laugh as she handed the papers +to the Elder, pointed to the words "must haves" at the head of the first +list, and "would-like-to-haves" at the head of the second. The Elder put +them both in his breast-pocket, and he and Draxy drove home.</p> + +<p>The next night two great loads of Squire Williams's furniture were carried +into Elder Kinney's house. As article after article was taken in, Draxy +clapped her hands and almost screamed with delight; all her +"would-like-to-haves" were there. "Oh, the clock, the clock! Have I really +got that, too!" she exclaimed, and she turned to the Elder, half crying, +and said, "How shall I ever thank you, sir?"</p> + +<p>The Elder was uncomfortable. He was in a dilemma. He had not been able to +resist buying the clock for Draxy. He dared not tell her what he had paid +for it. "She'd never let me give her a cent's worth, I know that well +enough. It would be just like her to make me take it back," thought he. +Luckily Draxy was too absorbed in her new riches, all the next day, to ask +for her accounts, and by the next night the Elder had deliberately +resolved to make false returns on his papers as to the price of several +articles. "I'll tell her all about it one o' these days when she knows me +better," he comforted himself by thinking; "I never did think Ananias was +an out an' out liar. It couldn't be denied that all he did say was true!" +and the Elder resolutely and successfully tried to banish the subject from +his mind by thinking about Draxy.</p> + +<p>The furniture was, much of it, valuable old mahogany, dark in color and +quaint in shape. Draxy could hardly contain herself with delight, as she +saw the expression it gave to the rooms; it had cost so little that she +ventured to spend a small sum for muslin curtains, new papers, bright +chintz, and shelves here and there. When all was done, she herself was +astonished at the result. The little home was truly lovely. "Oh, sir, my +father has never had a pretty home like this in all his life," said she to +the Elder, who stood in the doorway of the sitting-room looking with +half-pained wonder at the transformation. He felt, rather than saw, how +lovely the rooms looked; he could not help being glad to see Draxy so +glad; but he felt farther removed from her by this power of hers to create +what he could but dimly comprehend. Already he unconsciously weighed all +things in new balances; already he began to have a strange sense of +humility in the presence of this woman.</p> + +<p>Ten days from the day that Draxy arrived in Clairvend she drove over with +the Elder to meet her father and mother at the station. She had arranged +that the Elder should carry her father back in the wagon; she and her +mother would go in the stage. She counted much on the long, pleasant drive +through the woods as an opening to the acquaintance between her father and +the Elder. She had been too busy to write any but the briefest letters +home, and had said very little about him. To her last note she had added a +post-script,--</p> + +<p>"I am sure you will like Mr. Kinney, father. He is very kind and very +good. But he is not old as we thought."</p> + +<p>To the Elder she said, as they drove over, "I think you will love my +father, sir, and I know you will do him good. But he will not say much at +first; you will have to talk," and Draxy smiled. The Elder and she +understood each other very well.</p> + +<p>"I don't think there's much danger o' my not lovin' him," replied the +Elder; "by all you tell he must be uncommon lovable." Draxy turned on him +such a beaming smile that he could not help adding, "an' I should think +his bein' your father was enough."</p> + +<p>Draxy looked seriously in his face, and said "Oh, Mr. Kinney, I'm not +anything by the side of father."</p> + +<p>The Elder's eyes twinkled.</p> + +<p>It was a silent though joyful group which gathered around the Elder's +tea-table that night.</p> + +<p>Reuben and Jane were tired, bewildered, but their eyes rested on Draxy +with perpetual smiles. Draxy also smiled more than she spoke. The Elder +felt himself half out of place and wished to go away, but Draxy looked +grieved at his proposal to do so, and he stayed. But nobody could eat, and +old Nancy, who had spent her utmost resources on the supper, was cruelly +disappointed. She bustled in and out on various pretenses, but at last +could keep silence no longer. "Seems to me ye've dreadful slim appetites +for folks that's been travellin' all day. Perhaps ye don't like yer +victuals," she said, glancing sharply at Reuben.</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, madame, yes," said poor Reuben, nervously, "everything is very +nice; much nicer than I am used to."</p> + +<p>Draxy laughed aloud. "My father never eats when he is tired, Nancy. You'll +see how he'll eat to-morrow."</p> + +<p>After Nancy had left the room, Reuben wiped his forehead, and Draxy +laughed again in spite of herself. Old Nancy had been so kind and willing +in helping her, she had grown fond of her, and had quite forgotten her +father's dread. When Reuben bade Draxy good-night, he said under his +breath, "I like your Elder very much, daughter; but I don't know how I'm +ever goin' to stand livin' with that Injun."</p> + +<p>"My Elder," said Draxy to herself as she went up-stairs, "he's everybody's +Elder--and the Lord's most of all I think," and she went to sleep thinking +of the solemn words which she had heard him speak on the last Sunday.</p> + +<p>It was strange how soon the life of the new household adjusted itself; how +full the days were, and how swift. The summer was close upon them; +Reuben's old farmer instincts and habits revived in full force. Bill Sims +proved a most efficient helper; he had been Draxy's sworn knight, from the +moment of her first interview with him. There would be work on Reuben's +farm for many hands, but Reuben was in no haste. The sugar camp assured +him of an income which was wealth to their simple needs; and he wished to +act advisedly and cautiously in undertaking new enterprises. All the land +was wild land--much of it deep swamps. The maple orchard was the only part +immediately profitable. The village people came at once to see them. +Everybody was touched by Jane's worn face and gentle ways; her silence did +not repel them; everybody liked Draxy too, and admired her, but many were +a little afraid of her. The village men had said that she was "the +smartest woman that had ever set foot in Clairvend village," and human +nature is human nature. It would take a great deal of Draxy's kindly +good-will to make her sister women forgive her for being cleverer than +they. Draxy and Reuben were inseparable. They drove; they walked; even +into the swamps courageous Draxy penetrated with her father and Bill Sims, +as they went about surveying the land; and it was Draxy's keen instinct +which in many cases suggested where improvements could be made.</p> + +<p>In the mean time Elder Kinney's existence had become transformed. He dared +not to admit himself how much it meant, this new delight in simply being +alive, for back of his delight lurked a desperate fear; he dared not move. +Day after day he spent more and more time in the company of Draxy and her +father. Reuben and he were fast becoming close friends. Reuben's gentle, +trustful nature found repose in the Elder's firm, sturdy downrightness, +much as it had in Captain Melville's; and the Elder would have loved +Reuben if he had not been Draxy's father. But to Draxy he seemed to draw +no nearer. She was the same frank, affectionate, merry, puzzling +woman-child that she had been at first; yet as he saw more and more how +much she knew of books which he did not know, of people, and of affairs of +which he had never heard--how fluently, graciously, and even wisely she +could talk, he felt himself cut off from her. Her sweet, low tones and +distinct articulation tortured him while they fascinated him; they seemed +to set her so apart. In fact, each separate charm she had, produced in the +poor Elder's humble heart a mixture of delight and pain which could not be +analyzed and could not long be borne.</p> + +<p>He exaggerated all his own defects of manner, and speech, and education; +he felt uncomfortable in Draxy's presence, in spite of all the +affectionate reverence with which she treated him; he said to himself +fifty times a day, "It's only my bein' a minister that makes her think +anythin' o' me." The Elder was fast growing wretched.</p> + +<p>But Draxy was happy. She was still in some ways more child than woman. Her +peculiar training had left her imagination singularly free from fancies +concerning love and marriage. The Elder was a central interest in her +life; she would have said instantly and cordially that she loved him +dearly. She saw him many times every day; she knew all his outgoings and +incomings; she knew the first step of his foot on the threshold; she felt +that he belonged to them, and they to him. Yet as a woman thinks of the +man whose wife she longs to be, Draxy had never once thought of Elder +Kinney.</p> + +<p>But when the new kitchen was finished, and the Millers entered on their +separate housekeeping, a change came. As Reuben and Jane and Draxy sat +down for the first time alone together at their tea-table, Reuben said +cheerily:--</p> + +<p>"Now this seems like old times. This is nice."</p> + +<p>"Yes," replied Jane. Draxy did not speak. Reuben looked at her. She +colored suddenly, deeply, and said with desperate honesty,--</p> + +<p>"Yes, father; but I can't help thinking how lonely Mr. Kinney must be."</p> + +<p>"Well, I declare," said Reuben, conscience-stricken; "I suppose he must +be; I hate to think on't. But we'll have him in here's often's he'll +come."</p> + +<p>Just the other side of the narrow entry sat the Elder, leaning both his +elbows on the table, and looking over at the vacant place where the night +before, and for thirty nights before, Draxy had sat. It was more than he +could bear. He sprang up, and leaving his supper untasted, walked out of +the house.</p> + +<p>Draxy heard him go. Draxy had passed in that moment into a new world. She +divined all.</p> + +<p>"He hasn't eaten any supper," thought she; and she listened intently to +hear him come in again. The clock struck ten, he had not returned! Draxy +went to bed, but she could not sleep. The little house was still; the warm +white moonlight lay like summer snow all over it; Draxy looked out of her +window; the Elder was slowly coming up the hill; Draxy knelt down like a +little child and said, "God bless him," and crept back to bed. When she +heard him shut his bedroom door she went to sleep.</p> + +<p>The next day Draxy's eyes did not look as they had looked the day before. +When Elder Kinney first saw her, she was coming down stairs. He was +standing at the foot of the staircase and waited to say "Good morning." +As he looked up at her, he started back and exclaimed: "Why, Draxy, what's +the matter?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing is the matter, sir," said Draxy, as she stepped from the last +stair, and standing close in front of him, lifted the new, sweet, softened +eyes up to his. Draxy was as simple and sincere in this as in all other +emotions and acts of her life. She had no coquetry in her nature. She had +no distinct thought either of a new relation between herself and the +Elder. She simply felt a new oneness with him; and she could not have +understood the suggestion of concealment. If Elder Kinney had been a man +of the world, he would have folded Draxy to his heart that instant. If he +had been even a shade less humble and self-disrustful, he would have done +it, as it was. But he never dreamed that he might. He folded his empty +arms very tight over his faithful, aching, foolish heart, and tried to say +calmly and naturally, "Are you sure? Seems to me you don't look quite +well."</p> + +<p>But after that morning he never felt wholly without hope. He could not +tell precisely why. Draxy did not seek him, did not avoid him. She was +perhaps a little less merry; said fewer words; but she looked glad, and +more than glad. "I think it's the eyes," he said to himself again and +again, as he tried to analyze the new look on Draxy's face which gave him +hope. These were sweet days. There are subtle joys for lovers who dwell +side by side in one house, together and yet apart. The very air is loaded +with significance to them--the door, the window, the stairway. Always +there is hope of meeting; always there is consciousness of presence; +everywhere a mysterious sense that the loved one has passed by. More than +once Seth Kinney knelt and laid his cheek on the stairs which Draxy's feet +had just ascended! Often sweet, guileless Draxy thought, as she went up +and down, "Ah, the dear feet that go over these stairs." One day the +Elder, as he passed by the wall of the room where he knew Draxy was +sitting, brushed his great hand and arm against it so heavily that she +started, thinking he had stumbled. But as the firm step went on, without +pausing, she smiled, she hardly knew why. The next time he did it she laid +down her work, locked and unlocked her hands, and looking toward the door, +whispered under her breath, "Dear hands!" Finally this became almost a +habit of his; he did not at first think Draxy would hear it; but he felt, +as he afterwards told her, "like a great affectionate dog going by her +door, and that was all he could do. He would have liked to lie down on the +rug."</p> + +<p>These were very sweet days; spite of his misgivings, Elder Kinney was +happy; and Draxy, in spite of her unconsciousness, seemed to herself to be +living in a blissful dream. But a sweeter day came.</p> + +<p>One Saturday evening Reuben said to Draxy,--</p> + +<p>"Daughter, I've done somethin' I'm afraid'll trouble you. I've told th' +Elder about your verses, an' showed him the hymn you wrote when you was +tryin' to give it all up about the land."</p> + +<p>"Oh, father, how could you," gasped Draxy; and she looked as if she would +cry.</p> + +<p>Reuben could not tell just how it happened. It seemed to have come out +before he knew it, and after it had, he could not help showing the hymn.</p> + +<p>Draxy was very seriously disturbed; but she tried to conceal it from her +father, and the subject was dropped.</p> + +<p>The next morning Elder Kinney preached--it seemed to his people--as he +never preached before. His subject was self-renunciation, and he spoke as +one who saw the waving palms of the martyrs and heard their shouts of joy. +There were few dry eyes in the little meeting-house. Tears rolled down +Draxy's face. But she looked up suddenly, on hearing Elder Kinney say, in +an unsteady voice,--</p> + +<p>"My bretherin, I'm goin' to read to you now a hymn which comes nigher to +expressin' my idea of the kind of resignation God likes than any hymn +that's ever been written or printed in any hymn-book;" and then he +began:--</p> + +<p>"I cannot think but God must know," etc.</p> + +<p>Draxy's first feeling was one of resentment; but it was a very short-lived +one. The earnest tone, the solemn stillness of the wondering people, the +peaceful summer air floating in at the open windows,--all lifted her out +of herself, and made her glad to hear her own hymn read by the man she +loved, for the worship of God. But her surprise was still greater when the +choir began to sing the lines to a quaint old Methodist tune. They had +been provided with written copies of the hymn, and had practiced it so +faithfully that they sang it well. Draxy broke down and sobbed for a few +moments, so that Elder Kinney was on the point of forgetting everything, +and springing to her side. He had not supposed that anything in the world +could so overthrow Draxy's composure. He did not know how much less +strong her nerves were now than they had been two months before.</p> + +<p>After church, Draxy walked home alone very rapidly. She did not wish to +see any one. She was glad that her father and mother had not been there. +She could not understand the tumult of her feelings.</p> + +<p>At twilight, she stole out of the back door of the house, and walked down +to a little brook which ran near by. As she stood leaning against a young +maple tree she heard steps, and without looking up, knew that the Elder +was coming. She did not move nor speak. He waited some minutes in silence. +Then he said "Oh, Draxy! I never once thought o' painin' you! I thought +you'd like it. Hymns are made to be sung, dear; and that one o' yours is +so beautiful!" He spoke as gently as her father might, and in a voice she +hardly knew. Draxy made no reply. The Elder had never seen her like this. +Her lips quivered, and he saw tears in her eyes.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Draxy, do look up at me--just once! You don't know how hard it is for +a man to think he's hurt anybody--like you!" stammered the poor Elder, +ending his sentence quite differently from what he had intended.</p> + +<p>Draxy smiled through her tears, and looking up, said: "But I am not hurt, +Mr. Kinney; I don't know what I am crying for, sir;" and her eyes fell +again.</p> + +<p>The Elder looked down upon her in silence. Moments passed. "Oh, if I could +make her look up at me again!" he thought. His unspoken wish stirred her +veins; slowly she lifted her eyes; they were calm now, and unutterably +loving. They were more than the Elder could bear."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Draxy, Draxy!" exclaimed he, stretching out both his arms towards +her.</p> + +<blockquote><p> "My heart grows weaker and more weak<br /> +With looking on the thing so dear<br /> +Which lies so far, and yet so near!"</p></blockquote> + +<p>Slowly, very slowly, like a little child learning to walk, with her eyes +full of tears, but her mouth smiling, Draxy moved towards the Elder. He +did not stir, partly because he could not, but partly because he would not +lose one instant of the deliciousness of seeing her, feeling her come.</p> + +<p>When they went back to the house, Reuben was sitting in the porch. The +Elder took his hand and said:</p> + +<p>"Mr. Miller, I meant to have asked you first; but God didn't give me +time."</p> + +<p>Reuben smiled.</p> + +<p>"You've's good's asked me a good while back, Elder; an' I take it you +haint ever had much doubt what my answer'd be." Then, as Draxy knelt down +by his chair and laid her head on his shoulder, he added more solemnly,--</p> + +<p>"But I'd jest like once to say to ye, Elder, that if ever I get to heaven, +I wouldn't ask anythin' more o' the Lord than to let me see Draxy 'n' you +a comin' in together, an' lookin' as you looked jest now when ye come in't +that gate!"</p> +</div> + + +<div class="chapter" id="ch02"> +<h2>The Elder's Wife.</h2> + +<h3>Sequel to "Draxy Miller's Dowry."</h3> + + + +<h3>Part I.</h3> + + +<p>Draxy and the Elder were married in the little village church, on the +first Sunday in September.</p> + +<p>"O Draxy! let it be on a communion Sunday," the Elder had said, with an +expression on his face which Draxy could not quite fathom; "I can't tell +you what it 'ud be to me to promise myself over again to the blessed +Saviour, the same hour I promise to you, darling, I'm so afraid of loving +Him less. I don't see how I can remember anything about heaven, after I've +got you, Draxy," and tears stood in the Elder's eyes.</p> + +<p>Draxy looked at him wonderingly and with a little pain in her face. To her +serene nature, heaven and earth, this life and all the others which may +follow it, had so long seemed one--love and happiness and duty had become +so blended in one sweet atmosphere of living in daily nearness to God, +that she could not comprehend the Elder's words.</p> + +<p>"Why, Mr. Kinney, it's all Christ," she said, slowly and hesitatingly, +slipping her hand into his, and looking up at him so lovingly that his +face flushed, and he threw his arms around her, and only felt a thousand +times more that heaven had come to mean but one thing to him.</p> + +<p>"Darling," he whispered, "would you feel so if I were to die and leave you +alone?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I think so," said Draxy, still more slowly, and turning very pale. +"You never can really leave me, and no human being can be really alone; it +would still be all Christ, and it would be living His life and God's +still;" but tears rolled down her cheeks, and she began to sob.</p> + +<p>"Oh, forgive me, Draxy," exclaimed the Elder, wrung to the heart by the +sight of her grief. "I'm nothing but a great brute to say that to you just +now; but, Draxy, you don't know much about a man's heart yet; you're such +a saint yourself, you can't understand how it makes a man feel as if this +earth was enough, and he didn't want any heaven, when he loves a woman as +I love you," and the Elder threw himself on the ground at Draxy's feet, +and laid his face down reverently on the hem of her gown. There were fiery +depths in this man's nature of which he had never dreamed, until this +fair, sweet, strong womanhood crossed his path. His love of Draxy kindled +and transformed his whole consciousness of himself and of life; it was no +wonder that he felt terrors; that he asked himself many times a day what +had become of the simple-minded, earnest, contented worker he used to be. +He was full of vague and restless yearnings; he longed to do, to be, to +become, he knew not what, but something that should be more of kin to this +beautiful nature he worshipped--something that should give her great +joy--something in which she could feel great pride.</p> + +<p>"It ain't right, I know it ain't right, to feel so about any mortal," he +would say to himself; "that's the way I used to feel about Jesus. I wanted +to do all for Him, and now I want to do all for Draxy," and the great, +tender, perplexed heart was sorely afraid of its new bliss.</p> + +<p>They were sitting in the maple grove behind the house. In the tree under +which they sat was a yellow-hammer's nest. The two birds had been +fluttering back and forth in the branches for some time. Suddenly they +both spread their wings and flew swiftly away in opposite directions. +Draxy looked up, smiling through her tears, and, pointing to the fast +fading specks in the distant air, said,--</p> + +<p>"It would be like that. They are both sent on errands. They won't see each +other again till the errands are done."</p> + +<p>The Elder looked into her illumined face, and, sighing, said: "I can't +help prayin' that the Lord'll have errands for us that we can do together +as long's we live, Draxy."</p> + +<p>"Yes, dear," said Draxy, "I pray for that too," and then they were silent +for some minutes. Draxy spoke first. "But Mr. Kinney, I never heard of +anybody's being married on Sunday--did you?"</p> + +<p>"No," said the Elder, "I never did, but I've always thought it was the +only day a man ought to be married on; I mean the most beautiful, the +sweetest day."</p> + +<p>"Yes," replied Draxy, a solemn and tender light spreading over her whole +face, "it certainly is. I wonder why nobody has ever thought so before. +But perhaps many people have," she added with a merrier smile; "we don't +know everybody."</p> + +<p>Presently she looked up anxiously and said:</p> + +<p>"But do you think the people would like it? Wouldn't they think it very +strange?"</p> + +<p>The Elder hesitated. He, too, had thought of this.</p> + +<p>"Well, I tell you, Draxy, it's just this way: I've tried more than once to +get some of them to come and be married on a Sunday in church, and they +wouldn't, just because they never heard of it before; and I'd like to have +them see that I was in true earnest about it. And they like you so well, +Draxy, and you know they do all love me a great deal more'n I deserve, and +I can't help believing it will do them good all their lives by making them +think more how solemn a thing a marriage ought to be, if they take it as I +think they will; and I do think I know them well enough to be pretty +sure."</p> + +<p>So it was settled that the marriage should take place after the morning +sermon, immediately before the communion service. When Reuben was told of +this, his face expressed such absolute amazement that Draxy laughed +outright, in spite of the deep solemnity of her feeling in regard to it.</p> + +<p>"Why, father," she said, "you couldn't look more surprised if I had told +you I was not to be married at all."</p> + +<p>"But Draxy, Draxy," Reuben gasped, "who ever heard of such a thing? What +will folks say?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know that anybody ever heard of such a thing, father dear," +answered Draxy, "but I am not afraid of what the people will say. They +love Mr. Kinney, and he has always told them that Sunday was the day to be +married on. I shouldn't wonder if every young man and young woman in the +parish looked on it in a new and much holier light after this. I know I +began to as soon as the Elder talked about it, and it wouldn't seem right +to me now to be married on any other day," and Draxy stooped and kissed +her father's forehead very tenderly. There was a tenderness in Draxy's +manner now towards every one which can hardly be described in words. It +had a mixture of humility and of gracious bestowal in it, of entreaty and +of benediction, which were ineffably beautiful and winning. It is ever so +when a woman, who is as strong as she is sweet, comes into the fullness of +her womanhood's estate of love. Her joy overflows on all; currents of +infinite compassion set towards those who must miss that by which she is +thrilled; her incredulity of her own bliss is forever questioning humbly; +she feels herself forever in presence of her lover, at once rich and free +and a queen, and poor and chained and a vassal. So her largess is +perpetual, involuntary, unconscious, and her appeal is tender, wistful, +beseeching. In Draxy's large nature,--her pure, steadfast, loving soul, +quickened and exalted by the swift currents of an exquisitely attuned and +absolutely healthful body,--this new life of love and passion wrought a +change which was vivid and palpable to the commonest eyes. Men and women +upon whom she smiled, in passing, felt themselves lifted and drawn, they +knew not how. A sentiment of love, which had almost reverence in it, grew +up towards her in the hearts of the people. A certain touch of sadness, of +misgiving, mingled with it.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid she ain't long for this world; she's got such a look o' heaven +in her face," was said more than once, in grieving tones, when the Elder's +approaching marriage was talked of. But old Ike was farther sighted, in +his simplicity, than the rest. "'Tain't that," he said, "that woman's got +in her face. It's the kind o' heaven that God sends down to stay'n this +world, to help make us fit for the next. Shouldn't wonder ef she outlived +th' Elder a long day," and Ike wiped his old eyes slyly with the back of +his hand.</p> + +<p>The day of the marriage was one of those shining September days which only +mountain regions know. The sky was cloudless and of a transcendent blue. +The air was soft as the air of June. Draxy's young friends had decorated +the church with evergreens and clematis vines; and on each side of the +communion-table were tall sheaves of purple asters and golden-rod. Two +children were to be baptized at noon, and on a little table, at the right +of the pulpit, stood the small silver baptismal font, wreathed with white +asters and the pale feathery green of the clematis seed.</p> + +<p>When Draxy walked up the aisle leaning on her father's arm, wearing the +same white dress she had worn on Sundays all summer, it cannot be denied +that there were sighs of disappointment in some of the pews. The people +had hoped for something more. Draxy had kept her own counsel on this point +closely, replying to all inquiries as to what she would wear, "White, of +course," but replying in such a tone that no one had quite dared to ask +more, and there had even been those in the parish who "reckoned" that she +wouldn't "be satisfied with anythin' less than white satin." Her head was +bare, her beautiful brown hair wound tightly round and round in the same +massive knot as usual. Her only ornaments were the creamy white blossoms +of the low cornel; one cluster in the braids of her hair, and one on her +bosom. As she entered the pew and sat down by the side of her mother, +slanting sunbeams from the southern windows fell upon her head, lighting +up the bright hair till it looked like a saintly halo. Elder Kinney sat in +the pulpit, with his best loved friend, Elder Williams, who was to preach +that day and perform the marriage ceremony. When Draxy and her father +entered the door, Elder Kinney rose and remained standing until they +reached their pew. As Draxy sat down and the golden sunbeams flickered +around her, the Elder sank back into his seat and covered his eyes with +his hand. He did not change his posture until the prayers and the hymns +and the sermon were over, and Elder Williams said in a low voice,--</p> + +<p>"The ceremony of marriage will now be performed." Then he rose, his +countenance glowing like that of one who had come from some Mount of +Transfiguration. With a dignity and grace of bearing such as royal +ambassadors might envy, he walked slowly down to Reuben Miller's pew, and, +with his head reverently bent, received Draxy from her father's hands.</p> + +<p>Passionate love and close contact with Draxy's exquisite nature were +developing, in this comparatively untrained man, a peculiar courteousness +and grace, which added a subtle charm to the simplicity of his manners. As +he walked up the aisle with Draxy clinging to his arm, his tall figure +looked majestic in its strength, but his face was still bent forward, +turned toward her with a look of reverence, of love unspeakable.</p> + +<p>The whole congregation rose, moved by one impulse, and the silence was +almost too solemn. When the short and simple ceremony was over, the Elder +led Draxy to his own pew and sat down by her side.</p> + +<p>After the little children had been baptized, the usual announcement of the +Lord's Supper was made, and the usual invitation given. Absolute silence +followed it, broken only by the steps of the singers leaving their seats +in the gallery to take places below. Not a person moved to leave the body +of the house. Elder Williams glanced at Elder Kinney in perplexity, and +waited for some moments longer. The silence still remained unbroken; there +was not a man, woman, or child there but felt conscious of a tender and +awed impulse to remain and look on at this ceremony, so newly significant +and solemn to their beloved Elder. Tears came into many eyes as he took +the cup of wine from Deacon Plummer's trembling hands and passed it to +Draxy, and many hearts which had never before longed for the right to +partake of the sacred emblems longed for it then.</p> + +<p>After the services, were ended, just as Elder Williams was about to +pronounce the benediction, Elder Kinney rose from his seat, and walking +rapidly to the communion table said,--</p> + +<p>"My dear friends, I know you don't look for any words from me to-day; but +there are some of you I never before saw at this blessed feast of our +Lord, and I must say one word to you from Him." Then pausing, he looked +round upon them all, and, with an unutterable yearning in the gesture, +stretched out both his arms and said: "O my people, my people! like as a +hen gathereth her chickens under her wing, He would have gathered you long +ago, but ye would not." Then, still holding out his arms towards them, he +pronounced the benediction.</p> + +<p>Silently and solemnly the little congregation dispersed. A few lingered, +and looked longingly at Draxy, as if they would go back and speak to her. +But she stood with her eyes fixed on the Elder's face, utterly unconscious +of the presence of any other human being. Even her father dared not break +the spell of holy beatitude which rested on her countenance.</p> + +<p>"No, no, ma," he said to Jane, who proposed that they should go back to +the pew and walk home with her. "This ain't like any other wedding that +was ever seen on this earth, unless, maybe, that one in Cana. And I don't +believe the Lord was any nearer to that bridegroom than He is to this +one."</p> + +<p>So Jane and Reuben walked home from church alone, for the first time since +they came to Clairvend, and Draxy and her husband followed slowly behind. +The village people who watched them were bewildered by their manner, and +interpreted it variously according to their own temperaments.</p> + +<p>"You'd ha' thought now they'd been married years an' years to look at +'em," said Eben Hill; "they didn't speak a word, nor look at each other +any more 'n old Deacon Plummer 'n his wife, who was joggin' along jest +afore 'em."</p> + +<p>Old Ike--poor, ignorant, loving old Ike, whose tender instinct was like +the wistful sagacity of a faithful dog--read their faces better. He had +hurried out of church and hid himself in the edge of a little pine grove +which the Elder and Draxy must pass.</p> + +<p>"I'd jest like to see 'em a little longer," he said to himself half +apologetically. As they walked silently by, old Ike's face saddened, and +at last became convulsed with grief. Creeping out from beneath the pines, +he slowly followed them up the hill, muttering to himself, in the fashion +which had grown upon him in his solitary life:--</p> + +<p>"O Lord! O Lord! No such looks as them is long for this earth. O Lord! +which is it ye're goin' to take? I reckon it's the Elder. I reckon 'tis. +That woman's goin' to have her heart broke. O Lord! O Lordy me! I can't +bear the sight on't!" and he leaped a fence and struck off across the +fields towards his house. He did not shut his eyes that night, but tossed +and groaned aloud. Towards morning he formed a resolution which calmed him +somewhat.</p> + +<p>"Ef I kin only be right close to 'em till it comes, p'raps I can be of a +little use. Leastways it 'ud be some comfort to try," he said.</p> + +<p>As the Elder and Draxy were sitting at breakfast the next day, they caught +sight of the old man's bent figure walking up and down outside the gate, +and stopping now and then irresolutely, as if he would come in, but dared +not.</p> + +<p>"Why, there's old Ike," exclaimed the Elder, "What on earth can he want +at this time of day!"</p> + +<p>Draxy looked up with a very tender smile, and said: "I shouldn't wonder if +he wanted just to see how happy you look, Mr. Kinney. Nobody in this world +loves you so well as old Ike does."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Draxy!" said the Elder, reproachfully.</p> + +<p>"No, dear, not even I. Old Ike never dreams of receiving any love in +return. I have seen his eyes follow you with just such a look as dogs' +eyes have. I wish we could do something for him."</p> + +<p>"We will, dear, we will go and see him often. I own it smites me to the +soul sometimes to think how humble he is, and so glad to see me when I +haven't been near him for six months, maybe."</p> + +<p>At this moment Hannah put her head into the door and said, in no pleasant +voice:--</p> + +<p>"Here's that Ike Sanborn wantin' to speak to ye sir, but I telled him"--</p> + +<p>"Let him come right in here, Hannah," said Draxy. "Mr. Kinney and I will +be very glad to see him this morning." Hannah's face relaxed in spite of +herself, in answer to Draxy's smile, but she could not forgive Ike for +what seemed to her a most unwarrantable intrusion, and she was grimmer +than ever when she returned to him, saying,--</p> + +<p>"They'll see ye; but I must say, I sh'd ha' thought ye'd know better'n to +be comin' round here this mornin' of all mornin's. Ain't they to have a +minute's peace to theirselves?"</p> + +<p>Ike looked up appealingly at the hard Indian face.</p> + +<p>"I wa'n't goin' to keep 'em a minute," he said: "I won't go in now. I'll +come agin, ef you say so, Hannah."</p> + +<p>"No, no--go in, now ye're here; ye've interrupted 'em, and ye may's well +take the good on't now," replied the vengeful Hannah, pushing Ike along +towards the sitting-room door.</p> + +<p>"Ef there's anythin' I do hate, it's shiftless white folks," grumbled +Hannah as she went back to her work. If poor Ike had known the angry +contempt for him which filled Hannah's heart, he would have felt still +less courage for the proposition he had come to make. As it was, he stood +in the doorway the very picture of irresolution and embarrassment.</p> + +<p>"Come in, come in, Ike," said the Elder; "you're the first one of the +parish to pay your respects to Mrs. Kinney." Draxy rose from her seat +smiling, and went towards him and said: "And Mrs. Kinney is very glad to +see you, Ike."</p> + +<p>This was too much for the loving old heart. He dropped his hat on the +floor, and began to speak so rapidly and incoherently that both Draxy and +the Elder were almost frightened.</p> + +<p>"O Elder! O Miss Kinney!--I've been a thinkin' that p'raps you'd let me +come an' live with you, an' do all yer chores. I'd bring my two cows, an' +my keepin' wouldn't be very much; an'--oh, sir, ef ye'll only let me, I'll +bless ye all the days o' my life," and Ike began to cry.</p> + +<p>So did Draxy, for that matter, and the Elder was not very far from it. +Draxy spoke first.</p> + +<p>"Why, Ike, do you really want so much to live with us?"</p> + +<p>Ike's first answer was a look. Then he said, very simply,--</p> + +<p>"I've laid awake all night, ma'am, tryin' to get bold enough to come and +ask ye."</p> + +<p>Draxy looked at her husband, and said in a low voice, "You know what I +told you just now, Mr. Kinney?"</p> + +<p>The Elder saw that Draxy was on Ike's side.</p> + +<p>"Well, well, Ike," he said, "you shall certainly come and try it. Perhaps +you won't like it as well as you think. But don't say anything about it to +any one else till you hear from us. You shall come very soon."</p> + +<p>Ike turned to go, but lingered, and finally stammered: "I hope, sir, ye +don't take it that I'm askin' a charity; I make bold to believe I could be +worth to ye's much's my keepin'; I'm considerable handy 'bout a good many +things, an' I can do a day's mowin' yet with any man in the parish, I +don't care who he is. It's only because--because"--Ike's voice broke, and +it was very nearly with a sob that he added, "because I love ye, sir," and +he hurried away. Draxy sprang after him.</p> + +<p>"I know that very well, Ike, and so does Mr. Kinney, and you will be a +great help to us. You are making us the most valuable wedding present +we've had yet, Ike," and Draxy held out her hand.</p> + +<p>Ike looked at the hand, but he did not touch it.</p> + +<p>"Maybe God'll let me thank ye yet, ma'am," he said, and was gone.</p> + +<p>As he went through the kitchen a sudden misgiving seized him of terror of +Hannah.</p> + +<p>"Supposin' she sh'd take into her head to be agin me," thought he. "They +say the Elder himself's 'fraid on her. I don't s'pose she'd dare to try to +pizen me outright, an' anyhow there's allers eggs an' potatoes. But I'll +bring her round fust or last;" and, made wary by love, Ike began on the +spot to conciliate her, by offering to bring a pail of water from the +well.</p> + +<p>This small attention went farther than he could have dreamed. When Draxy +first told Hannah that Ike was to come and live with them, she said +judiciously,--</p> + +<p>"It will make your work much easier in many ways, Hannah."</p> + +<p>Hannah answered:--</p> + +<p>"Yes, missus. He'll bring all the water I spose, an that alone's wuth any +man's keep--not that I've ever found any fault with the well's bein' so +far off. It's 's good water's there is in the world, but it's powerful +heavy."</p> + +<p>The arrival of the two cows crowned Hannah's liking of the plan. If she +had a passion in life it was for cream and for butter-making, and it had +been a sore trial to her in her life as the Elder's housekeeper, that she +must use stinted measures of milk, bought from neighbors. So when poor Ike +came in, trembling and nervous, to his first night's lodging under the +Elder's roof, he found in the kitchen, to his utter surprise, instead of a +frowning and dangerous enemy, a warm ally, as friendly in manner and mien +as Indian blood would permit.</p> + +<p>Thus the little household settled down for the winter: Draxy and the Elder +happy, serene, exalted more than they knew, by their perfect love for each +other, and their childlike love of God, blending in one earnest purpose +of work for souls; Hannah and Ike anything but serene, and yet happy after +their own odd fashions, and held together much more closely than they knew +by the common bond of their devotion to the Elder and his wife.</p> + +<p>In the other side of the house were also two very thankful and contented +hearts. Reuben and Jane were old people now: Reuben's hair was snowy +white, and Jane was sadly bent; but the comfort and peace which had come +so late into their lives had still come early enough to make the sunset a +bright one. It was a sight to do all hearts good to see the two sitting +together on the piazza of the house, in the warm afternoons, and gazing in +delight at the eastern mountain ranges turning rose-pink, and then fading +through shades of purple to dark gray.</p> + +<p>"It's a good deal like our life, ma," Reuben said sometimes; "our sun's +pretty low--most down, I reckon; it's all rosy-light, just these days; but +we shall have to lie down in the shadow presently; but it's all beautiful, +beautiful."</p> + +<p>Jane did not understand him. She never did. But she loved the sound of his +voice best when he said the things which were too subtle for her.</p> + +<p>The two households lived separately as before. The Elder had proposed +their making one family, and Reuben had wistfully seconded it. But Draxy +had firmly said "No."</p> + +<p>"I shall be able to do more for you, father dear, if we do not. It will +not seem so at first, but I know I am right," she said, and it was a rare +wisdom in her sweet soul which led to the decision. At first it was very +hard for Reuben to bear, but as the months went on he saw that it was +best.</p> + +<p>Draxy's loving, thoughtful care of them never relaxed. The excellent woman +whom she had secured for their servant went for her orders quite as often +to Draxy as to Jane; very few meals were set out for them to which Draxy's +hand had not given the last final touch. She flitted back and forth +between the two homes, equally of both the guardian angel; but the line of +division and separation was just as distinctly drawn as if they had been +under different roofs a mile apart. Two or three times in the week they +dined and took tea together, but the habit never was formed of doing this +on a special day. When Reuben said, "Couldn't ye arrange it so's always to +eat your Sunday dinner with us, Draxy?" she replied:</p> + +<p>"Sometimes Sunday dinner; sometimes Thursday; sometimes Saturday, father +dear. If we make it a fixed day, we shall not like it half so well; any of +us. We'll come often enough, you may be sure." And of this, too, Reuben +soon saw the wisdom.</p> + +<p>"O Draxy, Draxy, my little girl!" he said one day, when, just after +breakfast, she ran in, exclaiming,--</p> + +<p>"Father dear, we're coming to take dinner with you and ma to-day. It's a +surprise party, and the chickens have come first; they're in the kitchen +now!"</p> + +<p>"O Draxy, Draxy," he exclaimed, "it's a great deal nicer not to know it +beforehand. How could you be so wise, child?"</p> + +<p>Draxy put her arms round his neck and did not speak for a moment. Then she +said, "I don't think it is wisdom, dear. Real true love knows by instinct, +just as the bee does, which shaped cell will hold most honey. I'm only a +honey-maker for my darlings."</p> + +<p>Jane looked mystified, but Reuben's face quivered with pleasure.</p> + +<p>"That you are, you blessed child," he said, and as, hearing the Elder's +step in the hall, she flew out of the room, Reuben covered his eyes with +his hand.</p> + +<p>Happy years leave slender records; but for suffering and sin there would +not be history. The winter came, and the spring came, and the summer and +the autumn, and no face in the quiet little parsonage looked a shade older +for the year that had gone; no incident had taken place which could make a +salient point in a story, and not one of the peaceful hearts could believe +that a twelvemonth had flown. Elder Kinney's pathetic fears lest he might +love his Saviour less by reason of his new happiness, had melted like +frost in early sunlight, in the sweet presence of Draxy's child-like +religion.</p> + +<p>"O Draxy!" he said again and again, "seems to me I never half loved all +these souls we are working for, before I had you. I don't see how I could +have been so afraid about it before we were married."</p> + +<p>"Do I really help you, Mr. Kinney?" Draxy would reply, with a lingering +emphasis on the "really," which made her husband draw her closer to him +and forget to speak: "It seems very strange to me that I can. I feel so +ignorant about souls. It frightens me to answer the smallest question the +people ask me. I never do, in any way except to tell them if I have ever +felt so myself, and how God seemed to help me out."</p> + +<p>Blessed Draxy! that was the secret of her influence from first to last: +the magnetic sympathy of a pure and upright soul, to whose rare strength +had been added still rarer simplicity and lovingness. Old and young, men +as well as women, came to her with unhesitating confidence. Before her +marriage, they had all felt a little reserve with her, partly because she +was of finer grain than they, partly because she had, deep down in her +soul, a genuine shyness which showed itself only in quiet reticence. But +now that she was the Elder's wife, they felt that she was in a measure +theirs. There is a very sweet side, as well as an inconvenient and +irritating one, to the old-fashioned rural notion that the parish has +almost as much right to the minister's wife as to the minister. Draxy saw +only the sweet side. With all the loyalty and directness which had made +her, as a little girl, champion and counselor and comfort to her father, +she now set her hand to the work of helping her husband do good to the +people whom he called his children.</p> + +<p>"If they are yours, they must be mine, too, Mr. Kinney," she would say, +with a smile half arch, half solemn. "I hope I shan't undo on week-days +what you do on Sundays."</p> + +<p>"What I do on Sundays is more'n half your work too, Draxy," the Elder +would make reply; and it was very true. Draxy's quicker brain and finer +sense, and in some ways superior culture, were fast moulding the Elder's +habits of thought and speech to an extent of which she never dreamed. +Reuben's income was now far in advance of their simple wants, and +newspapers, magazines, and new books continually found their way to the +parsonage. Draxy had only to mention anything she desired to see, and +Reuben forthwith ordered it. So that it insensibly came to pass that the +daily life of the little household was really an intellectual one, and +Elder Kinney's original and vigorous mind expanded fast in the congenial +atmosphere. Yet he lost none of his old quaintness and simplicity of +phrase, none of his fervor. The people listened to his sermons with +wondering interest, and were not slow to ascribe some of the credit of the +new unction to Draxy.</p> + +<p>"Th' Elder's getting more'n more like Mis' Kinney every day o' his life," +they said: "there's some o' her sayin's in every sermon he writes.</p> + +<p>"And no wonder," would be added by some more enthusiastic worshipper of +Draxy's. "I guess he's got sense enough to know that she's got more real +book-learnin' in her head than he has, twice over. I shouldn't wonder if +she got to writin' some of his sermons for him out'n out, before long."</p> + +<p>Dear Draxy's reverent wifehood would have been grieved and dismayed if she +had known that her efforts to second her husband's appeals to his people +were sometimes so eloquent as to make the Elder's words forgotten. But she +never dreamed of such a thing; she was too simple hearted and humble.</p> + +<p>In the early days of the second winter came the Angel of the Annunciation, +bearing a white lily to Draxy. Her joy and gratitude were unspeakable, and +the exquisite purity and elevation of her nature shone out transcendent in +the new experience.</p> + +<p>"Now I begin to feel surer that God really trusts me," she said, "since he +is going to let me have a child of my own."</p> + +<p>"O my dear friends!" she exclaimed more than once to mothers, "I never +dreamed how happy you were. I thought I knew, but I did not."</p> + +<p>Draxy's spontaneous and unreserved joy of motherhood, while yet her babe +was unborn, was a novel and startling thing to the women among whom she +lived. The false notions on this point, grown out of ignorant and base +thoughts, are too wide-spread, too firm-rooted, to be overthrown in an +hour or a day, even by the presence of angelic truth incarnate. Some of +Draxy's best friends were annoyed and disquieted by her frankness and +unreserve of delight. But as the weeks went on, the true instinct of +complete motherhood thrilled for the first time in many a mother's heart, +under Draxy's glowing words, and women talked tearfully one with another, +in secret, with lowered voices, about the new revelation which had come to +them through her.</p> + +<p>"I've come to see it all quite different, since I've talked with Mis' +Kinney," said one young married woman, holding her baby close to her +breast, and looking down with remorseful tenderness on its placid little +face. "I shan't never feel that I've quite made it up to Benjy, never, for +the thoughts I had about him before he was born. I don't see why nobody +ever told us before, that we was just as much mothers to 'em from the very +first as we ever could be," and tears dropped on Benjy's face; "an' I jest +hope the Lord'll send me's many more's we can manage to feed'n clothe, 'n +I'll see if lovin' 'em right along from the beginnin', with all my heart, +'ll make 'em beautiful an' happy an' strong an' well, 's Mis' Kinney sez. +I b'lieve it's much's ef 'twas in the Bible, after all she told me, and +read me out of a Physiology, an' it stands to natur', which's more'n the +old way o' talkin did."</p> + +<p>This new, strong current of the divinest of truths, stirred the very veins +of the village. Mothers were more loving and fathers more tender, and +maidens were sweeter and graver--all for the coming of this one little +babe into the bosom of full and inspired motherhood.</p> + +<p>On the morning when Draxy's son was born, a stranger passing through the +village would have supposed that some great news of war or of politics had +arrived. Little knots of people stood at gates, on corners, all talking +earnestly; others were walking rapidly to and fro in the street. +Excitement filled the air.</p> + +<p>Never was heir to royal house more welcomed than was the first-born son of +this simple-minded, great-hearted woman, by the lowly people among whom +she dwelt.</p> + +<p>Old Ike's joy was more than he could manage. He had sat on the floor all +night long, with his head buried in his hands.</p> + +<p>The instinct of grief to come, which not even all these long peaceful +months had been able to wholly allay in his faithful heart, had sprung +into full life at the first symptom of danger to Draxy.</p> + +<p>"P'raps it's this way, arter all, the Lord's goin' to do it. O Lord! O +Lord! It'll kill Mr. Kinney, it'll kill him," he kept repeating over and +over, as he rocked to and fro. Hannah eyed him savagely. Her Indian blood +hated groans and tears, and her affection for her master was angered at +the very thought of his being afflicted.</p> + +<p>"I wish it had pleased yer Lord to give ye the sense of a man, Mr. +Sanborn," she said, "while He was a makin' on ye. If ye'd go to bed, now, +instead o' snivelin' round here, you might be good for somethin' in the +mornin', when there'll be plenty to do. Anyhow, I'm not goin' to be +pestered by the sight on ye any longer," and Hannah banged the +kitchen-door violently after her.</p> + +<p>When poor Ike timidly peered into the sitting-room, whither she had +betaken herself, he found her, too, sitting on the floor, in an attitude +not unlike the one she had so scorned in him. But he was too meek to taunt +her. He only said,--</p> + +<p>"I'm goin' now, Hannah, so ye needn't stay out o' the kitchen for me," and +he climbed slowly up the stairs which led to his room.</p> + +<p>As the rosy day dawned in the east, Draxy's infant son drew his first +mortal breath. His first quivering cry, faint almost as a whisper, yet +sharp and piteous, reached old Ike's ears instantly. He fell on his knees +and remained some minutes motionless, then he rose and went slowly +down-stairs. Hannah met him at the door, her dark face flushed with +emotion which she vainly tried to conceal by sharp words.</p> + +<p>"Hope ye've rested well, Mr. Sanborn. Another time, mebbe ye'll have more +sense. As fine a boy's ye ever see, and Mis' Kinney she's a smilin' into +its face, as nobody's never seen her smile yet, I tell you."</p> + +<p>Ike was gone,--out into the fields, over fences, over brooks, into woods, +trampling down dewy ferns, glistening mosses, scarlet cornels, thickets of +goldenrod and asters,--he knew not where, muttering to himself all the +while, and tossing his arms into the air. At last he returned to the house +saying to himself, "P'raps th' Elder 'll like to have me go down into the +village an' let folks know."</p> + +<p>Elder Kinney was standing bareheaded on the door-steps. His face looked +like the face of a man who had come off a battle-field where victory had +been almost as terrible as defeat. As soon as he saw old Ike running +across the field towards him, he divined all.</p> + +<p>"Loving old heart!" he thought, "Draxy was right," and he held out both +his hands to the old man as he had never done before, and spoke a few +affectionate words, which made tears run down the wrinkled cheeks. Then he +sent him on the errand he knew he craved.</p> + +<p>"You'd better give the news first to Eben Hill, Ike," he called after him. +"It'll be of more use to him than to anybody in the parish."</p> + +<p>It was just two years from Draxy's wedding day, when she stood again in +the aisle of the little village church, dressed in pure white, with the +southern sunlight resting on her beautiful hair. Her husband stood by her +side, holding their infant son in his arms. The child had clear, calm blue +eyes like Draxy's, and an expression of serenity and radiant joy on his +tiny face, which made the people wonder.</p> + +<p>"Reuben Miller Kinney" was his name; and though the parish had hoped that +the child would be named for his father, when they looked at Reuben +Miller's sweet, patient, noble face, and saw its intense happiness as the +words were spoken, they felt that it was better so.</p> + +<p>Again swift months rolled on, and peace and joy brooded over the +parsonage. Draxy's life with her child was something too beautiful to be +told in words; her wifehood was lovely, was intense; but her motherhood +was greater. Day and night her love for her boy protected and guided him, +like pillar of cloud, like pillar of fire. She knew no weariness, no +feebleness; she grew constantly stronger and more beautiful, and the child +grew stronger and more beautiful, with a likeness to her and a oneness +with her which were marvelous. He was a loving and affectionate boy to +all; his father, his grandparents, old Ike, and swarthy Hannah,--all alike +sunned themselves in the delight of his beautiful childhood. But wherever +he was--however amused and delighted--even in his father's arms--his eyes +sought his mother's eyes, and the mute interchange between them was subtle +and constant as between lovers. There was but one drawback on Draxy's +felicity now. She was afraid of her love for her boy.</p> + +<p>"O Seth!" she said,--after little Reuben's birth she for the first time +called her husband by this name; before that, although she lavished on him +all words of endearment, she had never found courage to call him Seth,--"O +Seth!" she said, "I feel now as you did about me before we were married. I +can't make myself think about anything but Reuby. O darling! you don't +think God would take him away from you to punish me, do you?" The Elder +could not comfort her when she was in this frame of mind; in fact, he +himself was sometimes afraid, seeing her utter absorption in the child. +Yet it never for one instant warped her firmness or judiciousness of +control. Draxy could not have comprehended that type of love which can +lose sight for one instant of the best good of the loved one. Her control, +however, was the control of a wise and affectionate companion, never that +of the authoritative parent. Little Reuben never heard the words, "You +must not do thus and so." It was always, "You cannot, because it is not +safe, best, or proper," or, "because if you do, such and such things will +happen."</p> + +<p>"Draxy," said Reuben to her one day, "you never tell Reuby to do anything +without giving him a reason for it. He's the best boy that ever lived, I +do believe, but 'tain't just my idea of obedience for all that."</p> + +<p>Draxy smiled. "I never said a word to him about obeying me in his life; I +never shall. I can't explain it, father dear, but you must let me do my +way. I shall tell him all I know about doing right, and he will decide for +himself more and more. I am not afraid."</p> + +<p>She need not have been. Before Reuby was seven years old his gentle +manliness of behavior was the marvel of the village. "It beats all how +Mis' Kinney's brought that boy o' hern up," was said in the sewing-circle +one day. "She told me herself that she's never so much's said a sharp word +to him; and as for whipping she thinks it's a deadly sin."</p> + +<p>"So do I," spoke up young Mrs. Plummet, the mother of Benjy. "I never did +believe in that; I don't believe in it, even for hosses; it only gets 'em +to go a few rods, and then they're lazier'n ever. My father's broke more +colts than any man in this county, an' he'd never let 'em be struck a +blow. He said one blow spiled 'em, and I guess ye've got more to work on +in a boy than ye have in a colt."</p> + +<p>These discussions often ran high and waxed warm. But Draxy's adherents +were a large majority; and she had so patiently and fully gone over these +disputed grounds with them that they were well fortified with the +arguments and facts which supported her positions. Indeed, it was fast +coming to pass that she was the central force of the life of the village. +"Let me make the songs of the community, and I care not who makes its +laws," was well said. It was song which Draxy supplied to these people's +lives. Not often in verse, in sound, in any shape that could be measured, +but in spirit. She vivified their every sense of beauty, moral and +physical. She opened their eyes to joy; she revealed to them the +sacredness and delight of common things; she made their hearts sing.</p> + +<p>But she was to do more yet for these men and women. Slowly, noiselessly, +in the procession of these beautiful and peaceful days, was drawing near a +day which should anoint Draxy with a new baptism,--set her apart to a +holier work.</p> + +<p>It came, as the great consecrations of life are apt to come, suddenly, +without warning. While we are patiently and faithfully keeping sheep in +the wilderness, the messenger is journeying towards us with the vial of +sacred oil, to make us kings.</p> + +<p>It was on a September morning. Draxy sat at the eastward bay-window of +her sitting-room, reading to Reuby. The child seemed strangely restless, +and slipped from her lap again and again, running to the window to look +out. At last Draxy said, "What is it, Reuby? Don't you want to hear mamma +read any longer?"</p> + +<p>"Where is papa?" replied Reuby. "I want to go and find papa."</p> + +<p>"Papa has gone way down to the Lower Mills, darling; he won't come home +till dinner," said Draxy, looking perplexedly at Reuby's face. She had +never known him to ask for his father in this way before. Still his +restlessness continued, and finally, clasping his mother's hand, he said +earnestly,--</p> + +<p>"Come and find papa."</p> + +<p>"We can't find him, dear," she replied; "it is too far for Reuby to walk, +but we will go out on the same road papa has gone, and wait for papa to +come;" so saying, she led the child out of the house, and rambled slowly +along the road on which the Elder would return. In a few moments she saw +moving in the distance a large black object she could not define. As it +came nearer she saw that it was several men, walking slowly and apparently +bearing something heavy between them.</p> + +<p>Little Reuby pulled her hand and began to run faster. "Come and find +papa," he said again, in a tone which struck terror to Draxy's heart. At +that instant the men halted. She hurried on. Presently she saw one man +leave the rest and run rapidly towards her. It was old Ike. The rest still +remained motionless and gathered closer around what they were carrying.</p> + +<p>"O Reuby!" groaned Draxy. "Come quicker; find papa," he replied, +impatiently; but old Ike had reached them, and wringing his hands, burst +into tears. "O my Lord!--O Mis' Kinney, yer must go back; they can't bring +him along, an' you 'n' the boy standin' here. O my Lord! O Mis' Kinney, +come right back!" And Ike took hold of her shoulder and of her gown and +almost turned her around.</p> + +<p>"Is Mr. Kinney hurt?" said Draxy in a strange voice, high pitched and +metallic. "I shall not go back. Tell the men to hurry. How dare they lose +time so?" and Draxy tried to run towards them. Old Ike held her by main +force. Sobs choked his voice, but he stammered out: "O Mis' Kinney, ef ye +love Mr. Kinney, go back. He'd tell ye so himself. He won't know ye; the +men won't never move a step till they see you 'n' Reuby goin' first."</p> + +<p>Draxy turned instantly and walked toward the house so swiftly that little +Reuby could not keep up with her. He followed her crying aloud, but she +did not heed him. She flew rather than ran into the house, into the +Elder's study, and dragged a lounge to the very threshold of the door. +There she stood, whiter than any marble, and as still, awaiting the slow, +toiling steps of the overburdened men. Little Reuben stumbled on the steps +and she did not help him. As he came close, clutching her dress in his +pain and terror, she said in a low whisper, "Reuby, it will trouble papa +if he sees us cry. Mamma isn't going to cry." The child stopped instantly +and stood by her side, as calm as she for a moment, then bursting out +again into screams, said: "O mamma, I can't help crying, I can't; but +I'll run away. Don't tell papa I cried." And he ran up-stairs. Draxy did +not see which way he went. Her eyes were fixed on the doorway which Ike +had that moment reached; the men bearing the Elder's body were just behind +him.</p> + +<p>"O Mis' Kinney! can't yer go away jest while we lay him down?" gasped +Ike. "Seem's ef 'twouldn't be so hard."</p> + +<p>Draxy looked past him, as not hearing a word.</p> + +<p>"Bring him in here and lay him on this lounge," she said, in tones so +clear and calm they sent both courage and anguish into every heart.</p> + +<p>Panting, and with grief-stricken faces, the men staggered in and laid the +tall, majestic figure down. As they lifted the head tenderly and propped +it by pillows, Draxy saw the pale, dead face with the sunken eyes and set +lips, and gave one low cry. Then she clasped both hands tight over her +heart and looked up as if she would pierce the very skies whither her +husband had gone.</p> + +<p>"We sent for the doctor right off; he'll be here's soon's he can get +here."</p> + +<p>"He never spoke a word arter we lifted him up. He couldn't ha' suffered +any, Mis' Kinney."</p> + +<p>"P'raps, Mis' Kinney, it'd be a good plan to ondo his clothes afore the +doctor gits here," came in confused and trembling tones from one after +another of the men who stood almost paralyzed in presence of Draxy's +terrible silence.</p> + +<p>"O Mis' Kinney, jest speak a word, can't ye? O Lord! O Lord! she'll die if +she don't. Where's Reuby? I'll fetch him," exclaimed Ike, and left the +room; the men followed him irresolutely, looking back at Draxy, who still +stood motionless, gazing down into the Elder's face.</p> + +<p>"Do not look for Reuby--he has hid," came in a slow, measured whisper from +her lips. "And leave me alone." "Yes, I know. You need not be afraid. I +understand that Mr. Kinney is dead," she added, as the men hesitated and +looked bewilderedly in her face. "I will stay alone with him till the +doctor comes," and Draxy gently closed the door and locked it. In a short +time the little hall and door-yard were crowded with sobbing men and +women. There was little to be told, but that little was told over and +over. The Elder had walked down to the village store with old Ike, and had +just given him some parcels to carry home, saying, "Tell Mrs. +Kinney,"--when a runaway horse had come dashing furiously down the street, +drawing a wagon in which clung, rather than sat, a woman holding a baby in +her arms. The Elder had sprung into the middle of the road, and caught the +horse by the bridle as he swerved a little to one side; but the horse was +too strong and too much frightened to be held by any man's strength. +Rearing high, he had freed his head, and plunging forward had knocked the +Elder down in such a way that both wagon-wheels had run over his neck, +breaking it instantly.</p> + +<p>"He never talked so much like an angel from heaven's he did this mornin'," +sobbed Ike, who looked already decrepit and broken from this sudden blow. +"He was a tellin' me about suthin' new that's jest been discovered in the +sun; I couldn't rightly make it out; but says he, 'Ike, how glorious +'twill be when we can jest fly from one sun to another, all through this +universe o' God's, an' not be a tryin' in these poor little airthly ways +to understand 'bout things.'"</p> + +<p>That Draxy should be all this time alone with her husband's body seemed +dreadful to these sympathizing, simple-hearted people. No sound came from +the room, though the windows were all wide open.</p> + +<p>"O Mr. Miller! don't ye think some on us had better try to git in to her," +said the women; "she don't make no noise."</p> + +<p>"No." replied Reuben, feebly. He, too, was prostrated like Ike by the +fearful blow, and looked years older within the hour. "No: Draxy knows +what's best for her. She's spoke to me once through the door. She hasn't +fainted."</p> + +<p>"When the doctor came, Reuben called to Draxy,--</p> + +<p>"Daughter, the doctor's come."</p> + +<p>The door opened instantly, but closed as soon as the doctor had entered. +In a few moments it opened again, and the doctor handed a slip of paper to +Reuben. He unfolded it and read it aloud:--</p> + +<p>"Father dear, please thank all the people for me, and ask them to go home +now. There is nothing they can do. Tell them it grieves me to hear them +cry, and Mr. Kinney would not wish it."</p> + +<p>Slowly and reluctantly the people went, and a silence sadder than the sobs +and grieving voices settled down on the house. Reuben sat on the stairs, +his head leaning against the study-door. Presently he heard a light step +coming down. It was young Mrs. Plummer, the mother of Benjy. She +whispered, "I've found Reuby. He's asleep on the garret floor. He'd +thrown himself down on some old carpet, way out in the darkest corner, +under the eaves. I've covered him up, an' I'm goin' to sit by him till he +wakes up. The longer he sleeps the better. You tell her where he is."</p> + +<p>Reuben nodded; his dulled senses hardly heard the words. When the +study-door next opened, Draxy herself came out, walking with a slow, +measured step which transformed her whole bearing. Her face was perfectly +calm, but colorless as white stone. At sight of her father her lips +quivered, and she stretched out both hands to him; but she only said, +"Where is Reuby?" And as soon as she heard she went quickly up the stairs, +adding, "Do not follow me, father dear; you cannot help me."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Plummer sat in the dark garret, leaning her head against the dusty +rafters, as near as she could get to poor little Reuby. Her eyes were +shut, and tears stood on her cheeks. Suddenly she was startled by Draxy's +low voice, saying,--</p> + +<p>"Thank you very much, Mrs. Plummer; it was very kind in you to stay here +and not wake him up. I will sit by him now."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Plummer poured forth incoherent words of sympathy and sorrow, but +Draxy hardly seemed to hear her. She stood quietly, making no reply, +waiting for her to go.</p> + +<p>"O Mis' Kinney, Mis' Kinney, do cry a little, can't ye?" exclaimed the +warm-hearted woman; "it scares us to death to see ye this way."</p> + +<p>Draxy smiled. "No, my dear friend. I cannot cry now. I suppose I shall +sometimes, because I am very selfish, and I shall be so lonely; but just +now I am only thinking how happy he is in these first hours in heaven." +The tears stood in her eyes, but her look was as of one who gazed +rapturously inside the pearly gates. Mrs. Plummer stole softly away, +overawed and afraid. As she went out of the house, she said to Reuben: +"Mis' Kinney ain't no mortal woman. She hain't shed a tear yet, and she +jest looks as glorified as the Elder can this minute in sight o' God's +very throne itself. O Mr. Miller, I'm afraid she'll break down. This kind +o' grief is what kills folks."</p> + +<p>"No," said Reuben, "you don't know Draxy. She won't break down. She'll +take care on us all jest the same, but ye won't never see again the same +face you used to see. Oh, I can't be reconciled, I can't!" And Reuben +groaned aloud.</p> + +<p>The next morning, when Draxy came out of the study, her hair was white as +snow. As her father first caught sight of her, he stared wildly for a +moment as at some stranger; then crying out, "O Draxy! O my little girl!" +he tottered and would have fallen if she had not caught him and led him to +a chair.</p> + +<p>"O father dear," she exclaimed, "don't feel so! I wouldn't call him back +this minute if I could," and she smiled piteously.</p> + +<p>"O Draxy--'tain't that," gasped Reuben. "O daughter! you're dyin' and +never lettin' us know it. Your hair's as white's mine." Draxy gave a +startled glance at the mirror, and said, in a much more natural tone than +she had hitherto spoken in: "I don't think that's strange. It's happened +before to people in great trouble. I've read of it: you'll get used to it +very soon, father dear. I'm glad of it; I'll be all in white now," she +added in a lower tone, speaking dreamily, as if to herself,--"they walk in +white; they walk in white."</p> + +<p>Then Reuben noticed that she was dressed in white. He touched her gown, +and looked inquiringly. "Yes, father dear," she said, "always."</p> + +<p>On the day of the funeral, when Draxy entered the church leading little +Reuby by the hand, a visible shudder ran through the congregation. The +news had run like wildfire through the parish, on the morning after the +Elder's death, that Mrs. Kinney's hair had all turned gray in the night. +But nobody was in the least prepared for the effect. It was not gray--it +was silver-white; and as it retained all the silken gloss which had made +it so beautiful the shining of it was marvelous. It kindled her beauty +into something superhuman. The color had left her cheeks also, but in its +place was a clear soft tint which had no pallor in it. She was dressed in +pure white, so also was little Reuby; but for this the parish were +prepared. Very well they knew Draxy's deep-rooted belief that to associate +gloom with the memory of the dead was disloyal alike to them and to +Christ; and so warmly had she imbued most of the people with her +sentiment, that the dismal black garb of so-called mourning was rarely +seen in the village.</p> + +<p>Bareheaded, Draxy and her little son walked from the church to the grave; +their faces the calmest, their steps the steadiest there. Reuben and Jane +walked behind them, bent over and sobbing, and half the congregation were +weeping uncontrollably; but the widowed woman and the fatherless boy +walked with uplifted glances, as if they saw angel-forms in the air by +their side.</p> + +<p>"Tain't nateral; 'tain't noways nateral; thet woman hain't got any nateral +feelin' in her," said Eben Hill, leaning against a grave-stone, and idly +chewing a spray of golden-rod. George Thayer turned upon him like a +blazing sword.</p> + +<p>"Hev ye got any nateral feelin' yourself, Eben Hill, to say that, standin' +here an' lookin' at that woman's white hair an' cheeks, 'n' only last +Sunday she was 's handsome a pictur's ye ever see, her hair a twinklin' in +the sun like a brown beech-tree, an' her cheeks jest like roses? Nateral +feelin's! It's enough to make the Elder rise up afore ye, to hear ye say +sech a thing, Eben Hill; 'n' ef 'twan't jest the funeral that 'tis, I +b'leeve I'd thrash ye right an' left, here'n sight o' yer own mother's +tombstone, ye miserable, sneakin' fool. Ef there was ever a woman that was +carryin' a hull town straight into the Lord's heaven on her own shoulders, +it's Mis' Kinney, an' that blessed boy o' her'n 's goin' to be jest like +her. Look at him now, a workin' his poor little mouth an' lookin' up to +her and tryin' not to cry."</p> + +<p>Poor little Reuby! when the first shovelful of earth fell on the coffin, +his child's heart gave way, and he broke into loud crying, which made the +roughest men there hide their eyes. Draxy caught him up in her arms and +whispered something which quieted him instantly. Then she set him down, +and he stood till the end, looking away from the grave with almost a smile +on his face. He told some one, the next day, that he kept saying over to +himself all that time: "Beautiful gates of precious stones and angels +with harps."--"That's the city, you know, where my papa has gone. It's not +half so far off as we think; and papa is so happy there, he don't even +miss us, though he can see us every minute. And mamma and I are going +there pretty soon; next summer perhaps."</p> + + + +<h3>Part II.</h3> + + +<p>For the first few days after the funeral, Draxy seemed to sink; the void +was too terrible; only little Reuby's voice roused her from the apathetic +silence in which she would sit by the hour gazing out of the east +bay-window on the road down which she had last seen her husband walk. She +knew just the spot where he had paused and turned and thrown kisses back +to Reuby watching him from the window.</p> + +<p>But her nature was too healthy, too full of energy, and her soul too full +of love to remain in this frame long. She reproached herself bitterly for +the sin of having indulged in it even for a short time.</p> + +<p>"I don't believe my darling can be quite happy even in heaven, while he +sees me living this way," she said sternly to herself one morning. Then +she put on her bonnet, and went down into the village to carry out a +resolution she had been meditating for some days. Very great was the +astonishment of house after house that morning, as Draxy walked quietly +in, as had been her wont. She proposed to the mothers to send their +younger children to her, to be taught half of every day.</p> + +<p>"I can teach Reuby better if I have other children too," she said. "I +think no child ought to be sent into the district school under ten. The +confinement is too much for them. Let me have all the boys and girls +between six and eight, and I'll carry them along with Reuby for the next +two or three years at any rate," she said.</p> + +<p>The parents were delighted and grateful; but their wonder almost swallowed +up all other emotions.</p> + +<p>"To think o' her!" they said. "The Elder not three weeks buried, an' she a +goin' round, jest as calm 'n' sweet's a baby, a gettin' up a school!"</p> + +<p>"She's too good for this earth, that's what she is," said Angy Plummer. "I +should jest like to know if anybody'd know this village, since she came +into 't. Why we ain't one of us the same we used to be. I know I ain't. I +reckon myself's jest about eight years old, if I have got three boys. That +makes me born the summer before her Reuby, 'an that's jest the time I was +born, when my Benjy was seven months old!"</p> + +<p>"You're jest crazy about Mis' Kinney, Angy Plummer," said her mother. "I +b'lieve ye'd go through fire for her quicker 'n ye would for any yer own +flesh an' blood."</p> + +<p>Angy went to her mother and kissed the fretful old face very kindly. +"Mother, you can't say I hain't been a better daughter to you sence I've +knowed Mis' Kinney."</p> + +<p>"No, I can't," grumbled the old woman, "that's a fact; but she's got a +heap o' new fangled notions I don't believe in."</p> + +<p>The school was a triumphant success. From nine until twelve o'clock every +forenoon, twelve happy little children had a sort of frolic of learning +lessons in the Elder's sacred study, which was now Draxy's sitting-room. +Old Ike, who since the Elder's death had never seemed quite clear of +brain, had asked so piteously to come and sit in the room, that Draxy let +him do so. He sat in a big chair by the fire-place, and carved whistles +and ships and fantastic toys for the children, listening all the time +intently to every word which fell from Draxy's lips. He had transferred to +her all the pathetic love he had felt for the Elder; he often followed her +at a distance when she went out, and little Reuby he rarely lost sight of, +from morning till night. He was too feeble now to do much work, but his +presence was a great comfort to Draxy. He seemed a very close link between +her and her husband. Hannah, too, sometimes came into the school at +recess, to the great amusement of the children. She was particularly fond +of looking at the blackboard, when there were chalk-marks on it.</p> + +<p>"Make a mark on me with your white pencil," she would say, offering her +dark cheek to Reuby, who would scrawl hieroglyphics all over it from hair +to chin.</p> + +<p>Then she would invite the whole troop out into the kitchen to a feast of +doughnuts or cookies; very long the recesses sometimes were when the +school was watching Hannah fry the fantastic shapes of sweet dough, or +taking each a turn at the jagged wheel with which she cut them out.</p> + +<p>Reuben also came often to the school-room, and Jane sometimes sat there +with her knitting. A strange content had settled on their lives, in spite +of the sorrow. They saw Draxy calm; she smiled on them as constantly as +ever; and they were very old people, and believed too easily that she was +at peace.</p> + +<p>But the Lord had more work still for this sweet woman's hand. This, too, +was suddenly set before her. Late one Saturday afternoon, as she was +returning, surrounded by her escort of laughing children, from the woods, +where they had been for May-flowers, old Deacon Plummer overtook her.</p> + +<p>"Mis' Kinney, Mis' Kinney," he began several times, but could get no +further. He was evidently in great perplexity how to say the thing he +wished.</p> + +<p>"Mis' Kinney, would you hev--</p> + +<p>"Mis' Kinney, me and Deacon Swift's been a sayin'--</p> + +<p>"Mis' Kinney, ain't you got--"</p> + +<p>Draxy smiled outright. She often smiled now, with cordial good cheer, when +things pleased her.</p> + +<p>"What is it, Deacon? out with it. I can't possibly tell unless you make it +plainer."</p> + +<p>Thus encouraged, good Deacon Plummer went on: "Well, Mis' Kinney, it's +jest this: Elder Williams has jest sent word he can't come an' preach +to-morrer, and there ain't nobody anywhere's round thet we can get; and +De'n Swift 'n me, we was a thinkin' whether you wouldn't be willin' some +of us should read one o' the Elder's old sermons. O Mis' Kinney, ye don't +know how we all hanker to hear some o' his blessed words agin."</p> + +<p>Draxy stood still. Her face altered so that the little children crowded +round her in alarm, and Reuby took hold of her hand. Tears came into her +eyes, and she could hardly speak, but she replied,--</p> + +<p>"Yes, indeed, Mr. Plummer, I should be very glad to have you. I'll look +out a sermon to-night, and you can come up to the house in the morning and +get it."</p> + +<p>"O Mis' Kinney, do forgive me for speakin'. You have allers seem so borne +up, I never mistrusted that't'd do any harm to ask yer," stammered the +poor Deacon, utterly disconcerted by Draxy's tears, for she was crying +hard now.</p> + +<p>"It hasn't done any harm, I assure you. I am very glad to do it," said +Draxy.</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir, my mamma very often cries when she's glad," spoke up Reuby, his +little face getting very red, and his lips quivering. "She's very glad, +sir, if she says so."</p> + +<p>This chivalrous defense calmed poor Draxy, but did not comfort the Deacon, +who hurried away, saying to himself,--</p> + +<p>"Don't believe there was ever such a woman nor such a boy in this world +before. She never shed a tear when we brought the Elder home dead, nor +even when she see him let down into the very grave; 'n' I don't believe +she's cried afore anybody till to-day; 'n' that little chap a speakin' up +an' tellin' me his ma often cried when she was glad, an' I was to believe +her spite of her crying! I wish I'd made Job Swift go arter her. I'll make +him go arter that sermon anyhow. I won't go near her agin 'bout this +bisness, that's certain;" and the remorse-stricken, but artful deacon +hastened to his brother deacon's house to tell him that it was "all +settled with Mis' Kinney 'bout the sermon, an' she was quite willin';" +and, "O," he added, as if it were quite a second thought, "ye'd better go +up an' git the sermon, Job, in the mornin,' ye're so much nearer, an' +then, 's ye've to do the readin,' maybe she'll have somethin' to explain +to ye about the way it's to be read; th' Elder's writin' wan't any too +easy to make out, 's fur 's I remember it."</p> + +<p>Next morning, just as the first bells were ringing, Deacon Swift knocked +timidly at the door of the Elder's study. Draxy met him with a radiant +face. She had been excited by reading over the sermon she had after long +deliberation selected. The text was,--</p> + +<p>"Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you." The sermon had been +written soon after their marriage, and was one of her husband's favorites. +There were many eloquent passages in it, which seemed now to take on a new +significance, as coming from the lips of the Elder, absent from his flock +and present with Christ.</p> + +<p>"O Mis' Kinney, I recollect that sermon 's if 'twas only yesterday," said +Deacon Swift. "The hull parish was talkin' on't all the week; ye couldn't +have picked out one they'd be so glad to hear; but dear me! how I'm ever +goin' to read it in any kind o' decent way, I don't know; I never was a +reader, anyhow, 'n' now I've lost my front teeth, some words does pester +me to git out."</p> + +<p>This opened the way for Draxy. Nearly all night she had lain awake, +thinking how terrible it would be to her to hear her husband's beloved +words indistinctly and ineffectively read by Deacon Swift's cracked and +feeble voice. Almost she regretted having given her consent. At last the +thought flashed into her mind, "Why should I not read it myself? I know I +could be heard in every corner of that little church." The more she +thought of it, the more she longed to do it, and the less she shrank from +the idea of facing the congregation.</p> + +<p>"'It's only just like a big family of children,' Seth always used to say, +'and I'm sure I feel as if they were mine now, as much as ever they were +his. I wish I dared do it. I do believe Seth would like it,' and Draxy +fell asleep comforted by the thought. Before breakfast she consulted her +father, and he approved it warmly.</p> + +<p>"I believe your mission isn't done yet, daughter, to these people of your +husband's. The more you speak to 'em the better. It'll be jest like his +voice speaking from heaven to 'em," said Reuben, "an' I shouldn't wonder +if keepin' Elder Williams away was all the Lord's doin', as the blessed +saint used to say."</p> + +<p>Reuben's approval was all that Draxy needed to strengthen her impulse, and +before Deacon Swift arrived her only perplexity was as to the best way of +making the proposition to him. All this difficulty he had himself smoothed +away by his first words.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know, Deacon Swift," she said. "I've been thinking that perhaps it +would tire you to read for so long a time in a loud voice; and besides, +Mr. Kinney's handwriting is very hard to read."</p> + +<p>Draxy paused and looked sympathizingly in the deacon's face. The mention +of the illegible writing distressed the poor man still more. He took the +sermon from her hand and glanced nervously at the first page.</p> + +<p>"Oh my! Mis' Kinney," he exclaimed, "I can't make out half the words."</p> + +<p>"Can't you?" said Draxy, gently. "It is all as plain as print to me, I +know it so well. But there are some abbreviations Mr. Kinney always used. +I will explain them to you. Perhaps that will make it easier."</p> + +<p>"O Mis' Kinney, Mis' Kinney! I can't never do it in the world," burst out +the poor deacon. "O Mis' Kinney, why can't you read it to the folks? +They'd all like it, I know they would."</p> + +<p>"Do you really think so, Mr. Swift?" replied Draxy; and then, with a +little twinge of conscience, added immediately, "I have been thinking of +that very thing myself, that perhaps, if it wouldn't seem strange to the +people, that would be the best way, because I know the handwriting so +well, and it really is very hard for a stranger to read."</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes, that's the very thing," hastily exclaimed the relieved +deacon,--"that's it, that's it. Why, Mis' Kinney, as for their thinkin' it +strange, there ain't a man in the parish that wouldn't vote for you for +minister twice over if ye wuz only a man. I've heerd 'em all say so more +'n a thousand times sence." Something in Draxy's face cut the Deacon's +sentence short.</p> + +<p>"Very well, Mr. Swift," she said. "Then I will try, since you think it +best. My father thought it would be a good plan too, or else I should not +have been willing," she added, gently.</p> + +<p>"Reuben Miller's daughter" was still as guileless, reverent, potent a +thought in Draxy's heart as when, upon her unconscious childish lips, the +words had been a spell, disarming and winning all hearts to her.</p> + +<p>The news had gone all through the village on Saturday night, that Deacon +Swift was to read one of Elder Kinney's sermons the next day. The whole +parish was present; not a man, not a woman was missing except those who +were kept at home by sickness. A tender solemnity was in every face. Not +often does it happen to a man to be so beloved by a whole community as was +Elder Kinney by this people.</p> + +<p>With some embarrassment and hesitation, Deacon Swift read the hymns and +made one of the prayers; Deacon Plummer made the other. Then there came a +pause. Draxy flushed scarlet and half rose in her pew. She had not thought +to tell the Deacon that he must explain to the people beforehand why she +read the sermon. She had taken it for granted that he would do so; but he +did not comprehend that he ought, and only looked nervously towards her, +waiting for her to come forward. This was the one moment which tried +Draxy's soul; there was almost vexation in her look, as hastily laying +aside her bonnet she walked up to the table in front of the pulpit, and, +turning towards the people, said in her clear, melodious voice,--</p> + +<p>"Dear friends, I am sorry Deacon Swift did not explain to you that I was +to read the sermon. He asked me to do so because Mr. Kinney's handwriting +is very hard for a stranger to read."</p> + +<p>She paused for a second, and then added:</p> + +<p>"The sermon which I have chosen is one which some of you will remember. It +was written and preached nine years ago. The text is in the beautiful +Gospel of St. John, the 14th chapter and the 27th verse,--</p> + +<p>"'Peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you.'"</p> + +<p>After pronouncing these words, Draxy paused again, and looking towards her +pew, made a slight sign to Reuby. The child understood instantly, and +walked swiftly to her.</p> + +<p>"Sit in this chair here by mamma, Reuby darling," she whispered, and Reuby +climbed up into the big chair on her right hand, and leaned his fair +golden head against the high mahogany back. Draxy had become conscious, in +that first second, that she could not read with Reuby's wistful face in +sight. Also she felt a sudden yearning for the support of his nearer +presence.</p> + +<p>"Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you," she repeated, and went +on with the sermon. Her tones were low, but clear, and her articulation so +perfect that no syllable was lost; she could have been distinctly heard in +a room twice as large as this. The sight was one which thrilled every +heart that looked on it; no poor laboring man there was so dull of sense +and soul that he did not sit drinking in the wonderful picture: the tall, +queenly woman robed in simple flowing white, her hair a coronet of snowy +silver; her dark blue eyes shining with a light which would have been +flashingly brilliant, except for its steadfast serenity; her mouth almost +smiling, as the clear tones flowed out; sitting quiet, intent, by her +side, the beautiful boy, also dressed in white, his face lighted like hers +by serene and yet gleaming eyes; his head covered with golden curls; his +little hands folded devoutly in his lap. One coming suddenly upon the +scene might well have fancied himself in another clime and age, in the +presence of some rite performed by a mystic priestess clothed in samite. +But the words which fell from the lips were the gentlest words of the +gentlest religion earth has known; and the heart which beat under the +clinging folds of the strange white garb was no priestess' heart, but a +heart full, almost to breaking, of wifehood, of motherhood.</p> + +<p>It does not need experience as an orator to give significance to the +magnetic language of upturned faces. Before Draxy had read ten pages of +the sermon, she was so thrilled by the consciousness that every heart +before her was thrilled too, that her cheeks flushed and her whole face +glowed.</p> + +<p>The sermon had sounded eloquent when the Elder preached it; but now, from +Draxy's lips, it was transcendent. As she read the closing paragraph,--</p> + +<p>"His peace He leaves with us: his peace He gives unto us: not such peace +as He knew on earth: such peace as He knows now in heaven, on the right +hand of His Father; even that peace He bids us share--that peace, the +peace of God which passeth understanding,"--she seemed to dilate in +stature, and as she let the sermon fall on the table before her, her +lifted eyes seemed arrested in mid air as by a celestial vision.</p> + +<p>Then in a second more, she was again the humble, affectionate Draxy, whom +all the women and all the little children knew and loved; looking round on +them with an appealing expression, she said,--</p> + +<p>"Dear friends, I hope I have not done wrong in standing up here and taking +it upon me to read such solemn words. I felt that Mr. Kinney would like to +speak to you once more through me."</p> + +<p>Then taking little Reuby by the hand, she walked slowly back to her pew.</p> + +<p>Then Deacon Swift made sad work of reading the hymn,--</p> + +<p>"Blest be the tie that binds,"</p> + +<p>And the choir made sad work of singing it. Nobody's voice could be trusted +for many syllables at a time, but nobody listened to the music. Everybody +was impatient to speak to Draxy. They clustered round her in the aisle; +they crowded into pews to get near her: all the reticence and reserve of +their New England habit had melted away in this wonderful hour. They +thanked her; they touched her; they gazed at her; they did not know what +to do; even Draxy's calm was visibly disturbed by the atmosphere of their +great excitement.</p> + +<p>"O Mis' Kinney, ef ye'll only read us one more! just one more! won't ye, +now? Do say ye will, right off, this arternoon; or read the same one right +over, ef that's any easier for ye. We'd like to hear jest that 'n' nothin' +else for a year to come! O Mis' Kinney! 'twas jest like hearin' the Elder +himself."</p> + +<p>Poor Draxy was trembling. Reuben came to her rescue.</p> + +<p>"I hope you won't take it unkindly of me," he said, "but my daughter's +feeling more than's good for her. She must come home now." And Reuben drew +her hand into his arm.</p> + +<p>The people fell back sorry and conscience-stricken.</p> + +<p>"We orter ha' known better," they said, "but she makes us forgit she's +flesh 'n' blood."</p> + +<p>"I will read you another sermon some time," said Draxy, slowly. "I shall +be very glad to. But not to-day. I could not do it to-day." Then she +smiled on them all, with a smile which was a benediction, and walked away +holding Reuby's hand very tightly, and leaning heavily on her father's +arm.</p> + +<p>The congregation did not disperse; nothing since the Elder's death had so +moved them. They gathered in knots on the church steps and in the aisles, +and talked long and earnestly. There was but one sentiment, one voice.</p> + +<p>"It's a thousand shames she ain't a man," said some of the young men.</p> + +<p>"It 'ud be a thousand times more ef she wuz," retorted Angy Plummer. "I'd +like to see the man that 'ud do what she does, a comin' right close to the +very heart o' yer's ef she was your mother 'n' your sister 'n' your +husband, and a blessed angel o' God, all ter once."</p> + +<p>"But Angy, we only meant that then we could hev her for our minister," +they replied.</p> + +<p>Angy turned very red, but replied, energetically,--</p> + +<p>"There ain't any law agin a woman's bein' minister, thet I ever heerd on. +Howsomever, Mis' Kinney never'd hear to anythin' o' that kind. I don' no' +for my part how she ever mustered up courage to do what she's done, so +kind o' backward 'n' shy's she is for all her strength. But for my part, I +wouldn't ask for no other preachin' all the rest o' my life, than jest to +hear Mis' Kinney read one o' her husband's sermons every Sunday."</p> + +<p>"Why, Angy Plummer!" burst from more lips than one. But the bold +suggestion was only the half-conscious thought of every one there, and the +discussion grew more and more serious. Slowly the people dispersed to +their homes, but the discussion still continued. Late into night, by many +a fireside, the matter was talked over, and late the next night, and the +next, until a vague hope and a still vaguer purpose sprang up in the +parish.</p> + +<p>"She said she'd read another some day," they reiterated. "Most likely +she'd 's soon do it next Sunday, 'n' sooner, 'cause she'd be more used +to't than ef she waited a spell between."</p> + +<p>"But it won't do to take it for granted she's goin' to, 'n' not git +anybody," said Deacon Swift, in great perplexity. "I think Brother Plummer +'n' me'd better go 'n' ask her."</p> + +<p>"No," said Angy, "let me go. I can talk it over better'n you can. I'll +go."</p> + +<p>And Angy went. The interview between the two women was long. Angy pleaded +as nobody else in the parish could have done; and Draxy's heart was all on +her side. But Draxy's judgment was unconvinced.</p> + +<p>"If I could be sure, Angy, that it would be best for the people, I should +not hesitate. But you know very well, if I begin I shall keep on," she +said.</p> + +<p>She consulted Reuben. His heart, too, was on the people's side, but his +judgment was like hers, perplexed.</p> + +<p>"One thing's very certain, daughter: there is not anybody they can ever +find to settle here, or that they are likely to, who can preach as the +Elder did. His old sermons are worlds better than any new ones they'll +get."</p> + +<p>"Yes, indeed, I know that," said Draxy. "That's what makes me feel as if I +must do it."</p> + +<p>This had been her strongest motive. Only too well she knew what would be +the probable calibre of a man who would come to this poor and lonely +little village which she so loved.</p> + +<p>At last she consented to make the experiment. "I will read for you every +Sunday, two sermons of Mr. Kinney's," she said, "until you hear of some +one whom you would like to settle for your minister."</p> + +<p>Angy Plummer, clapped her hands when her father repeated at tea on +Thursday evening what "Mis' Kinney" had said.</p> + +<p>"That's good's settlin' her," she exclaimed. "Oh, I never thought she'd +come to it," and real tears of joy stood in Angy's eyes.</p> + +<p>"I don't know 'bout that, Angy," replied the Deacon; "there's a good deal +to be thought on, fust 'n' last. Folks '11 talk like everythin', I expect, +'n' say we've got a woman preacher. It wouldn't never do for any great +length o' time; but it will be a blessin' to hear some th' Elder's good +rousin' comfortin' sermons for a spell, arter the stuff we hev been a +havin', 'n' they can't say she's any more 'n' a reader anyhow. That's +quite different from preachin'."</p> + +<p>"Of course it is," said Angy, who was wise enough to keep some of her +thoughts and hopes to herself; "they're's different's any other two +things. I don't suppose anybody'd say you was a settin' up to preach, if +you'd ha' read the sermons, 'n' I don't see why they need to any more o' +Mis' Kinney." And so, on the next Sunday Draxy's ministry to her husband's +people began. Again with softened and gladdened faces the little +congregation looked up to the fair, tall priestess with her snow-white +robes and snow-white hair, and gleaming steadfast eyes, standing meekly +between the communion-table and the chair in which sat her golden-haired +little son. Her voice was clearer and stronger than ever; and there was a +calm peacefulness in her whole atmosphere which had not been there at +first.</p> + +<p>Again the people crowded around, and thanked her, and clasped her hands. +This time she answered them with cordial good cheer, and did not tremble. +To little Reuby also they spoke gratefully.</p> + +<p>"You help too, Reuby, don't you?" said Angy Plummer,--"do you like it?"</p> + +<p>"Very much, ma'am; mamma says I help, but I think she's mistaken," replied +the little fellow, archly.</p> + +<p>"Yes you do, you darling," said Mrs. Plummer, stooping and kissing him +tenderly. Angy Plummer loved Reuby. She never looked at him without +thinking that but for his existence the true mother-heart would perhaps +never have been born in her bosom.</p> + +<p>The reading of the sermons grew easier and easier to Draxy, Sunday by +Sunday. She became conscious of a strange sense of being lifted out of +herself, as soon as she began to speak. She felt more and more as if it +were her husband speaking through her; and she felt more and more closely +drawn into relation with the people.</p> + +<p>"Oh, father dear," she said more than once, "I don't know how I shall ever +give it up when the time comes. It makes me so happy: I feel almost as if +I could see Seth standing right by me and holding my gown while I read. +And father, dear," she proceeded in a lower, slower voice, "I don't know +but you'll think it wrong; I'm almost afraid to tell you, but sometimes I +say words that aren't in the sermons; just a sentence or two, where I +think Seth would put it in if he were here now; and I almost believe he +puts the very words into my head." + +She paused and looked anxiously and inquiringly at her father.</p> + +<p>"No, Draxy," replied Reuben solemnly, "I don't think it wrong. I feel more +and more, every Sunday I listen to you, as if the Lord had set you apart +for this thing; and I don't believe he'd send any other angel except your +husband on the errand of helpin' you."</p> + +<p>The summer passed, and the parish gave no signs of readiness for a new +minister. When Draxy spoke of it, she was met by such heartfelt grief on +all sides that she was silenced. At last she had a long, serious talk with +the deacons, which set her mind more at rest. They had, it seemed, +consulted several neighboring ministers, Elder Williams among the number, +and they had all advised that while the congregation seemed so absorbed in +interest, no change should be made.</p> + +<p>"Elder Williams he sez he'll come over regular for the communion," said +Deacon Plummer, "and for baptisms whenever we want him, and thet's the +main thing, for, thank the Lord, we haint many funerals 'n course of a +year. And Mis' Kinney, ef ye'll excuse my makin' so bold, I'll tell ye +jest what Elder Williams said about ye: sez he, It's my opinion that ef +there was ever a woman born thet was jest cut out for a minister to a +congregation, it's that Elder's wife o' your'n; and sez we to him 'Thet's +jest what the hull town thinks, sir, and it's our opinion that ef we +should try to settle anythin' in the shape of a man in this parish, there +wouldn't be anythin' but empty pews for him to preach to, for the people'd +all be gone up to Mis' Kinney's.'"</p> + +<p>Draxy smiled in spite of herself. But her heart was very solemn.</p> + +<p>"It is a great responsibility, Deacon Plummer," she said, "and I feel +afraid all the time. But my father thinks I ought to do it, and I am so +happy in it, it seems as if it could not be a mistake."</p> + +<p>As months went on, her misgivings grew less and less; and her impulses to +add words of her own to her husband's sermons grew more and more frequent. +She could not but see that she held the hearts of the people in her hands +to mould them like wax; and her intimate knowledge of their conditions and +needs made it impossible for her to refrain from sometimes speaking the +words she knew they ought to hear. Whenever she did so at any length, she +laid her manuscript on the table, that they might know the truth. Her +sense of honesty would not let her do otherwise. It was long before +anybody but Angy Plummer understood the meaning of these intervals. The +rest supposed she knew parts of the sermon by heart.</p> + +<p>But at last came a day when her soul was so stirred within her, that she +rose up boldly before her people and said,--</p> + +<p>"I have not brought any sermon of Mr. Kinney's to read to you to-day. I am +going to speak to you myself. I am so grieved, so shocked at events which +have taken place in this village, the past week, that I cannot help +speaking about them. And I find among Mr. Kinney's sermons no one which +meets this state of things."</p> + +<p>The circumstances to which Draxy alluded had been some disgraceful scenes +of excitement in connection with the Presidential election. Party spirit +had been growing higher and higher in Clairvend for some years; and when, +on the reckoning of the returns on this occasion, the victorious party +proved to have a majority of but three, sharp quarreling had at once +broken out. Accusations of cheating and lying were freely bandied, and +Deacon Plummer and George Thayer had nearly come to blows on the steps of +the Town House, at high noon, just as the school-children were going home. +Later in the afternoon there had been a renewal of the contest in the +village store, and it had culminated in a fight, part of which Draxy +herself had chanced to see. Long and anxiously she pondered, that night, +the question of her duty. She dared not keep silent.</p> + +<p>"It would be just hypocrisy and nothing less," she exclaimed to herself, +"for me to stand up there and read them one of Seth's sermons, when I am +burning to tell them how shamefully they have behaved. But I suppose it +will be the last time I shall speak to them. They'll never want to hear me +again."</p> + +<p>She did not tell her father of her resolution till they were near the +church. Reuben started, but in a moment he said, deliberately,--</p> + +<p>"You're quite right, daughter; may the Lord bless you!"</p> + +<p>At Draxy's first words, a thrill of astonishment ran over the whole +congregation. Everybody knew what was coming. George Thayer colored +scarlet to the roots of his hair, and the color never faded till the +sermon was ended. Deacon Plummer coughed nervously, and changed his +position so as to cover his mouth with his hand. Angy put her head down on +the front of the pew and began to cry.</p> + +<p>"Render, therefore, unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's and unto God +the things that are God's," came in clear ringing tones from Draxy's lips. +Then she proceeded, in simple and gentle words, to set forth the right of +every man to his own opinions and convictions; the duty of having earnest +convictions and acting up to them in all the affairs of life. George +Thayer and the Deacon looked easier. Her words seemed, after all, rather a +justification of their vehemence of feeling.</p> + +<p>But when she came to speak of the "things that are God's," her words +pierced their very souls. The only thing that enabled George Thayer to +bear up under it at all was, as he afterwards said in the store, keeping +his "eyes fixed steady on old Plummer," "'cause, you know, boys, I never +jined the church nor made any kind o' profession o' goin' in for any +things o' God's, nohow; not but what I've often wished I could see my way +to: but sez I to myself, ef he kin stan' it I kin, an' so I held out. But +I tell you, boys, I'd rather drive the wust six-hoss team I ever got hold +on down Breakneck Hill 'n the dark, than set there agin under thet woman's +eyes, a blazin' one minnit, 'n fillin' with tears the next: 'n' I don't +care what anybody sez; I'm a goin' to see her an' tell her that she +needn't be afeard o' ever hevin to preach to me s' good s' by my name, in +the meeting 'us agin, by thunder!"</p> + +<p>"Suppose the blessed Saviour had come walking through our streets, looking +for his children last Wednesday," said Draxy, "He would say to himself, +'I shall know them, wherever I find them: I have given them so many +badges, they will be sure to be wearing some of them. They suffer long and +are kind; they envy not, vaunt not, are not puffed up: they are not easily +provoked, think no evil, seek not their own, rejoice in the truth; they do +not behave unseemly.' Alas, would the dear Jesus have turned away, +believing Himself a stranger and friendless in our village? Which one of +you, dear men, could have sprung forward to take him by the hand? What +terrible silence would have fallen upon you as he looked round on your +angry faces!"</p> + +<p>Tears were rolling down little Reuby's face. Slyly he tried to wipe them +away, first with one hand, then with the other, lest his mother should see +them. He had never in his life seen such an expression of suffering on +her face. He had never heard such tones of pain in her voice. He was +sorely perplexed; and the sight of his distressed little face was almost +more than the people could bear.</p> + +<p>When Draxy stopped speaking, Deacon Plummer did a manly thing. He rose +instantly, and saying "Let us pray," poured out as humble and contrite a +petition for forgiveness as ever went up on wings of faith to Heaven. It +cleared the air, like sweet rain; it rolled a burden off everybody's +heart--most of all, perhaps, off Draxy's.</p> + +<p>"He is not angry, after all," she said; "God has laid it to his heart;" +and when, at the end of the services, the old man came up to her and held +out his hand, she took it in both of hers, and said, "Thank you, dear +Deacon Plummer, thank you for helping me so much to-day. Your prayer was +better for the people than my little sermon, a great deal." The deacon +wrung her hands, but did not speak a word, only stooped and kissed Reuby.</p> + +<p>After this day, Draxy had a new hold on the people. They had really felt +very little surprise at her speaking to them as she did. She had slowly +and insensibly to herself grown into the same place which the Elder had +had in their regard; the same in love and confidence, but higher in +reverence, and admiration, for although she sympathized just as lovingly +as he in all their feelings, they never for a moment ceased to feel that +her nature was on a higher plane than his. They could not have put this in +words, but they felt it.</p> + +<p>"Donno, how 'tis," they said, "but Mis' Kinney, even when she's closest to +ye, an' a doin' for ye all the time, don't seem just like a mortal woman."</p> + +<p>"It's easy enough to know how 'tis," replied Angy Plummer, once, in a +moment of unguarded frankness, "Mis Kinney is a kind o' daughter o' God, +somthin' as Jesus Christ was His Son. It's just the way Jesus Christ used +to go round among folks, 's near 's I can make out; 'n' I for one, don't +believe that God jest sent Him, once for all, 'n' haint never sent anybody +else near us, all this time. I reckon He's a sendin' down sons and +daughters to us oftener 'n' we think."</p> + +<p>"Angy Plummer, I call that downright blasphemy," exclaimed her mother.</p> + +<p>"Well, call it what you're a mind to," retorted the crisp Angy. "It's what +I believe."</p> + +<p>"'Tis blasphemy though, to be sayin' it to folks that can't understand," +she muttered to herself as she left the room, "ef blasphemy means what +Mis' Kinney sez it does, to speak stupidly."</p> + +<p>Three years had passed. The novelty of Draxy's relation to her people had +worn off. The neighboring people had ceased to wonder and to talk; and the +neighboring ministers had ceased to doubt and question. Clairvend and she +had a stout supporter in old Elder Williams, who was looked upon as a high +authority throughout the region. He always stayed at Reuben Miller's +house, when he came to the town, and his counsel and sympathy were +invaluable to Draxy. Sometimes he said jocosely, "I am the pastor of +Brother Kinney's old parish and Mis' Kinney is my curate, and I wish +everybody had as good an one."</p> + +<p>It finally grew to be Draxy's custom to read one of her husband's sermons +in the forenoon, and to talk to the people informally in the afternoon. +Sometimes she wrote out what she wished to say, but usually she spoke +without any notes. She also wrote hymns which she read to them, and which +the choir sometimes sang. She was now fully imbued with the feeling that +everything which she could do, belonged to her people. Next to Reuben, +they filled her heart; the sentiment was after all but an expanded and +exalted motherhood. Strangers sometimes came to Clairvend to hear her +preach, for of course the fame of the beautiful white-robed woman-preacher +could not be confined to her own village. This always troubled Draxy very +much.</p> + +<p>"If we were not so far out of the world, I should have to give it up," she +said; "I know it is proper they should come; but it seems to me just as +strange as if they were to walk into the study in the evening when I am +teaching Reuby. I can't make it seem right; and when I see them writing +down what I say, it just paralyzes me."</p> + +<p>It might have seemed so to Draxy, but it did not to her hearers. No one +would have supposed her conscious of any disturbing presence. And more +than one visitor carried away with him written records of her eloquent +words.</p> + +<p>One of her most remarkable sermons was called "The Gospel of Mystery."</p> + +<p>The text was Psalm xix. 2:--</p> + +<blockquote><p> "Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge."</p></blockquote> + +<p>First she dwelt on the sweet meaning of the word Gospel. "Dear friends," +she said, "it is a much simpler word than we realize; it is only 'good +news,' 'good tidings.' We get gospels every day. Our children send us good +news of their lives. What gospels of joy are such letters! And nations to +nations send good news: a race of slaves is set free; a war has ended; +shiploads of grain have been sent to the starving; a good man has been +made ruler; these are good tidings--gospels."</p> + +<p>After dwelling on this first, simplest idea of the word, until every one +of her hearers had begun to think vividly of all the good tidings +journeying in words back and forth between heart and heart, continent and +continent, she spoke of the good news which nature tells without words. +Here she was eloquent. Subtle as the ideas were, they were yet clothed in +the plain speech which the plain people understood: the tidings of the +spring, of the winter, of the river, of the mountain; of gold, of silver, +of electric fire; of blossom and fruit; of seed-time and harvest; of suns +and stars and waters,--these were the "speech" which "day uttered unto +day."</p> + +<p>But "knowledge was greater" than speech: night in her silence "showed" +what day could not tell. Here the faces of the people grew fixed and +earnest. In any other hands than Draxy's the thought would have been too +deep for them, and they would have turned from it wearily. But her +simplicity controlled them always. "Stand on your door-steps on a dark +night," she said,--"a night so dark that you can see nothing: looking out +into this silent darkness, you will presently feel a far greater sense of +how vast the world is, than you do in broad noon-day, when you can see up +to the very sun himself."</p> + +<p>More than one young face in the congregation showed that this sentence +struck home and threw light on hitherto unexplained emotions. "This is +like what I mean," continued Draxy, "by the Gospel of Mystery, the good +tidings of the things we cannot understand. This gospel is everywhere. Not +the wisest man that has ever lived can fully understand the smallest +created thing: a drop of water, a grain of dust, a beam of light, can +baffle his utmost research. So with our own lives, with our own hearts; +every day brings a mystery--sin and grief and death: all these are +mysteries; gospels of mystery, good tidings of mystery; yes, good tidings! +These are what prove that God means to take us into another world after +this one; into a world where all things which perplexed us here will be +explained.... O my dear friends!" she exclaimed at last, clasping her +hands tightly, "thank God for the things which we cannot understand: +except for them, how should we ever be sure of immortality?"</p> + +<p>Then she read them a hymn called "The Gospel of Mystery." Coming after the +sermon, it was sweet and clear to all the people's hearts. Before the +sermon it would have seemed obscure.</p> + +<blockquote><h4> The Gospel of Mystery.</h4> + +<p> Good tidings every day,<br /> +God's messengers ride fast.<br /> + We do not hear one half they say,<br /> + There is such noise on the highway,<br /> +Where we must wait while they ride past.</p> + +<p> Their banners blaze and shine<br /> +With Jesus Christ's dear name,<br /> +And story, how by God's design<br /> + He saves us, in His love divine,<br /> +And lifts us from our sin and shame.</p> + +<p> Their music fills the air,<br /> +Their songs sing all of Heaven;<br /> + Their ringing trumpet peals declare<br /> + What crowns to souls who fight and dare,<br /> +And win, shall presently be given.</p> + +<p> Their hands throw treasures round<br /> +Among the multitude.<br /> + No pause, no choice, no count, no bound,<br /> + No questioning how men are found,<br /> +If they be evil or be good.</p> + +<p> But all the banners bear<br /> +Some words we cannot read;<br /> + And mystic echoes in the air,<br /> + Which borrow from the songs no share,<br /> +In sweetness all the songs exceed.</p> + +<p> And of the multitude,<br /> +No man but in his hand<br /> + Holds some great gift misunderstood,<br /> + Some treasure, for whose use or good<br /> +His ignorance sees no demand.</p> + +<p> These are the tokens lent<br /> +By immortality;<br /> + Birth-marks of our divine descent;<br /> + Sureties of ultimate intent,<br /> +God's Gospel of Eternity.</p> + +<p> Good tidings every day.<br /> +The messengers ride fast;<br /> + Thanks be to God for all they say;<br /> + There is such noise on the highway,<br /> +Let us keep still while they ride past.</p></blockquote> + +<p>But the sermon which of all others her people loved best was one on the +Love of God. This one she was often asked to repeat,--so often, that she +said one day to Angy, who asked for it, "Why, Angy, I am ashamed to. +Everybody must know it by heart. I am sure I do."</p> + +<p>"Yes, that's jest the way we do know it, Mis' Kinney, by heart," said the +affectionate Angy, "an' that's jest the reason we want it so often. I +never told ye what George Thayer said the last time you read it to us, did +I?"</p> + +<p>"No, Angy," said Draxy.</p> + +<p>"Well, he was singing in the choir that day, 'n place o' his brother, who +was sick; 'n' he jumped up on one o' the seats 'n' swung his hat, jest 's +you was goin' down the aisle, 'n' we all ketched hold on him to pull him +down, 'n' try to hush him; for you can't never tell what George Thayer'll +do when his blood's up, 'n' we was afraid he was agoin' to holler right +out, 's ef he was in the town-'us; but sez he, in a real low, trembly kind +o' voice,</p> + +<p>"'Ye needn't be afraid, I ain't agoin' to whoop;--taint that way I +feel,--but I had to do suthin' or I should bust': 'n' there was reel tears +in his eyes--George Thayer's eyes, Mis' Kinney! Then he jumped down, 'n' +sez he, 'I'll tell ye what that sermon's like: it's jest like one great +rainbow all round ye, and before 'n' behind 'n' everywheres, 'n' the end +on't reaches way to the Throne; it jest dazzles my eyes, that's what it +does.'"</p> + +<p>This sermon had concluded with the following hymn, which Draxy had written +when Reuby was only a few weeks old:--</p> + +<blockquote><h4> The Love of God.</h4> + +<p>Like a cradle rocking, rocking,<br /> + Silent, peaceful, to and fro,<br /> +Like a mother's sweet looks dropping<br /> + On the little face below,<br /> +Hangs the green earth, swinging, turning,<br /> + Jarless, noiseless, safe and slow;<br /> +Falls the light of God's face bending<br /> + Down and watching us below.</p> + +<p>And as feeble babes that suffer,<br /> + Toss and cry, and will not rest,<br /> +Are the ones the tender mother<br /> + Holds the closest, loves the best,<br /> +So when we are weak and wretched,<br /> + By our sins weighed down, distressed,<br /> +Then it is that God's great patience<br /> + Holds us closest, loves us best.</p> + +<p>O great Heart of God! whose loving<br /> + Cannot hindered be nor crossed;<br /> +Will not weary, will not even<br /> + In our death itself be lost--<br /> +Love divine! of such great loving,<br /> + Only mothers know the cost--<br /> +Cost of love, which all love passing,<br /> + Gave a Son to save the lost.</p></blockquote> + +<p>There is little more to tell of Draxy's ministry. It closed as suddenly as +it had begun.</p> + +<p>It was just five years after the Elder's death that she found herself, one +Sunday morning, feeling singularly feeble and lifeless. She was bewildered +at the sensation, for in her apparent health she had never felt it before. +She could hardly walk, could hardly stand. She felt also a strange apathy +which prevented her being alarmed.</p> + +<p>"It is nothing," she said; "I dare say most women are so all the time; I +don't feel in the least ill;" and she insisted upon it that no one should +remain at home with her. It was a communion Sunday and Elder Williams was +to preach.</p> + +<p>"How fortunate it is that Mr. Williams was here!" she thought languidly, +as she seated herself in the eastern bay-window, to watch Reuby down the +hill. He walked between his grandparents, holding each by the hand, +talking merrily and looking up into their faces.</p> + +<p>Draxy watched them until their figures became dim, black specks, and +finally faded out of sight. Then she listened dreamily to the notes of the +slow-tolling bell; when it ceased she closed her eyes, and her thoughts +ran back, far back to the days when she was "little Draxy" and Elder +Kinney was only her pastor. Slowly she lived her life since then over +again, its joy and its sorrow alike softened in her tender, brooding +thoughts. The soft whirring sound of a bird's wings in the air roused her: +as it flew past the window she saw that it was one of the yellow-hammers, +which still built their nests in the maple-grove behind the house.</p> + +<p>"Ah," thought she, "I suppose it can't be one of the same birds we saw +that day. But it's going on errands just the same. I wonder, dear Seth, if +mine are nearly done."</p> + +<p>At that instant a terrible pain shot through her left side and forced a +sharp cry from her lips. She half rose exclaiming, "Reuby, oh, darling!" +and sank back in her chair unconscious.</p> + +<p>Just as Elder Williams was concluding the communion service, the door of +the church was burst open, and old Ike, tottering into the aisle, cried +out in a shrill voice:--</p> + +<p>"Mis' Kinney's dead! Mis' Kinney's dead!"</p> + +<p>The scene that followed could not be told. With flying feet the whole +congregation sped up the steep hill--Angy Plummer half lifting, half +dragging Reuby, and the poor grandparents supported on each side by strong +men. As they drew near the house, they saw Draxy apparently sitting by the +open window.</p> + +<p>"O mamma! why that's mamma," shrieked Reuby, "she was sitting just so when +we came away. She isn't dead."</p> + +<p>Elder Williams reached the house first, Hannah met him on the threshold, +tearless.</p> + +<p>"She dead, sir. She's cold as ice. She must ha' been dead a long time."</p> + +<p>Old Ike had been rambling around the house, and observing from the outside +that Draxy's position was strange, had compelled Hannah to go into the +room.</p> + +<p>"She was a smilin' just's you see her now," said Hannah, "'n' I couldn't +ha' touched her to move her more'n I could ha' touched an angel."</p> + +<p>There are griefs, as well as joys, to which words offer insult. Draxy was +dead!</p> + +<p>Three days later they laid her by the side of her husband, and the +gray-haired, childless old people, and the golden-haired, fatherless and +motherless boy, returned together broken-hearted to the sunny parsonage.</p> + +<p>On the village a terrible silence, that could be felt, settled down; a +silence in which sorrowing men and women crept about, weeping as those who +cannot be comforted.</p> + +<p>Then week followed after week, and soon all things seemed as they had +seemed before. But Draxy never died to her people. Her hymns are still +sung in the little lonely church; her gospel still lives in the very air +of those quiet hills, and the people smile through their tears as they +teach her name to little children.</p> +</div> + + +<div class="chapter" id="ch03"> +<h2>Whose Wife Was She?</h2> + + + +<p>I was on my knees before my chrysanthemum-bed, looking at each little +round tight disk of a bud, and trying to believe that it would be a snowy +flower in two weeks. In two weeks my cousin Annie Ware was to be married: +if my white chrysanthemums would only understand and make haste! I was +childish enough to tell them so; but the childishness came of love,--of my +exceeding, my unutterable love for Annie Ware; if flowers have souls, the +chrysanthemums understood me.</p> + +<p>A sharp, quick roll of wheels startled me. I lifted my head. The wheels +stopped at our gate; a hurried step came down the broad garden-path, and +almost before I had had time to spring to my feet, Dr. Fearing had taken +both my hands in his, had said,--"Annie Ware has the fever,"--had turned, +had gone, had shut the garden gate, and the same sharp quick roll of +wheels told that he was far on his way to the next sufferer.</p> + +<p>I do not know how long I stood still in the garden. A miserable sullenness +seemed to benumb my faculties. I repeated,--</p> + +<p>"Annie Ware has the fever." Then I said,--</p> + +<p>"Annie Ware cannot die; she is too young, too strong, and we love her +so."</p> + +<p>Then I said again,--</p> + +<p>"Annie Ware has the fever," and all the time I seemed not to be thinking +about her at all, but about the chrysanthemums, whose tops I still idly +studied.</p> + +<p>For weeks a malignant typhus fever had been slowly creeping about in the +lower part of our village, in all the streets which had been under water +in the spring freshet.</p> + +<p>These streets were occupied chiefly by laboring people, either +mill-operatives, or shopkeepers of the poorer class. It was part of the +cruel "calamity" of their "poverty" that they could not afford to have +homesteads on the high plateau, which lifted itself quite suddenly from +the river meadow, and made our village a by-word of beauty all through New +England.</p> + +<p>Upon this plateau were laid out streets of great regularity, shaded by +grand elms, many of which had been planted by hands that had handled the +ropes of the <i>Mayflower</i>. Under the shade of these elms stood large +old-fashioned houses, in that sort of sleepy dignity peculiar to old New +England. We who lived in these houses were also sleepy and dignified. We +knew that "under the hill," as it was called, lived many hundreds of men +and women, who were stifled in summer for want of the breezes which swept +across our heights, cold in winter because the wall of our plateau shut +down upon them the icy airs from the frozen river, and cut off the +afternoon sun. We were sorry for them, and we sent them cold meat and +flannels sometimes; but their life was as remote from our life as if they +never crossed our paths; it is not necessary to go into large cities to +find sharp lines drawn between the well-to-do and the poverty-stricken. +There are, in many small villages, "districts" separated from each other +by as distinct a moral distance as divides Fifth Avenue from the Five +Points.</p> + +<p>And so it had come to pass that while for weeks this malignant fever had +been creeping about on the river shore, we, in our clearer, purer air, had +not felt even a dread of it. There had not been a single case of it west +of the high water mark made by the terrible freshet of the previous +spring. We sent brandy and wine and beef-tea into the poor, comfortless, +grief-stricken houses; and we said at tea-time that it was strange, people +would persist in living down under the bank: what could they expect? and +besides, they were "so careless about drainage and ventilation."</p> + +<p>Now, on the highest and loveliest spot, in the richest and most beautiful +house, the sweetest and fairest girl of all our village lay ill of the +deadly disease.</p> + +<p>"Annie Ware has the fever." I wondered if some fiend were lurking by my +side, who kept saying the words over and over in my ear. With that +indescribable mixture of dulled and preternaturally sharpened sense which +often marks the first moments of such distress, I walked slowly to my +room, and in a short time had made all the necessary preparation for +leaving home. I felt like a thief as I stole slowly down the stairs, with +my travelling-bag in my hand. At the door I met my father.</p> + +<p>"Hey-day, my darling, where now? Off to Annie's, as usual?"</p> + +<p>He had not heard the tidings! Should I tell him? I might never see him +again; only too well I knew the terrible danger into which I was going. +But he might forbid me.</p> + +<p>"Yes, off to Annie's," I said in a gay tone, and kissing him sprang down +the steps.</p> + +<p>I did not see my father again for eighteen days.</p> + +<p>On the steps of my uncle's house I met old Jane, a colored woman who had +nursed Annie Ware when she was a baby, and who lived now in a little +cottage near by, from whose door-steps she could see Annie's window, and +in whose garden she raised flowers of all sorts, solely for the pleasure +of carrying them to Annie every day.</p> + +<p>Jane's face was positively gray with sorrow and fear. She looked at me +with a strange sort of unsympathizing hardness in her eyes. She had never +loved me. I knew what she thought. She was saying to herself: "Why not +this one instead of the other?"</p> + +<p>"O auntie!" I said, "I would die for Annie; you know I would."</p> + +<p>At this she melted. "O honey! don' ye say that. The Lord"--but she could +say no more. She threw her apron up over her head and strode away.</p> + +<p>The doors of the house stood open. I walked through room after room, and +found no human being. At last, at the foot of the stairs in the back part +of the house, I came upon all the servants huddled together in a cowering, +weeping group. Flat on the floor, with his face to the wall, lay black +Cæsar, the coachman. I put my hand on his shoulder. He jerked away +impatiently.</p> + +<p>"Yer jest lemme lone, will yer?" he said in a choking voice; then lifting +up his head, and seeing it was I, he half sprang to his feet, with a look +of shame and alarm, and involuntarily carrying his hand to his head, +said:--</p> + +<p>"O miss! who's gwine to think yer"--here he too broke down, and buried his +face in his great hands.</p> + +<p>I did not speak, but the little group instinctively opened to let me pass +up the stairs. I had a vague consciousness that they said something as I +turned into a little cross-hall which led to Annie's room; but without +attending to their words I opened her door. The room was empty; the bed +stripped of clothes; the windows wide open. I sank into a chair, and +looked from side to side. I was too late, after all! That was why none of +the servants dared speak to me. A little slipper of Annie's lay on the +floor by the bed. I took it up and turned it over and over in my hands. +Then I became conscious that my Aunt Ann was speaking to me,--was calling +me by name, earnestly, repeatedly, with terror in her voice.</p> + +<p>"My dear, dear child; Helen, Helen, Helen, she is not dead. She is in my +room. Come and see for yourself."</p> + +<p>I had seen my Aunt Ann every day for nineteen years,--I never knew her +until that moment; I never saw her real face until that moment.</p> + +<p>I followed her slowly through rooms and passageways till she reached her +own chamber. The door was open; the room was very dark. On the threshold +she paused, and whispered, "You must not be frightened, darling. She will +not know you. She has not known any one for six hours."</p> + +<p>I knelt down by the bed. In a few moments my eyes became used to the +darkness, and I saw Annie's face lying motionless on the farther edge of +the bed, turned to the wall. It was perfectly white except the lips, which +were almost black, and were swollen and crusted over with the fearful +fever. Her beautiful hair fell in tangled masses, and half covered her +face.</p> + +<p>"She seems to be lying very uncomfortably," said Aunt Ann, "but the doctor +ordered that she should not be disturbed in any way."</p> + +<p>I looked at my aunt's face and listened to her voice in bewilderment. The +whole world had for years called her, and with apparent justice, "a hard +and unsympathizing woman." No human being had ever seen a really free +unconstrained smile on her face, or heard from her lips an impulsive word. +When it was known that the genial, rollicking, open-hearted Henry Ware was +to marry her, everybody shuddered. As years went on, everybody who sat by +Henry Ware's fireside, and was kindled and made welcome by his +undiminished and unconquerable cheeriness, felt at the same time chilled +and paralyzed by the courteous, unexceptionable dignity of Mrs. Ware. Even +I, having the freedom of a daughter in their house, and loving my uncle +hardly less than I loved my father, had never once supposed that anybody +could love Aunt Ann, or that she would permit it. I always felt a little +terror when I saw Annie kiss her, or my uncle put his arm around her. My +own loving, caressing, over-flowing mother had given me by inheritance, +and had taught me by example, a type of love which knew no life without +expression. And very well I knew that that sweet mother of mine, whom the +whole town loved, and who herself loved the whole world, seemed always +turned into stone by the simple presence of Aunt Ann.</p> + +<p>And now Aunt Ann was sitting on the floor by my side, clinging to my hand, +resting my head on her bosom, and, as I felt instantly and instinctively, +revealing in her every tone, look, word, such intensity and passionateness +of feeling as I had never in my whole life seen before. I saw then that +she had always held me side by side with her own child in her heart, and +that she knew the rare quality of the love I had for Annie.</p> + +<p>"I ought not to have let you come here," she said, more as if speaking to +herself than to me; "they, too, have but one."</p> + +<p>"But, Aunt Ann, you could not have kept me out," I whispered.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I knew that, my child," she replied; "but no one else would know +it."</p> + +<p>From that moment there was between my Aunt Ann and me a subtle bond which +partook of all the holiest mysteries of love. There were both motherhood +and the love of lovers in my love for Annie. Annie's mother felt them, and +was willing to have her own motherhood added to and ministered to by them. +From that moment I believe not even her husband seemed so near to her in +her relation with her child as I.</p> + +<p>I will not write out the record of the next two weeks. They seemed, as +they passed, a thousand years; and yet, in looking back on them, they seem +only like one terrible breathless night. My aunt and I alone did all that +was done for Annie. There were whole days and whole nights during which +she talked incessantly, sometimes with such subtle semblance of her own +sweet self that we could hardly believe she did not know what she said; +sometimes with such wild ravings that we shook in terror, and could not +look at her nor at each other. There were other days and nights through +which she lay in a sleep, which seemed-no more like real sleep than the +shrill voice of her ravings had seemed like her real voice. These were +most fearful of all. Through all these days and nights, two men with white +faces and folded arms walked up and down in the rooms below, or crouched +on the thresholds of our doors, listening for sign or word from us. One +was Annie's father, and the other was her lover, George Ware. He was her +second cousin, fifteen years older than she, and had loved her since the +day she was one year old, when at the ceremony of her christening, he, a +proud shy boy of sixteen, had been allowed to carry her up-stairs with her +sweet name resting fresh and new on her little dewy forehead. Ah, seldom +does such love spring and grow and blaze on this earth as had warmed the +very air around Annie from the moment of her birth. George Ware was a man +of rare strength, as this love showed; and with just such faithfulness as +his faithfulness to Annie, he had loved and cared for his mother, who had +been for twenty years a widow. They lived on the outskirts of the town, +in a small house almost buried in the heart of a pine wood. The wood was +threaded in all directions by miles of narrow paths which shone in the +shaded sunlight as if they were satin-floored. For nineteen years it had +been George Ware's joy to roam these paths with his cousin Annie; first, +the baby whom he drew in her wicker wagon; next, the wayward little child +who walked with stumbling steps and clung to his finger; next, the gay +school-girl who brought all her perplexities and all her joys to be +confided to him under the pines; next, the shyer and more silent maiden +who came less often, but lingered helplessly until twilight made the +fragrant aisles solemn and dim as cloisters; at last, the radiant, the +child-like woman, the promised wife!</p> + +<p>No winter could set a barrier across these pine-wood paths. When the whole +country about lay blocked and drifted, and half buried with snow, all +these spicy foot-roads were kept clear and level, and ready for Annie's +feet. Whole days of George Ware's strength went into the work and the joy +of doing this. In open spaces where the snow had drifted deep, he wrought +it into solid walls almost as high on either hand as Annie's head. In dark +nooks, where the spreading pines and hemlocks lay low and wide, he tossed +the snow into fantastic and weird masses on the right and left, and +cleared great spaces where he knew the partridge-berry would be ready with +a tiny scarlet glow to light up the spot.</p> + +<p>This was George Ware's wooing. It never stepped into the glare, the +contention of profaner air. It was not a seeking, a finding, a conquest; +but a slow, sure growth of possession, which had as eternal foundation and +seemed as eternally safe as the results of organic law.</p> + +<p>George's picture hung in Annie's room, opposite the foot of her bed. +Opposite the foot of the bed in her mother's room hung a large engraving +of the Sistine Madonna. I fancied that in Annie's quieter moments her eyes +rested with a troubled look upon this picture, and one day, when she was +in a deep sleep, I exchanged the pictures. I felt as if even lifeless +canvas which had George's face painted upon it, might work her good.</p> + +<p>At last there came a night,--they said it was the fourteenth, but the +words conveyed no meaning to me,--there came a night when Dr. Fearing, who +had been sitting by Annie's bed for two hours, watching her every breath, +sprang suddenly to his feet, and beckoned to my aunt and me to follow him +into the next room. He shut the door, walked very swiftly up to us, looked +first into her face then into mine; then felt her pulse, and then mine, +and then turning to me, said,--</p> + +<p>"It will have to be you." We looked at him in sudden terror. The tears +were rolling down his wrinkled cheeks.</p> + +<p>"What is it, William?" gasped Aunt Ann.</p> + +<p>"It will have to be you," he went on, looking me in the face, and taking +no notice of her question; "your pulse can be trusted. There has been a +change. When Annie wakes out of this sleep she will know you. It may be in +two hours, and it may not be for six. But if in that first moment she is +alarmed, or agitated in any way, she will die."</p> + +<p>"O William, let me stay. I will be calm," moaned my poor aunt.</p> + +<p>Then I observed, for the first time, that she had called him "William." +And then, for the first and last time, I heard Dr. Fearing call my Aunt +Ann "darling," and I remembered in that instant that it had been said once +in my hearing, that it was because of his love for Mrs. Henry Ware that +Dr. William Fearing had lived and would die a lonely man.</p> + +<p>"Darling," he said, and put one hand on her shoulder, "you would kill your +child. I forbid you to cross the threshold of that room till I come back. +You will thank me to-morrow. Can you not trust me, Ann?" and he looked +down from his full height, this brave old man, into the face of the woman +he had loved, with a look like the look of one who dies to save another. +It was but for one second, and then he was again the physician, and +turning to me, went on, "I have another patient to whom I must instantly +go, and whom I may not be able to leave for hours. You can do all that I +would do,--I believe,"--then he felt my pulse again, and nodding his head +with a sort of grim professional satisfaction, which no amount of emotion +could wholly divert from its delight in the steady nerves and undisturbed +currents of a healthy body,--resumed, "You have but one thing to do: when +she wakes, look perfectly composed; if she speaks, answer her in a +perfectly natural voice; give her two drops of this medicine, and tell her +to go to sleep again. If you do this, she will fall asleep at once. If +you show the least agitation, she may die,--probably will!"--and Dr. +Fearing was gone.</p> + +<p>My aunt sat silently weeping. I kissed her without speaking, and went back +to my chair by Annie's bed. I dropped the two drops of medicine into a +spoon, and propped the spoon carefully on a little silver tray, so that I +could reach it instantly. It was just three o'clock in the morning. Hour +after hour passed. I could not hear Annie's breath. My own dinned in my +ears like the whir of mills. A terror such as I can never describe took +possession of me. What if I were to kill Annie? How could I look composed? +speak naturally? What would she say? If I could but know and have my +answer ready!</p> + +<p>I firmly believe that the dawn of light saved my senses and Annie's life. +When the first red beam shot through the blinds at the farther end of the +room, tears came into my eyes. I felt as if angels were watching outside. +A tiny sunbeam crept between the slats and fell on the carpet. It was no +more than a hair's breadth, but it was companionship to me. Slowly, +steadily it came towards me. I forgot all else in watching it. To this day +I cannot see a slow-moving sunbeam on a crimson floor without a shudder. +The clock struck six, seven, eight, nine. The bells rang for schools; the +distant hum of the town began. Still there was no stir, no symptom of +life, in the colorless face on the pillow. The sunbeam had crept nearly to +my feet. Involuntarily I lifted my right foot and stretched it out-to meet +the golden messenger. Had I dared to move I should have knelt and reached +my hand to it instead. Perhaps even the slight motion I did make, +hastened Annie's waking, for at that instant she turned her head uneasily +on the pillow and opened her eyes. I saw that she knew me. I wondered how +I could have distrusted my own strength to meet her look. I smiled as if +we were at play together, and said,--</p> + +<p>"Good morning, dear."</p> + +<p>She smiled languidly and said, "How came I in mamma's bed?"</p> + +<p>I said, quietly, "Take this medicine, darling;" and almost before the +drops had passed her lips her eyes closed, and she had fallen asleep +again.</p> + +<p>When Dr. Fearing came into the room at noon, he gave one swift, anxious +glance at her face, and then fell on his knees and folded his face in his +hands. I knew that Annie was safe.</p> + +<p>Then he went into the next room, silently took Aunt Ann by the hand, and +leading her back to Annie's bedside, pointed to the little beads of +moisture on her forehead and said,--</p> + +<p>"Saved!"</p> + +<p>The revulsion was too much for the poor mother's heart. She sank to the +floor. He lifted her in his arms and carried her out, and for the rest of +that day my Aunt Ann, that "hard and unsympathizing woman," passed from +one strange fainting-fit into another, until we were in almost as great +fear for her life as we had been for Annie's.</p> + +<p>At twilight Annie roused from her sleep again. She was perfectly tranquil, +but too weak to lift even her little hand, which had grown so thin and so +wrinkled that it looked like a wilted white flower lying on the white +counterpane.</p> + +<p>Hour by hour she gained strength under the powerful restoratives which +were used, and still more from the wonderful elasticity of her +temperament. From the very first day, however, an indefinable terror of +misgiving seized me as often as I heard her voice or looked into her eyes. +In vain I said to myself: "It is the weakness after such terrible +illness;" "it is only natural." I felt in the bottom of my heart that it +was more.</p> + +<p>On the fourth day she said suddenly, looking up at the picture of George +Ware,--</p> + +<p>"Why! Why is Cousin George's picture in here? Where is the Madonna?"</p> + +<p>I replied: "I moved it in here, dear, for you. I thought you would like +it."</p> + +<p>"No," she said, "I like the Madonna best: the dear little baby! Please +carry George back into my room where he belongs."</p> + +<p>My heart stood still with terror. She had never called George Ware her +cousin since their engagement. She especially disliked any allusion to +their relationship. This was her first mention of his name, and it was in +all respects just what it would have been a year before. Dr. Fearing had +forbidden us to allude to him, or to her wedding-day, or, in fact, to any +subject calculated to arouse new trains of thought in her mind. I wondered +afterward that we did not understand from the first how he had feared that +her brain might not fully recover itself, as the rest of her exquisitely +organized body seemed fast doing.</p> + +<p>Day after day passed. Annie could sit up; could walk about her room; she +gained in flesh and color and strength so rapidly that it was a marvel. +She was gentle and gay and loving; her old rare, sweet self in every +little way and trait and expression; not a look, not a smile, not a tone +was wanting; but it was the Annie of last year, and not of this. She made +no allusion to her wedding, the day for which had now passed. She did not +ask for George. The whole year had dropped out of her memory; part of her +brain was still diseased. No human touch could venture to deal with it +without the risk of the most terrible consequences.</p> + +<p>Dr. Fearing's face grew day by day more and more anxious; he was baffled; +he was afraid. He consulted the most eminent physicians who had had +experience in diseases of the brain. They all counseled patience, and +advised against any attempt to hasten her recollections upon any point; +they all had known similar cases, but never one so sharply defined or so +painful as this. Still they were unanimous in advising that nothing should +be said to startle her; that all must be trusted to time.</p> + +<p>Through these terrible days George Ware was braver than any one else. His +faith in the absoluteness of his hold on Annie was too great to be +disturbed. He was by nature as patient as he was resolute. He had not +wooed his wife for eighteen years to lose her now in any way except by +death, he thought. He comforted us all.</p> + +<p>"Do be brave, sweet mother of Annie," he used to say to my poor Aunt Ann; +"all will be well. It is nothing to me to wait another year, after having +waited all these. It is not even hard for me to go without seeing her, if +that is best."</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, his face grew thin and his eye heavy and his form bent, as +week after week passed, and he came daily to the house, only to be told +the same weary thing, that Annie had not asked for him. The physicians had +said that it would be better that she should not see him until she had of +her own accord mentioned his name. Her nerves were still in such a state +that any surprise threw her into palpitation and alarm which did not pass +off for hours. No human being could tell how great might be the shock of +seeing his face; how much it might recall to her; and whether, if it +recalled all, she could bear it. From the outset George believed the +physicians were wrong in this; but he dared not urge his instinct against +their knowledge; and he was patient of nature, and so the days went on, +on, on; and there was no change except that Annie grew steadily better and +our hearts grew steadily sicker and sicker until we almost looked back +with longing on the days when we feared she would die. And yet in every +respect, except the memory of her lover, Annie was the same as before. The +closest scrutiny could discover no other change in her, except perhaps +that she seemed even gayer than she used to seem, and a shade less tender, +but this also was as she had been before she had promised to be George +Ware's wife.</p> + +<p>One morning George brought me a small bunch of lovely wild things from the +pine woods, Tiarella leaves just tipped with claret color by the early +frosts, sprays of Linnea, two or three tiny white maiden's hair ferns, all +tied by a knot of patridge-berry vines thick-set with scarlet berries.</p> + +<p>"Give these to Annie for me, will you, dear Helen?" he said, "and observe +very carefully how she is affected by them."</p> + +<p>I remembered that it was just one year ago that day, that he had asked her +to be his wife, and I trembled to think of what hidden meanings I might be +messenger in carrying her this silent token. But I too felt, as George +did, that she was drifting farther and farther away from the memories we +desired she should regain; and that no physician's knowledge could be so +true as love's instinct; and I asked no counsel of any one, but went +swiftly to Annie with the leaves in my hand.</p> + +<p>"O you darling! How perfectly lovely," she exclaimed with a laugh of +delight. "Why these must have come from George's woods. Have you been up +there?"</p> + +<p>"No, dear," I said, "George brought them for you, this morning."</p> + +<p>"Oh, the good darling!" she exclaimed. "Is it decided about his going to +India?"</p> + +<p>I could not repress a little cry of anguish and terror. A year before, +there had been a plan for his going out to India on a mercantile venture, +which promised great profit. It had been given up, partly because his +mother felt that she could not live without him, partly because he felt +that he could not longer live without Annie.</p> + +<p>"What is it, dear?" she said, in her softest, most sympathizing voice, +with a little flush of alarm on her pale cheek; "what hurt you? are you +ill? Oh, my poor Helen, you are all worn out with nursing me. I will nurse +you presently."</p> + +<p>"Only a little twinge of my old neuralgia, dear," I said faintly; "these +autumn winds are setting it at work again."</p> + +<p>She looked anxiously at me for a few seconds, and then began to untie the +bunch of leaves, and spread out the long vines on the bed.</p> + +<p>"Oh, if I only had some moss," she said.</p> + +<p>I ran to the green-house and brought her handfuls of beautiful dripping +mosses from the rocks in the fernery. She filled a saucer with them, +putting the Tiarella leaves all round the rim, and winding the Linnea +vines in and out as they grow in the woods. Then she leaned back on her +pillows and began breaking the partridge-berry vines into short bits, each +with a scarlet berry on it. These she set upright in the moss, changing +and rearranging them so often that I wondered what could be her purpose, +and leaned forward to see.</p> + +<p>"No, no," she said playfully, pushing me back, "not till it is done."</p> + +<p>Presently she said, "Now look!"</p> + +<p>I looked and saw a perfect, beautifully formed G made by the scarlet +berries on the green moss.</p> + +<p>"There," she said, "I'll send that back to George, to show him that I have +found him in the berries; or, no," she added, "we'll keep it till he comes +to see me. The doctor said I could be carried down-stairs to-morrow, and +then I shall begin to 'receive,'" and she laughed a gay little laugh, and +sank back tired.</p> + +<p>That moment stands out in my memory as the saddest, hardest one of all. I +think at that moment hope died in my heart.</p> + +<p>When I told George of this, and showed him the saucer of moss--for she +had ordered it to be set on the drawing-room table, saying, "It is too +pretty to stay up here with bottles and invalids,"--he buried his face in +his hands for many minutes. When he lifted it, he looked me steadily in +the eye, and said,--</p> + +<p>"She has utterly forgotten this whole year. But I will win her again."</p> + +<p>Then he knelt down and kissed every little leaf and berry which her hands +had touched, and went away without speaking another word.</p> + +<p>It was decided after this that it could do no harm for him to see her. +Indeed, he now demanded it. His resolution was taken.</p> + +<p>"You need not fear," he said to Dr. Fearing, "that I shall agitate her by +approaching her as if she were my own. She is not my own. But she will +be!"</p> + +<p>We all sat with trembling hands and beating hearts as the hour approached +at which we knew the experiment was to be made.</p> + +<p>Annie had been carried down-stairs, and laid upon a lounge in the western +bay-window of the library. The lounge was covered with dark green damask. +Old Cæsar had so implored to be allowed to carry her down, that Annie had +insisted that he should be gratified; and she went down as she had so +often done in her childhood, with her soft white face lying close to his +shining black one.</p> + +<p>As he put her down, in her rose-colored wrapper, on the dark green damask, +he knelt before her and burst out in spite of himself, into a sort of wild +chant of thanksgiving; but as we entered the door he sprang up ashamed, +and turning to Aunt Ann, said: "Beg pardon, missis, but this rose yere was +too much pink rose for old Cæsar!"</p> + +<p>It was "too much pink rose" for any human eyes to see unmoved. We all +cried: and Annie herself shed a few tears, but finally helped us all by +saying gayly,--</p> + +<p>"You'll make me ill again if you all go on like this. I hate people that +cry."</p> + +<p>No stranger's eye would have detected the thousandth part of a second's +pause which George Ware's feet made on the threshold of that room when his +eyes first saw Annie. Before the second had ended he was simply the eager, +glad, affectionate cousin, and had taken calmly and lovingly the child's +kiss which Annie gave him as she had given it every day of her life.</p> + +<p>We could not speak. My uncle tried to read his newspaper; my aunt's hands +shook in their pretense of sewing; I threw myself on the floor at the foot +of Annie's lounge and hid my face in its cushions.</p> + +<p>But George Ware's brave voice went steadily on. Annie's sweet glad tones, +weak and low, but still sweeter than any other tones I ever heard, chimed +in and out like fairy bells from upper air. More than an hour passed. I do +not know one word that we said.</p> + +<p>Then George rose, saying: "I must not tire you, little Annie, so I am +going now."</p> + +<p>"Will you come, again to-morrow?" she asked as simply as a little child.</p> + +<p>"Yes, dear, if you are not the worse for this," he replied, and kissed her +forehead and walked very quickly away without looking back. I followed +him instantly into the hall, for I had seen that in his face which had +made me fear that, strong man as he was, he would fall. I found him +sitting on the lowest step of the staircase, just outside the door.</p> + +<p>"My God, Helen," he gasped, "it isn't only this last year she has +forgotten. She has gone back five years."</p> + +<p>"Oh no, dear George," I said; "you are mistaken. She remembers everything +up to a year ago. You know she remembered about your going to India."</p> + +<p>"That is nothing," he said impatiently. "You can't any of you, see what I +mean, I suppose. But I tell you she has forgotten five years of me. She is +to me just as she was when she was fourteen. Do you think I don't know the +face and voice and touch of each day of my darling's life? oh, my God! my +God!" and he sank down on the stair again in a silence which was worse +than groans. I left him there and went back to Annie.</p> + +<p>"How old Cousin George looks," she was saying, as I entered the room; "I +didn't remember that he was so old. Why, he looks as old as you do, sweet +papa. But then," reflectively, "after all, he is pretty old. He is fifteen +years older than I am--and I am nineteen: thirty-four! that is old, is it +not papa?" said she, half petulantly. "Why don't you speak, any of you?"</p> + +<p>"You are getting too tired, my darling," said her father, "and now I shall +carry you up-stairs."</p> + +<p>After Annie was asleep, my Aunt Ann and I sat for hours in the library, +going over and over and over, with weary hopelessness, all her words and +looks, and trying to comfort each other. I think each knew the utter +despair of the other's heart.</p> + +<p>From this time George came and went with all his old familiarity: not a +day passed without his seeing Annie, and planning something for her +amusement or pleasure. Not a day passed without her showing in many ways +that he made a large part of her life, was really a central interest in +it. Even to us who knew the sad truth, and who looked on with intentness +and anxiety hardly less than those with which we had watched her sick-bed +weeks before--even to us it seemed many times as if all must be right. No +stranger but would believe them lovers; not a servant in the house dreamed +but that Miss Annie was still looking forward to her wedding. They had all +been forbidden to allude to it, but they supposed it was only on account +of her weakness and excitability.</p> + +<p>But every day the shadow deepened on George Ware's face. I could see, +though he would not admit it, that the same despair which filled my soul +was settling down upon his. Dr. Fearing, too, who came and spent long +evenings with us, and cautiously watched Annie's every tone and look, grew +more and more uneasy. Dr. ----, one of the most distinguished physicians +of the insane, in the country, was invited to spend a few days in the +house. He was presented to Annie as an old friend of her father's, and won +at once her whole confidence and regard. For four days he studied her +case, and frankly owned himself baffled, and unable to suggest any measure +except the patient waiting which was killing us all.</p> + +<p>To tell this frail and excitable girl, who had more than once fainted at +a sudden noise, that this man whom she regarded only as her loving cousin +had been her promised husband--and that having been within two weeks of +her wedding-day, she had now utterly forgotten it, and all connected with +it--this would be too fearful a risk. It might deprive her forever of her +reason.</p> + +<p>Otherwise, she seemed in every respect, even in the smallest particular, +herself. She recollected her music, her studies, her friends. She was +anxious to resume her old life at all points. Every day she made allusions +to old plans or incidents. She had forgotten absolutely nothing excepting +the loverhood of her lover. Every day she grew stronger, and became more +and more beautiful, There was a slight under-current of arch +mischievousness and half petulance which she had never had before, and +which, added to her sweet sympathetic atmosphere, made her indescribably +charming. As she grew stronger she frolicked with every human being and +every living thing. When the spring first opened and she could be out of +doors, she seemed more like a divine mixture of Ariel and Puck than like a +mortal maiden.</p> + +<p>I found her one day lying at full length on the threshold of the +greenhouse. Twenty great azaleas were in full bloom on the shelves--white, +pink, crimson. She had gathered handfuls of the fallen blossoms, and was +making her gray kitten, which was as intelligent and as well trained as a +dog, jump into the air to catch them as she tossed them up. I sat down on +the grass outside and watched her silently.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you sober old Helen," she said, "you'll be an owl for a thousand +years after you die! Why can't you caper a little? You don't know how nice +it is."</p> + +<p>Just then George came slowly walking down the garden path, his hands +clasped behind him, his head bent forward, and his eyes fixed on the +ground.</p> + +<p>He did not see us. Annie exclaimed,--</p> + +<p>"There's Cousin George, too! Look at him! Wouldn't you think he had just +heard he was to be executed at twelve to-day! I don't see what ails +everybody."</p> + +<p>"George, George," she called, "come here. For how many years are you +sentenced, dear, and how could you have been so silly as to be found out?" +And then she burst into a peal of the most delicious laughter at his +bewildered look.</p> + +<p>"I don't know, darling, for how many years I am sentenced. We none of us +know," he said, in a tone which was sadder than he meant it should be, and +sobered her loving heart instantly. She sprang to her feet, and threw both +her arms around his right arm, a pretty trick she had kept from her +babyhood, and said,--</p> + +<p>"Oh you dear, good darling, does anything really trouble you? How +heartless I am. But you don't know how it feels to have been so awfully +ill, and then to get well again. It makes one feel all body and no soul; +but I have soul enough to love you all dearly, you know I have; and I +won't have you troubled; tell me what it is this minute;" and she looked +at him with tears in her eyes.</p> + +<p>One wonders often if there be any limit to human endurance. If there be, +who can say he has reached it? Each year we find that the thing which we +thought had taken our last strength, has left us with strength enough to +bear a harder thing. It seemed so with such scenes as this, in those sunny +spring days when Annie Ware first went out into life again. Each day I +said, "There can never be another moment quite so hard to meet as this!" +and the next day there came a moment which made me forget the one which +had gone before.</p> + +<p>It was an ill fortune which just at this time made it imperatively +necessary for George to go to the West for three months. He had no choice. +His mother's whole property was at stake. No one but he could save it; it +was not certain that he could. His last words to me were,--</p> + +<p>"I trust more in you, Helen, than in any other human being. Keep my name +constantly in her thought; write me everything which you would tell me if +I were here."</p> + +<p>It had become necessary now to tell the sad story of the result of Annie's +illness to all those friends who would be likely to speak to her of her +marriage. The whole town knew what shadow rested on our hearts; and yet, +as week after week went by, and the gay, sweet, winning, beautiful girl +moved about among people again in her old way, people began to say more +and more that it was, after all, very foolish for Annie Ware's friends to +be so distressed about her; stranger things had happened; she was +evidently a perfectly well woman; and as for the marriage, they had never +liked the match--George Ware was too old and too grave for her; and, +besides, he was her second cousin.</p> + +<p>Oh, the torture of the "ante-mortems" of beloved ones, at which we are +all forced to assist! + +Yet it could not be wondered at, that in this case the whole heart of the +community was alive with interest and speculation.</p> + +<p>Annie Ware's sweet face had been known and loved in every house in our +village. Her father was the richest, most influential man in the county, +and the most benevolent. Many a man and woman had kissed Henry Ware's baby +in her little wagon, for the sake of Henry Ware's good deeds to them or +theirs. And while Mrs. Ware had always repelled persons by her haughty +reticence, Annie, from the first day she could speak until now, had won +all hearts by her sunny, open, sympathizing nature. No wonder that now, +when they saw her again fresh, glad, beautiful, and looking stronger and +in better health than she had ever done, they said that we were wrong, +that Annie and Nature were right, and that all would be well!</p> + +<p>This spring there came to our town a family of wealth and position who had +for many years lived in Europe, and who had now returned to make America +their home. They had taken a furnished house for a year, to make trial of +our air, and also, perhaps, of the society, although rumor, with the usual +jealousy, said that the Neals did not desire any intimacy with their +neighbors. The grounds of the house which they had hired joined my +uncle's, and my Aunt Ann, usually averse to making new acquaintances, had +called upon them at once, and had welcomed them most warmly to her house. +The family consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Neal and two sons, Arthur and Edward. +They were people of culture, and of wide experience; but they were not of +fine organization nor of the highest breeding; and it will ever remain a +mystery to me that there should have seemed to be, from the outset, an +especial bond of intimacy between them and my uncle and aunt. I think it +was partly the sense of relief with which they welcomed a new interest--a +little break in the monotony of anxiety which had been for so many months +corroding their very lives.</p> + +<p>Almost before I knew that the Neals were accepted as familiar friends, I +was startled one morning, while we were at breakfast, by the appearance of +Annie on her pony, looking in at our dining-room window. She had a pretty +way of riding up noiselessly on the green grass, and making her pony, +which was tame as a Newfoundland dog, mount the stone steps, and tap with +his nose on the panes of the long glass door till we opened it.</p> + +<p>I never saw her so angelically beautiful as she was this morning. Her +cheeks were flushed and her dark blue eyes sparkled like gems in the sun. +Presently she said, hesitating a little,--</p> + +<p>"Edward Neal is at the gate; may I bring him in? I told him he might come, +but he said it was too like burglary;" and she cantered off again without +waiting to hear my mother's permission.</p> + +<p>All that morning Annie Ware and Edward Neal sat with me on our piazza. I +looked and listened and watched like one in a dream, or under a spell. I +foresaw, I foreknew what was to come; with the subtle insight of love, I +saw all.</p> + +<p>Never had I seen Annie so stirred into joyousness by George's presence as +she seemed to be by this boy's. The two together overflowed in a sparkling +current of gayety, which was irresistible. They seemed two divine children +sent out on a mission to set the world at play. What Edward Neal's more +sensuous and material nature lacked, was supplied by the finer, subtler +quality of Annie's. From that first day I could never disguise from myself +that they seemed, so far as mere physical life goes, the absolute +counterparts of each other.</p> + +<p>I need not dwell on this part of my story. When young hearts are drawing +together, summer days speed on very swiftly. George Ware, alas! was kept +at the West week after week, until it came to be month after month. My +uncle and aunt seemed deliberately to shut their eyes to the drift of +events. I think they were so thankful to watch Annie's bounding health and +happiness, to hear glad voices and merry laughs echoing all day in their +house, that they could not allow themselves to ask whether a new kernel of +bitterness, of danger, lay at the core of all this fair seeming. As for +the children, they did not know that they were loving each other as man +and woman. Edward Neal was only twenty-one, Annie but nineteen, and both +were singularly young and innocent of soul.</p> + +<p>And so it came to be once more the early autumn; the maple leaves were +beginning to be red, and my chrysanthemums had again set their tiny round +disks of buds. Edward, and Annie had said no word of love to each other, +but the whole town looked on them as lovers, and people began to reply +impatiently and incredulously to our assurances that no engagement +existed.</p> + +<p>Early in October George came home, very unexpectedly, taking even his +mother by surprise. He told me afterwards that he came at last as one +warned of God. A presentiment of evil, against which he had struggled for +weeks, finally so overwhelmed him that he set off for home without half an +hour's delay. I found him, on the night after his arrival, sitting in his +old place in the big arm-chair at the head of Annie's lounge; she still +clung to some of her old invalid ways, and spent many evenings curled up +like a half-shut pink rose on the green damask cushions. He looked worn +and thin, but glad and eager, and was giving a lively account of his +Western experiences when the library door opened, and coming in +unannounced, with the freedom of one at home, Edward Neal entered.</p> + +<p>"O Edward, here is Cousin George," exclaimed Annie, while a wave of rosy +color spread over her face, and half rising, she took George's hand in +hers as she leaned towards Edward.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'm so glad to see you, Mr. Ware," said Edward, with that indefinable +tone of gentle respect which marks a very young man's recognition of one +much older, whom he has been led to admire. "Annie has been talking to me +about you all summer. I feel as if I knew you almost as well as she does. +I'm heartily glad to see you."</p> + +<p>A man of finer grain than Edward Neal would have known the whole truth in +that first second, by the blank stern look which spread like a cloud over +George Ware's face; but the open-hearted fellow only thought that he had +perhaps seemed too familiar and went on,--</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon, Mr. Ware. It must appear strange to you that I took +the liberty of being so glad; but you don't know how kindly I have been +allowed to feel that your friends here would permit me to call all their +friends mine," and he glanced lovingly and confidently at my aunt and +uncle, who answered by such smiles as they rarely gave. Oh, no wonder they +loved this genial, frank sunny boy, who had brought such light into their +life.</p> + +<p>In a moment George was his courteous self again, and began to express his +pleasure at meeting Mr. Neal, but Annie interrupted him.</p> + +<p>"Oh, now don't be tiresome; of course you are to be just as good friends +with Edward as you are with me: sit down, Edward. He is telling us the +most delicious stories. He is the dearest Cousin George in the world," she +added, stroking his hand which she still kept in hers.</p> + +<p>It gave Edward no more surprise to see her do this than it would have done +to see her sit in her father's lap. Even I felt with a sudden pang that +George Ware seemed at that moment to belong to another generation than +Edward and Annie.</p> + +<p>Edward seated himself on a low cricket at the foot of the lounge, and, +looking up in George's face, said most winningly,--</p> + +<p>"Please go on, Mr. Ware." Then he turned one full, sweet look of greeting +and welcome upon Annie, who beamed back upon him with such a diffused +smile as only the rarest faces have. Annie's smile was one of her greatest +charms. It changed her whole face; the lips made but a small part of it; +no mortal ever saw it without smiling in answer.</p> + +<p>It was beyond George Ware's power long to endure this. Probably his +instinct felt in both Edward's atmosphere and Annie's more than we did. He +rose very soon and said to me, "If you are going home to-night, Helen, +will you let me walk up with you? I have business in that part of the +town; but I must go now. Perhaps that will hurry you too much?" he added, +with a tone which was almost imploring.</p> + +<p>I was only too glad to go. Our leave-taking was very short. A shade of +indefinable trouble clouded every face but Edward's and Annie's.</p> + +<p>George did not speak until we had left the house. Then he stopped short, +took both my hands in his, with a grasp that both hurt and frightened me, +and exclaimed,--</p> + +<p>"How dared you keep this from me! How dared you!"</p> + +<p>"O George," I said, "there was nothing to tell."</p> + +<p>"Nothing to tell!" and his voice grew hoarse and loud. "Nothing to tell! +Do you mean to say that you don't know, have not known that Annie loves +that boy, that puppy?"</p> + +<p>I trembled from head to foot. I could not speak. He went on:--</p> + +<p>"And I trusted you so; O Helen, I can never forgive you."</p> + +<p>I murmured, miserably, for I felt myself in that moment really guilty,--</p> + +<p>"What makes you think she loves him?"</p> + +<p>"You cannot deceive me, Helen," he replied. "Do not torture me and +yourself by trying. Tell me now, how long this 'Edward' has been sitting +by her lounge. Tell me all."</p> + +<p>Then I told him all. It was not much. He had seen more that evening, and +so had I, than had ever existed before. His presence had been the one +element which had suddenly defined that which before had been hardly +recognized.</p> + +<p>He was very quiet after the first moment of bitterness, and asked me to +forgive his impatient words. When he left me he said,--</p> + +<p>"I cannot see clearly what I ought to do. Annie's happiness is my only +aim. If this boy can create it, and I cannot--but he cannot: she was as +utterly mine as it is possible for a woman to be. You none of you knew how +utterly! Oh, my God, what shall I do!" and he walked away feebly and +slowly like an old man of seventy.</p> + +<p>The next day Aunt Ann sent for me to come to her. I found her in great +distress. George had returned to the house after leaving me, and had had +almost a stormy interview with my uncle. He insisted upon asking Annie at +once to be his wife; making no reference to the past, but appearing at +once as her suitor. My uncle could not forbid it, for he recognized +George's right, and he sympathized in his suffering. But his terror was +insupportable at the thought of having Annie agitated, and of the possible +results which might follow. He implored George to wait at least a few +weeks.</p> + +<p>"What! and see that young lover at my wife's feet every night!" said +George, fiercely. "No! I will risk all, lose all, if need be. I have been +held back long enough," and he had gone directly from my uncle's room to +Annie herself.</p> + +<p>In a short time Annie had come to her mother in a perfect passion of +weeping, and told her that Cousin George had asked her to be his wife; and +that she had never dreamed of such a thing; and she thought he was very +unkind to be so angry with her; how could she have supposed he cared for +her in that way, when he had been like her elder brother all his life.</p> + +<p>"Why, he seems almost as old as papa," said poor Annie, sobbing and +crying, "and he ought to have known that I should not kiss him and put my +arms around him if--if"--she could not explain; but she knew!</p> + +<p>Annie had gone to her own room, ill. My aunt and I sat together in the +library silently crying; we were wretched. "Oh, if George would only have +waited," said Aunt Ann.</p> + +<p>"I think it would have made no difference, aunty," said I.</p> + +<p>"No, I am afraid not," replied she, and each knew that the other was +thinking of Edward Neal.</p> + +<p>George Ware left town the next day. He sent me a short note. He could not +see any one, he said, and begged me to give a farewell kiss for him to +"the sweet mother of my Annie. For mine she is, and will be in heaven, +though she will be the wife of Edward Neal on earth."</p> + +<p>When I next saw our Annie she was Edward Neal's promised bride. A severe +fit of illness, the result of all these excitements, confined me to my +room for three weeks after George's departure; and I knew only from Aunt +Ann's lips the events which had followed upon it.</p> + +<p>George Ware's presence on that first evening had brought revelation to +Edward Neal as well as to all the other members of that circle. That very +night he had told his parents that Annie would be his wife.</p> + +<p>The next night, while poor George was swiftly borne away, Edward was +sitting in my uncle's library, listening with a blanched cheek to the +story of Annie's old engagement. My uncle's sense of honor would not let +him withhold anything from the man seeking her for his wife. The pain soon +passed by, when he was told that she had that very day refused her cousin, +and betrayed almost resentment at his offer. Edward Neal had not a +sufficiently subtle nature, nor acquaintance enough with psychological +phenomena to be disturbed by any fears for the future. He dismissed it all +as an inexplicable result of the disease, but a fixed fact, and a great +and blessed fortune for him. My uncle, however, was less easily assured. +He insisted upon delay, and upon consulting the same physicians who had +studied Annie's case before. They all agreed that she was now a perfectly +healthy and strong woman, and that to persist in any farther recognition +of the old bond, after she had so intelligently and emphatically +repudiated all thought of such a relation to her cousin, was absurd. Dr. +Fearing alone was in doubt, He said little; but he shook his head and +clasped his hands tight, and implored that at least the marriage should be +deferred for a year.</p> + +<p>Annie herself, however, refused to consent to this: of course no +satisfactory reason could be alleged for any such delay; and she said as +frankly as a little child, "Edward and I have loved each other almost +from the very first; there is nothing for either of us to do in life but +to make each other happy; and we shall not leave papa and mamma: so why +should we wait?"</p> + +<p>They were not married, however, until spring. The whole town stood by in +speechless joy and delight when those two beautiful young beings came out +from the village church man and wife. It was a scene never to be +forgotten. The peculiar atmosphere of almost playful joyousness which they +created whenever they appeared together was something which could not be +described, but which diffused itself like sunlight.</p> + +<p>We all tried resolutely to dismiss memory and misgiving from our hearts. +They seemed disloyalty and sin. George Ware was in India. George Ware's +mother was dead. The cottage among the pines was sold to strangers, and +the glistening brown paths under the trees were neglected and unused.</p> + +<p>Edward and Annie led the same gay child-like lives after their marriage +that they had led before: they looked even younger and gayer and sunnier. +When they dashed cantering through the river meadows, she with rosy cheeks +and pale brown curls flying in the wind, and he with close crisp black +hair, and the rich, dark, glowing skin of a Spaniard, the farming men +turned and rested on their tools, and gazed till they were out of sight. +Sometimes I asked myself wonderingly, "Are they ever still, and tender, +and silent?" "Is this perpetual overflow the whole of love?" But it seemed +treason to doubt in the presence of such merry gladness as shone in +Annie's face, and in her husband's too. It was simply the incarnate +triumph and joy of young life.</p> + +<p>The summer went by; the chrysanthemums bloomed out white and full in my +garden; the frosts came, and then the winter, and then Annie told me one +day that before winter came again she would be a mother. She was a little +sobered as she saw the intense look on my face.</p> + +<p>"Why, darling, aren't you glad? I thought you would be almost as glad as I +am myself?" Annie sometimes misunderstood me now.</p> + +<p>"Glad! O Annie," was all I could say.</p> + +<p>From that day I had but one thought, Annie's baby. Together we wrought all +dainty marvels for its ward-robe; together we planned all possible events +in its life: from the outset I felt as much motherhood to the precious +little unseen one as Annie did. She used to say to me, often,--</p> + +<p>"Darling, it will be half my baby, and half yours."</p> + +<p>Annie was absolutely and gloriously well through the whole of those +mysterious first months of maternity which are to so many women exhausting +and painful. Every nerve of her body seemed strung and attuned to normal +and perfect harmony. She was more beautiful than ever, stronger than ever, +and so glad that she smiled perpetually without knowing it. For the first +time since the old days, dear Dr. Fearing's face lost the anxious look +with which his eyes always rested upon her. He was more at ease about her +now.</p> + +<p>Before light one Sunday morning in December, a messenger rang furiously +at our bell. We had been looking for such tidings and were not alarmed. It +was a fearful storm; wind and sleet and rain and darkness had attended the +coming of Annie's little "Sunday child" into its human life.</p> + +<p>"A boy--and Miss Annie's all right," old Cæsar said, with a voice almost +as hoarse as the storm outside; and he was gone before we could ask a +question farther.</p> + +<p>In less than an hour I stood on the threshold of Annie's room. But I did +not see her until noon. Then, as I crept softly into the dimly-lighted +chamber, the whole scene so recalled her illness of two years before that +my heart stood still with sudden horror, in spite of all my joy. Now, as +then, I knelt silently at her bedside, and saw the sweet face lying white +and still on the pillow.</p> + +<p>She turned, and seeing me, smiled faintly, but did not speak.</p> + +<p>At her first glance, a speechless terror seized me. This was my Annie! The +woman who for two years had been smiling with my Annie's face had not been +she! The room grew dark. I do not know what supernatural power came to my +aid that I did not faint and fall.</p> + +<p>Annie drew back the bed-clothes with a slow, feeble motion of her right +hand, and pointed to the tiny little head nestled in her bosom. She smiled +again, looked at me gently and steadily for a second, and then shut her +eyes. Presently I saw that she was asleep; I stole into the next room and +sat down with my face buried in my hands.</p> + +<p>In a moment a light step aroused me. Aunt Ann stood before me, her pale +face all aglow with delight.</p> + +<p>"O Helen my darling! She is so well. Thank God! thank God!" and she threw +her arms around me and burst into tears.</p> + +<p>I felt like one turned to stone. Was I mad, or were they?</p> + +<p>What had I seen in that one steady look of Annie's eyes? Was she really +well? I felt as if she had already died!</p> + +<p>Agonizingly I waited to see Dr. Fearing's face. He came in before tea, saw +Annie for a few minutes, and came down-stairs rubbing his hands and +singing in a low tone.</p> + +<p>"I never saw anything like that child's beautiful elasticity in my life," +he said. "We shall have her dancing down-stairs in a month."</p> + +<p>The cloud was utterly lifted from all hearts except mine. My aunt and +uncle looked at each other with swimming eyes. Edward tried to laugh and +look gay, but broke down utterly, and took refuge in the library, where I +found him lying on the floor, with his face buried in Annie's lounge.</p> + +<p>I went home stupefied, bewildered. I could not sleep. A terror-stricken +instinct told me that all was not right. But how should I know more than +physician, mother, husband?</p> + +<p>For ten days I saw my Annie every day for an hour. Her sweet, strange, +gentle, steady look into my eyes when we first met always paralyzed me +with fear, and yet I could not have told why. There was a fathomless +serenity in her face which seemed to me super-human. She said very +little. The doctor had forbidden her to talk. She slept the greater part +of the time, but never allowed the baby to be moved from her arms while +she was awake.</p> + +<p>There was a divine ecstasy in her expression as she looked down into the +little face; it never seemed like human motherhood.</p> + +<p>One day Edward came to me and said,--</p> + +<p>"Do you think Annie is so well as they say? I suppose they must know; but +she looks to me as if she had died already, and it were only her glorified +angel-body that lies in that bed?"</p> + +<p>I could not speak to him. I knew then that he had seen the same thing that +I had seen: if his strong, rather obtuse material nature had recognized +it, what could so blind her mother and father and the doctor? I burst into +tears and left him.</p> + +<p>At the end of a week I saw a cloud on Dr. Fearing's face. As he left +Annie's room one morning, he stopped me and said abruptly,--</p> + +<p>"What does Annie talk about?"</p> + +<p>"She hardly speaks at all," I said.</p> + +<p>"Ah," he said. "Well, I have ordered her not to talk. But does she ask any +questions?" he continued.</p> + +<p>"No," I said; "not of me. She has not asked one."</p> + +<p>I saw then that the same vague fear which was filling my heart was taking +shape in his.</p> + +<p>From that moment, he watched her hourly, with an anxiety which soon +betrayed itself to my aunt.</p> + +<p>"William, why does not Annie get stronger?" she said suddenly to him one +day.</p> + +<p>"I do not know why," he answered, with a solemn sadness and emphasis in +his tone which was, as I think, he intended it to be, a partial revelation +to her, and a warning. Aunt Ann staggered to a chair and looked at him +without a word. He answered her look by one equally agonized and silent, +and left the room.</p> + +<p>The baby was now two weeks old. Annie was no stronger than on the day of +his birth. She lay day and night in a tranquil state, smiling with +inexpressible sweetness when she was spoken to, rarely speaking of her own +accord, doing with gentle docility all she was told to do, but looking +more and more like a transfigured saint. All the arch, joyous, playful +look was gone; there was no added age in the look which had taken its +place; neither any sorrow; but something ineffably solemn, rapt, removed +from earth. Sometimes, when Edward came to her bedside, a great wave of +pitying tenderness would sweep over her face, giving it such a heavenly +look that he would fall on his knees.</p> + +<p>"O Helen," he said once, after such a moment as this, "I shall go mad if +Annie does not get well. I do not dare to kiss even her hand. I feel as if +she never had been mine."</p> + +<p>At last the day and the hour and the moment came which I had known would +come. Annie spoke to me in a very gentle voice, and said,--</p> + +<p>"Helen, darling, you know I am going to die?"</p> + +<p>"Yes dear, I think so," I said, in as quiet a voice as hers.</p> + +<p>"You know it is better that I should, darling?" she said with a trembling +voice.</p> + +<p>"Yes, dear, I know it," I replied.</p> + +<p>She drew a long sigh of relief. "I am so glad, darling; I thought you knew +it, but I could not be sure. I think no one else understands. I hope dear +mamma will never suspect. You will not let her, if you can help it, the +dear doctor will not tell her; he knows, though. Darling, I want you to +have my baby. I think Edward will be willing. He is so young, he will be +happy again before long; he will not miss him. You know we have always +said it was partly your baby. Look at his eyes now, Helen," she said, +turning the little face towards me, and into a full light.</p> + +<p>I started. I had never till that moment seen in them a subtle resemblance +to the eyes of George Ware. We had said that the baby had his mother's +eyes--so he had; but there had always been a likeness between Annie's eyes +and George's though hers were light-blue, and his of a blue so dark that +it was often believed to be black. All the Wares had a very peculiar +luminousness of the eye; it was so marked a family trait that it had +passed into almost proverbial mention, in connection with the +distinguished beauty of the family. "The Ware eye" was always +recognizable, no matter what color it had taken from the admixture of +other blood.</p> + +<p>At that moment I saw, and I knew that Annie had seen, that the baby's eyes +were not so much like her own as like the deeper, sadder, darker eyes of +her cousin--brave, hopeless, dear George, who was toiling under the sun of +India, making a fortune for he knew not whom.</p> + +<p>We neither of us spoke; presently the little unconscious eyes closed in +sweet sleep, and Annie went on, holding him close to her heart.</p> + +<p>"You see, dear, poor mamma will not be able to bear seeing him after I +die. Common mothers would love him for my sake. But mamma is not like +other women. She will come very soon where I am, poor mamma; and then you +will have to take papa home to your house, and papa will have comfort in +little Henry. But he must be your baby, Helen. I shall speak to Edward +about it soon."</p> + +<p>She was not strong enough to talk long. She shed no tears, however, and +looked as calm as if she were telling me of pleasant plans for a coming +earthly summer. I also was perfectly calm, and felt strangely free from +sorrow. Her absolute spirituality bore me up. It was as if I spoke with +her in heaven, thousands of centuries after all human perplexities had +passed away.</p> + +<p>After this day she grew rapidly weaker. She had no pain. There was not a +single physical symptom in her case which the science of medicine could +name or meet. There was literally nothing to be done for her. Neither +tonic nor stimulant produced the least effect. She was noiselessly sinking +out of life, as very old people sometimes die, without a single jar, or +shock, or struggle. Her beautiful serenity and entire freedom from +suffering blinded Aunt Ann's eyes to the fact that she was dying. This was +a great mercy, and we were all careful not by a word or look to rouse her +to the truth. To all her mother's inquiries Annie invariably replied, +"Better, dear mamma, better, only very weak," and Aunt Ann believed, +until the very last, that the spring would make her well again.</p> + +<p>Edward Neal's face during these weeks was like the face of a man lost in a +trackless desert, seeking vainly for some sign of road to save his life. +Sickness and death were as foreign to the young, vital, irrepressible +currents of his life, as if he had been a bird or an antelope. But it was +not now with him the mere bewildered grief of a sensuous animal nature, +such as I should have anticipated that his grief would be. He dimly felt +the truth, and was constantly terrified by it. He came into Annie's +presence more and more reverently each day. He gazed speechlessly into her +eyes, which rested on him always with angelic compassion and tenderness, +but with no more look of human wifely thought than if he and she were +kneeling side by side before God's white throne. Sometimes he dared not +touch even so much as the hand on which his own wedding-ring rested. +Sometimes he would kneel by the bedside and bury his face and weep like a +little child. Then he would throw himself on his horse and gallop away and +not come home until twilight, when he was always found on Annie's lounge +in the library. One night when I went to him there he said, in a tone so +solemn that the voice did not sound like his,--</p> + +<p>"Helen, there is something I do not understand about Annie. Do people +always seem so when they are going to die? I do not dare to ask her if she +loves me. I feel just as much awe of her as if she had been in heaven. It +seems sometimes as if I must be going mad, for I do not feel in the least +as if she had ever been my wife."</p> + +<p>"She never has, poor boy," I thought, but I only stroked his hair and +said nothing; wondering in my heart at the certainty with which in all +natures love knows how to define, conquer, reclaim his own.</p> + +<p>The day before Annie died she asked for her jewel-case, and spent several +hours in looking over its contents and telling me to whom they should be +given. I observed that she seemed to be searching uneasily for something +she could not find.</p> + +<p>"What is it, dear?" I said. She hesitated for a secondhand then replied,--</p> + +<p>"Only a little ring I had when I was a girl."</p> + +<p>"When you were a girl, my darling!" I exclaimed. She smiled gently and +said,--</p> + +<p>"I feel like an old woman now. Oh, here it is," she added, and held it out +to me to open for her the tiny padlock-shaped locket which hung from it. +It had become so tightly fastened together that it was with great +difficulty I could open it. When I did so, I saw lying in the hollow a +little ring of black hair, and I remembered that Annie had worn the ring +when she was twelve years old.</p> + +<p>She asked me to cut a few of the silky hairs from the baby's head, and +then one little curl from her own, and laying them with the other, she +shut the locket and asked for a piece of paper and pencil. She wrote one +word with great difficulty, folded the ring in the paper, wrote another +word on the outside, and laid it in a corner of the jewel-case. Then she +sank back on the pillows, and slipping her left hand under her cheek said +she was very tired, and almost instantly fell into a gentle sleep. She did +not wake until twilight. I was to sleep on the lounge in her room that +night, and when she woke I was preparing it.</p> + +<p>"Darling," she said, "could you sleep as well in my big chair, which can +be tipped back?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly, sweet," I said; "but why?"</p> + +<p>"Because that can be drawn up so much nearer me; it will be like sleeping +together."</p> + +<p>At nine o'clock the nurse brought the baby in and laid him in Annie's +bosom, sound asleep. Annie would not let him lie anywhere else, and was so +grieved at any remonstrance, that the doctor said she must be indulged in +the desire. When she was awake and was not speaking to us, her eyes never +left the baby's face.</p> + +<p>She turned over, with her face to the chair in which I lay, and reached +out her left hand towards me. I took it in mine, and so, with our hands +clasped above the little sleeping baby, we said "good-night" to each +other.</p> + +<p>"I feel much better to-night than I have for some days, dear Helen," she +said; "I should not wonder if we all three slept until morning."</p> + +<p>Very soon I saw that she was asleep. I watched her face for a long time; +it was perfectly colorless and very thin, and yet there was not a look of +illness on it. The ineffable serenity, the holy peace, made it look like +the face of one who had been transfigured, translated; who had not known +and who never could know any death. I cannot account for the sweet calm +which I felt through all these weeks. I shed no tears; I did not seem even +to sorrow. I accepted all, as Annie herself accepted it, without wonder, +without murmur. During the long hours of this last night I lived over +every hour of her precious, beautiful life, as I had known and shared it, +until the whole seemed to me one fragrant and perfect flower, ready to be +gathered and worn in the bosom of angels. At last I fell asleep.</p> + +<p>I was wakened by a low murmur from the baby, who stirred uneasily. Annie's +hand was still locked in mine; as I sought to disengage it cautiously, I +felt, with a sudden horror, that the fingers were lifeless. I sprang to my +feet and bent over her; she did not breathe. Out of that sweet sleep her +body had passed into another which would know no waking, and her soul had +awakened free. Slowly I withdrew the little sleeping baby from her arms +and carried it to the nurse. Then I went to Dr. Fearing's room; he had +slept in the house for a week; I found him dressed, but asleep on a +lounge. He had lain in this way, he told me, for four nights, expecting +that each would be the last. When I touched him on the shoulder he opened +his eyes, without surprise or alarm, and said,--</p> + +<p>"Did she wake?"</p> + +<p>"No," I replied, and that was all.</p> + +<p>The day was just breaking: as the dark gray and red tints cleared and +rolled away, and left a pale yellow sky, the morning star, which I could +see from Annie's bedside, faded and melted in the pure ether. Even while I +was looking at it it vanished, and I thought that, like it, Annie's bright +soul, disappearing from my sight, had blended in Eternal Day.</p> + +<hr width="80%" /> + +<p>This was four years ago. My Aunt Ann died, as Annie had said she would, +in a very few months afterward. My uncle came, a broken and trembling man, +to live with us, and Edward Neal gladly gave his little son into my hands, +as Annie had desired. He went abroad immediately, finding it utterly +impossible to bear the sight of the scenes of his lost happiness. He came +back in two years, bringing a bright young wife with him, a sunny-haired +English girl, who, he said, was so marvelously like Annie. She is like the +Annie whom he knew!</p> + +<p>Every day their baby boy is brought to our house to see his brother; but I +think two children of one name never before looked so unlike.</p> + +<p>My little Henry is the centre of his grandfather's life and of mine. He is +a pensive child, and has never been strong; but his beauty and sweetness +are such that we often tremble when we look in his face and remember +Annie.</p> + +<p>George Ware is still in India. Every ship brings brave sweet letters, and +gifts for the baby. I sent him the little paper which I found in the +corner of Annie's jewel-case, bearing his name. I knew that it was for him +when I saw her feeble hands laying the baby's hair and hers together in +the locket.</p> + +<p>In November Annie's grave is snowy with white chrysanthemums. She loved +them better than any other flowers, and I have made the little hillock +almost into a thicket of them.</p> + +<p>In George Ware's last letter he wrote:--</p> + +<p>"When the baby is ten years old I shall come home. He will not need me +till then; till then, he is better in your hands alone; after that I can +help you."</p> +</div> + + +<div class="chapter" id="ch04"> +<h2>The One-Legged Dancers.</h2> + + + +<p>Very early one morning in March, ten years ago, I was sitting alone on one +of the crumbling ledges of the Coliseum: larks were singing above my head; +wall-flowers were waving at my feet; a procession of chanting monks was +walking slowly around the great cross in the arena below. I was on the +highest tier, and their voices reached me only as an indistinct wail, like +the notes of a distant Aeolian harp; but the joyous sun and sky and songs, +were darkened and dulled by their presence. A strange sadness oppressed +me, and I sank into a deep reverie. I do not know how long I had been +sitting there, when I was suddenly roused by a cry of pain, or terror, and +the noise of falling stones. I sprang to my feet and, looking over, saw a +young and beautiful woman lying fearfully near the edge of one of the most +insecure of the projecting ledges on the tier below me--the very one from +which I had myself nearly fallen, only a few days before, in stretching +over after some asphodels which were beyond my reach.</p> + +<p>I ran down as fast as possible, but when I reached the spot she had +fainted, and was utterly unconscious. She was alone; I could see no other +human being in the Coliseum. The chanting monks had gone; even the +beggars had not yet come. I tried in vain to rouse her. She had fallen so +that the hot sun was beating full on her face. I dared not leave her +there, for her first unconscious movement might be such that she would +fall over the edge. But I saw that she must have shade and water, or die. +Every instant she grew whiter and her lips looked more rigid. I shouted +aloud, and only the echoes answered me, as if in mockery. A little lark +suddenly flew out from a tuft of yellow wall-flower close by, and burst +into a swift carol of delight as he soared away. At last, with great +efforts, I succeeded in dragging her, by her feet--for I dared not venture +out so far as the spot on which her head lay--to a safer place, and into +the partial shade of a low bush. As I did this, one of her delicate hands +was scratched and torn on the rough stones, and drops of blood came to the +surface. In the other hand were crushed a few spikes of asphodel, the very +flowers, no doubt, which had lured me so near the same dangerous brink. It +seemed impossible to go away and leave her, but it was cruel to delay. My +feet felt like lead as I ran along those dark galleries and down the stone +flights of giddy stairs. Just in the entrance stood one of those +pertinacious sellers of old coins and bits of marble. I threw down a piece +of silver on his little stand, seized a small tin basin in which he had +his choicest coins, emptied them on the ground, and saying, in my poor +Italian, "Lady--ill--water," I had filled the basin at the old stone +fountain near by, and was half way up the first flight of stairs again, +before he knew what had happened.</p> + +<p>When I reached the place where I had left the beautiful stranger she was +not there. Unutterable horror seized me. Had I, after all, left her too +near that crumbling edge? I groaned aloud and turned to run down. A feeble +voice stopped me--a whisper rather than a voice, for there was hardly +strength to speak,--</p> + +<p>"Who is there?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, thank God," I exclaimed, "you are not dead!" and I sprang to the next +of the cross corridors, from which the sound had come.</p> + +<p>She was there, sitting up, leaning against the wall. She looked almost +more terrified than relieved when she saw me. I bathed her face and hands +in the water, and told her how I had found her insensible, and had drawn +her away from the outer edge before I had gone for the water. She did not +speak for some moments, but looked at me earnestly and steadily, with +tears standing in her large blue eyes.</p> + +<p>Then she said, "I did not know that any one but myself ever came to the +Coliseum so early. I thought I should die here alone; and Robert was not +willing I should come."</p> + +<p>"I owe you my life," she added, bursting into hysterical crying.</p> + +<p>Then in a few moments she half laughed, as if at some droll thought, and +said, "But how could you drag me? You are not nearly so big as I am. The +angels must have helped you;" and holding up the poor crushed asphodels, +she went on: "As soon as I came to myself, I saw the asphodels in my hand, +and I said, 'Asphodel for burial;' and tried to throw them away, so that +if Robert came he would not find me dead with them in my hand, for only +yesterday he said to me, 'Please never pick an asphodel--I can't bear to +see you touch one.'"</p> + +<p>Slowly I soothed her and she recovered her color and strength. The owner +of the basin, followed by a half-dozen chattering vetturini, had climbed +up to us, but we had peremptorily sent them all away. It was evident that +she was not seriously hurt. The terror, rather than the fall, had caused +her fainting. It was probably a sudden dizziness which had come as she +drew back and turned after picking the flowers. Had she fallen in the act +of picking them she must have been dashed to the ground below. At the end +of an hour she was so nearly well, that she walked slowly down the long +stairs, leaning on my arm, and taking frequent rests by the way. I was +about to beckon to one of the vetturini, when she said, "Oh no! my own +carriage is near here, up by the gate of the Palace of the Cæsars. I +rambled on, without thinking at first of coming to the Coliseum: it will +do me good to walk back; every moment of the air makes me feel better."</p> + +<p>So we went slowly on, up the solemn hill, arm in arm like friends, sitting +down now and then on old fallen columns to rest, and looking back at the +silent, majestic ruins, which were brightened almost into a look of life +under the vivid sun. My companion spoke little; the reaction after her +fearful shock had set in; but every few moments her beautiful eyes would +fill with tears as she looked in my face and pressed my arm. I left her at +her apartment on the Via Felice; my own was a mile farther on, in the +Piazza del Popolo, and I would not let her drive so far.</p> + +<p>"It grieves me not to go with you to your door," she said, as she bade me +good-bye, "but I shall come and see you to-morrow and bring my husband."</p> + +<p>"No, you must not," I replied. "To-morrow you will be wise enough--or, if +you are not wise enough, you will be kind enough to me because I ask +it--to lie in bed all day, and I shall come very early in the morning to +see how you are."</p> + +<p>She turned suddenly on the carriage-steps, and, leaning both her hands on +my knees, exclaimed, in a voice full of emotion.</p> + +<p>"Will you let me kiss you? Not even my mother gave me what you have given. +For you have given me back life, when it was too infinitely precious to +lose. Surely you will not think me presuming?" and her cheek flushed a +little.</p> + +<p>"Presuming! my dear child, I loved you the first moment I saw you lying +there on the stones; and I am almost old enough to be your mother, too," I +replied, and I kissed her sweet face warmly.</p> + +<p>This was the beginning of my acquaintance and friendship with Dora +Maynard.</p> + +<p>At eleven o'clock the next morning I went to see her. I was shown into a +room, whose whole air was so unlike that of a Roman apartment, that I +could scarcely believe I had not been transported to English or American +soil. In spite of its elegance, the room was as home-like and cozy as if +it nestled in the Berkshire hills or stood on Worcestershire meadows. The +windows were heavily curtained, and the furniture covered with gay chintz +of a white ground, with moss-rose buds thickly scattered over it between +broad stripes of rose-pink. The same chintz was fluted all around the +cornice of the room, making the walls look less high and stately; the +doorways, also, were curtained with it. Great wreaths and nodding masses +of pampas grass were above the doors; a white heron and a rose-colored +spoonbill stood together on a large bracket in one corner, and a huge gray +owl was perched on what looked like a simple old apple-tree bough, over an +inlaid writing-table which stood at an odd slant near one of the windows. +Books were everywhere--in low swinging shelves, suspended by large green +cords with heavy tassels; on low bracket shelves, in unexpected places, +with deep green fringes or flutings of the chintz; in piles on Moorish +stools or old Venice chests. Every corner looked as if somebody made it a +special haunt and had just gone out. On a round mosaic table stood an +exqusite black-and-gilt Etruscan patera filled with white anemones; on +another table near by stood a silver one filled with the same flowers, +pink and yellow. Each was circled round the edge with fringing masses of +maiden-hair fern. Every lounge and chair had a low, broad foot-stool +before it, ruffled with the chintz; and in one corner of the room were a +square pink and white and green Moorish rug, with ten or a dozen +chintz-covered pillows, piled up in a sort of chair-shaped bed upon it, +and a fantastic ebony box standing near, the lid thrown back, and +battledoors and shuttlecocks, and many other gay-colored games, tossed in +confusion. The walls were literally full of exquisite pictures; no very +large or rare ones, all good for every-day living; some fine old +etchings, exquisite water-colors, a swarthy Campagna herds-boy with a +peacock feather and a scarlet ribbon in his black hat, and for a +companion-picture, the herds-boy of the mountains, fair, rosy, standing +out on a opaline snow-peak, with a glistening Edelweiss in his hand; +opposite these a large picture of Haag's, a camel in the desert, the Arab +wife and baby in a fluttering mass of basket and fringe and shawl and +scarf, on his back; the Arab father walking a few steps in advance, +playing on musical pipes, his tasseled robe blowing back in the wind; on +one side of this a Venice front, and on another a crag of Norway pines; +here and there, small leaves of photographs from original drawings by the +old masters, Leonardo, Raphael, Titian, and Luini; and everywhere, in all +possible and impossible places, flowers and vines. I never saw walls so +decorated. Yellow wall-flowers waved above the picture of the Norway +pines; great scarlet thistles branched out each side of the Venetian +palace; cool maiden-hair ferns seemed to be growing all around the glowing +crimson and yellow picture of the Arabs in the Desert. Afterward I learned +the secret of this beautiful effect; large, flat, wide-mouthed bottles, +filled with water, were hung on the backs of the picture frames, and in +these the vines and flowers were growing; only a worshipper of flowers +would have devised this simple method of at once enshrining them, and +adorning the pictures.</p> + +<p>In one of the windows stood a superbly-carved gilt table, oblong, and with +curiously-twisted legs which bent inward and met a small central shelf +half-way between the top and the floor, then spread out again into four +strange claw-like vases, which bore each two golden lilies standing +upright. On this stood the most singular piece of wood-carving I ever saw. +It was of very light wood, almost yellow in tint; it looked like rough +vine trellises with vines clambering over them; its base was surrounded by +a thick bed of purple anemones; the smaller shelf below was also filled +with purple anemones, and each of the golden lilies held all the purple +anemones it could--not a shade of any other color but the purple and +gold--and rising above them the odd vine trellises in the pale yellow +wood. As I stood looking at this in mute wonder and delight, but sorely +perplexed to make out the design of the carving, I heard a step behind me. +I turned and saw, not my new friend, as I had expected, but her husband. I +thought, in that first instant, I had never seen a manlier face and form, +and I think so to-day. Robert Maynard was not tall; he was not handsome; +but he had a lithe figure, square-shouldered, straight, strong, vitalized +to the last fibre with the swift currents of absolutely healthy blood, and +the still swifter currents of a passionate and pure manhood. His eyes were +blue, his hair and full beard of the bright-brown yellow which we call, +rightly or wrongly, Saxon. He came very quickly toward me with both hands +outstretched and began to speak. "My dear madam," he said, but his voice +broke, and with a sudden, uncontrollable impulse, he turned his back full +upon me for a second, and passed his right hand over his eyes. The next +instant he recovered himself and went on.</p> + +<p>"I do not believe you will wonder that I can't speak, and I do not believe +you will ever wonder that I do not thank you--I never shall," and he +raised both my hands to his lips.</p> + +<p>"Dora is in bed as you bade her to be," he continued. "She is well, but +very weak. She wants to see you immediately, and she has forbidden me to +come back to her room without you. I think, perhaps," he added +hesitatingly, "she is not quite calm enough to talk long. Forgive me for +saying it. I know you love her already."</p> + +<p>"Indeed I do," replied I, "as if I had known her all my life. I will not +stay long;" and I followed him through a small dining-room, also gay with +flowers and vines, to a little room which had one side almost wholly of +glass and opened on a <i>loggia</i> full of orange-trees and oleanders, +geraniums and roses. I will not describe Dora Maynard's bed-room. It was +the dainty room of a dainty woman, but spiritualized and individualized +and made wonderful, just as her sitting-room was, by a creative touch and +a magnetic presence such as few women possess. I believe that she could +not be for twenty-four hours in the barrenest and ugliest room possible, +without contriving to diffuse a certain enchantment through all its +emptiness.</p> + +<p>She looked far more beautiful this morning than she had looked the day +before. I never forgot the picture of her face as I saw it then, lying on +the white pillow and turned toward the door, with the eager expression +which her waiting for me had given it. Neither of us spoke for some +seconds, and when we did speak we took refuge in commonplaces. Our hearts +were too full--mine with a sudden and hardly explicable overflow of +affection toward this beautiful being whom I had saved from dying; hers +with a like affection for me, heightened a thousand fold by the intense +love of love and of living that filled her whole soul and made her +gratitude to me partake almost of the nature of adoration. I think it was +years before she could see me without recalling the whole scene so vividly +that tears would fill her eyes. Often she would suddenly seize both my +hands in hers, kiss them and say, "Oh! but for these dear, strong, brave +little hands, where should I be!" And whenever we parted for a length of +time she was overshadowed by presentiment. "I know it is superstitious and +silly," she would say, "but I cannot shake off the feeling that I am safer +in the same town with you. I believe if any harm were to threaten me you +would be near."</p> + +<p>But the story I am to tell now is not the story of Dora Maynard's life +after I knew her, nor of our friendship and love for each other, rare and +beautiful as they were. It is the story of her girlhood, and of the +strange wood-carving which stood on the gilded table in the bed of purple +anemones.</p> + +<p>One morning in April, as I climbed the long stone stairs which led to her +apartment, I met Anita, the flower-woman who carried flowers to her every +day. Anita looked troubled.</p> + +<p>"What is the matter, my Anita?" said I; "is the Signora ill?"</p> + +<p>"Ah no, thank the Blessed Virgin!" said Anita; "the dearest, most +beautiful of Signoras is well, but I am obliged to tell her to-day that +there are no more anemones. Biagio went yesterday to the farthest corner +of the Villa Doria, to a dark shady spot beyond the Dove-Cote, which the +strangers know not, hoping to find some; but the heavy rains had beaten +them all down--there is no longer one left. And the Signora had tears in +her eyes when I told her; and she did not care for all the other beautiful +flowers; she said none of them could go on the gold table; never yet has +the Signora put any flowers on the gold table except the purple anemones," +and real tears stood in old Anita's eyes.</p> + +<p>"Why, Anita," said I, "I am sure some other flowers would look very pretty +there. I do not believe the Signora will be unhappy about it."</p> + +<p>Anita shook her head and half smiled with a look of pitying compassion.</p> + +<p>"But, Signora, you do not know; that dearest and most beautiful of +Signoras has visions from the angels about her flowers. Holy Virgin! if +she would but come and hang flowers around the Bambino in our church! None +of the Holy Sisters can so weave them as she does; she makes Festa forever +in the house for the Signor; and I think, Signora," crossing herself and +looking sharply at me, "perhaps the gold table is the shrine of her +religion: does the Signora know?"</p> + +<p>I could not help laughing. "Oh no, Anita," I said; "we do not have shrines +in our religion."</p> + +<p>Anita's face clouded. "Iddio mio!" she said, "but the Virgin will keep the +dearest Signora Maynardi. Biagio and I have vowed to keep a candle always +burning for her in Ara Coeli! The dearest, most beautiful of Signoras;" +and Anita walked disconsolately on, down the stairs.</p> + +<p>I found Dora kneeling before the "gold table," arranging great masses of +maiden-hair fern around the wood carving and in the shelf below. As I saw +the rapt and ecstatic expression of her face, I understood why Anita had +believed the gold table to be a shrine.</p> + +<p>"They do not suit it like the anemones," said she, sadly; "and I can have +no more anemones this year."</p> + +<p>"So poor Anita told me just now on the stairs," replied I. "She was almost +crying, she was so sorry she could not get them for you. But I am sure, +dear, the ferns are beautiful on it. I think the pale green looks even +better than the purple with the gold and the pale yellow wood."</p> + +<p>"I like the purple best," said Dora; "besides, we always had purple at +home," and her eyes filled with tears. Then, turning suddenly to me, she +said, "Why have you never asked me what this is? I know you must have +wondered: it looks so strange--this poor little clumsy bit of American +pine, on my gilt table shrined with flowers!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I have wondered, I acknowledge, for I could not make out the +design," I replied; "but I thought it might have some story connected with +it, which you would tell me if you wished I should know. I did not think +it clumsy; I think it is fantastic, and has a certain sort of weird +life-likeness about it."</p> + +<p>"Do you really think it has any life-like look about it?" and Dora's face +flushed with pleasure. "I think so, but I supposed nobody else could see +anything in it. No one of my acquaintance has ever alluded to it," +continued she, half laughing, half crying, "but I see them trying to +scrutinize it slyly when they are not observed. As for poor old Anita, I +believe she thinks it is our Fetish. She walks round it on tiptoe with her +hands clasped on her apron."</p> + +<p>"But now," she continued, "I will show you the same design in something +else;" and she led the way through her own bedroom to Robert's, which was +beyond. On the threshold she paused, and kissing me, said: "If you can +stay with me to-day, I will tell you the whole story, dear; but I want you +to look at this chintz first." Then she walked to the window, and drawing +out one of the curtains to its full width, held it up for me to see. It +was a green and white chintz, evidently of cheap quality. At first I did +not distinguish any meaning in the pattern; presently I saw that the +figures were all of vines and vine-leaves, linked in a fantastic fashion +together, like those in the wood-carving on the gold table.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes," I said, "I see; it is exactly like the carving, only it looks +different, being on a flat surface."</p> + +<p>Dora did not speak; she was gazing absently at the chintz she held in her +hand. Her face looked as if her soul were miles and years away. Presently +I saw a tear roll down her cheek. I touched her hand. She started, and +smiling sweetly, said: "Oh! forgive me. Don't think I am crying for any +sorrow; it is for joy. I am so happy, and my life has been so wonderful. +Now would you really have patience to listen to a long story?" she said, +beseechingly; "a long story all about me--and--Robert? I have been +wanting to tell you ever since I knew you. I think you ought to know all +about us."</p> + +<p>For my answer, I sank into a large chair, drew her down into my lap, and +said: "Begin, you dearest child. Nothing could give me such pleasure. +Begin at the beginning."</p> + +<p>She slipped from my lap to a low footstool at my feet, and resting both +her arms on my knees in a graceful way she had, looked up into my face, +and began by a sentence which made me start.</p> + +<p>"I used to work in a factory." My start was so undisguised, so +uncontrollable, that Dora drew back and her cheeks turned red.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps I ought to have told you before."</p> + +<p>"Oh, my dear, beautiful, marvellous child!" I exclaimed; "you cannot so +misjudge me. I was startled only because you had always seemed to me so +much like one born to all possible luxury. I supposed you had been +nurtured on beauty."</p> + +<p>"So I have been," she replied, earnestly, smiling through tears; +"nevertheless, three years ago I was working in a factory in America."</p> + +<p>I did not interrupt her again; hour after hour passed by; not until +twilight was deepening into dusk did the story come to end. I shall try to +give it in Dora's own words--their simplicity adds so much to it; but I +cannot give the heightened effect with which they fell upon my ears as I +looked down into her sweet child-woman's face.</p> + +<p>"I do not remember much about mamma. It is strange, too, that I do not, +because I was thirteen when she died; but I always loved papa best, and +stayed all the time I could in his study. Mamma was very pretty; the +prettiest woman I ever saw; but I don't know how it was, all her +prettiness did not seem to make papa care about her. He was a +clergyman--an Episcopal clergyman--and his father and his father's father +had been too; so you see for three whole generations it had been all books +and study in the family; but mamma's father was a farmer, and mamma was +stronger than papa; she liked to live in the country and be out of doors, +which he hated. I think I know now just how it all was; but it used to +puzzle me till I grew up. When I was sixteen, my Aunt Abby, papa's sister, +told me that mamma was said to be the most beautiful girl in the whole +State, and that papa fell so in love with her when he was just out of +college, that he came very near dying because his father did not wish them +to be married. Poor papa! it was just so always with him; he had such a +poor feeble body that any trouble or worry made him ill. I can see now +that it was because he and all his family had been such scholars, and +lived in the house, and sat still all their lives; their bodies were not +good for anything: and I am thankful enough that my body is like mamma's; +but I don't know what good it would do me, either, if dear papa hadn't +taught me all his ways of seeing things and feeling things. Mamma never +seemed to care much about anything, except when Dick or Abby were sick, +and she always used to go to sleep in church while papa was saying the +most beautiful things; sometimes it used to make me almost hate her. I +hated everybody that didn't listen to him. But Aunt Abby said once that +very few people could understand him, and that was the reason we never +stayed long in one place. People got tired of hearing him preach. This +made me so angry I did not speak to Aunt Abby for two years, except when I +was obliged to. But I see now that she was right. As I read over papa's +sermons I see that they would seem very strange to common men and women. +He saw much more in every little thing than people generally do. I used to +tell him sometimes he 'saw double,' and he would sigh and say that the +world was blind, and did not see half; he never could take any minute by +itself; there was the past to cripple it and the future to shadow it. +Poor, poor papa! I really think I have learned in a very strange way to +understand his capacity for sadness. I understand it by my own capacity +for joy. I often smile to think how I used to accuse him of seeing double, +for it is the very thing which Robert says to me again and again when a +sight or a sound gives me such intense pleasure that I can hardly bear it. +And I see that while I have nearly the same sensitiveness to all +impressions from things or from people which he had, my body compels the +impressions to be joyous. This is what I owe mamma. If papa could have +been well and strong, he would have sung joy such as no poet has ever sung +since suns began to shine.</p> + +<p>"But most that he wrote was sad; and I am afraid most that he taught the +people was sad too, or, at any rate, not hopeful as it ought to be in this +beautiful, blessed world, which 'God so loved' and loves. So perhaps it +was better for people that papa never preached in any one parish more than +three or four years. Probably God took care to send next a man who would +make everybody take courage again. However, it was very hard for mamma, +and very hard for us; although for us there was excitement and fun in +getting into new houses and getting acquainted with new people; but the +worst thing was that we had very little money, and it used it up so to +move from place to place, and buy new things. I knew all about this before +I was ten years old as well as if I had been forty; and by the time I was +twelve, I was a perfect little miser of both clothes and money--I had such +a horror of the terrible days, which sometimes came, when we sorely wanted +both.</p> + +<p>"Early in the spring after I was thirteen--my birthday was in December--we +went to live in a little place called Maynard's Mills. It was a suburban +village near the largest manufacturing town in the State. The other two +homes which I could remember had been very small country villages, where +none of the people were rich, and only a few attended the Episcopal +church. In Maynard's Mills there were many rich people, and almost +everybody went to our church. The whole place was owned by Mr. Maynard, +Robert's father. He had gone out there to live near his mills, and the +place was so beautiful that family after family of the rich mill-owners +had moved out there. At first they used to go into town to church; but it +was a long drive, cold in winter and hot in summer, and so Mr. Maynard +built a beautiful chapel near his house and sent for papa to come and +preach in it. Mr. Maynard had been his classmate in college and loved him +very much, just because they were 'so different,' papa said, and I think +it must have been so, for Mr. Maynard is the merriest man I ever saw. He +laughs as soon as he sees you, whether there is anything to laugh at or +not, and he makes you feel just like laughing yourself, simply by asking +you how you do. I never saw papa so happy as he was the day Mr. Maynard's +letter came asking him to go there.</p> + +<p>"It was a very kind letter, and the salary, of which Mr. Maynard spoke +almost apologetically, saying that it would be increased in a few years as +the village grew, was more than twice as large as papa had ever received, +and there was a nice parsonage besides.</p> + +<p>"We moved in April. I always associate our moving with blue hepaticas, for +I carried a great basketful of them, which I had taken up roots and all, +in the woods, the morning we set out; and what should I find under papa's +study window but a great thicket of wild ferns and cornel bushes +growing--just the place for my hepaticas, and I set them out before I went +into the house. The house was very small, but it was so pretty that papa +and I were perfectly happy in it. Poor mamma did not like the closets and +the kitchen. The house we had left was a huge, old-fashioned house, with +four square rooms on a floor; one of these was the kitchen, and mamma +missed it very much. But she lived only a few days after we moved in. I +never knew of what disease she died. She was ill but a few hours and +suffered great pain. They said she had injured herself in some way in +lifting the furniture. It was all so sudden and so terrible, and we were +surrounded by such confusion and so many strange faces, that I do not +remember anything about it distinctly. I remember the funeral, and the +great masses of white and purple flowers all over the table on which the +coffin stood, and I remember how strangely papa's face looked.</p> + +<p>"And then Aunt Abby came to live with us, and we settled down into such a +new, different life, that it seemed to me as if it had been in some other +world that I had known mamma. My sister Abby was two years old, and my +darling brother Nat was ten, when mamma died. It is very hard to talk +about dear Nat, I love him so. He is so precious, and his sorrow is so +sacred, that I am hardly willing to let strangers pity him, ever so +tenderly. When he was a baby he sprang out of mamma's lap, one day, as she +was reaching up to take something from the mantel piece. He fell on the +andiron-head and injured his spine so that he could never walk. He is +twenty years old now; his head and chest and arms are about as large as +those of a boy of sixteen, but all the rest of his poor body is shrunken +and withered; he has never stood upright, and he cannot turn himself in +his chair or bed. But his head and face are beautiful. It is not only I +who think so. Artists have seen him sitting at the window, or being drawn +about in his little wagon, and have begged permission to paint his face, +for the face of a saint or of a hero, in their pictures. It is the face of +both saint and hero; and after all that must be always so, I think; for +how could a man be one without being the other? I know some very brave men +have been very bad men, but I do not call them heroes. Nat is the only +hero I ever knew; if I were a poet I would write a poem about him. It +should be called 'THE CROWNLESS KING.' Oh, how he <i>does</i> reign over +suffering, and loss, and humiliation, and what a sweet kingdom spreads out +around him wherever he is! He does everybody good, and everybody loves +him. Poor papa used to say sometimes, 'My son is a far better preacher +than I; see, I sit at his feet to learn;' and it was true. Even when he +was a little fellow Nat used to keep up papa's courage. Many a time, when +papa looked dark and sad, Nat would call to him, 'Dear papa, will you +carry me up and down a little while by the window? I want the sky.' Then, +while they were walking, Nat would say such sweet things about the beauty +of the sky, and the delight it gave him to see it, that the tears would +come into papa's eyes, and he would say, 'Who would think that we could +ever forget for a moment this sky which is above us?' and he would go away +to his study comforted.</p> + +<p>"As I said, when mamma died, Nat was ten and I was thirteen. From that +time I took all the care of him. Aunt Abby, was not strong, and she did +not love children. She was just, and she meant to be always kind to us; +but that sort of kindness is quite different from loving-kindness. Poor +Nat never could bear to have her do anything for him, and so it very soon +came about that I took all the care of him. It was not hard, for he was +never ill; he suffered constant pain but in spite of it he was always +cheerful, always said he felt well, and never had any of the small +ailments and diseases which healthy children are apt to have. 'I +shouldn't know what to do without the ache, Dot,' he said to me one day +when he was only twelve years old. 'I've got so used to it, I should miss +it as much as I should miss you said it helps me to be good. I don't think +I should dare have it go away.' A few years later he wrote some lovely +little verses called 'The Angel of Pain,' which I will show you. Our life +after mamma died was very happy and peaceful. It makes me grieve for her, +even now, to think how little she was missed. We had all loved her. She +was always pleasant and good, and took the best possible care of us and of +everything; but she was not one of those persons whose presence makes +itself necessary to people. It seems hardly right to say such a thing, but +I really think papa seemed more cheerful without her, after the first. I +think that while she lived he was always groping and reaching after +something in her which did not exist. The hourly sight of her reminded him +hourly of his ideal of what a wife might be, and he was forever hoping +that she might come a little nearer to it--enter a little more into his +world of thought and feeling. This is how it has looked to me since I have +been married, and can understand just how terrible it must be to have the +person whom you love best, disappoint you in any way.</p> + +<p>"Nat was in all my classes in school. Although he was three years younger +he was much cleverer than I, and had had nothing to do, poor dear, all his +life, but lie in his chair and read. I used to draw him to and from school +in a little wagon; the boys lifted it up and down the steps so carefully +it did not jar him; and papa had a special desk built for him, so high +that part of the wagon could roll under it, and the lid could rest just +wherever Nat needed it for writing or studying. When we went home, there +was always a sort of procession with us; a good many of the children had +to go in the same direction, but many went simply to walk by Nat's wagon +and talk with him. Whenever there was a picnic or a nutting frolic, we +always took him; the boys took turns in drawing him; nobody would hear a +word of his staying at home; he used to sit in his wagon and look on while +the rest played, and sometimes he would be left all alone for a while, but +his face was always the happiest one there. At school the boys used to +tell him everything, and leave things to his decision. Almost every day, +somebody would call out, at recess or intermission, 'Well, I'll leave it +to Nat'--or 'I'll tell Nat.' One day somebody shouted, 'Take it before the +king--let's call him King Nat.' But it almost made Nat cry. He exclaimed, +'Oh, boys, please don't ever say that again;' and they never did. He had a +great deal more influence over them than any teacher. He could make them +do anything. Sometimes the teachers themselves used to come to him +privately and tell him of things they did not like, which the boys were +getting into the way of doing, and ask him to try to stop them. If Nat had +not been a saint, as I said before, all this would have spoiled him; but +he never thought of its being any special power in him. He used to think +it was only because the boys were so kind-hearted that they could not bear +to refuse any request which a poor cripple made.</p> + +<p>"When I think how happy those days were and how fast the darkest days of +our lives were drawing near, it makes me shrink from happiness almost as +much as from grief. It seems only grief's forerunner. On the evening of my +sixteenth birthday, we were all having a very merry time in papa's study, +popping corn over the open fire. We had wheeled Nat near the fire, and +tied the corn-popper on a broom-handle, so that he could shake the popper +himself; and I never saw him laugh so heartily at anything. Papa laughed +too, quite loud, which was a thing that did not happen many times a year. +It was the last time we heard the full sound of dear papa's voice. Late +that night he was called out to see a poor man, one of the factory +operatives, who was dying. It was a terrible snow-storm, and papa had been +so heated over the fire and in playing with us that he took a severe cold. +The next morning he could not speak aloud. The doctor said it was an acute +bronchitis and would pass off; but it did not, and in a very few weeks it +was clear that he was dying of consumption. Probably the cold only +developed a disease which had been long there.</p> + +<p>"I can't tell you about the last months of papa's life. I think I shall +never be able to speak of them. We saw much worse days afterward, but none +that seemed to me so hard to bear; even when I thought Nat and I would +have to go to the almshouse it was not so hard. The love which most +children divide between father and mother I concentrated on my father. I +loved him with an adoration akin to that which a woman feels for her +husband, and with the utmost of filial love added. Nat loved him almost as +much. The most touching thing I ever saw was to see Nat from his wagon, +or wheeled chair, reaching out to take care of papa in the bed. Nobody +else could give him his medicine so well; nobody could prepare his meals +for him, after he was too weak to use a knife and fork, so well as Nat. +How he could do all this with only one hand--for he could not bend himself +in his chair enough to use the hand farthest from the bed--nobody could +understand; but he did, and the very last mouthful of wine papa swallowed +he took, the morning he died, from poor Nat's brave little hand, which did +not shake nor falter, though the tears were rolling down his cheeks.</p> + +<p>"Papa lived nearly a year; but the last nine months he was in bed, and he +never spoke a loud word after that birthday night when we had been so +happy in the study. He died in November, on a dreary stormy day. I never +shall forget it. He had seemed easier that morning, and insisted on our +all going out to breakfast together and leaving him alone, the doors being +open between the study and the dining-room. We had hardly seated ourselves +at the table when his bell rang. Aunt Abby reached him first. It could not +have been a minute, but he did not know her. For the first and only time +in my life I forgot Nat, and was out of the room when I heard him sob. +Dear Nat! not even then would he think of himself. I turned back. 'Oh, +don't stop to take me, Dot,' he said. 'Run!' But I could not; and when I +reached the door, pushing his chair before me, all was over. However, the +doctor said that, even if we had been there at the first, papa could not +have bid us good-by; that the death was from instantaneous suffocation, +and that he probably had no consciousness of it himself. Papa's life had +been insured for five thousand dollars and he had saved, during the three +years we had lived at Maynard's Mills, about one thousand more. This was +all the money we had in the world.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Maynard had been very kind throughout papa's illness. He had +persuaded the church to continue the salary; every day he had sent +flowers, and grapes, and wine, and game, and everything he could think of +that papa could eat; and, what was kindest of all, he had come almost +every day to talk with him and cheer him up. But he did not mean to let +his kindness stop here. The day after the funeral he came to see us, to +propose to adopt me. I forgot to say that Aunt Abby was to be married soon +and would take little Abby with her; so they were provided for, and the +only question was about Nat and me.</p> + +<p>"Fortunately, dear Nat was in the dining-room and did not see Mr. Maynard +when he came. I have told you what a merry man Mr. Maynard is, and how +kind he is, but he is also a very obstinate and high-tempered man. He had +never loved Nat; I do not know why; I think he was the only human being +who ever failed to love him. He pitied him, of course; but he was so +repelled by his deformity that he could not love him. As soon as Mr. +Maynard said, 'Now, my dear child, you must come to my house and make it +your home always,' I saw that he intended to separate me from Nat.</p> + +<p>"I replied, 'I cannot leave Nat, Mr. Maynard. I thank you very much; you +are very good; but it would break my heart to leave him, and I am sure +papa would never forgive me if I should do it.'</p> + +<p>"He made a gesture of impatience. He had foreseen this, and come prepared +for it; but he saw that I promised to prove even more impracticable than +he had feared.</p> + +<p>"'You have sacrificed your whole life already to that miserable +unfortunate boy,' he said, 'and I always told your father he ought not to +permit it.'</p> + +<p>"At this I grew angry, and I replied:--</p> + +<p>"'Mr. Maynard, Nat does more for us all, every hour of his life, than we +ever could do for him: dear papa used to say so too.'</p> + +<p>"No doubt papa had said this very thing to Mr. Maynard often, for tears +came into his eyes and he went on:--</p> + +<p>"'I know, I know--he is a wonderful boy, and we might all learn a lesson +of patience from him; but I can't have the whole of your life sacrificed +to him. I will provide for him amply; he shall have every comfort which +money can command.'</p> + +<p>"'But where?' said I.</p> + +<p>"'In an institution I know of, under the charge of a friend of mine.'</p> + +<p>"'A hospital!' exclaimed I; and the very thought of my poor Nat, who had +been the centre of a loving home-circle, of a merry school playground, +ever since he could remember--the very thought of his finding himself +alone among diseased people, and tended by hired attendants, so overcame +me that I burst into floods of tears.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Maynard, who hated the presence of tears and suffering, as mirthful +people always do, rose at once and said kindly, 'Poor child, you are not +strong enough to talk it over yet; but as your aunt must go away so soon, +I thought it better to have it all settled at once.'</p> + +<p>"'It is settled, Mr. Maynard,' said I, in a voice that half frightened me. +'I shall never leave Nat--never, so long as I live.'</p> + +<p>"'Then you'll do him the greatest unkindness you can--that's all,' replied +Mr. Maynard angrily, and walked out of the room. I locked myself up in my +own room and thought the whole matter over. How I could earn my own living +and Nat's, I did not know. We should have about four hundred dollars a +year. I had learned enough in my childhood of poverty to know that we need +not starve while we had that; but simply not starving is a great way off +from really living; and I felt convinced that it would be impossible for +me to keep up courage or hope unless I could contrive, in some way, to +earn money enough to surround our home with at least a semblance of the +old atmosphere. We must have books; we must have a flower sometimes; we +must have sun and air.</p> + +<p>"At last an inspiration came to me. Down stairs, in the saddened empty +study, sat little Miss Penstock, the village dressmaker, sewing on our +gloomy black dresses. She lived all alone in a very small house near Mr. +Maynard's mill. I remembered that I had heard her say how lonely she found +it living by herself since her married sister, who used to live with her, +had gone to the West. Since then, Miss Penstock had sometimes consented to +go for a few days at a time to sew in the houses of her favorite +employers, just to keep from forgetting how to speak,' the poor little +woman said. But she disliked very much to do this. She was a gentlewoman; +and though she accepted with simple dignity the necessity of earning her +bread, it was bitterly disagreeable to her to sit as a hired sewer in +other people's houses. She liked to come to our house better than to any +other. We also were poor. My Aunt Abby was a woman of great simplicity, +and a quiet, stately humility, like Miss Penstock's own; and they enjoyed +sitting side by side whole days, sewing in silence. Miss Penstock had +always spoken with a certain sort of tender reverence to Nat, and I +remembered that he liked to be in the room where she sewed. All these +thoughts passed through my mind in a moment. I sprang to my feet and +exclaimed, 'That is it--that is it!' and I ran hastily down to the study. +Miss Penstock was alone there. She looked up in surprise at my +breathlessness and my red eyes. I knelt down by her side and took the work +out of her hands.</p> + +<p>"'Dear Miss Penstock,' said I, 'would you rent part of your house?'</p> + +<p>"She looked up reflectively, took off her spectacles with her left hand, +and tapped her knees slowly with them, as she always did when puzzling +over a scanty pattern.</p> + +<p>"'I don't know, Dora, but I might; I've thought of it; it's awful lonely +for me as 'tis. But it's such a risk taking in strangers; is it any +friends of yours you're thinking of?'</p> + +<p>"'Nat and me,' said I, concisely. Miss Penstock's spectacles dropped from +her fingers, and she uttered an ejaculation I never heard from her lips on +any other occasion. 'Good Heavens!'</p> + +<p>"'Yes,' said I, beginning to cry, 'Nat and me! I've got to take care of +Nat, and if you would only let us live with you I think I could manage +beautifully.' Then I told her the whole story of Mr. Maynard's proposal. +While we were talking Aunt Abby came in. The problem was no new one to +her. Papa and she had talked it over many a time in the course of the past +sad year. It seemed that he had had to the last a strong hope that Mr. +Maynard would provide for us both. Poor papa! as he drew near the next +world, all the conventionalities and obligations of this seemed so small +to him, he did not shrink from the thought of dependence upon others as he +would have done in health.</p> + +<p>"'But I always told him,' said Aunt Abby, 'that Mr. Maynard wasn't going +to do anything for Nat beyond what money'd do. He'd give him a thousand a +year, or two, if need be, but he'd never set eyes on him if he could help +it.'</p> + +<p>"'Aunt Abby,' exclaimed I, 'please don't say another word about Mr. +Maynard's helping Nat. I'd die before Nat should touch a cent of his +money.'</p> + +<p>"'There is no use talking that way,' said Aunt Abby, whose tenderest +mercies were often cruelly worded. 'Mr. Maynard's a good, generous man, +and I'm sure he's been the saving of us all. But that's no reason he +should set up to take you away from Nat now; and I know well enough Nat +can't live without you; but I don't see how it's to be managed. And Aunt +Abby sighed. Then I told her my plans; they grew clearer and clearer to me +as I unfolded them; the two gentle-faced spinster women looked at me with +surprise. Miss Penstock wiped her eyes over and over.</p> + +<p>"'If I could only be sure I wasn't going against your best interests to +let you come,' said she.</p> + +<p>"'Oh, Miss Penstock,' exclaimed I, 'don't think so--don't dare to say no +for that reason; for I tell you, I shall go away to some other town with +Nat if you don't take us; there is no other house here that would do; +think how much better it would be for Nat to stay among friends.'</p> + +<p>"'It's lucky I am their guardian,' said Aunt Abby, with an unconscious +defiance in her tone. 'There can't anybody hinder their doing anything I +am willing to have them do. My brother wanted to have Mr. Maynard, too; +but I told him no; I'd either be whole guardian or none.'</p> + +<p>"'I think good Aunt Abby had had a dim foreboding that Mr. Maynard's +kindness might take a shape which it would be hard to submit to. Great as +her gratitude was, her family pride resented dictation, and resented also +the implied slight to poor Nat. As I look back now, I can see that, except +for this reaction of feeling, she never would have consented so easily to +my undertaking all I undertook, in going to housekeeping alone with that +helpless child, on four hundred dollars a year. Before night it was all +settled, and Miss Penstock went home two hours before her time, 'so +stirred up, somehow,' as she said, 'to think of those blessed children's +coming to live in my house, I couldn't see to thread a needle.' After tea +Mr. Maynard came again: Aunt Abby saw him alone. When she came up-stairs +she had been crying, but her lips were closed more rigidly than I ever saw +them. Aunt Abby could be as determined as Mr. Maynard. All she said to me +of the interview was, 'I don't know now as he'll really give in that he +can't have things as he wants to. For all his laughing and for all his +goodness, I don't believe he is any too comfortable to live with. I +shouldn't wonder if he never spoke to one of us again.'</p> + +<p>"But Mr. Maynard was too well-bred a man for any such pettiness as that. +His resentment showed itself merely in a greater courtesy than ever, +combined with a careful absence of all inquiries as to our plans. It hurt +me very much, for I knew how it would have hurt dear papa. But I knew, +too, that I was right and Mr. Maynard was wrong, and that comforted me.</p> + +<p>"Four weeks from the day papa was buried, the pretty parsonage was locked +up, cold, dark, empty. Aunt Abby had gone with little Abby to her new +home, and Nat and I were settled at Miss Penstock's. The night before we +moved, Mr. Maynard left a note at the door for me. It contained five +hundred dollars and these words:--</p> + +<p>"'Miss Dora will not refuse to accept this from one who hoped to be her +father.'</p> + +<p>"But I could not take it. I sent it back to him with a note like this:--</p> + +<p>"'DEAR MR. MAYNARD:--I shall never forget that you were willing to be my +father, and I shall always be grateful to you; but I cannot take money +from one who is displeased with me for doing what I think right. I promise +you, however, for papa's sake and for Nat's, that if I ever need help I +will ask it of you, and not of any one else.'</p> + +<hr width="80%" /> + +<p>"The next time I saw Mr. Maynard he put both his hands on my shoulders and +said: 'You are a brave girl; I wish I could forgive you; but remember your +promise.' And that was the last word Mr. Maynard spoke to me for three +years.</p> + +<p>"Our new home was so much pleasanter than we supposed it could be, that at +first, in spite of our grief, both Nat and I were almost gay. It was like +a sort of picnic, or playing at housekeeping. The rooms were sunny and +cozy. Rich people in splendid houses do not dream how pleasant poor +people's little rooms can be, if the sun shines in and there are a few +pretty things. We kept all the books which could ever be of use to Nat, +and a picture of the Sistine Madonna which Mr. Maynard had given us on the +last Christmas Day, and papa's and mamma's portraits. The books, and +these, made our little sitting-room look like home. We had only two rooms +on the first floor; one of these was a tiny one, but it held our little +cooking-stove and a cupboard, with our few dishes; the other we called +'sitting-room;' it had to be dear Nat's bedroom also, because he could not +be carried up and down stairs. But I made a chintz curtain, which shut off +his bed from sight, and really made the room look prettier, for I put it +across a corner and had a shelf put up above it, on which Nat's stuffed +owl sat. My room was over Nat's, and a cord went up from his bed to a +bell over mine, so that he could call me at any moment if he wanted +anything in the night. Then we had one more little chamber, in which we +kept the boxes of papa's sermons, and some trunks of old clothes, and +things which nobody wanted to buy at the auction, and papa's big chair and +writing-table. We would not sell those. I thought perhaps some day we +should have a house of our own--I could not imagine how; but if we did we +should be glad of that chair and table, and so Aunt Abby let us keep them, +though they were of handsome wood, beautifully carved, and would have +brought a good deal of money. For these four rooms we paid Miss Penstock +three dollars a month; the rent would have been a dollar a week, but she +said it was really worth a dollar a month to her to have people who would +not trouble her nor hurt the house; and as Aunt Abby thought so too, I +believed her.</p> + +<p>"My plan was to have Nat keep on at school, and to take in sewing myself, +or to work for Miss Penstock. For the first year all went so smoothly that +I was content. I used to draw Nat to and from school twice a day, and that +gave me air and exercise. Everybody was very kind in giving me sewing, and +I earned four and five dollars a week. We did not have to buy any clothes, +and so we laid up a little money. But the next year people did not give me +so much sewing; they had given it to me the first year because they were +sorry for us, but now they had forgotten. Very often I would sit idle a +whole week, with no work. Then I used to read and study, but I could not +enjoy anything, because I was so worried. I felt that trouble was coming. +Early in the fall dear Nat was taken ill--the first illness of his life. +It was a slow fever. He was ill for three months. I often wonder how I +lived through those months. When he recovered he seemed better than ever. +The doctor said he had passed a sort of crisis and would always be +stronger for it. The doctor was very kind. Several nights he sat up with +Nat and made me go to bed, and he would not let me pay him a cent, though +he came every day for weeks. When I urged him to let us pay the bill he +grew half angry, and said, 'Do you think I am going to take money from +your father's daughter?' and then I felt more willing to take it for +papa's sake. But the medicines had cost a great deal, and I had not earned +anything; and so, at the end of the second year, we had been obliged to +take quite a sum out of our little capital. I did not tell Nat, and I did +not go to Mr. Maynard. I went on from day to day, in a sort of stupor, +wondering what would happen next. I was seventeen years old, but I knew of +nothing I could do except to sew; I did not know enough to teach. All this +time I never once thought of the mills. I used to watch the men and women +going in and out, and envy them, thinking how sure they were of their +wages; and yet it never crossed my mind that I could do the same thing. I +am afraid it was unconscious pride which prevented my thinking of it.</p> + +<p>"But the day came. It was in the early spring. I had been to the +grave-yard to set out some fresh hepaticas on papa's grave. His grave and +mamma's were in an inclosure surrounded by a high, thick hedge of pines +and cedars close to the public street As I knelt down, hidden behind the +trees, I heard steps and voices. They paused opposite me. The persons were +evidently looking over the fence. Then I distinguished the voice of our +kind doctor.</p> + +<p>"'Poor Kent!' he said, 'how it would distress him to see his children now! +That Nat barely pulled through his fever; but he seems to have taken a new +turn since then and is stronger than ever. But I am afraid they are very +poor.'</p> + +<p>"To my astonishment, the voice that replied was Mr. Maynard's.</p> + +<p>"'Of course they are,' said he impatiently; 'but nobody will ever have a +chance to help them till the last cent's gone. That Dora would work her +fingers off in the mills rather than ask or receive help.'</p> + +<p>"'But good heavens! Maynard, you'd never stand by and see Tom Kent's +daughter in the mills?' exclaimed the doctor.</p> + +<p>"I could not hear the reply, for they were walking away. But the words 'in +the mills' rang in my ears. A new world seemed opening before me. I had no +particle of false pride; all I wanted was to earn money honestly. I could +not understand why I had never thought of this way. I knew that many of +the factory operatives, who were industrious and economical, supported +large families of children on their wages. 'It would be strange enough if +I could not support Nat and myself,' thought I, and I almost ran home, I +was so glad. I said nothing to Nat; I knew instinctively that it would +grieve him.</p> + +<p>"The next day after I left him at school I went to the largest mill and +saw the overseer. He was a coarse, disagreeable man; but he had known my +father and he treated me respectfully. He said they could not give me very +good wages at first; but if I learned readily, and was skillful in tending +the looms, I might in time make a very good living. The sums that he named +seemed large, tried by my humble standard. Even at the beginning I should +earn more than I had been able to for many months at my needle. After tea +I told Nat. He lay very still for some moments; the tears rolled down his +cheeks; then he reached up both hands and drew my face down to his, and +said, 'Dear sister, it would be selfish to make it any harder for you than +it must be at best. But oh, Dot, Dot! do you think you can dream what it +is for me to have to lie here and be such a burden on you?'</p> + +<p>"'Oh, Nat!' I said, 'if you don't want to break my heart, don't speak so. +I don't have to earn any more for two than I should have to alone; it does +not cost anything for you; and if it did, you darling, don't you know that +I could not live without you? you are all I have got in the world.' Nat +did not reply; but all that evening his face looked as I never saw it +before. Nat was fifteen; instinct was beginning to torture him with a +man's sense of his helplessness, and it was almost more than even his +childlike faith and trust could bear.</p> + +<p>"The next day I told Miss Penstock. She had been as kind to us as a mother +through this whole year and a half, and I really think we had taken the +place of children in her lonely old heart. But she never could forget that +we were her minister's children; she always called me Miss Dora, and does +to this day. She did not interrupt me while I told her my plan, but the +color mounted higher and higher in her face. As soon as I stopped +speaking, she exclaimed:--</p> + +<p>"'Dora Kent, are you mad--a girl with a face like yours to go into the +mills? you don't know what you're about.'</p> + +<p>"'Yes I do, dear Pennie,' I said (Nat had called her Pennie ever since his +sickness, when she had taken tender care of him night and day). 'I know +there are many rude, bad men there, but I do not believe they will trouble +me. At any rate I can but try. I must earn more money, Pennie; you know +that as well as I do.'</p> + +<p>"She did indeed know it; but it was very hard for her to give approbation +to this scheme. It was not until after a long argument that I induced her +to promise not to write to Aunt Abby till I had tried the experiment for +one month.</p> + +<p>"The next day I went to the mill. Everything proved much better than I had +feared. Some of the women in the room in which I was placed had belonged +to papa's Sunday-school, and they were all very kind to me, and told the +others who I was; so from the outset I felt myself among friends. In two +weeks I had grown used to the work; the noise of the looms did not +frighten or confuse me, and it did not tire me to stand so many hours. I +found that I should soon be able to do most of my work mechanically, and +think about what I pleased in the mean time. So I hoped to be able to +study at home and recite my lessons to myself in the mill. The only thing +that troubled me was that I could not take Nat to and from school, and he +had to be left alone sometimes. But I found a very pleasant and faithful +Irish boy, who was glad to earn a little money by drawing him back and +forth, often staying with him after school till I came home at six +o'clock. This boy was the son of the Irish gardener on the overseer's +place. The overseer was an Englishman; his name was Wilkins. He is the +only human being I ever disliked so that it was hard to speak to him. His +brother, too, the agent who had charge of all Mr. Maynard's business, was +almost as disagreeable as he. They both looked like bloated frogs; their +wide, shapeless mouths, flat noses, and prominent eyes, made me shudder +when I looked at them.</p> + +<p>"Little Patrick soon grew fond of Nat, as everybody did who came into +close contact with him; and he used often to stay at our house till late +at night, hearing Nat's stories, and watching him draw pictures on the +blackboard. One of the things I had kept was a great blackboard which papa +had made for him. It was mounted on a stout standard, so that it could be +swung close in front of his chair or wagon, and he would lie there and +draw for hours together. Some of the pictures he drew were so beautiful I +could not bear to have them rubbed out. It seemed almost like killing +things that were alive. Whenever I dared to spend a penny for anything not +absolutely needful, I always bought a sheet of drawing-paper or a crayon; +for Nat would rather have them than anything else in the world--even than +a book--unless the book had pictures.</p> + +<p>"One night, when I went home, I found him sitting up very straight in his +wagon, with his cheeks crimson with excitement. Patrick was with him, and +the table and the whole floor were covered with queer, long, jointed +paste-board sheets, with pieces of gay-colored calicoes, pasted on them. +Patrick looked as excited as Nat, and as soon as I opened the door he +exclaimed, 'Och, Miss Dora, see how he's plazed with um.' I was almost +frightened at Nat's face. 'Why Nat, dear,' said I, 'what are they? I don't +think they are very pretty;' and I picked up one of the queer things and +looked at it. 'The colors are bright and pretty, but I am sure almost all +the patterns are hideous.'</p> + +<p>"'Of course they are,' shouted Nat hysterically. 'That's just it. That's +what pleases me so,' and he burst out crying. I was more frightened still. +Trampling the calicoes under my feet, I ran and knelt by his chair, and +put my arms around him. 'Oh, Nat, Nat, what is the matter?' cried I. +'Patrick, what have you done to him?' Poor Patrick could not speak; he was +utterly bewildered; he began hastily picking up the prints and shuffling +them out of sight.</p> + +<p>"'Don't you touch one!' screamed Nat, lifting up his head again, with +tears rolling down his cheeks. 'Dot, Dot,' he went on, speaking louder and +louder, 'don't you see? those are patterns; Patrick says Mr. Wilkins buys +them. I can earn money too; I can draw a million times prettier ones than +those.'</p> + +<p>"Like lightning the thing flashed through my brain. Of course he could. He +drew better ones every day of his life, by dozens, on the old blackboard, +with crumbling bits of chalk. Again and again I had racked my brains to +devise some method by which he might be taught, as artists are taught, and +learn to put his beautiful conceptions into true shapes for the world to +see. But I knew that materials and instruction were both alike out of our +reach, and I had hoped earnestly that such longing had never entered his +heart. I sat down and covered my face with my hands.</p> + +<p>"'You see, sister,' said Nat in a calmer tone, sobered himself by my +excitement--'you see, don't you?'</p> + +<p>"'Yes, dear, I do see,' said I; 'you will earn much more money than I ever +can, and take care of me, after all.'</p> + +<p>"To our inexperience, it seemed as if a mine had opened at our feet. Poor +Patrick stood still, unhappy and bewildered, twisting one of the +pattern-books in his hand.</p> + +<p>"'An' is it these same that Misther Nat'll be afther tryin' to make?' said +he.</p> + +<p>"'Oh no, Patrick,' said Nat, laughing, 'only the pictures from which these +are to be made.'</p> + +<p>"Then we questioned Patrick more closely. All he knew was that Mr. +Wilkins' sister made many of the drawings; Patrick had seen them lying in +piles on Mr. Wilkins' desk; some of them colored, some of them merely in +ink. The pieces of paper were about the size of these patterns, some six +or eight inches square.</p> + +<p>"'Will I ask Miss Wilkins to come and show yees?' said Patrick.</p> + +<p>"'No, no,' said we both, hastily; 'you must not tell anybody. Of course +she would not want other people to be drawing them too.'</p> + +<p>"'Especially if she can't make anything better than these,' said Nat, +pityingly. Already his tone had so changed that I hardly recognized it. In +that moment the artist-soul of my darling brother had felt its first +breath of the sweetness of creative power.</p> + +<p>"Patrick promised not to speak of it to a human being; as he was going out +of the door he turned back, with a radiant face, and said: 'An 'twas +meself that only thought maybe the calikers'd amuse him for a minnit with +their quare colors,' and he almost somerseted off the door-steps, uttering +an Irish howl of delight.</p> + +<p>"'You've made our fortunes! there'll always be calicoes wanted, and I can +draw fifty patterns a day, and I'll give you half of the first pay I get +for them,' called the excited Nat; but Patrick was off.</p> + +<p>"We sat up till midnight. I was scarcely less overwrought than Nat. He +drew design after design and rejected them as not quite perfect.</p> + +<p>"'You know,' he said, 'I must send something so very good to begin with, +that they can't help seeing at first sight how good it is.'</p> + +<p>"'But not so good that you can't ever make another equal to it,' suggested +I out of my practical but inartistic brain.</p> + +<p>"'No danger of that, Dot,' said Nat, confidently. 'Dot, there isn't +anything in this world I can't make a picture of, if I can have paper +enough, and pencils and paint.'</p> + +<p>"At last he finished three designs which he was willing to send. They +were all for spring or summer dresses. One was a curious block pattern, +the blocks of irregular shapes, but all fitting into each other, and all +to be of the gayest colors. Here and there came a white block with one +tiny scarlet dot upon it; 'That's for a black-haired girl, Dot,' said Nat; +'you couldn't wear it.'</p> + +<p>"The second was a group of ferns tied by a little wreath of pansies; +nothing could be more beautiful. The third was a fantastic mixture of +pine-tassels and acorns. I thought it quite ugly, but Nat insisted on it +that it would be pretty for a summer muslin; and so it was the next year, +when it was worn by everybody, the little plumy pine-tassels of a bright +green (which didn't wash at all), and the acorns all tumbling about on +your lap, all sides up at once.</p> + +<p>"It was one o'clock before we went to bed, and we might as well have sat +up all night, for we did not sleep. The next morning I got up before light +and walked into town, to a shop where they sold paints. I had just time to +buy a box of water-colors and get back to the mill before the bell stopped +ringing. All the forenoon the little white parcel lay on the floor at my +feet. As often as I looked at it, I seemed to see Nat's pictures dancing +on the surface. I had given five dollars for the box; I trembled to think +what a sum that was for us to spend on an uncertainty; but I had small +doubt. At noon I ran home; I ate little dinner--Nat would not touch a +mouthful. 'You must see the pansies and ferns done before you go,' he +said.</p> + +<p>"And before my hour was up they were so nearly done that I danced around +Nat's chair with delight.</p> + +<p>"'I know Mr. Wilkins never saw anything so pretty in his life,' said Nat, +calmly.</p> + +<p>"The thought of Mr. Wilkins was a terrible damper to me. Nat had not seen +him: I had.</p> + +<p>"'Nat,' said I, slowly, 'Mr. Wilkins won't know that it is pretty. He is +not a man; he is a frog, and he looks as if he lied. I believe he will +cheat us.'</p> + +<p>"Nat looked shocked. 'Why Dora, I never in my life heard you speak so. You +shall not take them to him. I will have Patrick take me there.'</p> + +<p>"'No, no, dear,' I exclaimed, 'I would not have you see Mr. Wilkins for +the world. He is horrible. But I am not afraid of him.'</p> + +<p>"I meant that I would not for the world have him see Nat. He was coarse +and brutal enough to be insulting to a helpless cripple, and I knew it. +But Nat did not dream of my reason for insisting so strongly on going +myself, and he finally yielded.</p> + +<p>"I took the pictures to the overseer's office at noon. I knew that 'Agent +Wilkins,' as he was called to distinguish him from his brother, was always +there at that time. He looked up at me, as I drew near the desk, with an +expression which almost paralyzed me with disgust. But for Nat's sake I +kept on. I watched him closely as he looked at the pictures. I thought I +detected a start of surprise, but I could not be sure. Then he laid them +down, saying carelessly, 'I am no judge of these things; I will consult +some one who is, and let you know to-morrow noon if we can pay your +brother anything for the designs.'</p> + +<p>"'Of course you know that the market is flooded with this sort of thing, +Miss Kent,' he added, as I was walking away. I made no reply; I was +already revolving in my mind a plan for taking them to another mill in +town, whose overseer was a brother of one of papa's wardens. The next day +at noon I went to the office; my heart beat fast, but I tried to believe +that I did not hope. Both the brothers were there. The overseer spoke +first, but I felt that the agent watched me sharply.</p> + +<p>"'So your lame brother drew these designs, did he, Miss Dora?'</p> + +<p>"'My brother Nat drew them, sir; I have but one brother, said I, trying +hard to speak civilly.</p> + +<p>"'Well' said he, 'they are really very well done--quite remarkable, +considering that they are the work of a child who has had no instruction; +they would have to be rearranged and altered before we could use them, but +we would like to encourage him and to help you too,' he continued, +patronizingly, 'and so we shall buy them just as they are.'</p> + +<p>"'My brother Nat is not a child,' replied I, 'and we do not wished to be +helped. If the designs are not worth money, will you be so good as to give +them back to me?' and I stepped nearer the desk and stretched out my hand +toward the pictures which were lying there. But Agent Wilkins snatched +them up quickly, and casting an angry glance at his brother, exclaimed:--</p> + +<p>"'Oh, you quite mistake my brother, Miss Kent; the designs are worth money +and we are glad to buy them; but they are not worth so much as they would +be if done by an experienced hand. We will give you ten dollars for the +three,' and he held out the money to me. Involuntarily I exclaimed, 'I had +not dreamed that they would be worth so much.' Nat could earn then in four +hours' work as much as I could in a week; in that one moment the whole of +life seemed thrown open for us. All my distrust vanished. And when the +agent added, kindly, 'Be sure and bring us all the designs which your +brother makes. I think we shall want to buy as many as he will draw; he +certainly has rare talent,'--I could have fallen on the floor at his feet +to thank him, so grateful did I feel for this new source of income for us, +and still more for the inexpressible pleasure for my poor Nat.</p> + +<p>"From that day Nat was a changed boy. He would not go to school in the +afternoons, but spent the hours from two till five in drawing. I had a +cord arranged from our room to Miss Penstock's, so that he could call her +if at any moment he needed help, and she was only too glad to have him in +the house. When I reached home at six, I always found him lying back in +his chair with his work spread out before him, and such a look of content +and joy on his face, that more than once it made me cry instead of +speaking when I bent over to kiss him. 'Oh, Dot--oh, Dot!' he used to say +sometimes, 'it isn't all for the sake of the money, splendid as that is; +but I do feel as if I should yet do something much better than making +designs for calicoes. I feel it growing in me. Oh, if I could only be +taught; if there were only some one here who could tell me about the +things I don't understand!'</p> + +<p>"'But you shall be taught, dear,' I replied; 'we will lay up all the +money you earn. I can earn enough for us to live on, and then, with your +money, in a few years we can certainly contrive some way for you to +study.'</p> + +<p>"It seemed not too visionary a hope, for Nat's designs grew prettier and +prettier, and the agent bought all I carried him. One week I remember he +paid me thirty dollars; and as he handed it to me, seeing how pleased I +looked, he said,--</p> + +<p>"'Your brother is getting quite rich, is he not, Miss Kent?' Something +sinister in his smile struck me at that moment as it had not done for a +long time, and I resolved to go more seldom to the office.</p> + +<p>"We did not lay up so much as we hoped to; we neither of us had a trace of +the instinct of economy or saving. I could not help buying a geranium or +fuchsia to set in the windows; Nat could not help asking me to buy a book +or a picture sometimes, and his paints and pencils and brushes and paper +cost a good deal in the course of six months. Still we were very happy and +very comfortable, and the days flew by. Our little room was so cozy and +pretty, that Miss Penstock's customers used often to come in to see it; +and if they happened to come when Nat was there, they almost always sent +him something afterward; so, at the end of two years you never would have +known the bare little room. We had flowers in both windows, and as each +window had sun, the flowers prospered; and we had a great many pretty +pictures on the walls, and Nat's sketches pinned up in all sorts of odd +places. A big beam ran across the ceiling in the middle, and that was +hung full of charcoal sketches, with here and there a sheet just painted +in bars of bright color--no meaning to them, except to 'light up,' Nat +said. I did not understand him then, but I could see how differently all +the rest looked after the scarlet and yellow were put by their side. Some +of our pictures had lovely frames to them, which Nat had carved out of old +cigar-boxes that Patrick brought him. Sometimes he used to do nothing but +carve for a week, and he would say, 'Dot, I do not believe drawing is the +thing I want to do, after all. I want more; I hate to have everything +flat.' Then he would get discouraged and think all he had done was good +for nothing. 'I never can do anything except to draw till I go somewhere +to be taught,' he would say, and turn back to the old calico patterns with +fresh zeal.</p> + +<p>"One day a customer of Miss Penstock's brought Nat a book about grapes, +which had some pictures of the different methods of grape-culture in +different countries. One of these pictures pleased him very much. It +showed the grape-vines looped on low trees, in swinging festoons. He had +the book propped up open at that picture day after day, and kept drawing +it over and over on the blackboard and on paper till I was tired of the +sight of it. It did not seem to me remarkably pretty. But Nat said one +day, when I told him so,--</p> + +<p>"'It isn't the picture itself, but what I want to make from it. Don't you +see that the trees look a little like dancers whirling round, holding each +other by the hand--one-legged dancers?'</p> + +<p>"I could not see it. 'Well,' said Nat, 'look at this, and see if you can +see it any better;' and he drew out of his portfolio a sheet with a rough +charcoal sketch of six or seven low, gnarled, bare trees, with their +boughs inter-locked in such a fantastic manner that the trees seemed +absolutely reeling about in a crazy dance. I laughed as soon as I saw it. +'There!' said Nat triumphantly; 'now, if I can only get the vines to go +just as I want them to, in and out, you see that will dress up the +dancers.' He worked long over this design. The fancy seemed to have taken +possession of his brain. He gave names to the trees, but he called them +all men: 'It's a jolly crew of old kings,' he said; 'that's Sesostris at +the head, and there's Herod; that old fellow with the gouty stomach under +his left arm.' Nat was now so full of freaks and fun, that our little room +rang with laughter night after night. Patrick used to sit on the floor +sometimes, with his broad Irish mouth stiffened into a perpetual grin at +the sight of the mirth, which, though he could not comprehend it, he found +contagious.</p> + +<p>"'But what will you do with it, Nat?' said I. 'It will never do for a +calico pattern.'</p> + +<p>"'I don't know,' said he reflectively; 'I might make it smaller and hide +the faces, and not make the limbs of the trees look so much like legs, and +call it the "vine pattern," and I guess old Wilkins would think it was +graceful, and I dare say Miss Wilkins would wear it, if nobody else did.'</p> + +<p>"'Oh! Nat, Nat, how can you,' exclaimed I, 'when they have been so good to +pay us so much money?'</p> + +<p>"'I know it,' said Nat, 'it's too bad; I'm ashamed now. But doesn't this +look like the two Wilkins brothers? You said they looked like frogs?' he +ran on, holding up a most ludicrous picture of two tall, lank frogs +standing behind a counter, and stretching out four front legs like greedy +hands across the counter, with a motto coming out of the right-hand frog's +mouth: 'More designs, if you please, Mr. Kent--something light and +graceful for summer wear.'</p> + +<p>"These were the words of a note which Mr. Wilkins had sent to Nat a few +weeks before. I laughed till the tears ran down my cheeks, for really the +frogs did look like the brothers Wilkins. The picture haunted my mind for +weeks afterward, and seemed somehow to revive my old distrust of them.</p> + +<p>"A few days after this Nat had finished a set of designs 'for summer +wear,' as the order said, and among them he had put in the 'One-Legged +Dancers.'</p> + +<p>"'It'll do no harm to try it,' said he. 'I think it would be lovely +printed in bright-green on a white ground, and nobody but you and me would +ever see the kings' legs in it.'</p> + +<p>"It really was pretty; still I could not help seeing legs and heads and +King Herod's stomach in it; and, moreover, it was entirely too large a +figure for that year's fashions in calico or muslin. However, I said +nothing and carried it with the rest. When I went the next day, Mr. +Wilkins said, as he handed me the money,--</p> + +<p>"'Oh, by the way, Miss Kent, one of the drawings has been mislaid. I +suppose it is of no consequence; we could not use it; it was quite too +large a figure, and seemed less graceful than your brother's work usually +is; it was a picture of grape-vines.'</p> + +<p>"'Oh,' said I, 'I told Nat I didn't believe that would be good for +anything. No, it is not of the least consequence.'</p> + +<p>"When I repeated this to Nat, he did not seem surprised at their refusal +of the design; they had already refused several others in the course of +the year. But he seemed singularly disturbed at the loss of the drawing. +At last he urged me to go and ask if it had not been found. + +"'I may do something with it yet, Dot,' he said. 'I know it is a good +design for something, if not for calico, and I don't believe they have +lost it. It is very queer.'</p> + +<p>"But Mr. Wilkins assured me, with great civility and many expressions of +regret, that the design was lost: that they had made careful search for it +everywhere.</p> + +<p>"The thing would have passed out of my mind in a short time but for Nat's +pertinacious reference to it. Every few days he would say, 'It is very +queer, Dot, about the One-Legged Dancers. How could such a thing be lost? +They never lost a drawing before. I believe Miss Wilkins has got it, and +is going to paint a big picture from it herself!'</p> + +<p>"'Why, Nat!' I exclaimed, 'aren't you ashamed? that would be stealing.'</p> + +<p>"'I don't care, Dot,' he said again and again, 'I never shall believe that +paper was lost.'</p> + +<p>"I grew almost out of patience with him; I never knew him to be unjust to +any one, and it grieved me that he should be so to people who had been our +benefactors.</p> + +<p>"About four months later, one warm day in April, I walked over to the +town after my day's work was done, to buy a gown for myself, and a new box +of paints for Nat. I did not go to town more than two or three times a +year, and the shop-windows delighted me as much as if I had been only +eleven years old. As I walked slowly up and down, looking at everything, I +suddenly started back at the sight of a glossy green and white chintz, +which was displayed conspicuously in the central window of one of the +largest shops. There they were, just as Nat had drawn them on the missing +paper, 'The One-Legged Dancers!' Nat was right. It was a pretty pattern, a +very pretty pattern for a chintz; and there was--I laughed out in spite of +myself, as I stood in the crowd on the sidewalk--yes, there was the ugly +great knot in one of the trees which had made King Herod's stomach. But +what did it mean? No chintzes were made in any of Mr. Maynard's mills, +nor, so far as I knew, in any mill in that neighborhood. I was hot with +indignation. Plainly Nat's instinct had been a true one. The Wilkinses had +stolen the design and had sold it to some other manufacturers, not +dreaming that the theft could ever be discovered by two such helpless +children as Nat and I.</p> + +<p>"I went into the shop and asked the price of the chintz in the window.</p> + +<p>"'Oh, the grape-vine pattern? that is a new pattern, just out this spring; +it is one of the most popular patterns we ever had. A lovely thing, miss,' +said the clerk, as he lifted down another piece of it.</p> + +<p>"'I will take one yard,' said I with a choking voice. I was afraid I +should cry in the shop. 'Do you know where this chintz is made?' I added.</p> + +<p>"The clerk glanced at the price-ticket and read me the name. It was made +by a firm I had never heard of, in another State. No wonder the Wilkinses +thought themselves safe.</p> + +<p>"When I showed Nat the chintz he seemed much less excited than I expected. +He was not so very much surprised; and, to my great astonishment, he was +not at first sure that it would be best to let the Wilkinses know that we +had discovered their cheating. But I was firm; I would have no more to do +with them. My impulse was to go to Mr. Maynard. Although during these +three years he had never come to see us, I felt sure that, in the bottom +of his heart, there still was a strong affection for us; and, above all, +he was a just man. He would never keep in his employ for one day any +person capable of such wrong as the Wilkinses had done us.</p> + +<p>"'But,' persisted Nat, 'you do not know that either of the Mr. Wilkinses +had anything to do with it. They may both have honestly supposed it was +lost. It's much more likely that their sister stole it.'</p> + +<p>"I had not thought of this before. Poor Miss Wilkins! Nat's artistic soul +had been so outraged by some of her flagrant calicoes that he believed her +capable of any crime.</p> + +<p>"At last I consented to go first to the Wilkinses themselves, and I +promised to speak very calmly and gently in the beginning, and betray no +suspicion of them. I carried the chintz. When I entered the office, the +overseer was talking in one corner with a gentleman whose back was turned +to me. The agent sat by the counter.</p> + +<p>"'Mr. Wilkins,' said I, 'do you remember the grape-vine pattern my brother +drew last winter--the one which you refused?'</p> + +<p>"The instant I spoke, I saw that he did remember. I saw that he was +guilty, and I saw it all with such certainty that it enabled me to be very +calm.</p> + +<p>"'Let me see,' said he, trying to pretend to be racking his memory; 'the +grape-vine pattern? It seems to me that I do recall something about a +design with that name. Did you say we refused it?'</p> + +<p>"'Yes, you refused it, but you did not return the drawing. You said it had +been lost,' I replied.</p> + +<p>"'Ah, yes, yes--now I recollect,' he said, recovering himself somewhat; +'we made great search for the drawing; I remember all about it now;' and +he paused as if waiting civilly to know what more there could possibly be +to be said on that point. But I watched him closely and saw that he was +agitated. I looked him steadily in the eye and did not speak, while I +slowly opened my little bundle and unrolled the piece of chintz.</p> + +<p>"'Can you possibly explain this mystery, then, sir, that here is my +brother's design printed on this chintz?' said I, in a clear, distinct +tone, holding out the yard of chintz at its full length. As I said the +words 'my brother's design,' the gentleman who had been talking with the +overseer turned quickly round, and I saw that it was Mr. Maynard's +youngest son Robert, who a year before had come home from Germany, and had +recently been taken into the firm as partner. He stepped a little nearer +me, and was evidently listening to my words.</p> + +<p>"'Come into this room, Mr. Maynard, if you please, and we will finish +discussing the matter we were speaking of,' said Overseer Wilkins, turning +pale, and speaking very hurriedly, and trying to draw Mr. Maynard into the +inner office-room.</p> + +<p>"'And--if you will call some other time, Miss Kent,' said Agent Wilkins, +turning away from me and walking toward Mr. Maynard, in his anxiety to +prevent my being seen or heard, 'I will try to attend to this matter; but +just now I have not another moment to spare,' and he began at once to talk +in a loud and voluble manner.</p> + +<p>"I do not know how I had strength and courage to do what I did then; I do +not know where the voice came from with which I spoke then; Robert has +always said that I looked like a young lioness, and that my voice sounded +like the voice of one crying 'fire.' I stepped swiftly up to him, and +before the astounded Wilkins could speak a word, I had held up the chintz +and exclaimed, 'But Mr. Maynard will have time to spare, and I thank God +he is here. Mr. Maynard, this design is one of my brother's drawing; he +has made most of the calico designs printed in your father's mills for a +year and a half: I brought this one to the agent; he said it was not good +for anything, but he stole the paper and sold it, and here it is!' and +then suddenly my strength all disappeared, great terror seized me, and I +burst into tears. Both the agent and the overseer began to speak at once.</p> + +<p>"'Be silent,' thundered Robert, in the most commanding tone I ever heard +out of human lips. 'Be silent, both of you!' Then he took the chintz away +from me, and taking both my hands in his, led me to a chair, saying, in a +voice as sweet and gentle as the other was terrible, 'Pray be calm, my +dear young lady--this matter shall be looked into. Sit down and do not try +to speak for a few minutes.'</p> + +<p>"Then he walked over to the brothers; even through my tears I could see +how terrified they looked; they seemed struck dumb with fright; he spoke +to them now in the most courteous manner, but the courtesy was almost +worse than the anger had been before.</p> + +<p>"'I shall have to ask you for the use of the office for a short time, +gentlemen. This is an affair I prefer to investigate immediately, and I +would like to see this young lady alone.' They both began to speak again, +but he interrupted them.</p> + +<p>"'I will send for you presently; not a word more now, if you please;' and +in spite of themselves they were obliged to walk out of the room. As they +turned to shut the door their faces frightened me.</p> + +<p>"'Oh!' I exclaimed; 'oh, Mr. Maynard, they will kill Nat I must go home at +once,' and I rose trembling in every nerve. He made me sit down again, and +brought me a glass of wine, and said, 'Do not be afraid, my dear child, +they will not dare harm your brother. Drink this, and tell me your whole +story.'</p> + +<p>"Then I told him all. He interrupted me only once, to ask me about the +prices paid us for two or three especial patterns which he happened to +recollect. When I stopped, he jumped up from his chair and walked up and +down in front of me, ejaculating, 'By Jove! this is infernal--I never +heard of such a contemptible bit of rascality in my life. I have told my +father ever since I came home that these men had bad faces, and I have +looked carefully for traces of cheating in their accounts. But they were +too cowardly to try it on a large scale.'</p> + +<p>"He then told me that the originality and beauty of the designs which the +Wilkinses had furnished the firm of late had attracted general attention; +that they had said the best ones were the work of a sister in England, the +others of the sister living with them. When he told me the prices which +had been paid for them, I could not help groaning aloud and burying my +face in my hands. 'Oh, my poor Nat!' I exclaimed, 'you might have had +everything you wanted for that.'</p> + +<p>"'But he shall have it still, Miss Kent,' said Robert--'I shall give you a +check for the whole amount before you leave this room, and I do assure you +that your brother has a fortune in his talent for drawing. Probably this +work is only the beginning of what he will do.'</p> + +<p>"As Robert opened the office-door for me to pass out, I saw the two Mr. +Wilkinses standing together at the gate through which I must go. Robert +answered my look of alarm by saying, 'I shall walk home with you, Miss +Kent. They shall not annoy you.'</p> + +<p>"As we came near, they both lifted their hats with obsequious, angry bows. +Robert did not look at them, but said in a low tone, as we passed, 'Go to +the office and wait there till I return.'</p> + +<p>"When he bade me good-by at my door, he said, 'I shall go now to find my +father, and if he is at home the brothers Wilkins will be dismissed from +our employ in less than one hour,' I looked after him as long as I could +see him. Then I went into our little sitting-room, sank into a chair, and +sat motionless, turning the check over and over in my hand, and wondering +if I really were awake and alive, or if all were a dream. In a few moments +Nat came home. As Patrick lifted the wagon up over the door-steps, and Nat +caught sight of my face, he called out, 'Oh, sister, what is the +matter--are you ill?' I ran to him and put the check into his hands, but +it was some minutes before I could speak. The wonderful fortune did not +overwhelm Nat as it had me. He was much stronger than I. Every stroke of +his pencil during the last year had developed and perfected his soul. He +was fast coming to have that consciousness of power which belongs to the +true artist, and makes a life self-centred.</p> + +<p>"'I have felt that all this would come, dear,' he said, 'and more than +this too,' he added dreamily, 'we shall go on; this is only the outer gate +of our lives,'</p> + +<p>"He prophesied more truly than he knew when he said that--my dear blessed +artist-souled martyr!</p> + +<p>"I need not dwell on the details of the next half-year. A few words can +tell them; and then, again, worlds of words could not tell them.</p> + +<p>"Three months from the day I carried the piece of chintz into the +overseer's office, Robert and I were married in the beautiful chapel where +papa used to preach. All the mills were shut, and the little chapel was +crowded with the workmen and workwomen. When we came out they were all +drawn up in lines on the green, and Robert and Mr. Maynard both made them +little speeches. Nat and Miss Penstock and Patrick were in Mr. Maynard's +carriage, and Robert and I stood on the ground by the carriage-door. After +the people had gone, Mr. Maynard came up to me and put both his hands on +my shoulders, just as he had done three years before, and said, 'You were +a brave girl, but you had to take me for your father, after all.'</p> + +<p>"Nat's wedding-present to me was a wood-carving of the 'One-Legged +Dancers'--the one which stands on the little gilt table. I shall never be +separated from it.</p> + +<p>"When I first found out how very rich Robert was, I was afraid; it seemed +to me almost wrong to have so much money. But I hope we shall not grow +selfish. And I cannot but be grateful for it, when I see what it has done +for my darling brother. He is living now in a beautiful apartment in New +York. Patrick is with him, his devoted servant, and Miss Penstock has gone +to keep house for them. Nat is studying and working hard; the best artists +in the city are his friends, and his pictures are already known and +sought. When Robert first proposed this arrangement, Nat said, 'Oh no, no! +I cannot accept such a weight of obligation from any man, not even from a +brother.'</p> + +<p>"Robert rose and knelt down by Nat's chair, and even then he was so far +above him he had to bend over.</p> + +<p>"'Nat,' said he, in a low tone, 'I never knelt to any human being before: +I didn't kneel to Dora when I asked her to give herself to me, for I was +sure I could so give myself to her as to make her happy; but it is to +you, after all, that I owe it that she is mine; I never can forget it for +an hour, and I never can repay you--no, not in my whole life-time, nor +with all my fortune.'</p> + +<p>"Then he told him that the sum which it would need to support him and Miss +Penstock and Patrick in this way was so small, in comparison with our +whole income, that it was not worth mentioning. 'And at any rate,' he +said, 'it is useless for you to remonstrate, Nat, for I have already made +fifty thousand dollars' worth of stock so entirely yours, that you cannot +escape from it. The papers are all in my father's hands, and the income +will be paid to you, or left subject to your order, quarterly. If you do +not spend it, nobody else will;' and then Robert bent down lower, and +lifting Nat's thin hands tenderly in his, pressed them both against his +check, in the way I often did. It was one of the few caresses Nat loved. I +stood the other side of the chair, and I stooped down and kissed him, and +said:--</p> + +<p>"'And, Nat, I cannot be quite happy in any other way.' + +"So Nat yielded.</p> + +<p>"It was hard to come away and leave him. For some time I clung to the hope +that he might come with us; but the physicians all said it would be +madness for him to run the risk of a sea-voyage. However, I know that for +him, the next best thing to seeing Europe himself is to see it through my +eyes. I write to him every week, and I shall carry home to him such +art-treasures as he has never dreamed of possessing.</p> + +<p>"Next year we shall go home, and then he will come back to Maynard's +Mills and live with us. Robert is having a large studio built for him on +the north side of the house, with a bed-room and little sitting-room +opening out of it. Miss Penstock, too, will always live with us; we shall +call her 'housekeeper,' to keep her contented, and Patrick is to stay as +Nat's attendant. Poor fellow, he is not quite full-witted, we think; but +he loves Nat so devotedly that he makes a far better servant than a +cleverer boy would with a shade less affection.</p> + +<p>"And now you have heard the story of my life, dear friend," said Dora, as +she rose from the seat and lighted the rose-colored tapers in two low +swinging Etruscan candlesticks just above our heads--"all that I can tell +you," she added slowly. "You will understand that I cannot speak about the +happiest part of it. But you have seen Robert. The only thing that +troubles me is that I have no sorrow. It seems dangerous. Dear Nat, +although he has all he ever hoped for, need not fear being too happy, +because he has the ever-present pain, to make him earnest and keep him +ready for more pain. I said so to him the day before I came away, and he +gave me those verses I told you of, called 'The Angel of Pain,'"</p> + +<p>Then she repeated them to me:--</p> + +<blockquote><h4> The Angel of Pain.</h4> + +<p> Angel of Pain, I think thy face<br /> +Will be, in all the heavenly place,<br /> +The sweetest face that I shall see,<br /> +The swiftest face to smile on me.<br /> +All other angels faint and tire;<br /> +Joy wearies, and forsakes desire;<br /> +Hope falters, face to face with Fate,<br /> +And dies because it cannot wait;<br /> +And Love cuts short each loving day,<br /> +Because fond hearts cannot obey<br /> +That subtlest law which measures bliss<br /> +By what it is content to miss.<br /> +But thou, O loving, faithful Pain--<br /> +Hated, reproached, rejected, slain--<br /> +Dost only closer cling and bless<br /> +In sweeter, stronger steadfastness.<br /> +Dear, patient angel, to thine own<br /> +Thou comest, and art never known<br /> +Till late, in some lone twilight place<br /> +The light of thy transfigured face<br /> +Sudden shines out, and, speechless, they<br /> +Know they have walked with Christ all day.</p></blockquote> + +<p>When she had done we sat for some time silent. Then I rose, and kissing +her, still silent, went out into the unlighted room where the gilt table +stood. A beam of moonlight fell, broad and white, across its top, and +flickered on the vine-leaves and the ferns. In the dim weird light their +shapes were more fantastic than ever.</p> + +<p>The door into the outer hall stood open. As I went toward it, I saw old +Anita toiling slowly up the stairs, with a flat basket on her head. Her +wrinkled face was all aglow with delight. As soon as she reached the +threshold she set the basket down, and exclaiming, "Oh look, look, +Signora!" lifted off the cover. It was full of fresh and beautiful +anemones of all colors. She moved a few on top and showed me that those +beneath were chiefly purple ones.</p> + +<p>"Iddio mio! will not the dearest of Signoras be pleased now!" she said. +"The saints wish that she shall have all she desires; did not my Biagio's +brother come in from Albano this morning? and as I was in the Piazza +Navona, buying oranges, I heard him calling from a long way off, 'Ho +Anita, my Anita, here are anemones for your beautiful Signora with the +bright hair.'</p> + +<p>"They grow around an old tomb a mile away from his vineyard, and he set +out from his home long before light to get them for me; for he once saw +the Signora and he had heard me say that she never could have enough of +anemones. Iddio mio! but my heart is glad of them. Ah, the dearest of +Signoras!" and, with a tender touch, Anita laid the cool vine-leaves +lightly back upon the anemones and hurried on in search of Dora.</p> +</div> + + +<div class="chapter" id="ch05"> +<h2>How One Woman Kept Her Husband.</h2> + + + +<p>Why my sister married John Gray, I never could understand. I was +twenty-two and she was eighteen when the marriage took place. They had +known each other just one year. He had been passionately in love with her +from the first day of their meeting. She had come more slowly to loving +him: but love him she did, with a love of such depth and fervor as are +rarely seen. He was her equal in nothing except position and wealth. He +had a singular mixture of faults of opposite temperaments. He had the +reticent, dreamy, procrastinating inertia of the bilious melancholic man, +side by side with the impressionable sensuousness, the sensitiveness and +sentimentalism of the most sanguine-nervous type. There is great charm in +such a combination, especially to persons of a keen, alert nature. My +sister was earnest, wise, resolute. John Gray was nonchalant, shrewd, +vacillating. My sister was exact, methodical, ready. John Gray was +careless, spasmodic, dilatory. My sister had affection. He had tenderness. +She was religious of soul; he had a sort of transcendental perceptivity, +so to speak, which kept him more alive to the comforts of religion than +to its obligations. My sister would have gone to the stake rather than +tell a lie. He would tell a lie unhesitatingly, rather than give anybody +pain. My sister lived earnestly, fully, actively, in each moment of the +present. It never seemed quite clear whether he were thinking of to-day, +yesterday, or to-morrow. She was upright because she could not help it. He +was upright,--when he was upright,--because of custom, taste, and the +fitness of things. What fatal discrepancies! what hopeless lack of real +moral strength, enduring purpose, or principle in such a nature as John +Gray's! When I said these things to my sister, she answered always, with a +quiet smile, "I love him." She neither admitted nor denied my accusations. +The strongest expression she ever used, the one which came nearest to +being an indignant repelling of what I had said, was one day, when I +exclaimed:--</p> + +<p>"Ellen, I would die before I'd risk my happiness in the keeping of such a +man."</p> + +<p>"My happiness is already in his keeping," said she in a steady voice, "and +I believe his is in mine. He is to be my husband and not yours, dear; you +do not know him as I do. You do not understand him."</p> + +<p>But it is not to give an analysis of her character or of his, nor to give +a narrative of their family history, that I write this tale. It is only +one episode of their life that I shall try to reproduce here, and I do it +because I believe that its lesson is of priceless worth to women.</p> + +<p>Ellen had been married fourteen years, and was the mother of five +children, when my story begins. The years had gone in the main peacefully +and pleasantly. The children, three girls and two boys, were fair and +strong. Their life had been a very quiet one, for our village was far +removed from excitements of all kinds. It was one of the suburban villages +of ----, and most of the families living there were the families of +merchants or lawyers doing business in the town, going in early in the +morning, and returning late at night. There is usually in such communities +a strange lack of social intercourse; whether it be that the daily +departure and return of the head of the family keeps up a perpetual +succession of small crises of interest to the exclusion of others, or that +the night finds all the fathers and brothers too tired to enjoy anything +but slippers and cigars, I know not; but certain it is that all such +suburban villages are unspeakably dull and lifeless. There is barely +feeling enough of good neighborhood to keep up the ordinary interchange of +the commonest civilities.</p> + +<p>Except for long visits to the city in the winter, and long journeys in the +summer, I myself should have found life insupportably tedious. But Ellen +was absolutely content. Her days were unvaryingly alike, a simple routine +of motherly duties and housekeeping cares. Her evenings were equally +unvaried, being usually spent in sewing or reading, while her husband, in +seven evenings out of ten, dozed, either on the sofa, or on one of the +children's little beds in the nursery. His exquisite tenderness to the +children, and his quiet delight in simply being where they were, were the +brightest points in John Gray's character and life.</p> + +<p>Such monotony was not good for either of them. He grew more and more +dreamy and inert. She insensibly but continually narrowed and hardened, +and, without dreaming of such a thing, really came to be less and less a +part of her husband's inner life. Faithful, busy, absorbed herself in the +cares of each day, she never observed that he was living more and more in +his children and his reveries, and withdrawing more and more from her. She +did not need constant play and interchange of sentiment as he did. +Affectionate, loyal, devoted as she was, there was a side of husband's +nature which she did not see nor satisfy, perhaps, never could. But +neither of them knew it.</p> + +<p>At this time Mr. Gray was offered a position of importance in the city, +and it became necessary for them to move there to live. How I rejoiced in +the change. How bitterly I regretted it before two years had passed.</p> + +<p>Their city home was a beautiful one, and their connections and +associations were such as to surround them at once with the most desirable +companionships. At first it was hard for Ellen to readjust her system of +living and to accustom herself to the demands of even a moderately social +life. But she was by nature very fond of all such pleasures, and her house +soon became one of the pleasantest centres, in a quiet way, of the +comparatively quiet city. John Gray expanded and brightened in the new +atmosphere; he had always been a man of influence among men. All his +friends,--even his acquaintances,--loved him, and asked his advice. It was +a strange thing that a man so inert and procrastinating in his own +affairs, should be so shrewd and practical and influential in the affairs +of others, or in public affairs. This, however, was no stranger than many +other puzzling incongruities in John Gray's character. Since his college +days he had never mingled at all in general society until this winter, +after their removal to town; and it was with delight that I watched his +enjoyment of people, and their evident liking and admiration for him. His +manners were singularly simple and direct; his face, which was not wholly +pleasing in repose, was superbly handsome when animated in conversation; +its inscrutable reticence which baffled the keenest observation when he +was silent, all disappeared and melted in the glow of cordial +good-fellowship which lighted every feature when he talked. I grew very +proud of my brother as I watched him in his new sphere and surroundings; +and I also enjoyed most keenly seeing Ellen in a wider and more +appreciative circle. I spent a large part of the first winter in their +house, and shared all their social pleasures, and looked forward to ever +increasing delight, as my nieces should grow old enough to enter into +society.</p> + +<p>Early in the spring I went to the West and passed the entire summer with +relatives; I heard from my sister every week; her letters were always +cheerful and natural, and I returned to her in the autumn, full of +anticipations of another gay and pleasant winter.</p> + +<p>They met me in New York, and I remembered afterwards, though in the +excitement of the moment I gave it no second thought, that when John +Gray's eyes first met mine, there was in them a singular and indefinable +expression, which roused in me an instant sense of distrust and +antagonism. He had never thoroughly liked me. He had always had an +undercurrent of fear of me. He knew I thought him weak: he felt that I had +never put full confidence in him. That I really and truly loved him was +small offset for this. Would it not be so to all of us?</p> + +<p>This part of my story is best told in few words. I had not been at home +one week before I found that rumor had been for some months coupling John +Gray's name with the name of Mrs. Emma Long, a widow who had but just +returned to----, after twelve years of married life in Cuba. John had +known her in her girlhood, but there had never been any intimacy or even +friendship between them. My sister, however, had known her well, had +corresponded with her during all her life at the South, and had invited +her to her house immediately upon her return to----. Emma Long was a +singularly fascinating woman. Plain and sharp and self-asserting at +twenty-two, she had become at thirty-five magnetic and winning, full of +tact, and almost beautiful. We see such surprising developments +continually: it seems as if nature did her best to give every woman one +period of triumph and conquest; perhaps only they know its full sweetness +to whom it comes late. In early youth it is accepted unthinkingly, as is +the sunshine,--enjoyed without deliberation, and only weighed at its +fullness when it is over. But a woman who begins at thirty to feel for the +first time what it is to have power over men, must be more or less than +woman not to find the knowledge and the consciousness dangerously sweet.</p> + +<p>I never knew--I do not know to-day, whether Emma Long could be justly +called a coquette. That she keenly enjoyed the admiration of men, there +was no doubt. Whether she ever were conscious of even a possible harm to +them from their relation to her, there was always doubt, even in the minds +of her bitterest enemies. I myself have never doubted that in the affair +between her and John Gray she was the one who suffered most; she was the +one who had a true, deep sentiment, and not only never meant a wrong, but +would have shrunk, for his sake, if not for her own, from the dangers +which she did not foresee, but which were inevitable in their intimacy. I +think that her whole life afterward proved this. I think that even my +sister believed it.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Long had spent six weeks in my sister's house, and had then +established herself in a very beautiful furnished house on the same +street. Almost every day Mrs. Long's carriage was at my sister's door, to +take my sister or the children to drive. Almost every evening Mrs. Long +came with the easy familiarity of an habituated guest in the house, to sit +in my sister's parlor, or sent with the easy familiarity of an old friend +for my sister and her husband to come to her, or to go with her to the +theatre or to the opera.</p> + +<p>What could be more natural?--what could be more delightful, had the +relation been one which centred around my sister instead of around my +sister's husband? What could be done, what offense could be taken, what +obstacle interposed, so long as the relation appeared to be one which +included the whole family? Yet no human being could see John Gray five +minutes in Emma Long's presence without observing that his eyes, his +words, his consciousness were hers. And no one could observe her in his +presence without seeing that she was kindled, stimulated, as she was in no +other companionship.</p> + +<p>All this the city had been seeing and gossiping over for four months. All +this, with weary detail, was poured into my ears by kind friends.</p> + +<p>My sister said no word. For the first time in my life there was a barrier +between us I dared not pass. Her every allusion to Mrs. Long was in the +kindest and most unembarrassed manner. She fell heartily and graciously +into every plan which brought them together: she not only did this, she +also fully reciprocated all entertainments and invitations; it was as +often by Ellen's arrangement as by Mrs. Long's that an evening or a day +was spent by the two families together. Her manner to Mrs. Long was +absolutely unaltered. Her manner to John was absolutely unaltered. When +during an entire evening he sat almost motionless and often quite +speechless, listening to Mrs. Long's conversation with others, Ellen's +face never changed. She could not have seemed more unconscious if she had +been blind. There were many bonds of sympathy between John Gray and Emma +Long, which had never existed between him and his wife. They were both +passionately fond of art, and had studied it. Ellen's taste was +undeveloped, and her instinctive likings those of a child. But she +listened with apparent satisfaction and pleasure to long hours of +conversation, about statues, pictures, principles of art, of which she was +as unable to speak as one of her own babies would have been. Mrs. Long +was also a woman who understood affairs; and one of her great charms to +men of mind was the clear, logical, and yet picturesque and piquant way in +which she talked of men and events. Ellen listened and laughed as heartily +as any member of the circle at her repartee, her brilliant +characterization, her off-hand description.</p> + +<p>To John Gray all this was a new revelation. He had never known this sort +of woman. That a woman could be clever as men are clever, and also be +graceful, adorned, and tender with womanliness, he had not supposed.</p> + +<p>Ah, poor Emma Long! not all my loyalty to my sister ever quite stifled in +my heart the question whether there was not in Mrs. Long's nature +something which John Gray really needed--something which Ellen, +affectionate, wise, upright, womanly woman as she was, could never give to +any man.</p> + +<p>The winter wore on. Idle and malicious tongues grew busier and busier. +Nothing except the constant presence of my sister wherever her husband and +Mrs. Long were seen together, prevented the scandal from taking the most +offensive shape. But Ellen was so wise, so watchful, that not even the +most malignant gossip-monger, could point to anything like a clandestine +intercourse between the two.</p> + +<p>In fact, they met so constantly either in Mrs. Long's house or my +sister's, that there was small opportunity for them to meet elsewhere. I +alone knew that on many occasions when Mrs. Long was spending the evening +at our house, Ellen availed herself of one excuse and another to leave +them alone for a great part of the time. But she did this so naturally, +that is, with such perfect art, that not until long afterward did I know +that it had been intentional. This was one great reason of my silence +during all these months. In her apparent ignorance and unsuspiciousness of +the whole thing, she seemed so gay, so happy, so sweet and loving, how +could I give her a pain? And if she did not see it now, she might never +see it. It could never surely become any more apparent. No man could give, +so far as simple manner was concerned, more unmistakable proof of being +absorbed in passionate love for a woman, than John Gray gave in Emma +Long's presence. I began to do Ellen injustice in my thoughts. I said, +"After all, she has not much heart; no woman who loved a man passionately +could look on unmoved and see him so absorbed in another."</p> + +<p>How little I knew! Towards spring Ellen suddenly began to look ill. She +lost color and strength, and a slight cough which she had had all winter +became very severe. Her husband was alarmed. We all were distressed. Our +old family physician, Dr. Willis, changed color when he felt Ellen's +pulse, and said, involuntarily,--</p> + +<p>"My dear child, how long have you had such fever as this?"</p> + +<p>Ellen changed color too, under his steady look, and replied,--</p> + +<p>"I think, doctor, I have had a little fever for some weeks. I have not +felt really well since the autumn, and I have been meaning for some time +to have a long consultation with you. But we will not have it now," she +added playfully, "I have a great deal to tell you which these good people +are not to hear. We will talk it over some other time," and she looked at +him so meaningly that he understood the subject must be dropped.</p> + +<p>That night she told me that she wished me to propose to John to go over +with me and spend the evening at Mrs. Long's; that she had sent for Dr. +Willis, and she wished to have a long talk with him without John's knowing +it.</p> + +<p>"Dear," said I hastily, "I will not go to Mrs. Long's with John. I hate +Mrs. Long."</p> + +<p>"Why, Sally, what do you mean! I never heard you so unjust. Emma is one of +the very sweetest women I ever saw in my life. How can you say such a +thing! Everybody loves and admires her. Don't go if you feel so. I never +dreamed that you disliked her. But I thought John would be less likely to +suspect me of any desire to have him away, if you proposed going there; +and I must have him out of the house. I cannot talk with the doctor if he +is under the roof." She said these last words with an excited emphasis so +unlike her usual manner, that it frightened me. But I thought only of her +physical state; I feared that she suspected the existence of some terrible +disease.</p> + +<p>I went with John to Mrs. Long's almost immediately after tea. He accepted +the proposal with unconcealed delight; and I wondered if Ellen observed +the very nonchalant way in which he replied when she said she did not feel +well enough to go. He already liked better to see Mrs. Long without his +wife's presence, cordial and unembarrassed as her manner always was. His +secret consciousness was always disturbed by it.</p> + +<p>When we reached Mrs. Long's house, we learned that she had gone out to +dinner. John's face became black with the sudden disappointment, and quite +forgetting himself, he exclaimed: "Why, what does that mean? She did not +tell me she was going."</p> + +<p>The servant stared, but made no reply. I was confused and indignant; but +John went on: "We will come in and wait. I am sure it is some very +informal dinner, and Mrs. Long will soon be at home."</p> + +<p>I made no remonstrance, knowing that it might annoy and disturb Ellen to +have us return. John threw himself into a chair in front of the fire, and +looked moodily into the coals, making no attempt at conversation. I took +up a book. Very soon John rose, sauntered abstractedly about the room, +took up Mrs. Long's work-basket, and examined every article in it, and at +last sat down before her little writing-desk, which stood open. Presently +I saw that he was writing. More than an hour passed. I pretended to read; +but I watched my brother-in-law's face. I could not mistake its language. +Suddenly there came a low cry of delight from the door, "Why, John!"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Long had entered the house by a side door, and having met no servant +before reaching the drawing-room, was unprepared for finding any one +there. From the door she could see John, but could not see me, except in +the long mirror, to which she did not raise her eyes, but in which I saw +her swift movement, her outstretched hands, her look of unspeakable +gladness. In less than a second, however, she had seen me, and with no +perceptible change of manner had come rapidly towards me, holding out her +left hand familiarly to him, as she passed him. Emma Long was not a +hypocrite at heart, but she had an almost superhuman power of acting. It +was all lost upon me, however, on that occasion. I observed the quick +motion with which John thrust into a compartment of the desk, the sheet on +which he had been writing; I observed the clasp of their hands as she +glided by him; I observed her face; I observed his; and I knew as I had +never fully known before how intensely they loved each other.</p> + +<p>My resolution was taken. Cost what it might, come what might, I would +speak fully and frankly to my sister the next day. I would not longer +stand by and see this thing go on. At that moment I hated both John Gray +and Emma Long. No possible pain to Ellen seemed to me to weigh for a +moment against my impulse to part them.</p> + +<p>I could not talk. I availed myself of the freedom warranted by the +intimacy between the families, and continued to seem absorbed in my book. +But I lost no word, no look, which passed between the two who sat opposite +me. I never saw Emma Long look so nearly beautiful as she did that night. +She wore a black velvet dress, with fine white lace ruffles at the throat +and wrists. Her hair was fair, and her complexion of that soft pale tint, +with a slight undertone of brown in it, which is at once fair and warm, +and which can kindle in moments of excitement into a brilliance far +outshining any brunette skin. She talked rapidly with much gesture. She +was giving John an account of the stupidity of the people with whom she +had been dining. Her imitative faculty amounted almost to genius. No +smallest peculiarity of manner or speech escaped her, and she could become +a dozen different persons in a minute. John laughed as he listened, but +not so heartily as he was wont to laugh at her humorous sayings. He had +been too deeply stirred in the long interval of solitude before she +returned. His cheeks were flushed and his voice unsteady. She soon felt +the effect of his manner, and her gayety died away; before long they were +sitting in silence, each looking at the fire. I knew I ought to make the +proposition to go home, but I seemed under a spell; I was conscious of a +morbid desire to watch and wait. At length Mrs. Long rose, saying,--</p> + +<p>"If it will not disturb Sally's reading, I will play for you a lovely +little thing I learned yesterday."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no," said I. "But we must go as soon as I finish this chapter."</p> + +<p>She passed into the music-room and looked back for John to follow her; but +he threw himself at full length on the sofa, and said,--</p> + +<p>"No, I will listen here."</p> + +<p>My quickened instinct saw that he dared not go; also that he had laid his +cheek in an abandonment of ecstasy on the arm of the sofa on which her +hand had been resting. Even in that moment I had a sharp pang of pity for +him, and the same old misgiving of question, whether my good and sweet and +almost faultless Ellen could be loved just in the same way in which Emma +Long would be!</p> + +<p>As soon as she had finished the nocturne, a sad, low sweet strain, she +came back to the parlor. Not even for the pleasure of giving John the +delight of the music he loved would she stay where she could not see his +face.</p> + +<p>But I had already put down my book, and was ready to go. Our good-nights +were short and more formal than usual. All three were conscious of an +undefined constraint in the air. Mrs. Long glanced up uneasily in John's +face as we left the room. Her eyes were unutterably tender and childlike +when a look of grieved perplexity shadowed them. Again my heart ached for +her and for him. This was no idle caprice, no mere entanglement of senses +between two unemployed and unprincipled hearts. It was a subtle harmony, +organic, spiritual, intellectual, between two susceptible and intense +natures. The bond was as natural and inevitable as any other fact of +nature. And in this very fact lay the terrible danger.</p> + +<p>We walked home in silence. A few steps from our house we met Dr. Willis +walking very rapidly. He did not recognize us at first. When he did, he +half stopped as if about to speak, then suddenly changed his mind, and +merely bowing, passed on. A bright light was burning in Ellen's room.</p> + +<p>"Why, Ellen has not gone to bed!" exclaimed John.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps some one called," said I, guiltily.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I dare say," replied he; "perhaps the doctor has been there. But it +is half-past twelve," added he, pulling out his watch as we entered the +hall. "He could not have stayed until this time."</p> + +<p>I went to my own room immediately. In a few moments I heard John come up, +say a few words to Ellen, and then go down-stairs, calling back, as he +left her room,--</p> + +<p>"Don't keep awake for me, wifie, I have a huge batch of letters to answer. +I shall not get through before three o'clock."</p> + +<p>I crept noiselessly to Ellen's room. It was dark. She had extinguished the +gas as soon as she had heard us enter the house! I knew by the first sound +of her voice that she had been weeping violently and long. I said,--</p> + +<p>"Ellen, I must come in and have a talk with you."</p> + +<p>"Not to-night, dear. To-morrow I will talk over everything. All is +settled. Good-night. Don't urge me to-night, Sally. I can't bear any +more."</p> + +<p>It is strange--it is marvellous what power there is in words to mean more +than words. I knew as soon as Ellen had said, "Not to-night, dear," that +she divined all I wanted to say, that she knew all I knew, and that the +final moment, the crisis, had come. Whatever she might have to tell me in +the morning, I should not be surprised. I did not sleep. All night I +tossed wearily, trying to conjecture what Ellen would do, trying to +imagine what I should do in her place.</p> + +<p>At breakfast Ellen seemed better than she had seemed for weeks. Her eyes +were bright and her cheeks pink; but there was an ineffable, almost solemn +tenderness in her manner to John, which was pathetic. Again the suspicion +crossed my mind that she knew that she must die. He too was disturbed by +it; he looked at her constantly with a lingering gaze as if trying to read +her face; and when he bade us good-by to go to the office, he kissed her +over and over as I had not seen him kiss her for months. The tears came +into her eyes, and she threw both arms around his neck for a second,--a +very rare thing for her to do in the presence of others.</p> + +<p>"Why, wifie," he said, "you musn't make it too hard for a fellow to get +off!--Doesn't she look well this morning, Sally?" turning to me. "I was +thinking last night that I must take her to the mountains as soon as it +was warm enough. But such cheeks as these don't need it." And he took her +face in his two hands with a caress full of tenderness, and sprang down +the steps.</p> + +<p>Just at this moment Mrs. Long's carriage came driving swiftly around the +corner, and the driver stopped suddenly at sight of John.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mr. Gray, Mr. Gray!" called Emma, "I was just coming to take Ellen +and the children for a turn, and we can leave you at the office on our +way."</p> + +<p>"Thank you," said John, "but there are several persons I must see before +going to the office, and it would detain you too long. I am already much +too late," and without a second look he hurried on.</p> + +<p>I saw a slight color rise in Mrs. Long's cheek, but no observer less +jealous than I would have detected it; and there was not a shade less +warmth than usual in her manner to Ellen.</p> + +<p>Ellen told her that she could not go herself, but she would be very glad +to have some of the children go; and then she stood for some moments, +leaning on the carriage-door and talking most animatedly. I looked from +one woman to the other. Ellen at that moment was more beautiful than Mrs. +Long. The strong, serene, upright look which was her most distinguishing +and characteristic expression, actually shone on her face. I wished that +John Gray had stopped to see the two faces side by side. Emma Long might +be the woman to stir and thrill and entrance the soul; to give stimulus to +the intellectual nature; to rouse passionate emotion; but Ellen was the +woman on whose steadfastness he could rest,--in the light of whose sweet +integrity and transparent truthfulness he was a far safer, and would be a +far stronger man than with any other woman in the world.</p> + +<p>As the carriage drove away with all three of the little girls laughing and +shouting and clinging around Mrs. Long, a strange pang seized me. I looked +at Ellen. She stood watching them with a smile which had something +heavenly in it. Turning suddenly to me, she said: "Sally, if I were dying, +it would make me very happy to know that Emma Long would be the mother of +my children."</p> + +<p>I was about to reply with a passionate ejaculation, but she interrupted +me.</p> + +<p>"Hush, dear, hush. I am not going to die,--I have no fear of any such +thing. Come to my room now, and I will tell you all."</p> + +<p>She locked the door, stood for a moment looking at me very earnestly, then +folded me in her arms and kissed me many times; then she made me sit in a +large arm-chair, and drawing up a low foot-stool, sat down at my feet, +rested both arms on my lap, and began to speak. I shall try to tell in her +own words what she said.</p> + +<p>"Sally, I want to tell you in the beginning how I thank you for your +silence. All winter I have known that you were seeing all I saw, feeling +all I felt, and keeping silent for my sake. I never can tell you how much +I thank you; it was the one thing which supported me. It was an +unspeakable comfort to know that you sympathized with me at every point; +but to have had the sympathy expressed even by a look would have made it +impossible for me to bear up. As long as I live, darling, I shall be +grateful to you. And, moreover, it makes it possible for me to trust you +unreservedly now. I had always done you injustice, Sally. I did not think +you had so much self-control."</p> + +<p>Here she hesitated an instant. It was not easy for her to mention John's +name; but it was only for a second that she hesitated. With an impetuous +eagerness unlike herself, she went on.</p> + +<p>"Sally, you must not blame John. He has struggled as constantly and nobly +as a man ever struggled. Neither must you blame Emma. They have neither of +them done wrong. I have watched them both hour by hour. I know my +husband's nature so thoroughly that I know his very thoughts almost as +soon as he knows them himself. I know his emotions before he knows them +himself. I saw the first moment in which his eyes rested on Emma's face as +they used to rest on mine. From that day to this I have known every phase, +every step, every change of his feeling towards her; and I tell you, +Sally, that I pity John from the bottom of my heart. I understand it all +far better than you can, far better than he does. He loves her at once far +more and far less than you believe, and he loves me far more than you +believe! You will say, in the absolute idealization of your inexperienced +heart, that this is impossible. I know that it is not, and I wish I could +make you believe it, for without believing it you cannot be just to John. +He loves me to-day, in spite of all this, with a sort of clinging +tenderness born of this very struggle. He would far rather love me with +all his nature if he could, but just now he cannot. I see very clearly +where Emma gives him what he needs, and has never had in me. I have +learned many things from Emma Long this winter. I can never be like her. +But I need not have been so unlike her as I was. She has armed me with +weapons when she least suspected it. But she is not after all, on the +whole, so nearly what John needs as I am. If I really believed that he +would be a better man, or even a happier one with her as his wife, I +should have but one desire, and that would be to die. But I think that it +is not so. I believe that it is in my power to do for him, and to be to +him, what she never could. I do not wonder that you look pityingly and +incredulously. You will see. But in order to do this, I must leave him."</p> + +<p>I sprang to my feet. "Leave him! Are you mad?"</p> + +<p>"No, dear, not at all; very sane and very determined. I have been for six +months coming to this resolve. I began to think of it in a very few hours +after I first saw him look at Emma as if he loved her. I have thought of +it day and night since, and I know I am right. If I stay, I shall lose his +love. If I go, I shall keep it, regain it, compel it." She spoke here +more hurriedly. "I have borne now all I can bear without betraying my +pain to him. I am jealous of Emma. It almost kills me to see him look at +her, speak to her."</p> + +<p>"My poor, poor darling!" I exclaimed; "and I have been thinking you did +not feel it!"</p> + +<p>She smiled sadly, and tossed back the sleeve of her wrapper so as to show +her arm to the shoulder. I started. It was almost emaciated. I had again +and again in the course of the winter asked her why she did not wear her +usual style of evening dress, and she had replied that it was on account +of her cough.</p> + +<p>"It is well that my face does not show loss of flesh as quickly as the +rest of my body does," she said quietly. "I have lost thirty-five pounds +of flesh in four months, and nobody observed it! Yes, dear," she went on, +"I have felt it. More than that, I have felt it increasingly every hour, +and I can bear no more. Up to this time I have never by look or tone shown +to John that I knew it. He wonders every hour what it means that I do not. +I have never by so much as the slightest act watched him. I have seen +notes in Emma's handwriting lying on his desk, and I have left the house +lest I might be tempted to read them! I know that he has as yet done no +clandestine thing, but at any moment I should have led them both into it +by showing one symptom of jealousy. And I should have roused in his heart +a feeling of irritation and impatience with me, which would have done in +one hour more to intensify his love for her, and to change its nature from +a pure, involuntary sentiment into an acknowledged and guilty one, than +years and years of free intercourse could do. But I have reached the +limit of my physical endurance. My nerves are giving away. I am really +very ill, but nothing is out of order in my body aside from the effects of +this anguish. A month more of this would make me a hopelessly broken-down +woman. A month's absence from the sight of it will almost make me well."</p> + +<p>I could not refrain from interrupting her.</p> + +<p>"Ellen, you are mad! you are mad! You mean to go away and leave him to see +her constantly alone, unrestrained by your presence? It has almost killed +you to see it. How can you bear imagining it, knowing it?"</p> + +<p>"Better than I can bear seeing it, far better. Because I have still +undiminished confidence in the real lastingness of the bond between John +and me. Emma Long would have been no doubt a good, a very good wife for +him. But I am the mother of his children, and just so surely as right is +right, and wrong is wrong, he will return to me and to them. All wrong +things are like diseases, self-limited. It is wrong for a man to love any +woman better than he loves his wife; I don't deny that, dear," she said, +half smiling through her tears at my indignant face; "but a man may seem +to do it when he is really very far from it. He may really do it for days, +for months--for years, perhaps; but if he be a true man, and his wife a +true wife, he will return. John is a true husband and a still truer +father: that I am the mother of his five children, he can never forget. If +I had had no children, it would be different. If I had ever been for one +moment an unloving wife, it would be different; but I am his; I believe +that he is mine; and that I shall live to remind you of all these things, +Sally, after time has proved them true."</p> + +<p>I was almost dumb with surprise. I was astounded. To me it seemed that her +plan was simply suicidal. I told her in the strongest words I could use of +the scene of the night before.</p> + +<p>"I could tell you of still more trying scenes than that, Sally. I know far +more than you. But if I knew ten times as much, I should still believe +that my plan is the only one. Of course I may fail. It is all in God's +hands. We none of us know how much discipline we need. But I know one +thing: if I do not regain John in this way, I cannot in any. If I stay I +shall annoy, vex, disturb, torture him! Once the barriers of my silence +and concealment are broken down, I shall do just what all other jealous +women have done since the world began. There are no torments on earth like +those which a jealous woman inflicts, except those which she bears! I will +die sooner than inflict them on John. Even if the result proves me +mistaken, I shall never regret my course, for I know that the worst is +certain if I remain. But I have absolute faith,"--and her face was +transfigured with it as she spoke,--"John is mine. If I could stay by his +side through it all and preserve the same relation with him which I have +all winter, all would sooner or later be well. I wish I were strong +enough. My heart is, but my body is not, and I must go."</p> + +<p>When she told me the details of her plan, I was more astounded than ever. +She had taken Dr. Willis into her full confidence. (He had been to us +father and physician both ever since our father's death.) He entirely +approved of her course. He was to say--which indeed he could do +conscientiously--that her health imperatively required an entire change of +climate, and that he had advised her to spend at least one year abroad. It +had always been one of John's and Ellen's air-castles to take all the +children to England and to Germany for some years of study. She proposed +to take the youngest four, leaving the eldest girl, who was her father's +especial pet and companion, to stay with him. A maiden aunt of ours was to +come and keep the house, and I was to stay with the family. This was the +hardest of all.</p> + +<p>"Ellen, I cannot!" I exclaimed. "Do not--oh, do not trust me. I shall +never have strength. I shall betray all some day and ruin all your hopes."</p> + +<p>"You cannot, you dare not, Sally, when I tell you that my life's whole +happiness lies in your silence. John is unobservant and also unsuspicious. +He has never had an intimate relation with you. You will have no +difficulty. But you must be here,--because, dear, there is another +reason," and here her voice grew very unsteady, and tears ran down her +cheeks.</p> + +<p>"In spite of all my faith, I do not disguise from myself the possibility +of the worst. I cannot believe my husband would ever do a dishonorable +thing. I do not believe that Emma Long would. And yet, when I remember +what ruin, has overtaken many men and women whom we believed upright, I +dare not be wholly sure. And I must know that some one is here who would +see and understand if a time were approaching at which it would be +needful for me to make one last effort with and for my husband face to +face with him. Unless that comes, I do not wish you to allude to the +subject in your letters. I think I know just how all things will go. I +believe that in one year, or less, all will be well. But if the worst is +to come, you with your instincts will foresee it, and I must be told. I +should return then at once. I should have power, even at the last moment, +I believe, to save John from disgrace. But I should lose his love +irrecoverably; it is to save that that I go."</p> + +<p>I could say but few words. I was lifted up and borne out of myself, as it +were, by my sister's exaltation. She seemed more like some angel-wife than +like a mortal woman. Before I left her room at noon, I believed almost as +fully as she did in the wisdom and the success of her plan.</p> + +<p>There was no time to be lost. Every day between the announcement of her +purpose and the carrying of it out, would be a fearful strain on Ellen's +nerves. Dr. Willis had a long talk with John in his office while Ellen was +talking with me. John came home to dinner looking like a man who had +received a mortal blow. Dr. Willis had purposely given him to understand +that Ellen's life was in great danger. So it was, but not from the cough! +At first John's vehement purpose was to go with them. But she was prepared +for this. His business and official relations were such that it was next +to impossible for him to do it, and it would at best involve a great +pecuniary sacrifice. She overruled and remonstrated, and was so firm in +her objections to every suggestion of his of accompanying or following +her, that finally, in spite of all his anxiety, John seemed almost piqued +at her preference for going alone. In every conversation on the subject I +saw more and more clearly that Ellen was right. He did love her--love her +warmly, devotedly.</p> + +<p>Two weeks from the day of my conversation with her they sailed for +Liverpool. The summer was to be spent in England, and the winter in Nice +or Mentone.</p> + +<p>Alice, the eldest daughter, a loving, sunshiny girl of twelve, was +installed in her mother's room. This was Ellen's especial wish. She knew +that in this way John would be drawn to the room constantly. All her own +little belongings were given to Alice.</p> + +<p>"Only think, Auntie," said she, "mamma has given me, all for my own, her +lovely toilette set, and all the Bohemian glass on the bureau, and her +ivory brushes! She says when she comes home she shall refurnish her room +and papa's too!"</p> + +<p>Oh, my wise Ellen. Could Emma Long have done more subtly!</p> + +<p>Early on the first evening after John returned from New York, having seen +them off, I missed him. I said bitterly to myself, "At Mrs. Long's, I +suppose," and went up-stairs to find Alice. As I drew near her room I +heard his voice, reading aloud. I went in. He and Alice were lying +together on a broad chintz-covered lounge, as I had so often seen him and +Ellen.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Auntie, come here," said Alice, "hear mamma's letter to me! She gave +it to papa in New York. She says it is like the sealed orders they give to +captains sometimes, not to be opened till they are out at sea. It is all +about how I am to fill her place to papa. And there are ever so many +little notes inside, more orders, which even papa himself is not to see! +only I suppose he'll recognize the things when I do them!"</p> + +<p>At that moment, as I watched John Gray's face, with Alice's nestled close, +and his arms clasped tight around her, while they read Ellen's letter, a +great load rolled off my heart. I went through many dark days afterward, +but I never could quite despair when I remembered the fatherhood and the +husbandhood which were in his eyes and his voice that night</p> + +<p>The story of the next twelve months could be told in few words, so far as +its external incidents are concerned. It could not be told in a thousand +volumes, if I attempted to reproduce the subtle undercurrents of John +Gray's life and mine. Each of us was living a double life; he more or less +unconsciously; I with such sharpened senses, such overwrought emotions, +that I only wonder that my health did not give way. I endured vicariously +all the suspense and torment of the deepest jealousy, with a sense of more +than vicarious responsibility added, which was almost more than human +nature could bear. Ellen little knew how heavy would be the burden she +laid upon me. Her most express and explicit direction was that the +familiar intimacy between our family and Mrs. Long's was to be preserved +unaltered. This it would have been impossible for me to do if Mrs. Long +had not herself recognized the necessity of it, for her own full enjoyment +of John's society. But it was a hard thing; my aunt, the ostensible head +of our house, was a quiet woman who had nothing whatever to do with +society, and who felt in the outset a great shrinking from the brilliant +Mrs. Long. I had never been on intimate terms with her, so that John and +Alice were really the only members of the household who could keep up +precisely the old relation. And so it gradually came about that to most of +our meetings under each other's roofs, strangers were asked to fill up the +vacant places, and in spite of all Emma Long's efforts and mine, there was +a change in the atmosphere of our intercourse. But there was intimacy +enough to produce the effect for which Ellen was most anxious, i.e., to +extend the shelter of our recognition to the friendship between John and +Emma, and to remove from them both all temptation to anything clandestine +or secret. They still saw each other almost daily; they still shared most +of each other's interests and pleasures; they still showed most +undisguised delight in each other's presence. Again and again I went with +them to the opera, to the theatre, and sat through the long hours, +watching, with a pain which seemed to me hardly less than Ellen's would +have been, their constant sympathy with each other in every point of +enjoyment, their constant forgetfulness of every one else.</p> + +<p>But there was, all this time, another side to John Gray's life, which I +saw, and Emma Long did not see. By every steamer came packages of the most +marvelous letters from Ellen: letters to us all; but for John, a diary of +every hour of her life. Each night she spent two hours in writing out the +record of the day. I have never seen letters which so reproduced the +atmosphere of the day, the scene, the heart. They were brilliant and +effective to a degree that utterly astonished me; but they were also +ineffably tender and loving, and so natural in their every word, that it +was like seeing Ellen face to face to read them. At first John did not +show them even to me; but soon he began to say, "These are too rare to be +kept to myself; I must just read you this account;" or, "Here is a page I +must read," until it at last became his habit to read them aloud in the +evenings to the family, and even to more intimate friends who chanced to +be with us. He grew proud beyond expression of Ellen's talent for writing; +and well he might. No one who listened to them but exclaimed, "There never +were such letters before!" I think there never were. And I alone knew the +secret of them.</p> + +<p>But these long, brilliant letters were not all. In every mail came also +packages for Alice--secret, mysterious things which nobody could see, but +which proved to be sometimes small notes, to be given to papa at +unexpected times and places; sometimes little fancy articles, as a +pen-wiper, or a cigar-case, half worked by Ellen, to be finished by Alice, +and given to papa on some especial day, the significance of which "only +mamma knows;" sometimes a pressed flower, which was to be put by papa's +plate at breakfast, or put in papa's button-hole as he went out in the +morning. I was more and more lost in astonishment at the subtle and +boundless art of love which could so contrive to reach across an ocean, +and surround a man's daily life with its expression. There were also in +every package, letters to John from all the children: even the baby's +little hand was guided to write by every mail, "Dear papa, I love you +just as much as all the rest do!" or, "Dear papa, I want you to toss me +up!" More than once I saw tears roll down John's face in spite of him, as +he slowly deciphered these illegible little scrawls. The older children's +notes were vivid and loving like their mother's. It was evident that they +were having a season of royal delight in their journey, but also evident +that their thoughts and their longings were constantly reverting to papa. +How much Ellen really indited of these apparently spontaneous letters I do +not know; but no doubt their tone was in part created by her. They showed, +even more than did her own letters, that papa was still the centre of the +family life. No sight was seen without the wish--"Oh, if papa were here!" +and even little Mary, aged five, was making a collection of pressed leaves +for papa, from all the places they visited. Louise had already great +talent for drawing, and in almost every letter came two or three childish +but spirited little pictures, all labelled "Drawn for papa!" "The true +picture of our courier in a rage, for papa to see." "The washerwoman's +dog, for papa," etc., etc. Again and again I sat by, almost trembling with +delight, and saw John spend an entire evening in looking over these little +missives and reading Ellen's letters. Then again I sat alone and anxious +through an entire evening, when I knew he was with Emma Long. But even +after such an evening, he never failed to sit down and write pages in his +journal-letter to Ellen--a practice which he began of his own accord, +after receiving the first journal-letter from her.</p> + +<p>"Ha! little Alice," he said, "we'll keep a journal too, for mamma, won't +we! She shall not out-do us that way." And so, between Alice's letters and +his, the whole record of our family life went every week to Ellen; and I +do not believe, so utterly unaware was John Gray of any pain in his wife's +heart about Emma Long, I do not believe that he ever in a single instance +omitted to mention when he had been with her, where, and how long.</p> + +<p>Emma Long wrote too, and Ellen wrote to her occasional affectionate notes; +but referring her always to John's diary-letters for the details of +interest. I used to study Mrs. Long's face while these letters were read +to her. John's animated delight, his enthusiastic pride, must, it seemed +to me, have been bitter to her. But I never saw even a shade of such a +feeling in her face. There was nothing base or petty in Emma Long's +nature, and, strange as it may seem, she did love Ellen. Only once did I +ever see a trace of pique or resentment in her manner to John, and then I +could not wonder at it. A large package had come from Ellen, just after +tea one night, and we were all gathered in the library, reading our +letters and looking at the photographs--(she always sent unmounted +photographs of the place from which she wrote, and, if possible, of the +house in which they were living, and the children often wrote above the +windows, "<i>Papa's</i> and mamma's room," etc, etc.)--hour after hour passed. +The hall clock had just struck ten, when the door-bell rang violently. +"Good heavens!" exclaimed John, springing up, "that must be Mrs. Long; I +totally forgot that I had promised to go with her to Mrs. Willis's party. +I said I would be there at nine; tell her I am up-stairs dressing," and he +was gone before the servant had had time to open the door. Mrs. Long came +in, with a flushed face and anxious look. "Is Mr. Gray ill?" she said. "He +promised to call for me at nine, to go to Mrs. Willis's, and I have been +afraid he might be ill."</p> + +<p>Before I could reply, the unconscious Alice exclaimed,--</p> + +<p>"Oh, no; papa isn't ill; he is so sorry, but he forgot all about the party +till he heard you ring the bell. We were so busy over mamma's letters."</p> + +<p>"John will be down in a moment," added I. "He ran up-stairs to dress as +soon as you rang."</p> + +<p>For one second Emma Long's face was sad to see. Such astonishment, such +pain, were in it, my heart ached for her. Then a look of angry resentment +succeeded the pain, and merely saying, "I am very sorry; but I really +cannot wait for him. It is now almost too late to go," she had left the +room and closed the outer door before I could think of any words to say.</p> + +<p>I ran up to John's room, and told him through the closed door. He made no +reply for a moment, and then said,--</p> + +<p>"No wonder she is vexed. It was unpardonable rudeness. Tell Robert to run +at once for a carriage for me."</p> + +<p>In a very few moments he came down dressed for the party, but with no +shadow of disturbance on his face. He was still thinking of the letters. +He took up his own, and putting it into an inside breast-pocket, said, as +he kissed Alice, "Papa will take mamma's letter to the party, if he can't +take mamma!"</p> + +<p>I shed grateful tears that night before I went to sleep. How I longed to +write to Ellen of the incident; but I had resolved not once to disregard +her request that the whole subject be a sealed one. And I trusted that +Alice would remember to tell it. Well I might! At breakfast Alice said,--</p> + +<p>"Oh, papa, I told mamma that you carried her to the party in your +breast-pocket; that is, you carried her letter!"</p> + +<p>I fancied that John's cheek flushed a little as he said,--</p> + +<p>"You might tell mamma that papa carries her everywhere in his +breast-pocket, little girlie, and mamma would understand."</p> + +<p>I think from that day I never feared for Ellen's future. I fancied, too, +that from that day there was a new light in John Gray's eyes. Perhaps it +might have been only the new light in my own; but I think when a man knows +that he has once, for one hour, forgotten a promise to meet a woman whose +presence has been dangerously dear to him, he must be aware of his dawning +freedom.</p> + +<p>The winter was nearly over. Ellen had said nothing to us about returning.</p> + +<p>"Dr. Willis tells me that, from what Ellen writes to him of her health, he +thinks it would be safer for her to remain abroad another year," said John +to me one morning at breakfast.</p> + +<p>"Oh, she never will stay another year!" exclaimed I.</p> + +<p>"Not unless I go out to stay with her," said John, very quietly.</p> + +<p>"Oh, John, could you?" and, "Oh, papa, will you take me?" exclaimed Alice +and I in one breath.</p> + +<p>"Yes," and "yes," said John, laughing, "and Sally too, if she will go."</p> + +<p>He then proceeded to tell me that he had been all winter contemplating +this; that he believed they would never again have so good an opportunity +to travel in Europe, and that Dr. Willis's hesitancy about Ellen's health +had decided the question. He had been planning and deliberating as +silently and unsuspectedly as Ellen had done the year before. Never once +had it crossed my mind that he desired it, or that it could be. But I +found that he had for the last half of the year been arranging his affairs +with a view to it, and had entered into new business connections which +would make it not only easy, but profitable, for him to remain abroad two +years. He urged me to go with them, but I refused. I felt that the father +and the mother and the children ought to be absolutely alone in this +blessed reunion, and I have never regretted my decision, although the old +world is yet an unknown world to me.</p> + +<p>John Gray was a reticent and undemonstrative man, in spite of all the +tenderness and passionateness in his nature. But when he bade me good-by +on the deck of the steamer, as he kissed me he whispered:--</p> + +<p>"Sally, I shall hold my very breath till I see Ellen. I never knew how I +loved her before." And the tears stood in his eyes.</p> + +<p>I never saw Emma Long after she knew that John was to go abroad to join +Ellen. I found myself suddenly without courage to look in her face. The +hurry of my preparations for Alice was ample excuse for my not going to +her house, and she did not come to ours. I knew that John spent several +evenings with her, and came home late, with a sad and serious face, and +that was all. A week before he sailed she joined a large and gay party for +San Francisco and the Yosemite. In all the newspaper accounts of the +excursion, Mrs. Long was spoken of as the brilliant centre of all +festivities. I understood well that this was the first reaction of her +proud and sensitive nature under an irremediable pain. She never returned +to ----, but established herself in a Southern city, where she lived in +great retirement for a year, doing good to all poor and suffering people, +and spending the larger part of her fortune in charity. Early in the +second year there was an epidemic of yellow fever: Mrs. Long refused to +leave the city, and went as fearlessly as the physicians to visit and +nurse the worst cases. But after the epidemic had passed by, she herself +was taken ill, and died suddenly in a hospital ward, surrounded by the +very patients whom she had nursed back to health. Nothing I could say in +my own words would give so vivid an idea of the meeting between John Gray +and his wife, as the first letter which I received from little Alice:--</p> + +<p>"DARLING AUNTIE,--</p> + +<p>"It is too bad you did not come too. The voyage was horrid. Papa was so +much sicker than I, that I had to take care of him all the time; but my +head ached so that I kept seeing black spots if I stooped over to kiss +papa; but papa said, I was just like another mamma.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Auntie, only think, there was a mistake about the letters, and mamma +never got the letter to tell her that we were coming; and she was out on +the balcony of the hotel when we got out of the carriage, and first she +saw me; and the lady who was with her said she turned first red and then +so white the lady thought she was sick; and then the next minute she saw +papa, and she just fell right down among all the people, and looked as if +she was dead; and the very first thing poor papa and I saw, when we got +up-stairs, was mamma being carried by two men, and papa and I both thought +she was dead; and papa fell right down on his knees, and made the men put +mamma down on the floor, and everybody talked out loud, and papa never +spoke a word, but just looked at mamma, and nobody knew who papa was till +I spoke, and I said,--</p> + +<p>"'That's my mamma, and papa and I have just come all the way from +America,"--and then a gentleman told me to kiss mamma, and I did; and then +she opened her eyes; and just as soon as she saw papa, she got a great +deal whiter and her head fell back again, and I was so sure she was dying, +that I began to cry out loud, and I do think there were more than a +hundred people all round us; but Louise says there were only ten or +twelve; and then the same gentleman that told me to kiss mamma took hold +of papa, and made him go away; and they carried mamma into a room, and +laid her on a bed, and said we must all go out; but I wouldn't: I got +right under the bed, and they didn't see me; and it seemed to me a +thousand years before anybody spoke; and at last I heard mamma's voice, +just as weak as a baby's--but you know nobody could mistake mamma's voice; +and said she, 'Where is John--I saw John;' and then the gentleman +said,--oh, I forgot to tell you he was a doctor,--he said,--</p> + +<p>"'My dear madam, calm yourself'--and then I cried right out again, and +crept out between his legs and almost knocked him down; and said I, 'Don't +you try to calm my mamma; it is papa--and me too, mamma!' and then mamma +burst out crying; and then the old gentleman ran out, and I guess papa was +at the door, for he came right in; and then he put his arms round mamma, +and they didn't speak for so long, I thought I should die; and all the +people were listening, and going up and down in the halls outside, and I +felt so frightened and ashamed, for fear people would think mamma wasn't +glad to see us. But papa says that is always the way when people are more +glad than they can bear; and the surprise, too, was too much for anybody. +But I said at the tea-table that I hoped I should never be so glad myself +as long as I lived; and then the old gentleman,--he's a very nice old +gentleman, and a great friend of mamma's, and wears gold spectacles,--he +said, 'My dear little girl, I hope you <i>may</i> be some day just as glad,' +and then he looked at papa and mamma and smiled,--and mamma almost cried +again! Oh, altogether it was a horrid time; the worst I ever had; and so +different from what papa and I thought it would be.</p> + +<p>"But it's all over now, and we're all so happy, we laugh so all the time, +that papa says it is disgraceful; that we shall have to go off and hide +ourselves somewhere where people can't see us.</p> + +<p>"But Auntie, you don't know how perfectly splendid mamma is. She is the +prettiest lady in the hotel, Louise says. She is ever so much fatter than +she used to be. And the baby has grown so I did not know her, and her +curls are more than half a yard long. Louise and Mary have got their hair +cut short like boys, but their gowns are splendid; they say it was such a +pity you had any made for me at home. But oh, dear Auntie, don't think I +shall not always like the gowns you made for me. Charlie isn't here; he's +at some horrid school a great way off; I forget the name of the place. But +we are all going there to live for the summer. Mamma said we should keep +house in an 'apartment,' and I was perfectly horrified, and I said, +'Mamma, in one room?' and then Louise and Mary laughed till I was quite +angry; but mamma says that here an 'apartment' means a set of a good many +rooms, quite enough to live in. I don't believe you can have patience to +read this long letter; but I haven't told you half; no, not one half of +half. Good-by, you darling aunty. ALICE.</p> + +<p>"P.S.--I wish you could just see mamma. It isn't only me that thinks she +is so pretty; papa thinks so too. He just sits and looks, and looks at +her, till mamma doesn't quite like it, and asks him to look at baby a +little!"</p> + +<p>Ellen's first letter was short. Her heart was too full. She said at the +end,--</p> + +<p>"I suppose you will both laugh and cry over Alice's letter. At first I +thought of suppressing it. But it gives you such a graphic picture of the +whole scene that I shall let it go. It is well that I had the excuse of +the surprise for my behavior, but I myself doubt very much if I should +have done any better, had I been prepared for their coming.</p> + +<p>"God bless and thank you, dear Sally, for this last year, as I cannot.</p> + +<p>"ELLEN."</p> + +<p>These events happened many years ago. My sister and I are now old women. +Her life has been from that time to this, one of the sunniest and most +unclouded I ever knew.</p> + +<p>John Gray is a hale old man; white-haired and bent, but clear-eyed and +vigorous. All the good and lovable and pure in his nature have gone on +steadily increasing: his love for his wife is still so full of sentiment +and romance that the world remarks it.</p> + +<p>His grandchildren will read these pages, no doubt, but they will never +dream that it could have been their sweet and placid and beloved old +grandmother who, through such sore straits in her youth, kept her husband!</p> +</div> + + +<div class="chapter" id="ch06"> +<h2>Esther Wynn's Love-Letters.</h2> + + + +<p>My uncle, Joseph Norton, lived in a very old house. It was one of those +many mansions in which that father of all sleepers, George Washington, +once slept for two nights. This, however, was before the house came into +the possession of our family, and we seldom mentioned the fact.</p> + +<p>The rooms were all square, and high; many of the walls were of wood +throughout, panelled from the floor to the ceiling, and with curious china +tiles set in around the fire-places. In the room in which I always slept +when I visited there, these wooden walls were of pale green; the tiles +were of blue and white, and afforded me endless study and perplexity, +being painted with a series of half-allegorical, half-historical, +half-Scriptural representations which might well have puzzled an older +head than mine. The parlors were white, with gold ornaments; the library +was of oak, with mahogany wainscoting, and so were the two great central +halls, upper and lower. The balustrade of the staircase was of apple-tree +wood, more beautiful than all the rest, having fine red veins on its dark +polished surface. These halls were lined with portraits of dead Nortons, +men and women, who looked as much at home as if the grand old house had +always borne their name. And well they might, for none of the owners who +had gone before had been of as gentle blood as they; and now they would +probably never be taken down from the walls, for my uncle had bought the +house, and my uncle's son would inherit it; and it had never yet been +known that a Norton of our branch of Nortons had lived wastefully or come +to want.</p> + +<p>My uncle had married very late in life: he was now a gray-haired man, with +little children around his knee. It was said once in my presence, by some +one who did not know I listened, that his heart had been broken when he +was little more than a boy, by the faithlessness of a woman older than +himself, and that he would never have married if he had not seen that +another heart would be broken if he did not. Be that as it may, his +bearing towards his wife was always of the most chivalrous and courteous +devotion, so courteous as perhaps to confirm this interpretation of his +marriage.</p> + +<p>My aunt was an uninteresting woman, of whom, if she were not in sight, one +never thought; but she had great strength of affection and much good sense +in affairs. Her children loved her; her husband enjoyed the admirably +ordered system of her management, and her house was a delightful one to +visit. Although she did not contribute to the flavor of living, she never +hindered or thwarted those who could. There was freedom in her presence, +from the very fact that you forgot her, and that she did not in the least +object to being forgotten. Such people are of great use in the world; and +make much comfort.</p> + +<p>At the time when the strange incidents which I am about to tell occurred, +my aunt had been married twelve years, and had four children; three girls, +Sarah, Hilda, and Agnes, and a baby boy, who had as yet no name. Sarah was +called "Princess," and her real name was never heard. She was the oldest, +and was my uncle's inseparable companion. She was a child of uncommon +thoughtfulness and tenderness. The other two were simply healthy, happy +little creatures, who gave no promise of being any more individual than +their serene, quiet mother.</p> + +<p>I was spending the winter in the family, and going to school, and between +my uncle and me there had grown up an intimate and confidential friendship +such as is rare between a man of sixty and a girl of fifteen. I understood +him far better than his wife did; and his affection for me was so great +and so caressing that he used often to say, laughingly, "Nell, my girl, +you'll never have another lover like me!"</p> + +<p>We were sitting at breakfast one morning when Princess came in, holding a +small letter in her hand.</p> + +<p>"Look, papa mia!" she said; "see this queer old letter I found on the +cellar stairs. It looks a hundred years old."</p> + +<p>My uncle glanced up, carelessly at first, but as soon as he saw the paper +he stretched out his hand for it, and looked eager. It did indeed seem as +if it were a hundred years old; yellow, crumpled, torn. It had been folded +in the clumsy old way which was customary before the invention of +envelopes; the part of the page containing the address had been torn out. +He read a few words, and the color mounted in his cheek.</p> + +<p>"Where did you say you found it, Princess?" he said.</p> + +<p>"On the cellar stairs, papa; I went down to find Fido, and he was playing +with it."</p> + +<p>"What is it, Joseph?" said Aunt Sarah, in tones a shade more eager than +their wont.</p> + +<p>"I do not know, my dear," replied my uncle; "it is very old," and he went +on reading with a more and more sobered face.</p> + +<p>"Robert," said he, turning to the waiter, "do you know where this paper +could have come from? Have any old papers been carried down from the +garret, to light the fire in the furnace?" + +"No, sir," said Robert, "not that I know, sir."</p> + +<p>"There are whole barrels of old papers under the eaves in the garret," +said Aunt Sarah; "I have always meant to have them burned up; I dare say +this came out of one of them, in some way;" and she resumed her habitual +expression of nonchalance.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps so," said Uncle Jo, folding up the paper and putting it in his +pocket. "I will look, after breakfast."</p> + +<p>She glanced up, again surprised, and said, "Why? is it of any importance?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, no," said he hastily, with a shade of embarrassment in his voice, +"it is only an old letter, but I thought there might be more from the same +person."</p> + +<p>"Who was it?" said Aunt Sarah, languidly.</p> + +<p>"I don't know; only the first name is signed," said he evasively; and the +placid lady asked no more. The children were busy with Fido, and breakfast +went on, but I watched my uncle's face. I had never seen it look just as +it looked then. What could that old yellow letter have been? My magnetic +sympathy with my uncle told me that he was deeply moved.</p> + +<p>At dinner-time my uncle was late, and Aunt Sarah said, with a little less +than her usual dignity, "I never did see such a man as Mr. Norton, when he +takes a notion in his head. He's been all the morning rummaging in clouds +of dust in the garret, to find more of those old letters."</p> + +<p>"Who wrote it, Auntie?" said I.</p> + +<p>"Heaven knows," said she; "some woman or other, fifty years ago. He says +her name was Esther."</p> + +<p>"Did you read it?" I asked tremblingly. Already I felt a shrinking sense +of regard for the unknown Esther.</p> + +<p>Aunt Sarah looked at me with almost amused surprise. "Read it, child? no, +indeed! What do I care what that poor soul wrote half a century ago. But +your uncle's half out of his head about her, and he's had all the servants +up questioning them back and forth till they are nearly as mad as he is. +Cook says she has found several of them on the cellar stairs in the last +few weeks; but she saw they were so old she threw them into the fire, and +never once looked at them; and when she said that, your uncle just +groaned. I never did see such a man as he is when he gets a notion in his +head,"--she repeated, hopelessly.</p> + +<p>My uncle came in flushed and tired. Nothing was said about the letters +till, just as dinner was over, he said suddenly:--</p> + +<p>"Robert, if you find any more of these old papers anywhere, bring them to +me at once. And give orders to all the servants that no piece of old +paper with writing on it is to be destroyed without my seeing it."</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir," said Robert, without changing a muscle of his face, but I saw +that he too was of Mrs. Norton's opinion as to his master's oddity when he +once got a notion in his head.</p> + +<p>"Who was the lady, papa?" said little Agnes. "Did you know her?"</p> + +<p>"My dear, the letter is as old as papa is himself," said he. "I think the +lady died when papa was a little baby."</p> + +<p>"Then what makes you care so much, papa?" persisted Agnes.</p> + +<p>"I can't tell you, little one," said he, kissing her, and tossing her up +in the air; but he looked at me.</p> + +<p>In the early twilight that afternoon I found my uncle lying with closed +eyes on the lounge in the library. He was very tired by his long +forenoon's work in the garret. I sat down on the floor and stroked his +dear old white hair.</p> + +<p>"Pet," he said, without opening his eyes, "that letter had the whole soul +of a woman in it."</p> + +<p>"I thought so, dear," said I, "by your face."</p> + +<p>After a long interval he said: "I could not find a word more of her +writing; I might have known I should not;" and again, after a still longer +silence, "Would you like to read it, Nell?"</p> + +<p>"I am not sure, Uncle Jo," I said. "It seems hardly right. I think she +would not so much mind your having it, because you are a man; but another +woman! no, uncle dear, I think the letter belongs to you."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you true woman-hearted darling," he said, kissing me; "but some day +I think I shall want you to read it with me. She would not mind your +reading it, if she knew you as I do."</p> + +<p>Just then Aunt Sarah came into the room, and we said no more.</p> + +<p>Several days passed by, and the mysterious letter was forgotten by +everybody except my uncle and me.</p> + +<p>One bitterly cold night we were sitting around a blazing coal fire in the +library. It was very late. Aunt Sarah was asleep in her chair; my uncle +was reading. Suddenly the door opened and Robert came in, bringing a +letter on his little silver tray: it was past eleven o'clock; the evening +mail had been brought in long before.</p> + +<p>"Why, what is that, Robert?" said Uncle Jo, starting up a little alarmed.</p> + +<p>"One of them old letters, sir," replied Robert; "I just got it on the +cellar stairs, sir."</p> + +<p>My uncle took the letter hastily. Robert still stood as if he had more to +say; and his honest, blank face looked stupefied with perplexity.</p> + +<p>"If you please, sir," he began, "it's the queerest thing ever I saw. That +letter's been put on them stairs, sir, within the last five minutes."</p> + +<p>"Why, Robert, what do you mean?" said my uncle, thoroughly excited.</p> + +<p>"Oh dear," groaned Aunt Sarah, creeping out of her nap and chair, "if you +are going into another catechism about those old letters, I am going to +bed;" and she left the room, not staying long enough to understand that +this was a new mystery, and not a vain rediscussing of the old one.</p> + +<p>It seemed that Robert had been down cellar to see that the furnace fire +was in order for the night. As soon as he reached the top of the stairs, +in coming up, he remembered that he had not turned the outside damper +properly, and went back to do it.</p> + +<p>"I wasn't gone three minutes, sir, and when I came back there lay the +letter, right side up, square in the middle of the stairs; and I'd take my +Bible oath, sir, as 'twan't there when I went down."</p> + +<p>"Who was in the hall when you went down, Robert?" said my uncle sternly.</p> + +<p>"Nobody, sir. Every servant in the house had gone to bed, except Jane" (my +aunt's maid), "and she was going up the stairs over my head, sir, when I +first went down into the cellar. I know she was, sir, for she called +through the stairs to me, and she says, 'Master'll hear you, Robert.' You +see, sir, Jane and me didn't know as it was so late, and we was frightened +when we heard the clock strike half-past eleven."</p> + +<p>"That will do, Robert," said Uncle Jo. "You can go," and Robert +disappeared, relieved but puzzled. There seemed no possible explanation of +the appearance of the letter there and then, except that hands had placed +it there during the brief interval of Robert's being in the cellar. There +were no human hands in the house which could have done it. Was a restless +ghost wandering there, bent on betraying poor Esther's secrets to +strangers? What did it, what could it mean?</p> + +<p>"Will you read this one with me, Nell?" said my uncle, turning it over +reverently and opening it.</p> + +<p>"No," I said, "but I will watch you read it;" and I sat down on the floor +at his feet.</p> + +<p>The letter was very short; he read it twice without speaking; and then +said, in an unsteady voice: "This is an earlier letter than the other, I +think. This is a joyous one; poor Esther! I believe I know her whole +story. But the mystery is inexplicable! I would take down these walls if I +thought I could get at the secret."</p> + +<p>Long past midnight we sat and talked it all over; and racked our brains in +vain to invent any theory to account for the appearance of the letters on +that cellar stairway. My uncle's tender interest in the poor dead Esther +was fast being overshadowed by the perplexing mystery.</p> + +<p>A few days after this, Mary the cook found another of the letters when she +first went down-stairs in the morning, and Robert placed it by my uncle's +plate, with the rest of his mail. It was the strangest one of all, for +there was not a word of writing in it that could be read. It was a foreign +letter; some lines of the faded old postmarks were still visible on the +back. The first page looked as if it had been written over with some sort +of sympathetic ink; but not a word could be deciphered. Folded in a small +piece of the thinnest of paper was a mouldy and crumbling flower, of a +dull-brown color; on the paper was written,--"Pomegranate blossom, from +Jaffa," and a few lines of poetry, of which we could make out only here +and there a word.</p> + +<p>Even Aunt Sarah was thoroughly aroused and excited now. Robert had been in +the cellar very late on the previous night, and was sure that at that time +no papers were on the stairs.</p> + +<p>"I never go down them stairs, sir," said Robert, "without looking--and +listening too," he added under his breath, with a furtive look back at the +cook, who was standing in the second doorway of the butler's pantry. The +truth was, Robert had been afraid of the cellar ever since the finding of +the second letter: and all the servants shared his uneasiness. + +Between eleven at night and seven the next morning, this mute ghostly waif +from Palestine, with the half-century old dust of a pomegranate flower in +its keeping, had come up that dark stairway. It appeared now that the +letters were always found on the fourth stair from the top. This fact had +not before been elicited, but there seemed little doubt about it. Even +little Princess said,--</p> + +<p>"Yes, papa, I am sure that the one I found was on that stair; for I now +remember Fido came up with only just one or two bounds to the top, as soon +as he saw me."</p> + +<p>We were very sober. The little children chattered on; it meant nothing to +them, this breath from such a far past. But to hearts old enough to +comprehend, there was something infinitely sad and suggestive in it. I +already felt, though I had not read one word of her writing, that I loved +the woman called Esther; as for my uncle, his very face was becoming +changed by the thought of her, and the mystery about the appearance of the +letters. He began to be annoyed also; for the servants were growing +suspicious, and unwilling to go into the cellar. Mary the cook declared +that on the morning when she found this last letter, something white +brushed by her at the foot of the stairs; and Robert said that he had for +a long time heard strange sounds from that staircase late at night.</p> + +<p>Just after this, my aunt went away for a visit; and several days passed +without any further discoveries on the stairs. My uncle and I spent long +hours in talking over the mystery, and he urged me to read, or to let him +read to me, the two letters he had.</p> + +<p>"Pet," he said, "I will tell you something. One reason they move me so is, +that they are strangely like words written by a woman whom I knew thirty +years ago. I did not believe two such women had been on the earth."</p> + +<p>I kissed his hand when he said this; yet a strange unwillingness to read +Esther's letters withheld me. I felt that he had right, and I had not.</p> + +<p>But the end of the mystery was near. It was revealed, as it ought to have +been, to my uncle himself.</p> + +<p>One night I was wakened out of my first sleep by a very cautious tap at my +door, and my uncle's voice, saying,--</p> + +<p>"Nell--Nell, are you awake?"</p> + +<p>I sprang to the door instantly.</p> + +<p>"O uncle, are you ill?" (My aunt had not yet returned.)</p> + +<p>"No, pet. But I want you down-stairs. Dress yourself and come down into +the library."</p> + +<p>My hands trembled with excitement as I dressed. Yet I was not afraid: I +knew it was in some way connected with "Esther," though my uncle had not +mentioned her name.</p> + +<p>I found him sitting before the library table, which was literally covered +with old letters, such as we had before seen.</p> + +<p>"O uncle!" I gasped as soon as I saw them.</p> + +<p>"Yes, dear! I have got them all. There was no ghost!"</p> + +<p>Then he told me in few words what had happened. It seemed that he had gone +down himself into the cellar, partly to satisfy himself that all was right +with the furnace, partly with a vague hope of finding another of the +letters. He had found nothing, had examined the furnace, locked the door +at the head of the cellar stairs, and gone up to his bed-room. While he +was undressing, a strange impulse seized him to go back once more, and see +whether it might not happen to him as it had to Robert, to find a letter +on returning after a few moments' interval.</p> + +<p>He threw on his wrapper, took a candle, and went down. The first thing he +saw, on opening the door, which he had himself locked only five minutes +before, was a letter lying on the same fourth stair!</p> + +<p>"I confess, Nell," said he, "for a minute I felt as frightened as black +Bob. But I sat down on the upper step, and resolved not to go away till I +had discovered how that letter came there, if I stayed till day-light!"</p> + +<p>Nearly an hour passed, he said; the cold wind from the cellar blew up and +swayed the candle-flame to and fro. All sorts of strange sounds seemed to +grow louder and louder, and still he sat, gazing helplessly in a sort of +despair at that motionless letter, which he had not lifted from the stair. +At last, purely by accident, he looked up to the staircase overhead--the +front stairs, down which he had just come from his room. He jumped to his +feet! There, up among the dark cobwebbed shadows, he thought he saw +something white. He held up the candle. It was, yes, it was a tiny corner +of white paper wedged into a crack; by standing on the beam at the side he +could just reach it. He touched it,--pulled it;--it came out +slowly,--another of Esther's letters. They were hid in the upper +staircase! The boards had been worn and jarred a little away from each +other, and the letters were gradually shaken through the opening; some +heavier or quicker step than usual giving always the final impetus to a +letter which had been for days slowly working down towards the fated +outlet.</p> + +<p>Stealthily as any burglar he had crept about his own house, had taken up +the whole of the front staircase carpet, and had with trouble pried off +one board of the stair in which the letters were hid. There had been a +spring, he found, but it was rusted and would not yield. He had carefully +replaced the carpet, carried the letters into the library, and come for +me; it was now half-past one o'clock at night.</p> + +<p>Dear, blessed Uncle Jo! I am an old woman now. Good men and strong men +have given me love, and have shown me of their love for others; but never +did I feel myself so in the living presence of incarnate love as I did +that night, sitting with my white-haired uncle, face to face with the +faded records of the love of Esther Wynn.</p> + +<p>It was only from one note that we discovered her last name. This was +written in the early days of her acquaintance with her lover, and while +she was apparently little more than a child. It was evident that at first +the relation was more like one of pupil and master. For some time the +letters all commenced scrupulously "my dear friend," or "my most beloved +friend." It was not until years had passed that the master became the +lover; we fancied, Uncle Jo and I, as we went reverently over the +beautiful pages, that Esther had grown and developed more and more, until +she was the teacher, the helper, the inspirer. We felt sure, though we +could not tell how, that she was the stronger of the two; that she moved +and lived habitually on a higher plane; that she yearned often to lift the +man she loved to the freer heights on which her soul led its glorified +existence.</p> + +<p>It was strange how little we gathered which could give a clew to her +actual history or to his. The letters almost never gave the name of the +place, only the day and year, many of them only the day. There was dearth +of allusions to persons; it was as if these two had lived in a separate +world of their own. When persons were mentioned at all, it was only by +initials. It was plain that some cruel, inexorable bar separated her from +the man she loved; a bar never spoken of--whose nature we could only +guess,--but one which her strong and pure nature felt itself free to +triumph over in spirit, however submissive the external life might seem.</p> + +<p>Their relation had lasted for many years; so many, that that fact alone +seemed a holy seal and testimony to the purity and immortality of the bond +which united them. Esther must have been a middle-aged woman when, as the +saddened letters revealed, her health failed and she was ordered by the +physicians to go to Europe. The first letter which my uncle had read, the +one which Princess found, was the letter in which she bade farewell to +her lover. There was no record after that; only two letters which had come +from abroad; one was the one that I have mentioned, which contained the +pomegranate blossom from Jaffa, and a little poem which, after long hours +of labor, Uncle Jo and I succeeded in deciphering. The other had two +flowers in it--an Edelweiss which looked as white and pure and immortal as +if it had come from Alpine snows only the day before; and a little crimson +flower of the amaranth species, which was wrapped by itself, and marked +"From Bethlehem of Judea." The only other words in this letter were, "I am +better, darling, but I cannot write yet."</p> + +<p>It was evident that there had been the deepest intellectual sympathy +between them. Closely and fervently and passionately as their hearts must +have loved, the letters were never, from first to last, simply lovers' +letters. Keen interchange of comment and analysis, full revelation of +strongly marked individual life, constant mutual stimulus to mental growth +there must have been between these two. We were inclined to think, from +the exquisitely phrased sentences and rare fancies in the letters, and +from the graceful movement of some of the little poems, that Esther must +have had ambition as a writer. Then, again, she seemed so wholly, simply, +passionately, a woman, to love and be loved, that all thought of anything +else in her nature or her life seemed incongruous.</p> + +<p>"Oh," groaned Uncle Jo, after reading one of the most glowing letters, +"oh, was there really ever in any other man's arms but mine a woman who +could say such things as these between kisses? O Nell, Nell, thank God +that you haven't the dower of such a double fire in your veins as Esther +had!"</p> + +<p>All night we sat reading, and reading, and reading. When the great clock +in the hall struck six, we started like guilty persons.</p> + +<p>"Oh, my childie," said Uncle Jo, "how wrong this has been in me! Poor +little pale face, go to bed now, and remember, I forbid you to go to +school to-day; and I forbid your getting up until noon. I promise you I +will not look at another letter. I will lock them all up till to-morrow +evening, and then we will finish them."</p> + +<p>I obeyed him silently. I was too exhausted to speak; but I was also too +excited to sleep. Until noon I lay wide awake on the bed, in my darkened +room, living over Esther Wynn's life, marvelling at the inexplicable +revelation of it which had been put into our hands, and wondering, until +the uncertainty seemed almost anguish, what was that end which we could +never know. Did she die in the Holy Land? or did she come home well and +strong? and did her lover die some day, leaving his secret treasure of +letters behind him, and poor stricken Esther to go to her grave in fear +lest unfriendly hands might have gained possession of her heart's records? +He was a married man we felt sure. Had the wife whom he did not love paced +up and down and up and down for years over these dumb witnesses to that of +which she had never dreamed? The man himself, when he came to die, did he +writhe, thinking of those silent, eloquent, precious letters which he must +leave to time and chance to destroy or protect? Did men carry him, dead, +down the very stairs on which he had so often knelt unseen and wafted +kisses towards the hidden Esther?</p> + +<p>All these conjectures and questions, and thousands more, hurried in wild +confusion through my brain. In vain I closed my eyes, in vain I pressed my +hands on my eyelids; countless faces, dark, light, beautiful, plain, +happy, sad, threatening, imploring, seemed dancing in the air around my +bed, and saying, "Esther, Esther!"</p> + +<p>We knew she was fair; for there was in one of the letters a tiny curl of +pale brown hair; but we believed from many expressions of hers that she +had no beauty. Oh, if I could but have known how she looked! + +At last I fell asleep, and slept heavily until after dark. This refreshed +my overwrought nerves, and when at nine o'clock in the evening I joined my +uncle in the library, I was calmer than he.</p> + +<p>We said very few words. I sat on his knee, with one arm around his neck, +and hand in hand we reverently lifted the frail, trembling sheets.</p> + +<p>We learned nothing new; in fact, almost any one of the letters was a +rounded revelation of Esther's nature, and of the great love she bore--and +there was little more to learn. There were more than a hundred of the +letters, and they embraced a period of fifteen years. We arranged them in +piles, each year by itself; for some years there were only two or three; +we wondered whether during those years they had lived near each other, and +so had not written, or whether the letters had been destroyed. When the +last letter was laid where it belonged, we looked at each other in +silence, and we both sighed.</p> + +<p>Uncle Jo spoke first.</p> + +<p>"Childie, what shall we do with them?" + +"I do not know, uncle," I said. "I should feel very guilty if we did not +make sure that no one else read them. I should feel very guilty myself, +except that I have read them with you. They seem to me to belong to you, +somehow."</p> + +<p>Uncle Jo kissed me, and we were silent again. Then he said, "There is but +one way to make sure that no human being will ever read them--that is, to +burn them; but it is as hard for me to do it as if they had been written +to me."</p> + +<p>"Could you not put them back in the stair, and nail it up firmly?" said I.</p> + +<p>It was a stormy night. The wind was blowing hard, and sleet and snow +driving against the windows. At this instant a terrible gust rattled the +icy branches of the syringa-bushes against the window, with a noise like +the click of musketry, and above the howling of the wind there came a +strange sound which sounded like a voice crying, "Burn, burn!"</p> + +<p>Uncle Jo and I both heard it, and both sprang to our feet, white with a +nervous terror. In a second he recovered himself, and said, laughing, "Pet +we are both a good deal shaken by this business. But I do think it will be +safer to burn the letters. Poor, poor Esther. I hope she is safe with her +lover now."</p> + +<p>"Oh, do you doubt it?" said I; "I do not."</p> + +<p>"No," said he, "I do not, either. Thank God!"</p> + +<p>"Uncle Jo," said I, "do you think Esther would mind if I copied a few of +these letters, and two or three of the poems? I so want to have them that +it seems to me I cannot give them up; I love her so, I think she would be +willing."</p> + +<p>The storm suddenly died away, and the peaceful silence around us was +almost as startling as the fierce gust had been before. I took it as an +omen that Esther did not refuse my wish, and I selected the four letters +which I most desired to keep. I took also the pomegranate blossom, and the +Edelweiss, and the crimson Amaranth from Bethlehem.</p> + +<p>"I think Esther would rather that these should not be burned," I said.</p> + +<p>"Yes; I think so too," replied Uncle Jo.</p> + +<p>Then we laid the rest upon the fire. The generous hickory logs seemed to +open their arms to them. In a few seconds great panting streams of fire +leaped up and rushed out of our sight, bearing with them all that was +perishable of Esther Wynn's letters. Just as the crackling shadowy shapes +were falling apart and turning black, my uncle sprang to an Indian cabinet +which stood near, and seizing a little box of incense-powder which had +been brought from China by his brother, he shook a few grains of it into +the fire. A pale, fragrant film rose slowly in coiling wreaths and clouds +and hid the last moments of the burning of the letters. When the incense +smoke cleared away, nothing could be seen on the hearth but the bright +hickory coals in their bed of white ashes.</p> + +<p>"I shall make every effort," said Uncle Jo, "to find out who lived in this +house during those years. I presume I can, by old records somewhere."</p> + +<p>"Oh, uncle," I said, "don't. I think they would rather we did not know any +more."</p> + +<p>"You sweet woman child!" he exclaimed. "You are right. Your instinct is +truer than mine. I am only a man, after all! I will never try to learn who +it was that Esther loved."</p> + +<p>"I am very glad," he added, "that this happened when your Aunt Sarah was +away. It would have been a great weariness and annoyance to her to have +read these letters."</p> + +<p>Dear, courteous Uncle Jo! I respected his chivalrous little artifice of +speech, and tried to look as if I believed he would have carried the +letters to his wife if she had been there.</p> + +<p>"And I think, dear," he hesitatingly proceeded, "we would better not speak +of this. It will be one sacred little secret that you and your old uncle +will keep. As no more letters will be found on the stairs, the whole thing +will be soon forgotten."</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, uncle," replied I; "of course it would be terrible to tell. It +isn't our secret, you know; it is dear Esther Wynn's."</p> + +<p>I do not know why it was that I locked up those four letters of Esther +Wynn's and did not look at them for many months. I felt very guilty in +keeping them; but a power I could not resist seemed to paralyze my very +hand when I thought of opening the box in which they were. At last, long +after I had left Uncle Jo's house, I took them out one day, and in the +quiet and warmth of a summer noon I copied them slowly, carefully, word +for word. Then I hid the originals in my bosom, and walked alone, without +telling any one whither I was going, to a wild spot I knew several miles +away, where a little mountain stream came foaming and dashing down +through a narrow gorge to empty itself into our broad and placid river. I +sat down on a mossy granite boulder, and slowly tore the letters into +minutest fragments. One by one I tossed the white and tiny shreds into the +swift water, and watched them as far as I could see them. The brook lifted +them and tossed them over and over, lodged them in mossy crevices, or on +tree roots, then swept them all up and whirled them away in dark depths of +the current from which they would never more come to the surface. It was a +place which Esther would have loved, and I wondered, as I sat there hour +after hour, whether it were really improbable, that she knew just then +what I was doing for her. I wondered, also, as I often before had +wondered, if it might not have been by Esther's will that the sacred hoard +of letters, which had lain undiscovered for so many years, should fall at +last into the hands of my tender and chivalrous Uncle Jo. It was certainly +a strange thing that on the stormy night which I have described, when we +were discussing what should be done with the letters, both Uncle Jo and I +at the same instant should have fancied we heard the words "Burn, burn!"</p> + +<p>The following letter is the earliest one which I copied. It is the one +which Robert found so late at night and brought to us in the library:--</p> + +<p>"FRIDAY EVENING.</p> + +<p>"SWEETEST:--It is very light in my room to-night. The full moon and the +thought of you! I see to write, but you would forbid me--you who would +see only the moonlight, and not the other. Oh, my darling! my darling!</p> + +<p>"I have been all day in fields and on edges of woods. I have never seen +just such a day: a June sun, and a September wind; clover and butter-cups +under foot, and a sparkling October sky overhead. I think the earth +enjoyed it as a sort of masquerading frolic. The breeze was so strong that +it took the butterflies half off their air-legs, and they fairly reeled +about in the sun. As for me, I sat here and there, on hillocks and stones, +among ferns, and white cornels, and honey-bees, and bobolinks. I was the +only still thing in the fields. I waited so long in each spot, that it was +like being transplanted when I moved myself to the north or the south. And +I discovered a few things in each country in which I lived. For one thing, +I observed that the little busy bee is not busy all the while; that he +does a great amount of aimless, idle snuffing and tasting of all sorts of +things besides flowers; especially he indulges in a running accompaniment +of gymnastics among the grass-stalks, which cannot possibly have anything +to do with honey. I watched one fellow to-day through a series of positive +trapeze movements from top to bottom and bottom to top of a grass-tangle. +When he got through he shook himself, and smoothed off his legs exactly as +the circus-men do. Then he took a long pull at a clover well.</p> + +<p>"Ah, the clover! Dearest! you should have seen how it swung to-day. The +stupidest person in the world could not have helped thinking that it kept +time to invisible band-playing, and was trying to catch hold of the +buttercups. I lay down at full length and looked off through the stems, +and then I saw for the first time how close they were, and that they +constantly swayed and touched, and sometimes locked fast together for a +second. Stately as a minuet it looked, but joyous and loving as the +wildest waltz I ever danced in your arms, my darling. Oh, how dare we +presume to be so sure that the flowers are not glad as we are glad! On +such a day as to-day I never doubt it; and I picked one as reverently and +hesitatingly as I would ask the Queen of the Fairies home to tea if I met +her in a wood.</p> + +<p>"Laughing, are you, darling? Yes, I know it. Poor soul! You cannot help +being a man, I suppose. Nor would I have you help it, my great, strong, +glorious one! How I adore the things which you do, which I could not do. +Oh, my sweet master! Never fear that I do you less reverence than I +should. All the same, I lie back on my ferny hillock, and look you in the +eye, and ask you what you think would become of you if you had no little +one of my kind to bring you honey! And when I say this--you--ah, my +darling, now there are tears in my eyes, and the moonlight grows dim. I +cannot bear the thinking what you would do when I said those words! +Good-night! Perhaps in my sleep I will say them again, and you will be +there to answer. In the morning I shall write out for you to-day's clover +song.</p> + +<p>"YOUR OWN."</p> + +<p>The clover song was not in the letter. We found it afterward on a small +piece of paper, so worn and broken in the folds that we knew it must have +been carried for months in a pocket-book.</p> + +<blockquote><h4> A Song of Clover.</h4> + +<p> I wonder what the Clover thinks?--<br /> +Intimate friend of Bob-o-links,<br /> +Lover of Daisies slim and white,<br /> +Waltzer with Butter-cups at night;<br /> +Keeper of Inn for travelling Bees,<br /> +Serving to them wine dregs and lees,<br /> +Left by the Royal Humming-birds,<br /> +Who sip and pay with fine-spun words;<br /> +Fellow with all the lowliest,<br /> +Peer of the gayest and the best;<br /> +Comrade of winds, beloved of sun,<br /> +Kissed by the Dew-drops, one by one;<br /> +Prophet of Good Luck mystery<br /> +By sign of four which few may see;<br /> +Symbol of Nature's magic zone,<br /> +One out of three, and three in one;<br /> +Emblem of comfort in the speech<br /> +Which poor men's babies early reach;<br /> +Sweet by the roadsides, sweet by sills,<br /> +Sweet in the meadows, sweet on hills,<br /> +Sweet in its white, sweet in its red,<br /> +Oh, half its sweet cannot be said;<br /> +Sweet in its every living breath,<br /> +Sweetest, perhaps, at last, in death!<br /> +Oh, who knows what the Clover thinks?<br /> +No one! unless the Bob-o-links!</p></blockquote> + +<p>The lines which were written on the paper inclosing the pomegranate flower +from Jaffa we deciphered with great trouble. The last verse we were not +quite sure about, for there had been erasures. But I think we were right +finally.</p> + +<blockquote><p>Pomegranate blossom! Heart of fire!<br /> + I dare to be thy death,<br /> +To slay thee while the summer sun<br /> + Is quickening thy breath;<br /> +To rob the autumn of thy wine;--<br /> + Next year of all ripe seeds of thine,<br /> +That thou mayest bear one kiss of mine<br /> + To my dear love before my death.</p> + +<p>For, Heart of fire, I too am robbed<br /> + Like thee! Like thee, I die,<br /> +While yet my summer sun of love<br /> + Is near, and warm, and high;<br /> +The autumn will run red with wine;<br /> +The autumn fruits will swing and shine;<br /> +But in that little grave of mine<br /> + I shall not see them where I lie.</p> + +<p>Pomegranate blossom! Heart of fire!<br /> + This kiss, so slow, so sweet,<br /> +Thou bearest hence, can never lose<br /> + Even in death its heat.<br /> +Redder than autumns can run with wine,<br /> +Warmer than summer suns can shine,<br /> +Forever that dear love of mine<br /> + Shall find thy sacred hidden sweet!</p></blockquote> + +<p>The next letter which I copied was one written five years after the first; +it is not so much a letter as an allegory, and so beautiful, so weird, +that we wondered Esther did not set it to tune as a poem.</p> + +<p>"SUNDAY MORNING.</p> + +<p>"MY DARLING:--Even this blazing September sun looks dull to me this +morning. I have come from such a riotous dream. All last night I walked in +a realm of such golden splendor, that I think even in our fullest noon I +shall only see enough light to grope by for days and days.</p> + +<p>"I do not know how to tell you my dream. I think I must put it in shape +of a story of two people; but you will know, darling, that in my dream it +was you and I. And I honestly did dream it, love, every word just as I +shall write it for you; only there are no words which so glow and light +and blaze as did the chambers through which we walked. I had been reading +about the wonderful gold mines of which every one is talking now, and this +led to my dream.</p> + +<p>"You can laugh if you like, sweet master mine, but I think it is all true, +and I call it</p> + +<p>"The Mine of Gold.</p> + +<p>"There is but one true mine of gold; and of it no man knows, and no woman, +save those who go into it. Neither can they who go tell whether they sink +into the earth's heart or are caught up into the chambers of the air, or +led to the outer pavilions of the sea. Suddenly they perceive that all +around, above, below them is gold: rocks of gold higher than they can see; +caves whose depths are bright with gold; lakes of gold which is molten and +leaps like fire, but in which flowers can be dipped and not wither; sands +of gold, soft and pleasant to touch; innumerable shapes of all things +beautiful, which wave and change, but only from gold to gold; air which +shines and shimmers like refiner's gold; warmth which is like the glow of +the red gold of Ophir; and everywhere golden silence!</p> + +<p>"Hand in hand walk the two to whom it is given to enter here: of the gold, +they may carry away only so much as can be hid in their bosoms; grains +which are spilled, or are left on their garments, turn to ashes; only to +each other may they speak of these mysteries; but all men perceive that +they have riches, and that their faces shine as the faces of angels.</p> + +<p>"Suddenly it comes to pass that one day a golden path leads them farther +than they have ever gone before, and into a vast chamber, too vast to be +measured. Its walls, although they are of gold, are also like crystal. +This is a mystery. Only three sides are walled. The fourth side is the +opening of a gallery which stretches away and away, golden like a broad +sunbeam: from out the distance comes the sound of rushing waters; however +far they walk in that gallery, still the golden sunbeam stretches before +them; still the sound of the waters is no nearer: and so would the sunbeam +and the sound of the waters be forever, for they are Eternity.</p> + +<p>"But there is a fourth mystery. On the walls of crystal gold, on all +sides, shine faces; not dead faces, not pictured faces; living +faces--warm, smiling, reflected faces.</p> + +<p>"Then it is revealed to the two who walk hand in hand that these are the +faces of all who have ever entered in, as they, between the walls of +crystal gold; flashing faces of the sons of God looking into eyes of +earthly women;--these were the first: and after them, all in their +generations until to-day, the sons of men with the women they have loved. +The men's faces smile; but the faces of the women have in them a joy +greater than a smile.</p> + +<p>"Presently the two who walk hand in hand see their own faces added to the +others, with the same smile, the same joy; and it is revealed to them that +these faces are immortal. Through all eternity they will shine on the +walls of crystal gold; and those who have once looked on them can never +more see in each other change or loss of beauty.</p> + +<p>"If as they walk there, in the broad sunbeam, an angel meets them, bearing +the tokens of a golden bowl that is broken and a silver cord that is +unloosed, they follow him without grief or fear, thinking on that chamber +of crystal gold!</p> + +<p>"Good-by, darling!</p> + +<p>"ESTHER."</p> + +<p>The third letter was written three years after this one. Sadness was +beginning to cloud the free, joyous outpourings of Esther's heart. +Probably this sadness was one of the first symptoms of the failure of her +health. It was from this letter chiefly--although there were expressions +in others which deepened the impression--that we inferred that her lover +had tried to stimulate in her an intellectual ambition.</p> + +<p>"WEDNESDAY EVENING.</p> + +<p>"DEAR ONE:--Your last letter gave me great pain. It breaks my heart to see +you looking so earnestly and expectantly into my future. Beloved, that I +have grown and developed so much in the last seven years is no proof that +I can still keep on growing. If you understood, darling, you would see +that it is just the other way. I have grown year by year, hour by hour, +because hour by hour I have loved you more. That is all! I have felt the +growth. I know it, as clearly as you do. But I know the secret of it as +you do not; and I know the limit of it, as you cannot. I cannot love you +more, precious one! Neither would I if I could! One heart-beat more in a +minute, and I should die! But all that you have so much loved and cared +for, dear, calling it intellectual growth and expansion in me, has been +only the clearing, refining, and stimulating of every faculty, every +sense, by my love for you. When I have said or written a word which has +pleased you thus, if there were any special fitness or eloquence in the +word, it was only because I sought after what would best carry my thought +to you, darling; what would be best frame, best setting, to keep the +flowers or the sky which I had to see alone,--to keep them till you could +see them too! Oh, dear one, do understand that there is nothing of me +except my heart and my love! While they were wonderingly, tremblingly, +rapturously growing within me, under the sweet warmth of your love, no +wonder I changed day by day. But, precious one, it is ended. The whole +solemn, steadfast womanhood within me recognizes it. Beloved master, in +one sense you can teach me no more! I am content. I desire nothing. One +moment of full consciousness of you, of life, of your love, is more than +all centuries of learning, all eternities of inspiration. I would rather +at this moment, dear, lay my cheek on your hand, and sit in my old place +by your knee, and feel myself the woman you have made me, than know all +that God knows, and make a universe!</p> + +<p>"Beloved, do not say such things to me any more; and whenever you feel +such ambition and hope stirring in your heart, read over this little +verse, and be sure that your child knew what she said when she wrote +it:--</p> + +<blockquote><h4> "The End of Harvest.</h4> + +<p> "O Love, who walkest slow among my sheaves,<br /> + Smiling at tint and shape, thy smile of peace,<br /> + But whispering of the next sweet year's increase,--<br /> + O tender Love, thy loving hope but grieves<br /> + My heart! I rue my harvest, if it leaves<br /> + Thee vainly waiting after harvests cease,<br /> + Like one who has been mocked by title lease<br /> + To barren fields.</p> + +<p> Dear one, my word deceives<br /> +Thee never. Hearts one summer have. Their grain<br /> +'Is sown not that which shall be!'</p> + +<p> Can new pain<br /> +Teach me of pain? Or any ecstasy<br /> +Be new, that I should speak its name again?<br /> +My darling, all there was or is of me<br /> +Is harvested for thine Eternity!</p> + +<p>ESTHER."</p></blockquote> + +<p>The fourth letter was the one which Princess had found, the first which my +uncle had read--Esther's farewell to her lover before going abroad. No +wonder that it so moved him!</p> + +<p>"SUNDAY NIGHT.</p> + +<p>"MY DARLING:--I implore you not to come. Have I not loved you enough, all +these years long, for you to trust me, and believe that it is only because +I love you so much that I cannot, cannot see you now? Dear, did I ever +before ask you to forego your wish for mine? Did I ever before withhold +anything from you, my darling? Ah, love, you know--oh, how well you know, +that always, in every blissful moment we have spent together, my bliss +has been shadowed by a little, interrupted by a little, because my soul +was forever restlessly asking, seeking, longing, for one more joy, +delight, rapture, to give to you!</p> + +<p>"Now listen, darling. You say it is almost a year since we met; true, but +if it were yesterday, would you remember it any more clearly? Why, my +precious one, I can see over again at this moment each little movement +which you made, each look your face wore; I can hear every word; I can +feel every kiss; very solemn kisses they were too, love, as if we had +known.</p> + +<p>"You say we may never meet again. True. But if that is to be so, all the +more I choose to leave with you the memory of the face you saw then, +rather than of the one you would see to-day. Be compassionate, darling, +and spare me the pain of seeing your pain at sight of my poor changed +face. I hope it is not vanity, love, which makes me feel this so strongly. +Being so clearly and calmly conscious as I am that very possibly my +earthly days are near their end, it does not seem as if mere vanity could +linger in my soul. And you know you have always said, dearest, that I had +none. I know I have always wondered unspeakably that you could find +pleasure in my face, except occasionally, when I have felt, as it were, a +great sudden glow and throb of love quicken and heat it under your gaze; +then, as I have looked up in your eyes, I have sometimes had a flash of +consciousness of a transfiguration in the very flesh of my face, just as I +have a sense of rapturous strength sometimes in the very flesh and bone of +my right hand, when I strike on the piano some of Beethoven's chords. But +I know that, except in the light of your presence, I have no beauty. I +had not so much to lose by illness as other women. But, dear one, that +little is gone. I can read in the pitying looks of all my friends how +altered I am. Even if I did not see it with my own eyes, I should read it +in theirs. And I cannot--oh, I cannot read it in yours!</p> + +<p>"If I knew any spell which could make you forget all except some one rare +moment in which you said in your heart, 'she never looked so lovely +before!' oh, how firmly I would bind you by it! All the weary indifferent, +or unhappy looks, love, I would blot out from your memory, and have the +thought of me raise but one picture in your mind. I would have it as if I +had died, and left of my face no record on earth except one wonderful +picture by some great master, who had caught the whole beauty of the one +rarest moment of my life. Darling, if you look back, you will find that +moment; for it must have been in your arms; and let Love be the master who +will paint the immortal picture!</p> + +<p>"As for this thin, pale, listless body, which just now answers to the name +of me, there is nothing in or about it which you know. Presently it will +be carried like a half-lifeless thing on board a ship; the winds will blow +roughly on it and it will not care. If God wills, darling, I will come +back to you well and strong. If I cannot come well and strong, I hope +never to come at all.</p> + +<p>"Don't call me cruel. You would feel the same. I also should combat the +resolve in you, as you do in me. But in my heart I should understand. I +should sympathize, and I should yield.</p> + +<p>"God bless you, darling. I believe He will, for the infinite goodness of +your life. I thank Him daily that He has given it to me to bless you a +little. If I had seen you to say farewell, my beloved, I should not have +kissed you many times, as has been our wont. That is for hours of joy. I +should have kissed you three times--only three times--on your beautiful, +strong, gentle lips, and each kiss would have been a separate sacrament, +with a bond of its own. I send them to you here, love, and this is what +they mean!</p> + +<blockquote><h4> "Three Kisses of Farewell.</h4> + +<p>"Three, only three my darling,<br /> + Separate, solemn, slow;<br /> +Not like the swift and joyous ones<br /> + We used to know<br /> +When we kissed because we loved each other<br /> + Simply to taste love's sweet,<br /> +And lavished our kisses as the summer<br /> + Lavishes heat,--<br /> +But as they kiss whose hearts are wrung,<br /> + When hope and fear are spent,<br /> +And nothing is left to give, except<br /> + A sacrament!</p> + +<p>"First of the three, my darling,<br /> + Is sacred unto pain;<br /> +We have hurt each other often;<br /> + We shall again,<br /> +When we pine because we miss each other,<br /> + And do not understand<br /> +How the written words are so much colder<br /> + Than eye and hand.<br /> +I kiss thee, dear, for all such pain<br /> + Which we may give or take;<br /> +Buried, forgiven, before it comes<br /> + For our love's sake!</p> + +<p>"The second kiss, my darling,<br /> + Is full of joy's sweet thrill;<br /> +We have blessed each other always;<br /> + We always will.<br /> +We shall reach until we feel each other,<br /> + Past all of time and space;<br /> +We shall listen till we hear each other<br /> + In every place;<br /> +The earth is full of messengers,<br /> + Which love sends to and fro;<br /> +I kiss thee, darling, for all joy<br /> + Which we shall know!</p> + +<p>"The last kiss, oh, my darling,<br /> + My love--I cannot see<br /> +Through my tears, as I remember<br /> + What it may be.<br /> +We may die and never see each other,<br /> + Die with no time to give<br /> +Any sign that our hearts are faithful<br /> + To die, as live.<br /> +Token of what they will not see<br /> + Who see our parting breath,<br /> +This one last kiss, my darling, seals<br /> + The seal of death!"</p></blockquote> + +<p>It was on my sixteenth birthday that I copied these letters and poems of +Esther Wynn's. I kept them, with a few other very precious things, in a +curious little inlaid box, which came from Venice, and was so old that in +many places its sides were worm-eaten. It was one of my choicest +treasures, and I was never separated from it.</p> + +<p>When I was twenty years old I had been for two years a happy wife, for one +year a glad mother, and had for some time remembered Esther only in the +vague, passing way in which happy souls recall old shadows of the griefs +of other hearts. As my boy entered on a second summer he began to droop a +little, and the physician recommended that we should take him to the +sea-side; so it came to pass that on the morning of my twentieth birthday +I was sitting, with my baby in my arms, on a rocky sea-shore, at one of +the well-known summer resorts of the New Hampshire coast. Near me sat a +woman whose face had interested me strangely ever since my arrival. She +seemed an invalid; but there was an atmosphere of overflowing vitality +about her, in spite of her feebleness, which made her very presence +stimulating and cheering to every one. I had longed to speak with her, but +as yet had not done so. While I sat watching her face and my baby's, and +the face of the sea, she was joined by her husband, who had just come from +a walk in the fields, and had brought her a large bouquet of red clover +and feathery grasses. She took it eagerly with great delight, and +exclaimed:--</p> + +<blockquote><p> "I wonder what the Clover thinks?<br /> + Intimate friend of Bob-o-links!"</p></blockquote> + +<p>I could not control the sudden start with which I heard these words. Who +was this that knew Esther Wynn's verses by heart? I could hardly refrain +from speaking to her at once, and betraying all. But I reflected instantly +that I must be very cautious; it would be almost impossible to find out +what I longed to know without revealing how my own acquaintance with the +verses had come about. Days passed before I ventured to allude to the +subject; but one evening, as we were walking together, she stooped and +picked a clover-blossom, and said,--</p> + +<p>"I really think I love red clover better than any wild flower we have."</p> + +<p>"I thought so," said I, "when I saw you take that big bunch your husband +brought you the other morning. That was before I knew you: I felt almost +rude, I watched you so, in spite of myself."</p> + +<p>"But I had watched you quite as much," said she, smiling; "I thought then +of giving you a part of the clover. Edward always brings me huge bouquets +of it every day; he knows so well how I love it."</p> + +<p>"I heard you quote a little couplet of verse about it then," said I, +looking away from her, that she might not see my face: "I was so near you +I could not help hearing what you said."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes," said she,</p> + +<blockquote><p> "I wonder what the Clover thinks?<br /> + Intimate friend of Bob-o-links'--</p></blockquote> + +<p>"I do not know but that old clover-song is the real reason I love clover +so. My mother taught it to me when I was a little child. It is all very +quaint and sweet. Would you like to hear it?"</p> + +<p>I felt myself color scarlet, but I replied,--</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, pray repeat it."</p> + +<p>When she had repeated the verses she went on speaking, to my great relief, +saving me from the necessity of saying anything.</p> + +<p>"That was written a great many years ago, by an aunt of my mother's. My +mother has a little manuscript book bound in red morocco, very faded and +worn, which my grandmother kept on her bureau till she died, last year; +and it has in it this little clover-song and several others, with Aunt +Esther's diary while she was abroad. She died abroad; died in Jerusalem, +and was buried there. There was something mysteriously sad in her life, I +think: grandmother always sighed when she spoke of her, and used to read +in the little red book every day. She was only her half-sister, but she +said she loved her better than she did any sister of her own. Once I asked +grandmamma to tell me about her, but she said, 'There is nothing to tell, +child. She was never married: she died the autumn before your mother was +born, and your mother looked very much like her when she was young. She is +like her, too, in many ways,' and that was all grandmamma would ever say. +But we always called her Aunt Esther, and know all her verses by heart, +and the diary was fascinating. It seems strange to read such vivid written +records of people you never saw; don't you think so?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, it must, very," said I.</p> + +<p>She went on: "I always had a very special love for this old Aunt Esther, +which I could hardly account for. I am to have the little red book when my +mother dies; and"--she hesitated a moment--"and I named my first baby for +her, Esther Wynn. The baby only lived to be a few weeks old, and I often +think, as I look at her little grave-stone, of the other one, so many +thousand miles away, alone in a strange land, bearing the same name."</p> + +<p>On my way home I stopped for a few days' visit at Uncle Jo's. Late one +night, sitting in my old place at his feet in the library, I told him this +sequel to the romance of the letters.</p> + +<p>"Oh, childie, how could you help showing that you knew about her?" said +he. "You must have betrayed it."</p> + +<p>"No, I am sure I did not," I said. "I never spoke about it after that day, +and she was too absorbed herself in the reminiscences to observe my +excitement."</p> + +<p>"What was your friend's name?" said Uncle Jo.</p> + +<p>I told him. He sprang from his chair, and walked rapidly away to the end +of the library; presently he came back, and standing before me, said,--</p> + +<p>"Nell! Nell! your friend's mother is the woman of whom I once spoke to +you! I might have known that the subtle kinship I felt between Esther Wynn +and her was no chance resemblance. I never heard of the name 'Wynn,' +however. But you said she was only a half-sister; that accounts for it. I +might have known! I might have known!" he exclaimed, more to himself than +to me, and buried his face in his hands I stole away quietly and left him; +but I heard him saying under his breath, "Her aunt! I might have known!"</p> +</div> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10926 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..76b9ece --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #10926 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10926) diff --git a/old/10926-8.txt b/old/10926-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ecfaba8 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10926-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10299 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Saxe Holm's Stories, by Helen Hunt Jackson + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Saxe Holm's Stories + +Author: Helen Hunt Jackson + +Release Date: February 3, 2004 [EBook #10926] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SAXE HOLM'S STORIES *** + + + + +Produced by Distributed Proofreaders + + + + +SAXE HOLM'S STORIES + +[by Helen Hunt Jackson] + + +1873 + + +Content. + +Draxy Miller's Dowry +The Elder's Wife +Whose Wife Was She? +The One-Legged Dancers +How One Woman Kept Her Husband +Esther Wynn's Love-Letters + + + + +Draxy Miller's Dowry. + + + +Part I. + + +When Draxy Miller's father was a boy, he read a novel in which the heroine +was a Polish girl, named Darachsa. The name stamped itself indelibly upon +his imagination; and when, at the age of thirty-five, he took his +first-born daughter in his arms, his first words were--"I want her called +Darachsa." + +"What!" exclaimed the doctor, turning sharply round, and looking out above +his spectacles; "what heathen kind of a name is that?" + +"Oh, Reuben!" groaned a feeble voice from the baby's mother; and the nurse +muttered audibly, as she left the room, "There ain't never no luck comes +of them outlandish names." + +The whole village was in a state of excitement before night. Poor Reuben +Miller had never before been the object of half so much interest. His +slowly dwindling fortunes, the mysterious succession of his ill-lucks, had +not much stirred the hearts of the people. He was a retice'nt man; he +loved books, and had hungered for them all his life; his townsmen +unconsciously resented what they pretended to despise; and so it had +slowly come about that in the village where his father had lived and died, +and where he himself had grown up, and seemed likely to live and die, +Reuben Miller was a lonely man, and came and went almost as a stranger +might come and go. His wife was simply a shadow and echo of himself; one +of those clinging, tender, unselfish, will-less women, who make pleasant, +and affectionate, and sunny wives enough for rich, prosperous, +unsentimental husbands, but who are millstones about the necks of +sensitive, impressionable, unsuccessful men. If Jane Miller had been a +strong, determined woman, Reuben would not have been a failure. The only +thing he had needed in life had been persistent purpose and courage. The +right sort of wife would have given him both. But when he was discouraged, +baffled, Jane clasped her hands, sat down, and looked into his face with +streaming eyes. If he smiled, she smiled; but that was just when it was of +least consequence that she should smile. So the twelve years of their +married life had gone on slowly, very slowly, but still surely, from bad +to worse; nothing prospered in Reuben's hands. The farm which he had +inherited from his father was large, but not profitable. He tried too long +to work the whole of it, and then he sold the parts which he ought to have +kept. He sunk a great portion of his little capital in a flour-mill, which +promised to be a great success, paid well for a couple of years, and then +burnt down, uninsured. He took a contract for building one section of a +canal, which was to pass through part of his land; sub-contractors cheated +him, and he, in his honesty, almost ruined himself to right their wrong. +Then he opened a little store; here, also, he failed. He was too honest, +too sympathizing, too inert. His day-book was a curiosity; he had a vein +of humor which no amount of misfortune could quench; and he used to enter +under the head of "given" all the purchases which he knew were not likely +to be paid for. It was at sight of this book, one day, that Jane Miller, +for the first and only time in her life, lost her temper with Reuben. + +"Well, I must say, Reuben Miller, if I die for it," said she, "I haven't +had so much as a pound of white sugar nor a single lemon in my house for +two years, and I do think it's a burnin' shame for you to go on sellin' +'em to them shiftless Greens, that'll never pay you a cent, and you know +it!" + +Reuben was sitting on the counter smoking his pipe and reading an old +tattered copy of Dryden's translation of Virgil. He lifted his clear blue +eyes in astonishment, put down his pipe, and, slowly swinging his long +legs over the counter, caught Jane by the waist, put both his arms round +her, and said,-- + +"Why, mother, what's come over you! You know poor little Eph's dyin' of +that white swellin'. You wouldn't have me refuse his mother anything we've +got, would you?" + +Jane Miller walked back to the house with tears in her eyes, but her +homely sallow face was transfigured by love as she went about her work, +thinking to herself,-- + +"There never was such a man's Reuben, anyhow. I guess he'll get interest +one o' these days for all he's lent the Lord, first and last, without +anybody's knowin' it." + +But the Lord has His own system of reckoning compound interest, and His +ways of paying are not our ways. He gave no visible sign of recognition of +indebtedness to Reuben. Things went harder and harder with the Millers, +until they had come to such a pass that when Reuben Miller went after the +doctor, in the early dawn of the day on which little Draxy was born, he +clasped his hands in sorrow and humiliation before he knocked at the +doctor's door; and his only words were hard words for a man of +sensitiveness and pride to speak:-- + +"Doctor Cobb, will you come over to my wife? I don't dare to be sure I can +ever pay you; but if there's anything in the store "-- + +"Pshaw, pshaw, Reuben, don't speak of that; you'll be all right in a few +years," said the kind old doctor, who had known Reuben from his boyhood, +and understood him far better than any one else did. + +And so little Draxy was born. + +"It's a mercy it's a girl at last," said the village gossips. "Mis' +Miller's had a hard time with them four great boys, and Mr. Miller so +behindhand allers." + +"And who but Reuben Miller'd ever think of givin' a Christian child such a +name!" they added. + +But what the name was nobody rightly made out; nor even whether it had +been actually given to the baby, or had only been talked of; and between +curiosity and antagonism, the villagers were so drawn to Reuben Miller's +store, that it began to look quite like a run of custom. + +"If I hold out a spell on namin' her," said Reuben, as in the twilight of +the third day he sat by his wife's bedside; "if I hold out a spell on +namin' her, I shall get all the folks in the district into the store, and +sell out clean," and he laughed quizzically, and stroked the little +mottled face which lay on the pillow. "There's Squire Williams and Mis' +Conkey both been in this afternoon; and Mis' Conkey took ten pounds of +that old Hyson tea you thought I'd never sell; and Squire Williams, he +took the last of those new-fangled churns, and says he, 'I expect you'll +want to drive trade a little brisker, Reuben, now there's a little girl to +be provided for; and, by the way, what are you going to call her?' + +"'Oh, it's quite too soon to settle, that,' said I, as if I hadn't a name +in my head yet. And then Mis' Conkey spoke up and said: 'Well, I did hear +you were going to name her after a heathen goddess that nobody over heard +of, and I do hope you will consider her feelings when she grows up.' + +"'I hope I always shall, Mis' Conkey,' said I; and she didn't know what to +say next. So she picked up her bundle of tea, and they stepped off +together quite dignified. + +"But I think we'll call her Darachsa, in spite of 'em all, Jane," added +Reuben with a hesitating half laugh. + +"Oh, Reuben!" Jane said again. It was the strongest remonstrance on which +she ever ventured. She did not like the name; but she adored Reuben. So +when the baby was three months old, she was carried into the meeting-house +in a faded blue cashmere cloak, and baptized in the name of the Father, +and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, "Darachsa Lawton Miller." + +Jane Miller's babies always thrived. The passive acquiescence of her +nature was a blessing to them. The currents of their blood were never +rendered unhealthful by overwrought nerves or disturbed temper in their +mother. Their infancy was as placid and quiet as if they had been kittens. +Not until they were old enough to understand words, and to comprehend +deprivations, did they suffer because of their poverty. Then a serious +look began to settle upon their faces; they learned to watch their father +and mother wistfully, and to wonder what was wrong; their childhood was +very short. + +Before Draxy was ten years old she had become her father's inseparable +companion, confidant, and helper. He wondered, sometimes almost in terror, +what it meant, that he could say to this little child what he could not +say to her mother; that he often detected himself in a desire to ask of +this babe advice or suggestion which he never dreamed of asking from his +wife. + +But Draxy was wise. She had the sagacity which comes from great tenderness +and loyalty, combined with a passionate nature. In such a woman's soul +there is sometimes an almost supernatural instinct. She will detect danger +and devise safety with a rapidity and ingenuity which are incredible. But +to such a nature will also come the subtlest and deepest despairs of which +the human heart is capable. The same instinct which foresees and devises +for the loved ones will also recognize their most hidden traits, their +utmost possibilities, their inevitable limitations, with a completeness +and infallibility akin to that of God Himself. Jane Miller, all her life +long, believed in the possibility of Reuben's success; charged his +failures to outside occasions, and hoped always in a better day to come. +Draxy, early in her childhood, instinctively felt, what she was far too +young consciously to know, that her father would never be a happier man; +that "things" would always go against him. She had a deeper reverence for +the uprightness and sweet simplicity of his nature than her mother ever +could have had. She comprehended, Jane believed; Draxy felt, Jane saw. +Without ever having heard of such a thing as fate, little Draxy recognized +that her father was fighting with it, and that fate was the stronger! Her +little arms clasped closer and closer round his neck, and her serene blue +eyes, so like his, and yet so wondrously unlike, by reason of their latent +fire and strength, looked this unseen enemy steadfastly in the face, day +by day. + +She was a wonderful child. Her physical health was perfect. The first ten +years of her life were spent either out of doors, or in her father's lap. +He would not allow her to attend the district school; all she knew she +learned from him. Reuben Miller had never looked into an English grammar +or a history, but he knew Shakespeare by heart, and much of Homer; a few +odd volumes of Walter Scott's novels, some old voyages, a big family +Bible, and a copy of Byron, were the only other books in his house. As +Draxy grew older, Reuben now and then borrowed from the minister books +which he thought would do her good; but the child and he both loved Homer +and the Bible so much better than any later books, that they soon drifted +back to them. It was a little sad, except that it was so beautiful, to +see the isolated life these two led in the family. The boys were good, +sturdy, noisy boys. They went to school in the winter and worked on the +farm in the summer, like all farmers' boys. Reuben, the oldest, was +eighteen when Draxy was ten; he was hired, by a sort of indenture, for +three years, on a neighboring farm, and came home only on alternate +Sundays. Jamie, and Sam, and Lawton were at home; young as they were, they +did men's service in many ways. Jamie had a rare gift for breaking horses, +and for several years the only ready money which the little farm had +yielded was the price of the colts which Jamie raised and trained so +admirably that they sold well. The other two boys were strong and willing, +but they had none of their father's spirituality, or their mother's +gentleness. Thus, in spite of Reuben Miller's deep love for his children, +he was never at ease in his boys' presence; and, as they grew older, +nothing but the influence of their mother's respect for their father +prevented their having an impatient contempt for his unlikeness to the +busy, active, thrifty farmers of the neighborhood. + +It was a strange picture that the little kitchen presented on a winter +evening. Reuben sat always on the left hand of the big fire-place, with a +book on his knees. Draxy was curled up on an old-fashioned cherry-wood +stand close to his chair, but so high that she rested her little dimpled +chin on his head. A tallow candle stood on a high bracket, made from a +fungus which Reuben had found in the woods. When the candle flared and +dripped, Draxy sprang up on the stand, and, poised on one foot, reached +over her father's head to snuff it. She looked like a dainty fairy +half-floating in the air, but nobody knew it. Jane sat in a high-backed +wooden rocking-chair, which had a flag bottom and a ruffled calico +cushion, and could only rock a very few inches back and forth, owing to +the loss of half of one of the rockers. For the first part of the evening, +Jane always knitted; but by eight o'clock the hands relaxed, the needles +dropped, the tired head fell back against the chair, and she was fast +asleep. + +The boys were by themselves in the farther corner of the room, playing +checkers or doing sums, or reading the village newspaper. Reuben and Draxy +were as alone as if the house had been empty. Sometimes he read to her in +a whisper; sometimes he pointed slowly along the lines in silence, and the +wise little eyes from above followed intently. All questions and +explanations were saved till the next morning, when Draxy, still curled up +like a kitten, would sit mounted on the top of the buckwheat barrel in the +store, while her father lay stretched on the counter, smoking. They never +talked to each other, except when no one could hear; that is, they never +spoke in words; there was mysterious and incessant communication between +them whenever they were together, as there is between all true lovers. + +At nine o'clock Reuben always shut the book, and said, "Kiss me, little +daughter." Draxy kissed him, and said, "Good-night, father dear," and that +was all. The other children called him "pa," as was the universal custom +in the village. But Draxy even in her babyhood had never once used the +word. Until she was seven or eight years old she called him "Farver;" +after that, always "father dear." Then Reuben would wake Jane up, sighing +usually, "Poor mother, how tired she is!" Sometimes Jane said when she +kissed Draxy, at the door of her little room, "Why don't you kiss your pa +for good-night?" + +"I kissed father before you waked up, ma," was always Draxy's quiet +answer. + +And so the years went on. There was much discomfort, much deprivation in +Reuben Miller's house. Food was not scarce; the farm yielded enough, such +as it was, very coarse and without variety; but money was hard to get; the +store seemed to be absolutely unremunerative, though customers were not +wanting; and the store and the farm were all that Reuben Miller had in the +world. But in spite of the poor food; in spite of the lack of most which +money buys; in spite of the loyal, tender, passionate despair of her +devotion to her father, Draxy grew fairer and fairer, stronger and +stronger. At fourteen her physique was that of superb womanhood. She had +inherited her body wholly from her father. For generations back, the +Millers had been marked for their fine frames. The men were all over six +feet tall, and magnificently made; and the women were much above the +average size and strength. On Draxy's fourteenth birthday she weighed one +hundred and fifty pounds, and measured five feet six inches in height. Her +coloring was that of an English girl, and her bright brown hair fell below +her waist in thick masses. To see the face of a simple-hearted child, +eager but serene, determined but lovingly gentle, surrounded and glorified +by such splendid physical womanhood, was a rare sight. Reuben Miller's +eyes filled with tears often as he secretly watched his daughter, and said +to himself, "Oh, what is to be her fate! what man is worthy of the wife +she will be?" But the village people saw only a healthy, handsome girl, +"overgrown," they thought, and "as queer as her father before her," they +said, for Draxy, very early in life, had withdrawn herself somewhat from +the companionship of the young people of the town. + +As for Jane, she loved and reverenced Draxy, very much as she did Reuben, +with touching devotion, but without any real comprehension of her nature. +If she sometimes felt a pang in seeing how much more Reuben talked with +Draxy than with her, how much more he sought to be with Draxy than with +her, she stifled it, and, reproaching herself for disloyalty to each, set +herself to work for them harder than before. + +In Draxy's sixteenth year the final blow of misfortune fell upon Reuben +Miller's head. + +A brother of Jane's, for whom, in an hour of foolish generosity, Reuben +had indorsed a note of a considerable amount, failed. Reuben's farm was +already heavily mortgaged. There was nothing to be done but to sell it. +Purchasers were not plenty nor eager; everybody knew that the farm must be +sold for whatever it would bring, and each man who thought of buying hoped +to profit somewhat, in a legitimate and Christian way, by Reuben's +extremity. + +Reuben's courage would have utterly forsaken him now, except for Draxy's +calmness. Jane was utterly unnerved; wept silently from morning till +night, and implored Reuben to see her brother's creditors, and beg them +to release him from his obligation. But Draxy, usually so gentle, grew +almost stern when such suggestions were made. + +"You don't understand, ma," she said, with flushing cheeks. "It is a +promise. Father must pay it. He cannot ask to have it given back to him." + +But with all Draxy's inflexibility of resolve, she could not help being +disheartened. She could not see how they were to live; the three rooms +over the store could easily be fitted up into an endurable dwelling-place; +but what was to supply the food which the farm had hitherto given them? +There was literally no way open for a man or a woman to earn money in that +little farming village. Each family took care of itself and hired no +service, except in the short season of haying. Draxy was an excellent +seamstress, but she knew very well that the price of all the sewing hired +in the village in a year would not keep them from starving. The Store must +be given up, because her father would have no money with which to buy +goods. In fact, for a long time, most of his purchases had been made by +exchanging the spare produce of his farm at large stores in the +neighboring towns. Still Draxy never wavered, and because she did not +waver Reuben did not die. The farm was sold at auction, with the stock, +the utensils, and all of the house-furniture which was not needed to make +the store chambers habitable. The buyer boasted in the village that he had +not given more than two thirds of the real value of the place. After +Reuben's debts were all paid, there remained just one thousand dollars to +be put into the bank. + +"Why, father! That is a fortune," said Draxy, when he told her. "I did +not suppose we should have anything, and it is glorious not to owe any man +a cent." + +It was early in April when the Millers moved into the "store chambers." +The buyer of their farm was a hard-hearted, penurious man, a deacon of the +church in which Draxy had been baptized. He had never been known to give a +penny to any charity excepting Foreign Missions. His wife and children had +never received at his hands the smallest gift. But even his heart was +touched by Draxy's cheerful acquiescence in the hard change, and her +pathetic attempts to make the new home pleasant. The next morning after +Deacon White took possession, he called out over the fence to poor Reuben, +who stood listlessly on the store steps, trying not to look across at the +house which had been his. + +"I say, Miller, that gal o' your'n is what I call the right sort o' woman, +up an' down. I hain't said much to her, but I've noticed that she set a +heap by this garding; an' I expect she'll miss the flowers more'n +anything; now my womenfolks they won't have anythin' to do with such +truck; an' if she's a mind to take care on't jest's she used ter, I'm +willin'; I guess we shall be the gainers on't." + +"Thank you, Deacon White; Draxy'll be very glad," was all Reuben could +reply. Something in his tone touched the man's flinty heart still more; +and before he half knew what he was going to say, he had added,-- + +"An' there's the vegetable part on't, too, Miller. I never was no hand to +putter with garden sass. If you'll jest keep that up and go halves, fair +and reg'lar, you're welcome." + +This was tangible help. Reuben's face lighted up. + +"I thank you with all my heart," he replied. "That'll be a great help to +me; and I reckon you'll like our vegetables, too," he said, half smiling, +for he knew very well that nothing but potatoes and turnips had been seen +on Deacon White's table for years. + +Then Reuben went to find Draxy; when he told her, the color came into her +face, and she shut both her hands with a quick, nervous motion, which was +habitual to her under excitement. + +"Oh, father, we can almost live off the garden," said she. "I told you we +should not starve." + +But still new sorrows, and still greater changes, were in store for the +poor, disheartened family. In June a malignant fever broke out in the +village, and in one short month Reuben and Jane had laid their two +youngest boys in the grave-yard. There was a dogged look, which was not +all sorrow, on Reuben's face as he watched the sexton fill up the last +grave. Sam and Jamie, at any rate, would not know any more of the +discouragement and hardship of life. + +Jane, too, mourned her boys not as mothers mourn whose sons have a +birthright of gladness. Jane was very tired of the world. + +Draxy was saddened by the strange, solemn presence of death. But her +brothers had not been her companions. She began suddenly to feel a sense +of new and greater relationship to them, now that she thought of them as +angels; she was half terrified and bewildered at the feeling that now, for +the first time, they were near to her. + +On the evening after Sam's funeral, as Reuben was sitting on the store +steps, with his head buried in his hands, a neighbor drove up and threw +him a letter. + +"It's been lyin' in the office a week or more, Merrill said, and he +reckoned I'd better bring it up to you," he called out, as he drove on. + +"It might lie there forever, for all my goin' after it," thought Reuben to +himself, as he picked it up from the dust; "it's no good news, I'll be +bound." + +But it was good news. The letter was from Jane's oldest sister, who had +married only a few years before, and gone to live in a sea-port town on +the New England coast. Her husband was an old captain, who had retired +from his seafaring life with just money enough to live on, in a very +humble way, in an old house which had belonged to his grandfather. He had +lost two wives; his children were all married or dead, and in his +loneliness and old age he had taken for his third wife the gentle, quiet +elder sister who had brought up Jane Miller. She was a gray-haired, +wrinkled spinster woman when she went into Captain Melville's house; but +their life was by no means without romance. Husband and home cannot come +to any womanly heart too late for sentiment and happiness to put forth +pale flowers. + +Emma Melville wrote offering the Millers a home; their last misfortune had +but just come to her knowledge, for Jane had been for months too much out +of heart to write to her relatives. Emma wrote:-- + +"We are very poor, too; we haven't anything but the house, and a little +money each year to buy what we need to eat and wear, the plainest sort. +But the house is large; Captain Melville and me never so much as set foot +up-stairs. If you can manage to live on the upper floor, you're more than +welcome, we both say; and we hope you won't let any pride stand in the way +of your coming. It will do us good to have more folks in the house, and it +ain't as if it cost us anything, for we shouldn't never be willing, +neither me nor Captain Melville, to rent the rooms to strangers, not while +we've got enough to live on without." + +There was silence for some minutes between Reuben and Jane and Draxy after +this letter had been read. Jane looked steadily away from Reuben. There +was deep down in the patient woman's heart, a latent pride which was +grievously touched. Reuben turned to Draxy; her lips were parted; her +cheeks were flushed; her eyes glowed. "Oh, father, the sea!" she +exclaimed. This was her first thought; but in a second more she added, +"How kind, how good of Aunt Emma's husband!" + +"Would you like to go, my daughter?" said Reuben, earnestly. + +"Why, I thought of course we should go!" exclaimed Draxy, turning with a +bewildered look to her mother, who was still silent. "What else is the +letter sent for? It means that we must go." + +Her beautiful simplicity was utterly removed from any false sense of +obligation. She accepted help as naturally from a human hand as from the +sunshine; she would give it herself, so far as she had power, just as +naturally and just as unconsciously. + +There was very little discussion about the plan. Draxy's instinct overbore +all her father's misgiving, and all her mother's unwillingness. + +"Oh, how can you feel so, Ma," she exclaimed more than once. "If I had a +sister I could not. I love Aunt Emma already next to you and father; and +you don't know how much we can do for her after we get there, either. I +can earn money there, I know I can; all we need." + +Mrs. Melville had written that there were many strangers in the town in +the summer, and that she presumed Draxy could soon find all the work she +wished as seamstress; also that there were many chances of work for a man +who was accustomed to gardening, as, of course, Reuben must be. + +Draxy's sanguine cheerfulness was infectious; even Jane began to look +forward with interest to the new home; and Reuben smiled when Draxy sang. +Lawton and Reuben were to be left behind; that was the only regret; but it +was merely anticipating by a very little the separation which was +inevitable, as the boys had both become engaged to daughters of the +farmers for whom they had been working, and would very soon take their +positions as sons-in-law on these farms. + +The store was sold, the furniture packed, and Reuben Miller, with his wife +and child, set his face eastward to begin life anew. The change from the +rich wheat fields and glorious forests of Western New York, to the bare +stony stretches of the Atlantic sea-board, is a severe one. No adult heart +can make it without a struggle. When Reuben looked out of the car windows +upon the low gray barrens through which he was nearing his journey end, +his soul sank within him. It was sunset; the sea glistened like glass, and +was as red as the sky. Draxy could not speak for delight; tears stood in +her eyes, and she took hold of her father's hand. But Reuben and Jane saw +only the desolate rocks, and treeless, shrubless, almost--it seemed to +them--grassless fields, and an unutterable sense of gloom came over them. +It was a hot and stifling day; a long drought had parched and shriveled +every living thing; and the white August dust lay everywhere. + +Captain Melville lived in the older part of the town near the water. The +houses were all wooden, weather-beaten, and gray, and had great patches of +yellow lichen on their walls and roofs; thin rims of starved-looking grass +edged the streets, and stray blades stood up here and there among the old +sunken cobble-stones which made the pavements. + +The streets seemed deserted; the silence and the sombre color, and the +strange low plashing of the water against the wharves, oppressed even +Draxy's enthusiastic heart. Her face fell, and she exclaimed +involuntarily, "Oh, what a lonesome place!" Checking herself, she added, +"but it's only the twilight makes it look so, I expect." + +They had some difficulty in finding the house. The lanes and streets +seemed inextricably tangled; the little party was shy of asking direction, +and they were all disappointed and grieved, more than they owned to +themselves, that they had not been met at the station. At last they found +the house. Timidly Draxy lifted the great brass knocker. It looked to her +like splendor, and made her afraid. It fell more heavily than she supposed +it would, and the clang sounded to her over-wrought nerves as if it filled +the whole street. No one came. They looked at the windows. The curtains +were all down. There was no sign of life about the place. Tears came into +Jane's eyes. She was worn out with the fatigue of the journey. + +"Oh dear, oh dear," she said, "I wish we hadn't come." + +"Pshaw, mother," said Reuben, with a voice cheerier than his heart, "very +likely they never got our last letter, and don't know we were to be here +to-day," and he knocked again. + +Instantly a window opened in the opposite house, and a jolly voice said, +"My gracious," and in the twinkling of an eye the jolly owner of the jolly +voice had opened her front door and run bareheaded across the street, and +was shaking hands with Reuben and Jane and Draxy, all three at once, and +talking so fast that they could hardly understand her. + +"My gracious I my gracious! Won't Mrs. Melville be beat! Of course you're +her folks she was expecting from the West, ain't you? I mistrusted it +somehow as soon as I heard the big knock. Now I'll jest let you in the +back door. Oh my, Mis' Melville'll never get over this; to think of her +be'n' away, an' she's been lookin' and looking and worryin' for two weeks, +because she didn't hear from you; and only last night Captain Melville he +said he'd write to-day if they didn't hear.'" + +"We wrote," said Draxy, in her sweet, low voice, "we wrote to Aunt Emma +that we'd come to-day." + +"Now did you!" said the jolly voice. "Well, that's jest the way. You see +your letter's gone somewhere else, and now Mis' Melville she's gone +to"--the rest of the sentence was lost, for the breathless little woman was +running round the house to the back door. + +In a second more the upper half of the big old-fashioned door had swung +open, to Draxy's great delight, who exclaimed, "Oh, father, we read about +such doors as this in that Knickerbocker book, don't you remember?" + +But good Mrs. Carr was drawing them into the house, giving them neighborly +welcome, all the while running on in such voluble ejaculatory talk that +the quiet, saddened, recluse-like people were overwhelmed with +embarrassment, and hardly knew which way to turn. Presently she saw their +confusion and interrupted herself with-- + +"Well, well, you're jest all tired out with your journey, an' a cup o' +tea's the thing you want, an' none o' my talk; but you see Mis' Melville +'n me's so intimate that I feel's if I'd known you always, 'n I'm real +glad to see you here, real glad; 'n I'll bring the tea right over; the +kettle was a boilin' when I run out, 'n I'll send Jim right down town for +Captain Melville; he's sure to be to the library. Oh, but won't Mis' +Melville be beat," she continued, half way down the steps; and from the +middle of the street she called back, "'an she ain't coming home till +to-morrow night." + +Reuben and Jane and Draxy sat down with as bewildered a feeling as, if +they had been transported to another world. The house was utterly unlike +anything they had ever seen; high ceilings, wainscoted walls, wooden +cornices and beams, and wooden mantels with heads carved on the corners. +It seemed to them at first appallingly grand. Presently they observed the +bare wooden floors, the flag-bottomed chairs, and faded chintz cushions, +the row of old tin utensils, and plain, cheap crockery in the glass-doored +cupboard, and felt more at home. + +"You know Aunt Emma said they were poor, too," said Draxy, answering her +own unspoken thought as well as her father's and mother's. + +Reuben pushed his hair off his warm forehead and sighed. + +"I suppose we might go up-stairs, mother," he said; "that's to be our +house, as I understand it" + +Draxy bounded at the words. With flying steps she ascended the stairs and +opened the first door. She stood still on the threshold, unable to move +from astonishment. It was still light enough to see the room. Draxy began +to speak, but broke down utterly, and bursting out crying, threw herself +into the arms of her father who had just reached the top of the stairs. + +"Oh, father, it's all fixed for a sitting-room! Father dear, I told you!" + +This was something they had not dreamed of. They had understood the offer +to be merely of rooms in which they could live rent-free. In fact, that +had been Captain Melville's first intention. But his generous sailor's +heart revolted from the thought of stripping the rooms of furniture for +which he had no use. So Emma had rearranged the plain old-fashioned +things, and adding a few more which could be spared as well as not, had +fitted up a sitting-room and two bed-rooms with all that was needed for +comfort. Reuben and Jane and Draxy were all crying when Mrs. Carr came +back with her pitcher of smoking tea. Reuben tried to explain to her why +they were crying, but she interrupted him with,-- + +"Well, now, I understand it jest's if 'twas to me it'd all happened; an' I +think it's lucky after all that Mis' Melville wasn't here, for she's +dreadful easy upset if people take on. But now you drink your tea, and get +all settled down's quick's you can, for Captain Melville 'll be here any +minute now I expect, an' he don't like tantrums." + +This frightened Draxy, and made a gloomy look come on Reuben's face. But +the fright and the gloom disappeared in one minute and forever when the +door burst open, and a red-faced, white-haired old man, utterly out of +breath, bounced into the room, and seizing Reuben by the hand gasped out, +puffing between the words like a steam-engine:-- + +"Wreck me, if this isn't a hard way to make port. Why, man, we've been +looking for some hail from you for two weeks, till we began to think you'd +given us the go-by altogether. Welcome to Melville Harbor, I say, +welcome!" and he had shaken Reuben's hand, and kissed Jane and turned to +Draxy all in a breath. At the first full sight of Draxy's face he started +and felt dumb. He had never seen so beautiful a woman. He pulled out a red +silk handkerchief and wiped his face nervously as she said, "Kiss me too, +uncle," but her warm lips were on his cheek before he had time to analyze +his own feelings. Then Reuben began to say something, about gratitude, and +the old sailor swore his favorite oath again: "Now, may I be wrecked if I +have a word o' that. We're glad enough to get you all here; and as for the +few things in the rooms, they're of no account anyhow." + +"Few things! Oh, uncle," said Draxy, with a trembling voice, and before he +knew what she was about to do she had snatched his fat, weather-beaten old +hand and kissed it. No woman had ever kissed John Melville's hand before. +From that moment he looked upon Draxy as a princess who had let him once +kiss hers! + +Captain Melville and Reuben were friends before bed-time. Reuben's gentle +simplicity and unworldliness, and patient demeanor, roused in the rough +sailor a sympathy like that he had always felt for women. And to Reuben +the hearty good cheer, and brisk, bluff sailor ways were infinitely +winning and stimulating. + +The next day Mrs. Melville came home. In a short time the little household +had adjusted itself, and settled down into its routine of living. When, in +a few days, the great car-load of the Millers' furniture arrived, Capt. +Melville insisted upon its all going to the auction-rooms excepting the +kitchen furniture, and a few things for which Jane had especial +attachment. It brought two hundred dollars, which, in addition to the +price of the farm, and the store and its stock, gave Reuben just nineteen +hundred dollars to put in the Savings Bank. + +"And I am to be counted at least two thousand more, father dear, so you +are not such a very poor man after all," said Draxy, laughing and dancing +around him. + +Now Draxy Miller's real life began. In after years she used to say, "I +was born first in my native town; second, in the Atlantic Ocean!" The +effect of the strong sea air upon her was something indescribable; joy +seemed to radiate from her whole being. She smiled whenever she saw the +sea. She walked on the beach; she sat on the rocks; she learned to swim in +one lesson, and swam so far out that her uncle dared not follow, and +called to her in imploring terror to return. Her beauty grew more and more +radiant every day. This the sea gave to her body. But there was a far +subtler new life than the physical, a far finer new birth than the birth +of beauty,--which came to Draxy here. This, books gave to her soul. Only a +few years before, a free library had been founded in this town, by a rich +and benevolent man. Every week hundreds of volumes circulated among the +families where books were prized, and could not be owned. When Draxy's +uncle first took her into this library, and explained to her its purpose +and regulations, she stood motionless for a few moments, looking at +him--and at the books: then, with tears in her eyes, and saying, "Don't +follow me, uncle dear; don't mind me, I can't bear it," she ran swiftly +into the street, and never stopped until she had reached home and found +her father. An hour later she entered the library again, leading her +father by the hand. She had told him the story on the way. Reuben's thin +cheeks were flushed. It was almost more than he too could bear. Silently +the father and daughter walked up and down the room, looking into the +alcoves. Then they sat down together, and studied the catalogue. Then +they rose and went out, hand in hand as they had entered, speaking no +word, taking no book. For one day the consciousness of this wealth filled +their hearts beyond the possibility of one added desire. After that, Draxy +and her father were to be seen every night seated at the long table in the +reading-room. They read always together, Draxy's arm being over the back +of her father's chair. Many a man and many a woman stopped and looked long +at the picture. But neither Draxy nor her father knew it. + +At the end of two years, Draxy Miller had culture. She was ignorant still, +of course; she was an uneducated girl; she wept sometimes over her own +deficiencies; but her mind was stored with information of all sorts; she +had added Wordsworth to her Shakespeare; she had journeyed over the world +with every traveller whose works she could find; and she had tasted of +Plato and Epictetus. Reuben's unfailing simplicity and purity of taste +saved her from the mischiefs of many of the modern books. She had hardly +read a single novel; but her love of true poetry was a passion. + +In the mean time she had become the favorite seamstress of the town. Her +face, and voice, and smile would alone have won way for her; but in +addition to those, she was a most dexterous workwoman. If there had only +been twice as many days in a year, she would have been--glad. Her own +earnings in addition to her father's, and to their little income from the +money in the bank, made them comfortable; but with Draxy's expanded +intellectual life had come new desires: she longed to be taught. + +One day she said to her father, "Father dear, what was the name of that +canal contractor who borrowed money of you and never paid it?" + +Reuben looked astonished, but told her. + +"Is he alive yet?" + +"Oh, yes," said Reuben, "and he's rich now. There was a man here only last +week who said he'd built him a grand house this year." + +Draxy shut her hands nervously. "Father, I shall go and get that money." + +"You, child! Why it's two days' journey; and he'd never pay you a cent. I +tried times enough," replied Reuben. + +"But I think perhaps he would be more likely to pay it to a woman; he +would be ashamed," said Draxy, "especially if he is rich now, and I tell +him how much we need it." + +"No, no, child; I shouldn't hear to your going; no more would mother; and +it would be money wasted besides," said Reuben, with sternness unusual for +him. + +Draxy was silent. The next morning she went to the railway station and +ascertained exactly how much the journey would cost. She was disheartened +at the amount. It would be difficult for her to save so much out of a +whole year's earnings. That day Draxy's face was sad. She was sewing at +the house of one of her warmest friends. All her employers were her +friends, but this one was a woman of rare intelligence and culture, who +had loved Draxy ever since the day she had found her reading a little +volume of Wordsworth, one of the Free Library books, while she was eating +her dinner in the sewing-room. + +Draxy looked her gratitude, but said nothing. Not the least of her +charms, to the well-bred people who employed her, was her exquisite +reticence, her gentle and unconscious withdrawal into herself, in spite of +all familiarity with which she might be treated. + +A few days later Mrs. White sent a note to Draxy with the thirty dollars +inclosed, and this note to Mr. Miller:-- + +"MR. MILLER--DEAR SIR:-- + +"This money has been contributed, by Draxy's friends. You do not know how +much we all prize and esteem your daughter and wish to help her. I hope +you will be willing that she should use this money for the journey on +which her heart is so set. I really advise you as a friend to let her make +the effort to recover that money; I think she will get it. + +"Truly, your friend, + +"A. WHITE." + +This note brought tears of pride to Reuben's eyes. Draxy watched him +closely, and said:-- + +"Father dear, I should like to go to-morrow." + +Her preparations had already been made. She knew beforehand that her cause +was won; that her father's sense of justice would not let him interfere +with her use of the gift for the purpose for which it was made. + +It was on a clear cold morning in January that Draxy set out. It was the +second journey of her life, and she was alone for the first time; but she +felt no more fear than if she had been a sparrow winging its way through a +new field. The morning twilight was just fading away; both the east and +the west were clear and glorious; the east was red, and the west pale +blue; high in the west stood the full moon, golden yellow; below it a long +narrow bar of faint rose-color; below that, another bar of fainter purple; +then the low brown line of a long island; then an arm of the sea; the +water was gray and still; the ice rims stretched far out from the coast, +and swayed up and down at the edges, as the waves pulsed in and out. +Flocks of gulls were wheeling, soaring in the air, or lighting and +floating among the ice fragments, as cold and snowy as they. Draxy leaned +her head against the side of the car and looked out on the marvelous +beauty of the scene with eyes as filled with calm delight as if she had +all her life journeyed for pleasure, and had had nothing to do but feed +and develop her artistic sense. + +A company of travelling actors sat near her; a dozen tawdry women and +coarse men, whose loud voices and vulgar jests made Draxy shudder. She did +not know what they could be; she had never seen such behavior; the men +took out cards and began to play; the women leaned over, looked on, and +clapped the men on their shoulders. Draxy grew afraid, and the expression +of distress on her face attracted the conductor's notice. He touched her +on the shoulder. + +"I'll take you into the next car, Miss, if you don't like to be near these +people. They're only actors; there's no harm in them, but they're a rough +set." + +"Actors," said Draxy, as the kind conductor lifted her from one platform +to another. "I never thought they were like that. Do they play +Shakespeare?" + +"I don't know, I'm sure," said the conductor, puzzled enough: "but I dare +say they do." + +"Then I'm glad I never went to the theatre," thought Draxy, as she +settled herself in her new seat. For a few moments she could not banish +her disturbed and unhappy feeling. She could not stop fancying some of the +grand words which she most loved in Shakespeare, repeated by those +repulsive voices. + +But soon she turned her eyes to the kindling sky, and forgot all else. The +moon was slowly turning from gold to silver; then it would turn from +silver to white cloud, then to film, then vanish away. Draxy knew that day +and the sun would conquer. "Oh, if I only understood it," sighed Draxy. +Then she fell to thinking about the first chapter in Genesis; and while +she looked upon that paling moon, she dreamed of other moons which no +human eyes ever saw. Draxy was a poet; but as yet she had never dared to +show even to her father the little verses she had not been able to help +writing. "Oh, how dare I do this; how dare I?" she said to herself, as +alone in her little room, she wrote line after line. "But if nobody ever +knows, it can do no harm. It is strange I love it, though, when I am so +ashamed." + +This morning Draxy had that mysterious feeling as if all things were new, +which so often comes to poetic souls. It is at once the beauty and the +burden, the exhaustion and the redemption of their lives. No wonder that +even common men can sometimes see the transfiguration which often comes to +him before whose eyes death and resurrection are always following each +other, instant, perpetual, glorious. Draxy took out her little diary. +Folded very small, and hid in the pocket of it, was a short poem that she +had written the year before on a Tiarella plant which had blossomed in +her window. Mrs. White had brought it to her with some ferns and mosses +from the mountains; and all winter long it had flowered as if in summer. +Draxy wondered why this golden moon reminded her of the Tiarella. She did +not know the subtle underlying bonds in nature. These were the Tiarella +verses:-- + + My little Tiarella, + If thou art my own, + Tell me how thus in winter + Thy shining flowers have blown. + Art thou a fairy smuggler, + Defying law? + Didst take of last year's summer + More than summer saw? + Or hast thou stolen frost-flakes + Secretly at night? + Thy stamens tipped with silver, + Thy petals spotless white, + Are so like those which cover + My window-pane; + Wilt thou, like them, turn back at noon + To drops again? + + Oh, little Tiarella, + Thy silence speaks; + No more my foolish question + Thy secret seeks. + The sunshine on my window + Lies all the day. + How shouldst thou know that summer + Has passed away? + The frost-flake's icy silver + Is dew at noon for thee. + O winter sun! O winter frost, + Make summer dews for me! + +After reading these over several times, Draxy took out her pencil, and +very shyly screening herself from all observation, wrote on the other side +of the paper these lines: + + The Morning Moon. + + The gold moon turns to white; + The white moon fades to cloud; + It looks so like the gold moon's shroud, + It makes me think about the dead, + And hear the words I have heard read, + By graves for burial rite. + + I wonder now how many moons + In just such white have died; + I wonder how the stars divide + Among themselves their share of light; + And if there were great years of night + Before the earth saw noons. + + I wonder why each moon, each sun, + Which ever has been or shall be, + In this day's sun and moon I see; + I think perhaps all of the old + Is hidden in each new day's hold; + So the first day is not yet done! + + And then I think--our dust is spent + Before the balances are swung; + Shall we be loneliest among + God's living creatures? Shall we dare + To speak in this eternal air + The only discontent? + +Then she shut the book resolutely, and sat up straight with a little +laugh, saying to herself, "This is a pretty beginning for a business +journey!" + +Far better than you knew, sweet Draxy! The great successes of life are +never made by the men and women who have no poetic comprehension in their +souls. + +Draxy's first night was spent at the house of a brother of Captain +Melville's, to whom her uncle had given her a letter. All went smoothly, +and her courage rose. The next day at noon she was to change cars in one +of the great railroad centres; as she drew near the city she began to feel +uneasy. But her directions were explicit, and she stepped bravely out into +the dismal, dark, underground station, bought her ticket, and walked up +and down on the platform with her little valise in her hand, waiting for +the train. + +In a few moments it thundered in, enveloped in a blinding, stifling smoke. +The crowd of passengers poured out. "Twenty minutes for refreshments," was +shouted at each car, and in a moment more there was a clearing up of the +smoke, and a lull in the trampling of the crowd. Draxy touched the +conductor on the arm. + +"Is this the train I am to take, sir?" she said showing him her ticket. + +He glanced carelessly at it. "No, no," said he; "this is the express; +don't stop there. You must wait till the afternoon accommodation." + +"But what time will that train get there?" said Draxy, turning pale. + +"About ten o'clock, if it's on time," said the conductor, walking away. He +had not yet glanced at Draxy, but at her "Oh, what shall I do!" he turned +back; Draxy's face held him spellbound, as it had held many a man before. +He stepped near her, and taking the ticket from her hand, turned it over +and over irresolutely. "I wish I could stop there, Miss," he said. "Is it +any one who is sick?"--for Draxy's evident distress suggested but one +explanation. + +"Oh no," replied Draxy, trying in vain to make her voice steady. "But I am +all alone, and I know no one there, and I am afraid--it is so late at +night. My friends thought I should get there before dark." + +"What are you going for, if you don't know anybody?" said the conductor, +in a tone less sympathizing and respectful. He was a man more used to +thinking ill than well of people. + +Draxy colored. But her voice became very steady. + +"I am Reuben Miller's daughter, sir, and I am going there to get some +money which a bad man owed my father. We need the money, and there was no +one else to go for it." + +The conductor had never heard of Una, but the tone of the sentence, "I am +Reuben Miller's daughter," smote upon his heart, and made him as reverent +to the young girl as if she had been a saint. + +"I beg your pardon, Miss," he said involuntarily. + +Draxy looked at him with a bewildered expression, but made no reply. She +was too childlike to know that for the rough manner which had hurt her he +ought to ask such pardon. + +The conductor proceeded, still fingering the ticket:-- + +"I don't see how I can stop there. It's a great risk for me to take. If +there was only one of the Directors on board now." Draxy looked still more +puzzled. "No," he said, giving her back the ticket: "I can't do it no +how;" and he walked away. + +Draxy stood still in despair. In a few minutes he came back. He could not +account for its seeming to him such an utter impossibility to leave that +girl to go on her journey at night. + +"What shall you do?" said he. + +"I think my father would prefer that I should find some proper place to +spend the night here, and go on in the morning," replied Draxy; "do you +not think that would be better, sir?" she added, with an appealing, +confiding tone which made the conductor feel more like her knight than +ever. + +"Yes, I think so, and I will give you my card to take to the hotel where I +stay," said he, and he plunged into the crowd again. + +Draxy turned to a brakeman who had drawn near. + +"Has the conductor the right to stop the train if he chooses?" said she. + +"Why yes, Miss, he's right enough, if that's all. Of course he's got to +have power to stop the train any minute. But stoppin' jest to let off a +passenger, that's different." + +Draxy closed her lips a little more firmly, and became less pale. When the +conductor came back and gave her his card, with the name of the hotel on +it, she thanked him, took the card, but did not stir. He looked at her +earnestly, said "Good day, Miss," lifted his hat, and disappeared. Draxy +smiled. It yet wanted ten minutes of the time for the train to go. She +stood still, patiently biding her last chance. The first bell rang--the +steam was up--the crowd of passengers poured in; at the last minute but +one came the conductor. As he caught sight of Draxy's erect, dignified +figure, he started; before he could speak, Draxy said, "I waited, sir, for +I thought at the last minute a director might come, or you might change +your mind." + +The conductor laughed out, and seizing Draxy's valise, exclaimed, "By +George, I will stop the train for you, Miss Miller! Hang me if I don't; +jump in!" and in one minute more Draxy was whirling out of the dark +station into the broad sunlight, which dazzled her. + +When the conductor first--came through the car he saw that Draxy had been +crying. "Do her good," he thought to himself; "it always does do women +good; but I'll be bound she wouldn't ha' cried if I'd left her." + +Half an hour later he found her sound asleep, with her head slipping +uneasily about on the back of the seat. Half ashamed of himself, he +brought a heavy coat and put it under her head for a pillow. Seeing a +supercilious and disagreeable smile on the face of a fashionable young man +in the seat before Draxy, he said sharply: "She's come a long journey, and +was put under my care." + +"I guess that's true enough to pass muster," he chuckled to himself as he +walked away. "If ever I'd ha' believed a woman could make me stop this +train for her! An', by George, without askin' me to either!" + +Draxy slept on for hours. The winter twilight came earlier than usual, for +the sky was overcast. When she waked, the lamps were lighted, and the +conductor was bending over her, saying: "We're most there, Miss, and I +thought you'd better get steadied on your feet a little before you get +off, for I don't calculate to make a full stop." + +Draxy laughed like a little child, and put up both hands to her head as if +to make sure where she was. Then she followed the conductor to the door +and stood looking out into the dim light. + +The sharp signal for "down brakes," made experienced passengers spring to +their feet. Windows opened; heads were thrust out. What had happened to +this express train? The unaccustomed sound startled the village also. It +was an aristocratic little place, settled by wealthy men whose business +was in a neighboring city. At many a dinner-table surprised voices said: +"Why, what on earth is the down express stopping here for? Something must +have broken." + +"Some director or other to be put off," said others; "they have it all +their own way on the road." + +In the mean time Draxy Miller was walking slowly up the first street she +saw, wondering what she should do next. The conductor had almost lifted +her off the train; had shaken her hand, said "God bless you, Miss," and +the train was gone, before she could be sure he heard her thank him. "Oh, +why did I not thank him more before we stopped," thought Draxy. + +"I hope she'll get her money," thought the conductor. "I'd like to see the +man that wouldn't give her what she asked for." + +So the benediction and protection of good wishes, from strangers as well +as from friends, floated on the very air through which Draxy walked, all +unconscious of the invisible blessings. + +She walked a long way before she met any one of whom she liked to ask +direction. At last she saw an elderly man standing under a lamp-post, +reading a letter. Draxy studied his face, and then stopped quietly by his +side without speaking. He looked up. + +"I thought as soon as you had finished your letter, sir, I would ask you +to tell me where Stephen Potter lives." + +It was marvelous what an ineffable charm there was in the subtle mixture +of courtesy and simplicity in Draxy's manner. + +"I am going directly by his house myself, and will show you," replied the +old gentleman. "Pray let me take your bag, Miss." + +"Was it for you," he added, suddenly recollecting the strange stopping of +the express train, "was it for you the express train stopped just now?" + +"Yes, sir," said Draxy. "The conductor very kindly put me off." + +The old gentleman's curiosity was strongly roused, but he forbore asking +any further questions until he left Draxy on the steps of the house, when +he said: "are they expecting you?" + +"Oh no, sir," said Draxy quietly. "I do not know them." + +"Most extraordinary thing," muttered the old gentleman as he walked on. He +was a lawyer, and could not escape from the professional habit of looking +upon all uncommon incidents as clews. + +Draxy Miller's heart beat faster than usual as she was shown into Stephen +Potter's library. She had said to the servant simply, "Tell Mr. Potter +that Miss Miller would like to see him alone." + +The grandeur of the house, the richness of the furniture, would have +embarrassed her, except that it made her stern as she thought of her +father's poverty. "How little a sum it must be to this man," she thought. + +The name roused no associations in Stephen Potter; for years the thought +of Reuben Miller had not crossed his mind, and as he looked in the face of +the tall, beautiful girl who rose as he entered the room, he was utterly +confounded to hear her say,-- + +"I am Reuben Miller's daughter. I have come to see if you will pay me the +money you owe him. We are very poor, and need it more than you probably +can conceive." + +Stephen Potter was a bad man, but not a hard-hearted bad man. He had been +dishonest always; but it was the dishonesty of a weak and unscrupulous +nature, not without generosity. At that moment a sharp pang seized him. He +remembered the simple, upright, kindly face of Reuben Miller. He saw the +same look of simple uprightness, kindled by strength, in the beautiful +face of Reuben Miller's daughter. He did not know what to say. Draxy +waited in perfect composure and silence. It seemed to him hours before he +spoke. Then he said, in a miserable, shuffling way,-- + +"I suppose you think me a rich man." + +"I think you must be very rich," said Draxy, gently. + +Then, moved by some strange impulse in the presence of this pure, +unworldly girl, Stephen Potter suddenly spoke out, for the first time +since his boyhood, with absolute sincerity. + +"Miss Miller, you are your father over again. I reverenced your father. I +have wronged many men without caring, but it troubled me to wrong him. I +would give you that money to-night, if I had it, or could raise it. I am +not a rich man. I have not a dollar in the world. This house is not mine. +It may be sold over my head any day. I am deep in trouble, but not so deep +as I deserve to be," and he buried his face in his hands. + +Draxy believed him. And it was true. At that moment Stephen Potter was +really a ruined man, and many others were involved in the ruin which was +impending. + +Draxy rose, saying gravely, "I am very sorry for you, Mr. Potter. We +heard that you were rich, or I should not have come. We are very poor, but +we are not unhappy, as you are." + +"Stay, Miss Miller, sit down; I have a thing which might be of value to +your father;" and Mr. Potter opened his safe and took out a bundle of old +yellow papers. "Here is the title to a lot of land in the northern part of +New Hampshire. I took it on a debt years ago, and never thought it was +worth anything. Very likely it has run out, or the town has taken +possession of the land for the taxes. But I did think the other day, that +if worst came to worst, I might take my wife up there and try to farm it. +But I'd rather your father should have it if it's good for anything. I +took it for three thousand dollars, and it ought to be worth something. I +will have the legal transfer made in the morning, and give it to you +before you leave." + +This was not very intelligible to Draxy. The thin and tattered old paper +looked singularly worthless to her. But rising again, she said simply as +before, "I am very sorry for you, Mr. Potter; and I thank you for trying +to pay us! Will you let some one go and show me to the hotel where I ought +to sleep?" + +Stephen Potter was embarrassed. It cut him to the heart to send this +daughter of Reuben Miller's out of his house to pass the night. But he +feared Mrs. Potter very much. He hesitated only a moment. + +"No, Miss Miller. You must sleep here. I will have you shown to your room +at once. I do not ask you to see my wife. It would not be pleasant for you +to do so." And he rang the bell. When the servant came, he said,-- + +"William, have a fire kindled in the blue room at once; as soon as it is +done, come and let me know." + +Then he sat down near Draxy and asked many questions about her family, all +of which she answered with childlike candor. She felt a strange sympathy +for this miserable, stricken, wicked man. When she bade him good-night, +she said again, "I am very sorry for you, Mr. Potter. My father would be +glad if he could help you in any way." + +Stephen Potter went into the parlor where his wife sat, reading a novel. +She was a very silly, frivolous woman, and she cared nothing for her +husband, but when she saw his face she exclaimed, in terror, "What was it, +Stephen?" + +"Only Reuben Miller's daughter, come two days' journey after some money I +owe her father and cannot pay," said Stephen, bitterly. + +"Miller? Miller?" said Mrs. Potter, "one of those old canal debts?" + +"Yes," said Stephen. + +"Well, of course all those are outlawed long ago," said she. "I don't see +why you need worry about that; she can't touch you." + +Stephen looked scornfully at her. She had a worse heart than he. At that +moment Draxy's face and voice, "I am very sorry for you, Mr. Potter," +stood out in the very air before him. + +"I suppose not," said he, moodily; "I wish she could! But I shall give her +a deed of a piece of New Hampshire land which they may get some good of. +God knows I hope she may," and he left the room, turning back, however, to +add, "She is to sleep here to-night. I could not have her go to the hotel. +But you need take no trouble about her." + +"I should think not, Stephen Potter," exclaimed Mrs. Potter, sitting bolt +upright in her angry astonishment; "I never heard of such impudence as her +expecting"-- + +"She expected nothing. I obliged her to stay," interrupted Stephen, and +was gone. + +Mrs. Potter's first impulse was to go and order the girl out of her house. +But she thought better of it. She was often afraid of her husband at this +time; she dimly suspected that he was on the verge of ruin. So she sank +back into her chair, buried herself in her novel, and soon forgot the +interruption. + +Draxy's breakfast and dinner were carried to her room, and every +provision made for her comfort. Stephen Potter's servants obeyed him +always. No friend of the family could have been more scrupulously served +than was Draxy Miller. The man-servant carried her bag to the station, +touched his hat to her as she stepped on board the train, and returned to +the house to say in the kitchen: "Well, I don't care what she come for; +she was a real lady, fust to last, an' that's more than Mr. Potter's got +for a wife, I tell you." + +When Stephen Potter went into his library after bidding Draxy good-by, he +found on the table a small envelope addressed to him. It held this note:-- + +"MR. POTTER:--I would not take the paper [the word 'money' had been +scratched out and the word 'paper' substituted] for myself; but I think I +ought to for my father, because it was a true debt, and he is an old man +now, and not strong. + +"I am very sorry for you, Mr. Potter, and I hope you will become happy +again. DRAXY MILLER." + +Draxy had intended to write, "I hope you will be 'good' again," but her +heart failed her. "Perhaps he will understand that 'happy' means good," +she said, and so wrote the gentler phrase. Stephen Potter did understand; +and the feeble outreachings which, during the few miserable years more of +his life, he made towards uprightness, were partly the fruit of Draxy +Miller's words. + +Draxy's journey home was uneventful. She was sad and weary. The first +person she saw on entering the house was her father. He divined in an +instant that she had been unsuccessful. "Never mind, little daughter," he +said, gleefully, "I am not disappointed; I knew you would not get it, but +I thought the journey 'd be a good thing for you, may be." + +"But I have got something, father dear," said Draxy; "only I'm afraid it +is not worth much." + +"'Taint likely to be if Steve Potter gave it," said Reuben, as Draxy +handed him the paper. He laughed scornfully as soon as he looked at it. +"'Taint worth the paper it's writ on," said he, "and he knew it; if he +hain't looked the land up all these years, of course 'twas sold at vendue +long ago." + +Draxy turned hastily away. Up to this moment she had clung to a little +hope. + +When the family were all gathered together in the evening, and Draxy had +told the story of her adventures, Reuben and Captain Melville examined the +deed together. It was apparently a good clear title; it was of three +hundred acres of land. Reuben groaned, "Oh, how I should like to see land +by the acre once more." Draxy's face turned scarlet, and she locked and +unlocked her hands, but said nothing. "But it's no use thinking about it," +he went on; "this paper isn't worth a straw. Most likely there's more than +one man well under way on the land by this time." + +They looked the place up on an atlas. It was in the extreme northeast +corner of New Hampshire. A large part of the county was still marked +"ungranted," and the township in which this land lay was bounded on the +north by this uninhabited district. The name of the town was Clairvend. + +"What could it have been named for?" said Draxy. "How pleasantly it +sounds." + +"Most likely some Frenchman," said Captain Melville. "They always give +names that 're kind o' musical." + +"We might as well burn the deed up. It's nothing but a torment to think of +it a lyin' round with it's three hundred acres of land," said Reuben in an +impulsive tone, very rare for him, and prolonging the "three hundred" +with a scornful emphasis; and he sprang up to throw the paper into the +fire. + +"No, no, man," said Captain Melville; "don't be so hasty. No need of +burning things up in such a roomy house's this! Something may come of that +deed yet. Give it to Draxy; I'm sure she's earned it, if there's anything +to it. Put it away for your dowry, dear," and he snatched the paper from +Reuben's hands and tossed it into Draxy's lap. He did not believe what he +said, and the attempt at a joke brought but a faint smile to any face. The +paper fell on the floor, and Draxy let it lie there till she thought her +father was looking another way, when she picked it up and put it in her +pocket. + +For several days there were unusual silence and depression in the +household. They had really set far more hope than they knew on this +venture. It was not easy to take up the old routine and forget the air +castle. Draxy's friend, Mrs. White, was almost as disappointed as Draxy +herself. She had not thought of the chance of Mr. Potter's being really +unable to pay. She told her husband, who was a lawyer, the story of the +deed, and he said at once: "Of course it isn't worth a straw. If Potter +didn't pay the taxes, somebody else did, and the land's been sold long +ago." + +Mrs. White tried to comfort herself by engaging Draxy for one month's +steady sewing, and presenting her with a set of George Eliot's novels. And +Draxy tried steadily and bravely to forget her journey, and the name of +Clairvend. + +About this time she wrote a hymn, and showed it to her father. It was the +first thing of the kind she had ever let him see, and his surprise and +delight showed her that here was one way more in which she could brighten +his life. She had not thought, in her extreme humility, that by hiding her +verses she was depriving him of pleasure. After this she showed him all +she wrote, but the secret was kept religiously between them. + + Draxy's Hymn. + + I cannot think but God must know + About the thing I long for so; + I know He is so good, so kind, + I cannot think but He will find + Some way to help, some way to show + Me to the thing I long for so. + + I stretch my hand--it lies so near: + It looks so sweet, it looks so dear. + "Dear Lord," I pray, "Oh, let me know + If it is wrong to want it so?" + He only smiles--He does not speak: + My heart grows weaker and more weak, + With looking at the thing so dear, + Which lies so far, and yet so near. + + Now, Lord, I leave at thy loved feet + This thing which looks so near, so sweet; + I will not seek, I will not long-- + almost fear I have been wrong. + I'll go, and work the harder, Lord, + And wait till by some loud, clear word + Thou callest me to thy loved feet, + To take this thing so dear, so sweet. + + + +Part II. + + +As the spring drew near, a new anxiety began to press upon Draxy. Reuben +drooped. The sea-shore had never suited him. He pined at heart for the +inland air, the green fields, the fragrant woods. This yearning always was +strongest in the spring, when he saw the earth waking up around him; but +now the yearning became more than yearning. It was the home-sickness of +which men have died. Reuben said little, but Draxy divined all. She had +known it from the first, but had tried to hope that he could conquer it. + +Draxy spent many wakeful hours at night now. The deed of the New Hampshire +land lay in her upper bureau drawer, wrapped in an old handkerchief. She +read it over, and over, and over. She looked again and again at the faded +pink township on the old atlas. "Who knows," thought she, "but that land +was overlooked and forgotten? It is so near the 'ungranted lands,' which +must be wilderness, I suppose!" Slowly a dim purpose struggled in Draxy's +brain. It would do no harm to find out. But how? No more journeys must be +taken on uncertainties. At last, late one night, the inspiration came. +Who shall say that it is not an unseen power which sometimes suggests to +sorely tried human hearts the one possible escape? Draxy was in bed. She +rose, lighted her candle, and wrote two letters. Then she went back to bed +and slept peacefully. In the morning when she kissed her father good-by, +she looked wistfully in his face. She had never kept any secret from him +before, except the secret of her verses. "But he must not be disappointed +again," said Draxy; "and there is no real hope." + +She dropped her letter into the post-office and went to her work. + +The letter was addressed-- + +"To the Postmaster of Clairvend, + +"New Hampshire." + +It was a very short letter. + +"DEAR SIR:--I wish to ask some help from a minister in your town. If there +is more than one minister, will you please give my letter to the kindest +one. Yours truly, + +"DRAXY MILLER." + +The letter inclosed was addressed-- + +"To the Minister of Clairvend." + +This letter also was short. + +"DEAR SIR:--I have asked the Postmaster to give this letter to the kindest +minister in the town. + +"I am Reuben Miller's daughter. My father is very poor. He has not known +how to do as other men do to be rich. He is very good, sir. I think you +can hardly have known any one so good. Mr. Stephen Potter, a man who owed +him money, has given us a deed of land in your town. My father thinks the +deed is not good for anything. But I thought perhaps it might be; and I +would try to find out. My father is very sick, but I think he would get +well if he could come and live on a farm. I have written this letter in +the night, as soon as I thought about you; I mean as soon as I thought +that there must be a minister in Clairvend, and he would be willing to +help me. + +"I have not told my father, because I do not want him to be disappointed +again as he was about the deed. + +"I have copied for you the part of the deed which tells where the land is; +and I put in a stamp to pay for your letter to me, and if you will find +out for us if we can get this land, I shall be grateful to you all my +life. DRAXY MILLER." + +Inclosed was a slip of paper on which Draxy had copied with great care the +description of the boundaries of the land conveyed by the deed. It was all +that was necessary. The wisest lawyer, the shrewdest diplomatist in the +land never put forth a subtler weapon than this simple girl's simple +letter. + +It was on the morning of the 3d of April that Draxy dropped her letter in +the office. Three days later it was taken out of the mail-bag in the +post-office of Clairvend. The post-office was in the one store of the +village. Ten or a dozen men were lounging about curiosity about the odd +name was soon swallowed up in curiosity as to the contents of the letter. +The men of Clairvend had not been so stirred and roused by anything since +the fall election. Luckily for Draxy's poor little letter, there was but +one minister in the village, and the only strife which rose was as to who +should carry him the letter. Finally, two of the most persistent set out +with it, both declaring that they had business on that road, and had meant +all along to go in and see the Elder on their way home. + +Elder Kinney lived in a small cottage high up on a hill, a mile from the +post-office, and on a road very little travelled. As the men toiled up +this hill, they saw a tall figure coming rapidly towards them. + +"By thunder! there's the Elder now! That's too bad," said little Eben +Hill, the greatest gossip in the town. + +The Elder was walking at his most rapid rate; and Elder Kinney's most +rapid rate was said to be one with which horses did not easily keep up. +"No, thank you, friend, I haven't time to ride to-day," he often replied +to a parishioner who, jogging along with an old farm-horse, offered to +give him a lift on the road. + +"Elder! Elder! here's a letter we was a bringin' up to you!" called out +both of the men at once as he passed them like a flash, saying hurriedly +"Good evening! good evening!" and was many steps down the hill beyond them +before he could stop. + +"Oh, thank you!" he said, taking it hastily and dropping it into his +pocket. "Mrs. Williams is dying, they say; I cannot stop a minute," and +he was out of sight while the baffled parishioners stood confounded at +their ill-luck. + +"Now jest as like's not we shan't never know what was in that letter," +said. Eben Hill, disconsolately. "Ef we'd ha'gone in and set down while he +read it, we sh'd ha' had some chance." + +"But then he mightn't ha' read it while we was there," replied Joseph +Bailey resignedly; an' I expect It ain't none o' our business anyhow, one +way or t'other." + +"It's the queerest thing's ever happened in this town," persisted Eben; +"what's a girl--that is, if 'tis a girl--got to do writin' to a minister +she don't know? I don't believe it's any good she's after." + +"Wal, ef she is, she's come to the right place; and there's no knowin' but +that the Lord's guided her, Eben; for ef ever there was a man sent on this +airth to do the Lord's odd jobs o' looking arter folks, it's Elder +Kinney," said Joseph. + +"That's so," answered Eben in a dismal tone, "that's so; but he's dreadful +close-mouthed when he's a mind to be. You can't deny that!" + +"Wal, I dunno's I want ter deny it," said Joseph, who was beginning, in +Eben's company, to grow ashamed of curiosity; "I dunno's it's anything +agin him," and so the men parted. + +It was late at night when Elder Kinney went home from the bedside of the +dying woman. He had forgotten all about the letter. When he undressed, it +fell from his pocket, and lay on the floor. It was the first thing he saw +in the morning. "I declare!" said the Elder, and reaching out a long arm +from the bed, he picked it up. + +The bright winter sun was streaming in on the Elder's face as he read +Draxy's letter. He let it fall on the scarlet and white counterpane, and +lay thinking. The letter touched him unspeakably. Elder Kinney was no +common man; he had a sensitive organization and a magnetic power, which, +if he had had the advantages of education and position, would have made +him a distinguished preacher. As a man, he was tender, chivalrous, and +impulsive; and even the rough, cold, undemonstrative people among whom his +life had been spent had, without suspecting it, almost a romantic +affection for him. He had buried his young wife and her first-born +still-born child together in this little village twelve years before, and +had ever since lived in the same house from which they had been carried to +the grave-yard. "If you ever want any other man to preach to you," he said +to the people, "you've only to say so to the Conference. I don't want to +preach one sermon too many to you. But I shall live and die in this house; +I can't ever go away. I can get a good livin' at farmin'--good as +preachin', any day!" + +The sentence, "I am Reuben Miller's daughter," went to his heart as it +had gone to every man's heart who had heard it before from Draxy's +unconscious lips. But it sunk deeper in his heart than in any other. + +"If baby had lived she would have loved me like this perhaps," thought the +Elder, as he read the pathetic words over and over. Then he studied the +paragraph copied from the deed. Suddenly a thought flashed into his mind. +He knew something about this land. It must be--yes, it must be on a part +of this land that the sugar-camp lay from which he had been sent for, five +years before, to see a Frenchman who was lying very ill in the little log +sugar-house. The Elder racked his brains. Slowly it all came back to him. +He remembered that at the time some ill-will had been shown in the town +toward this Frenchman; that doubts had been expressed about his right to +the land; and that no one would go out into the clearing to help take care +of him. Occasionally, since that time, the Elder had seen the man hanging +about the town. He had an evil look; this was all the Elder could +remember. + +At breakfast he said to old Nancy, his housekeeper: "Nancy, did you ever +know anything about that Frenchman who had a sugar-camp out back of the +swamp road? I went to see him when he had the fever a few years ago." + +Nancy was an Indian woman with a little white blood in her veins. She +never forgot an injury. This Frenchman had once jeered at her from the +steps of the village store, and the village men had laughed. + +"Know anythin' about him? Yes, sir. He's a son o' Satan, an' I reckon he +stays to hum the great part o' the year, for he's never seen round here +except jest sugarin' time." + +The Elder laughed in spite of himself. Nancy's tongue was a member of +which he strongly disapproved; but his efforts to enforce charity and +propriety of speech upon her were sometimes rendered null and void by his +lack of control of his features. Nancy loved her master, but she had no +reverence in her composition, and nothing gave her such delight as to make +him laugh out against his will. She went on to say that the Frenchman came +every spring, bringing with him a gang of men, some twelve or more, "all +sons o' the same father, sir; you'd know 'em's far's you see 'em." They +took a large stock of provisions, went out into the maple clearing, and +lived there during the whole sugar season in rough log huts. "They do say +he's jest carried off a good thousand dollar's worth o' sugar this very +week," said Nancy. + +The Elder brought his hand down hard on the table and said "Whew!" This +was Elder Kinney's one ejaculation. Nancy seldom heard it, and she knew it +meant tremendous excitement. She grew eager, and lingered, hoping for +further questions; but the Elder wanted his next information from a more +accurate and trustworthy source than old Nancy. Immediately after +breakfast he set out for the village; soon he slackened his pace, and +began to reflect. It was necessary to act cautiously; he felt +instinctively sure that the Frenchman had not purchased the land. His +occupation of it had evidently been acquiesced in by the town for many +years; but the Elder was too well aware of the slack and unbusinesslike +way in which much of the town business was managed, to attach much weight +to this fact. He was perplexed--a rare thing for Elder Kinney. He stopped +and sat down on the top of a stone wall to think. In a few minutes he saw +the steaming heads of a pair of oxen coming up the hill. Slowly the cart +came in sight: it was loaded with sugar-buckets; and there, walking by +its side, was--yes! it was--the very Frenchman himself. + +Elder Kinney was too much astonished even to say "Whew!" + +"This begins to look like the Lord's own business," was the first +impulsive thought of his devout heart. "There's plainly something to be +done. That little Draxy's father shall get some o' the next year's sugar +out o' that camp, or my name isn't Seth Kinney;" and the Elder sprang from +the wall and walked briskly towards the Frenchman. As he drew near him, +and saw the forbidding look on the fellow's face, he suddenly abandoned +his first intention, which was to speak to him, and, merely bowing, passed +on down the hill. + +"He's a villain, if I know the look of one," said honest Elder. "I'll +think a little longer. I wonder where he stores his buckets. Now, there's +a chance," and Elder Kinney turned about and followed the plodding cart up +the hill again. It was a long pull and a tedious one; and for Elder Kinney +to keep behind oxen was a torture like being in a straight waistcoat. One +mile, two miles, three miles! the Elder half repented of his undertaking; +but like all wise and magnetic natures, he had great faith in his first +impulses, and he kept on. + +At last the cart turned into a lane on the right-hand side of the road. + +"Why, he's goin' to old Ike's," exclaimed the Elder. "Well, I can get at +all old Ike knows, and it's pretty apt to be all there is worth knowin'," +and Elder Kinney began, in his satisfaction, to whistle + + "Life is the time to serve the Lord," + +in notes as clear and loud as a bob-o'-link's. + +He walked on rapidly, and was very near overtaking the Frenchman, when a +new thought struck him. "Now, if he's uneasy about himself,--and if he +knows he ain't honest, of course he's uneasy,--he'll may be think I'm on +his track, and be off to his 'hum,' as Nancy calls it," and the Elder +chuckled at the memory, "an' I shouldn't have any chance of ketchin' him +here for another year." The Elder stood still again. Presently he jumped a +fence, and walking off to the left, climbed a hill, from the top of which +he could see old Ike's house. Here, in the edge of a spruce grove, he +walked back and forth, watching the proceedings below. "Seems little too +much like bein' a spy," thought the good man, "but I never felt a clearer +call in a thing in my life than I do in this little girl's letter," and he +fell to singing + + "Rise, my soul, and stretch thy wings," + +till the crows in the wood were frightened by the strange sound, and came +flying out and flapping their great wings above his head. + +The Frenchman drove into old Ike's yard. Ike came out of the house and +helped him unload the buckets, and carry them into an old corn-house which +stood behind the barn: As soon as the Frenchman had turned his oxen's head +down the lane, the Elder set out for the house, across the fields. Old Ike +was standing in the barn-door. When he saw the tall figure striding +through the pasture, he ran to let down the bars, and hurried up to the +Elder and grasped both his hands. Not in all Elder Kinney's parish was +there a single heart which beat so warmly for him as did the heart of this +poor lonely old man, who had lived by himself in this solitary valley ever +since the Elder came to Clairvend. + +"Oh, Elder, Elder," said he, "it does me reel good to see your face. Be ye +well, sir?" looking closely at him. + +"Yes, Ike, thank you, I'm always well," replied the Elder absently. He was +too absorbed in his errand to have precisely his usual manner, and it was +the slight change which Ike's affectionate instinct felt. But Ike saved +him all perplexity as to introducing the object of his visit by saying at +once, picking up one of the sugar-buckets which had rolled off to one +side, "I'm jest pilin' up Ganew's sugar-buckets for him. He pays me well +for storin' 'em, but I kind o' hate to have anythin' to do with him. Don't +you remember him, sir--him that was so awful bad with the fever down'n the +clearin' five years ago this month? You was down to see him, I know." + +"Yes, yes, I remember," said the Elder, with a manner so nonchalant that +he was frightened at his own diplomacy. "He was a bad fellow, I thought," + +Ike went on: "Wall, that's everybody's feelin' about him: and there ain't +no great thing to show for 't nuther. But they did say a while back that +he hadn't no reel right to the land. He turned up all of a sudden, and +paid up all there was owin' on the taxes, an' he's paid 'em regular ever +sence. But he hain't never showed how the notes come to be signed by some +other name. Yes, sir, the hull lot--it's nigh on ter three hundred acres, +such's 'tis; a good part on't 's swamp though, that ain't wuth a +copper--the hull lot went to a man down in York State, when the Iron +Company bust up here, and for two or three year the chap he jest sent up +his note for the taxes, and they've a drefful shiftless way o' lettin' +things go in this ere town, 's you know, sir; there wan't nobody that +knowed what a sugar orchard was a lyin' in there, or there'd been plenty +to grab for it; but I don't s'pose there's three men in the town'd ever +been over back o' Birch Hill till this Ganew he come and cut a road in, +and had his sugar-camp agoin' one spring, afore anybody knew what he was +arter. But he's paid all up reg'lar, and well he may, sez everybody, for +he can't get his sugar off, sly's he is, w'thout folks gettin' some kind +o' notion about it, an' they say's he's cleared thousands an' thousands o' +dollars. I expect they ain't overshot the mark nuther, for he's got six +hundred new buckets this spring, and Bill Sims, he's been in with 'em the +last two years, 'n he says there ain't no sugar orchard to compare, except +Squire White's over in Mill Creek, and he's often taken in three thousand +pounds off his'n." + +Ike sighed as he paused, breathless. "It's jest my luck, allers knockin' +about 'n them woods 's I am, not to have struck trail on that air orchard. +I could ha' bought it's well's not in the fust on't, if it had been put up +to vendue, 's't oughter ben, an' nobody knowin' what 'twas wuth." + +Elder Kinney was almost overcome by this unhoped-for corroboration of his +instincts; clearing up of his difficulties. His voice sounded hoarse in +his own ears as he replied:-- + +"Well, Ike, the longest lane has a turnin'. It's my belief that God +doesn't often let dishonest people prosper very long. We shall see what +becomes of Ganew. Where does he live? I'd like to see him." + +"Well, he don't live nowhere, 's near's anybody can find out. He's in the +camp with the gang about six weeks, sometimes eight; they say's it's a +kind of settlement down there, an' then he's off again till sugarin' comes +round; but he's dreadful sharp and partikler about the taxes, I tell you, +and he's given a good deal too, fust and last, to the town. Folks say he +wants to make 'em satisfied to let him alone. He's coming up here again +to-morrow with two more loads of buckets, sir: if 'twouldn't be too much +trouble for you to come here agin so soon," added poor Ike, grasping at +the chance of seeing the Elder again. + +"Well, I think perhaps I'll come," replied the Elder, ashamed again of the +readiness with which he found himself taking to tortuous methods, "if I'm +not too busy. What time will he be here?" + +"About this same time," said Ike. "He don't waste no time, mornin' nor +evenin'." + +The Elder went away soon, leaving poor Ike half unhappy. + +"He's got somethin' on his mind, thet's plain enough," thought the loving +old soul. "I wonder now ef it's a woman; I've allus thought the Elder +war'nt no sort of man to live alone all his days." + +"Dear, good little Draxy," thought the Elder, as he walked down the road. +"How shall I ever tell the child of this good luck, and how shall I manage +it all for the best for her?" + +Draxy's interests were in good hands. Before night Elder Kinney had +ascertained that there had never been any sale of this land since it was +sold to "the New York chap," and that Ganew's occupation of it was +illegal. After tea the Elder sat down and wrote two letters. + +The first one was to Draxy, and ran as follows:-- + +"MY DEAR CHILD:-- + +"I received your letter last night, and by the Lord's help I have found +out all about your father's land today. But I shall write to your father +about it, for you could not understand. + +"I wish the Lord had seen fit to give me just such a daughter as you are. + +"Your friend, + +"SETH KINNEY." + +The letter to Reuben was very long, giving in substance the facts which +have been told above, and concluding thus:-- + +"I feel a great call from the Lord to do all I can in this business, and I +hope you won't take it amiss if I make bold to decide what's best to be +done without consulting you. This fellow's got to be dealt with pretty +sharp, and I, being on the ground, can look after him better than you can. +But I'll guarantee that you'll have possession of that land before many +weeks." He then asked Reuben to have an exact copy of the deed made out +and forwarded to him; also any other papers which might throw light on the +transfer of the property, sixteen years back. "Not that I calculate +there'll be any trouble," he added; "we don't deal much in lawyer's tricks +up here, but it's just as well to be provided." + +The Elder went to the post-office before breakfast to post this letter. +The address did not escape the eyes of the postmaster. Before noon Eben +Hill knew that the Elder had written right off by the first mail to a +"Miss Draxy Miller." + +Meantime the Elder was sitting in the doorway of old Ike's barn waiting +for the Frenchman; ten o'clock came, eleven, twelve--he did not appear. + +The Elder's uneasiness grew great, but he talked on and on till poor Ike +was beside himself with delight. At last the distant creak of the wheels +was heard. "There he is," exclaimed Ike. "I'm thinking, sir, that it's a +kind o' providential dispensation thet's hendered him all this time; it's +done me such a sight o' good to hear you talk." + +The Elder smiled tenderly on poor old Ike. + +"Everything is a dispensation, Ike, accordin' to my way o' thinkin';" and +again he thought involuntarily of "little Draxy." + +Ganew assented with a half-surly civility to Elder Kinney's proposition to +ride down with him. + +"I've got a matter of business to talk over with you, Mr. Ganew,"--said +the Elder, "and I came up here on purpose to find you." + +The man turned his stolid black eyes full on the Elder, but made no reply. +It was indeed an evil face. The Elder was conscious that impulses which +he feared were unchristian were rising rapidly in his breast. He had +wished a few times before in his life that he was not a minister. He +wished it now. He would have liked to open his conversation with Ganew +after the manner of the world's people when they deal with thieves. And +again he thought involuntarily of "little Draxy," and her touching "we are +very poor." + +But when he spoke, he spoke gently and slowly. + +"I have some news for you which will be very disagreeable, Mr. Ganew." +Here the Frenchman started, with such a terrified, guilty, malignant look +on his face, that the Elder said to himself: "Good God, I believe the man +knows he's in danger of his life. Stealin's the least of his crimes, I'll +venture." + +He proceeded still more gently. "The owners of the land which you've been +using as your own in this town, have written to inquire about it, and have +put the business in my hands." + +Ganew was silent for a moment. Then trying to speak in an indignant tone, +he said,-- + +"Using as my own! I don't know what you mean, Mr. Parson. I have paid my +taxes all regular, and I've got the title-deeds of the land, every acre of +it. I can't help whoever's been writing to you about it; it's all my +land." + +But his face twitched with nervous excitement, and the fright and anger in +his serpent-like black eyes were ugly to see. + +"No, Mr. Ganew, it is not," said the Elder; "and you know it. Now you jest +listen to me; I know the whole truth about the matter, an' all the time +you spend fightin' off the truth'll be wasted, besides addin' lyin' to +havin' been a thief. The owners of the land'll be here, I expect before +long; but they've put it all in my hands, an' I can let you off if I +choose." + +"Let me off! What the devil do you mean?" said Ganew. + +"Why, you don't suppose there's goin' to be nothin' said about all the +thousands o' dollars' wuth of sugar you've carried off here, do"-- + +The next thing Elder Kinney knew he was struggling up to his feet in the +middle of the road; he was nearly blinded by blood trickling from a cut on +his forehead, and only saw dimly that Ganew was aiming another blow at him +with his heavy-handled ox-goad. + +But the Frenchman had reckoned without his host. Elder Kinney, even half +stunned, was more than a match for him. In a very few minutes Ganew was +lying in the bottom of his own ox-cart, with his hands securely tied +behind him with a bit of his own rope and the Elder was sitting calmly +down on a big boulder, wiping his forehead and recovering his breath; it +had been an ugly tussle, and the Elder was out of practice. + +Presently he rose, walked up to the cart, and leaning both his arms on the +wheel, looked down on his enemy. + +The Frenchman's murderous little black eyes rolled wildly, but he did not +struggle. He had felt in the first instant that he was but an infant in +the Elder's hands. + +"Ye poor, miserable, cowardly French,--sinner ye," said the Elder, +struggling for an epithet not unbecoming his cloth. "Did you think you was +goin' to get me out o' yer way's easy's that, 's I dare say ye have better +folks than me, before now!" + +Ganew muttered something in a tongue the Elder did not understand, but the +sound of it kindled his wrath anew. + +"Well, call on your Master, if that's what you're doin', 's much's you +like. He don't generally look out for anybody much who's so big a fool's +you must be, to think you was goin' to leave the minister o' this parish +dead in a ditch within stone's throw o' houses and nobody find you out," +and the Elder sat down again on the boulder. He felt very dizzy and faint; +and the blood still trickled steadily from his forehead. Ganew's face at +this moment was horrible. Rage at his own folly, hate of the Elder, and +terror which was uncontrollable, all contended on his livid features. + +At last he spoke. He begged abjectly to be set free. He offered to leave +the town at once and never return if the Elder would only let him go. + +"What an' give up all your land ye've got such a fine clear title to?" +said the Elder, sarcastically. "No; we'll give ye a title there won't be +no disputin' about to a good berth in Mill Creek jail for a spell!" + +At this the terror mastered every other emotion in the Frenchman's face. +What secret reason he had for it all, no one could know but himself; what +iniquitous schemes already waiting him in other places, what complications +of dangers attendant on his identification and detention. He begged, he +besought, in words so wildly imploring, so full of utter unconditional +surrender, that there could be no question as to their sincerity. The +Elder began, in spite of himself, to pity the wretch; he began also to ask +whether after all it would not be the part of policy to let him go. After +some minutes he said, "I can't say I put much confidence in ye yet, Mr. +Ganew; but I'm inclined to think it's the Lord's way o' smoothin' things +for some o' his children, to let you kind o' slink off," and somehow Elder +Kinney fancied he heard little Draxy say, "Oh, sir, let the poor man go." +There was something marvelous in his under-current of consciousness of +"little Draxy." + +He rose to his feet, picked up the heavy ox-goad, struck the near ox +sharply on the side, and walking on a little ahead of the team, said: +"I'll just take ye down a piece, Mr. Ganew, till we're in sight of Jim +Blair's, before I undo ye. I reckon the presence o' a few folks'll +strengthen your good resolutions." "An' I mistrust I ain't quite equal to +another handlin,'" thought the Elder to himself, as he noted how the sunny +road seemed to go up and down under his feet. He was really far more hurt +than he knew. + +When they were in sight of the house, he stopped the oxen, and leaning +again on the wheel, and looking down on Ganew, had one more talk with him, +at the end of which he began cautiously to untie the rope. He held the +ox-goad, however, firmly grasped in his right hand, and it was not without +a little tremor that he loosed the last knots. "Suppose the desperate +critter sh'd have a knife," thought the Elder. + +He need not have feared. A more crestfallen, subdued, wretched being than +Paul Ganew, as he crawled out of that cart, was never seen. He had his own +secret terror, and it had conquered him. "It's more'n me he's afraid of," +said the Elder to himself. "This is the Lord's doin', I reckon. Now, Mr. +Ganew, if you'll jest walk to the heads o' them oxen I'll thank ye," said +he: "an' 's I feel some tired, I'll jump into the cart; an' I'll save ye +carryin' the ox-goad," he added, as he climbed slowly in, still holding +the murderous weapon in his hand. Nothing could extinguish Seth Kinney's +sense of humor. + +"If we meet any folks," he proceeded, "we've only to say that I've had a +bad hurt, and that you're very kindly takin' me home." + +Ganew walked on like a man in a dream. He was nearly paralyzed with +terror. They met no human being, and very few words passed between them. +When the cart stopped at the Elder's door, Ganew stood still without +turning his head. The Elder went up to him and said, with real kindness of +tone, + +"Mr. Ganew, I expect you can't believe it, but I don't bear ye the least +ill-will." + +A faint flicker of something like grateful surprise passed over the hard +face, but no words came. + +"I hope the Lord'll bring ye to himself yet," persisted the good man, +"and forgive me for havin' had anything but pity for ye from the first +on't. Ye won't forget to send me a writing for Bill Sims that the rest of +the buckets in the camp belong to me?" + +Ganew nodded sullenly and went on, and the Elder walked slowly into the +house. + +After dark, a package was left at the Elder's door. It contained the +order on Bill Sims, and a letter. Some of the information in the letter +proved useful in clearing up the mystery of Ganew's having known of this +tract of land. He had been in Potter's employ, it seemed, and had had +access to his papers. What else the letter told no one ever knew; but the +Elder's face always had a horror-stricken look when the Frenchman's name +was mentioned, and when people sometimes wondered if he would ever be seen +again in Clairvend, the emphasis of the Elder's "Never! ye may rely on +that! Never!" had something solemn in it. + +In less than forty-eight hours the whole village knew the story. "The +sooner they know the whole on't the better, and the sooner they'll be +through talkin'," said the Elder, and nobody could have accused him of +being "close-mouthed" now. He even showed "the little gal's letter," as +the townspeople called it, to anybody who asked to see it. It hurt him to +do this, more than he could see reason for, but he felt a strong desire to +have the village heart all ready to welcome "little Draxy" and her father +when they should come. And the village heart was ready! Hardly a man, +woman, or child but knew her name and rejoiced in her good fortune. "Don't +yer remember my tellin' yer that night," said Josiah Bailey to Eben Hill, +"that she'd come to the right place for help when she come to Elder +Kinney?" + +When Draxy took Elder Kinney's letter out of the post-office, her hands +trembled. She walked rapidly away, and opened the letter as soon as she +reached a quiet street. The Elder had not made it so clear as he thought +he had, in his letter to the "child," which way matters had gone. Draxy +feared. Presently she thought, "He says 'your father's land.' That must +mean that we shall have it." But still she had sad misgivings. She almost +decided to read the inclosed letter which was unsealed; she could not have +her father disappointed again; but her keen sense of honor restrained her. + +Reuben had grown really feeble. There were many days now when he could not +work, but sat listlessly on a ledge of rocks near the house, and watched +the restless waves with a sense of misery as restless as they. When Draxy +reached home this night and found that her father was not in the house, +she ran over to the "Black Ledge." There she found him. She sat down by +his side, not knowing how to begin. Presently he said: "I wish I loved +this water, daughter,--it is very beautiful to look at; but I'm thinkin' +it's somethin' like human beings; they may be ever so handsome to look on, +but if you don't love 'em you don't, and that's the end on't, an' it don't +do ye no sort o' good to be where they are." + +"The woods and fields used to do you good, father," said Draxy. + +Reuben was astonished. Draxy was not wont to allude to the lost and +irrecoverable joys. But he only sighed. + +"Read this letter, father dear," said Draxy, hurriedly pushing it into his +hand; "I wrote up to a good old minister to find out, and here's his +answer." + +Reuben looked bewildered. Draxy's words did not make themselves clear. +But the first words of Elder Kinney's letter did. The paper fell from his +hands. + +"Oh, daughter! daughter! it can't be true! It can't!" and Reuben Miller +covered his eyes and cried. Draxy did not cry. One of the finest traits in +her nature was her instantaneous calmness of exterior under sudden and +intense excitement. + +"Yes; father, it is true. It must be. I have believed it from the first! +Oh do, do read the letter," said Draxy, and she forced the letter into his +hands again. + +"No, no, daughter. Read it to me. I can't see the words," replied Reuben, +still weeping. He was utterly unmanned. Then Draxy read the letter aloud +slowly, distinctly, calmly. Her voice did not tremble. She accepted it +all, absolutely, unconditionally, as she had accepted everything which had +ever happened to her. In Draxy's soul the past never confused the present; +her life went on from moment to moment, from step to step as naturally, as +clearly, as irrevocably as plants grow and flower, without hinderance, +without delay. This it was which had kept her serene, strong: this is true +health of nature. + +After a time Reuben grew calmer; Draxy's presence always helped him. They +sat on the rocks until twilight fell, and the great red lamp in the +light-house was lighted. + +"Father, dear," said Draxy, "I think there are light-houses all along our +lives, and God knows when it is time to light the lamps." + +Reuben clasped Draxy's hand tighter, and turned his eyes upon her with a +look whose love was almost reverent. + +Lights shone until morning from the windows of Captain Melville's house. +The little family had sat together until long after midnight, discussing +this new and wonderful turn in their affairs. Jane and Reuben were +bewildered and hardly happy yet; Draxy was alert, enthusiastic, ready as +usual; poor Captain Melville and his wife were in sore straits between +their joy in the Millers' good fortune, and their pain at the prospect of +the breaking up of the family. Their life together had been so beautiful, +so harmonious. + +"Oh, Draxy," said the Captain, "how shall we ever live without you?" + +"Oh! but you will come up there, uncle." said Draxy; "and we shall keep +you after we once get you." + +Captain Melville shook his head. He could never leave the sea. But full +well he knew that the very salt of it would have lost its best savor to +him when this sweet, fair girl had gone out from his house. + +The "good-nights" were sadly and solemnly said. "Oh!" thought Draxy, "does +joy always bring pain in this world?" and she fell asleep with tears on +her cheeks. + +Reuben sat up until near dawn, writing to Elder Kinney. He felt strangely +strong. He was half cured already by the upland air of the fields he had +never seen. The next morning Draxy said, "Do you not think, father, I +ought to write a note too, to thank the kind minister, or will you tell +him how grateful I am?" + +"Put a postscript to my letter, daughter. That will be better," said +Reuben. + +So Draxy wrote at the bottom of the last page:-- + +"DEAR MR. KINNEY:--I do not know any words to thank you in; and I think +you will like it better if I do not try. My father seems almost well +already. I am sure it was the Lord that helped you to find out about our +land. I hope we can come very soon. + +"Your grateful friend, + +"DRAXY MILLER." + +When the Elder read this second note of Draxy's, he said aloud, "God bless +her! she's one o' His chosen ones, that child is," and he fell to +wondering how she looked. He found himself picturing her as slight and +fair, with blue eyes, and hair of a pale yellow. "I don't believe she's +more than fourteen at most;" thought he, "she speaks so simple, jest like +a child; an' yet, she goes right to the pint, 's straight's any woman; +though I don't know, come to think on't, 's ever I knew a woman that could +go straight to a pint," reflected the Elder, whose patience was often +sorely tried by the wandering and garrulous female tongues in his parish. +The picture of "Little Draxy" grew strangely distinct in his mind; and his +heart yearned towards her with a yearning akin to that which years before +he had felt over the little silent form of the daughter whose eyes had +never looked into his. + +There was no trouble with the town in regard to the land. If there had +been any doubts, Elder Kinney's vigorous championship of the new claimant +would have put them down. But the sympathy of the entire community was +enlisted on Reuben's side. The whole story from first to last appealed to +every man's heart; and there was not a father in town that did not rest +his hand more lovingly on his little girl's head at night, when he sat in +his door-way talking over "them Millers," and telling about Draxy's +"writin' to th' Elder." + +Before the first of May all was settled. Elder Kinney had urged Mr. Miller +to come at once to his house, and make it a home until he could look about +and decide where he would establish himself. + +"I am a lonely man," he wrote; "I buried my wife and only child many years +ago, and have lived here ever since, with only an old Indian woman to take +care of me. I don't want to press you against your will; and there's a +house in the village that you can hire; but it will go against me sorely +not to have you in my house at the first. I want to see you, and to see +your little daughter; I can't help feeling as if the Lord had laid out for +us to be friends more than common." + +Reuben hesitated. The shyness of his nature made him shrink from other +men's houses. But Draxy inclined strongly to the Elder's proposition. "Oh, +think father, how lonely he must be. Suppose you hadn't mother nor me, +father dear!" and Draxy kissed her father's cheek; "and think how glad you +have been that you came to live with uncle," she added. + +Reuben looked lovingly at Captain Melville, but said nothing. + +"I'll tell ye what I think, Reuben;" said the Captain. "It's my belief +that you'n that parson'll take to each other. His letters sound like your +talk. Somehow, I've got an uncommon respect for that man, considerin' he's +a parson: it's my advice to ye, to take up with his offer." + +"And it seems no more than polite, father," persisted Draxy: "after he +has done so much for us. We need not say how long we will stay in his +house, you know." + +"Supposin' you go up first, Draxy," said Reuben, hesitatingly, "an' see +how 'tis. I always did hate Injuns." + +"Oh!" said Draxy; she had hardly observed the mention of that feature in +the Elder's household, and she laughed outright. Her ideas of the +ancestral savage were too vague to be very alarming. "If she has lived all +these years with this good old minister, she must be civilized and kind," +said Draxy. "I'm not afraid of her." + +"But I think it would be a great deal better for me to go first," she +continued, more and more impressed with the new idea. "Then I can be sure +beforehand about everything, and get things all in order for you; and +there'll be Mr. Kinney to take care of me; I feel as if he was a kind of +father to everybody." And Draxy in her turn began to wonder about the +Elder's appearance as he had wondered about hers. Her mental picture was +quite as unlike the truth as was his. She fancied him not unlike her +father, but much older, with a gentle face, and floating white hair. Dim +purposes of how she might make his lonely old age more cheerful, floated +before her mind. "It must be awful," thought she, "to live years and years +all alone with an Indian." + +When Elder Kinney read Reuben's letter, saying that they would send their +daughter up first to decide what would be best for them to do, he brought +his hand down hard on the table and said "Whew!" again. + +"Well, I do declare," thought he to himself, "I'm afraid they're dreadful +shiftless folks, to send that girl way up here, all alone by herself; and +how's such a child's that goin' to decide anything, I should like to +know?" + +He read again the letter Reuben had written. "My daughter is very young, +but we lean upon her as if she was older. She has helped us bear all our +misfortunes, and we have more confidence in her opinions than in our own +about everything." The Elder was displeased. + +"Lean on her;' I should think you did! Poor little girl! Well, I can look +out for her; that's one comfort." And the Elder wrote a short note to the +effect that he would meet their "child" at the railway station, which was +six miles from their town; that he would do all he could to help her; and +that he hoped soon to see Mr. and Mrs. Miller under his roof. + +The words of the note were most friendly, but there was an indefinable +difference between it and all the others, which Draxy felt without knowing +that she felt it, and her last words to her father as she bade him good-by +from the car window were: "I don't feel so sure as I did about our staying +with Mr. Kinney, father. You leave it all to me, do you, dear, even if I +decide to buy a house?" + +"Yes, daughter," said Reuben, heartily; "all! Nothing but good's ever come +yet of your way o' doin' things." + +"An' I don't in the least hanker after that Injun," he called out as the +cars began to move. Draxy laughed merrily. Reuben was a new man already. +They were very gay together, and felt wonderfully little fear for people +to whom life had been thus far so hard. + +There was not a misgiving in Draxy's heart as she set out again on a two +days' journey to an unknown place. "Oh how different from the day when I +started before," she thought as she looked out on the water sparkling +under the bright May sun. She spent the first night, as before, at the +house of Captain Melville's brother, and set out at eight the following +morning, to ride for ten hours steadily northward. The day was like a day +of June. The spring was opening early; already fruit-trees were white and +pink; banks were green, and birds were noisy. + +By noon mountains came in sight. Draxy was spellbound. "They are grander +than the sea," thought she, "and I never dreamed it; and they are loving, +too. I should like to rest my cheek on them." + +As she drew nearer and nearer, and saw some tops still white with snow, +her heart beat faster, and with a sudden pang almost of +conscience-stricken remorse, she exclaimed, "Oh, I shall never, never once +miss the sea!" + +Elder Kinney had borrowed Eben Hill's horse and wagon to drive over for +Draxy. He was at the station half an hour before the train was due. It had +been years since the steady currents of his life had been so disturbed and +hurried as they were by this little girl. + +"Looks like rain, Elder; I 'spect she'll have to go over with me arter +all," said George Thayer, the handsomest, best-natured stage-driver in the +whole State of New Hampshire. The Elder glanced anxiously at the sky. + +"No, I guess not, George," he replied. "'Twon't be anything more'n a +shower, an' I've got an umbrella and a buffalo-robe. I can keep her dry." + +Everybody at the station knew Draxy's story, and knew that the Elder had +come to meet her. When the train stopped, all eyes eagerly scanned the +passengers who stepped out on the platform. Two men, a boy, and three +women, one after the other; it was but a moment, and the train was off +again. + +"She hain't come," exclaimed voice after voice. The Elder said nothing; he +had stood a little apart from the crowd, watching for his ideal Draxy; as +soon as he saw that she was not there, he had fallen into a perplexed +reverie as to the possible causes of her detention. He was sorely anxious +about the child. "Jest's like's not, she never changed cars down at the +Junction," thought he, "an' 's half way to Montreal by this time," and +the Elder felt hot with resentment against Reuben Miller. + +Meantime, beautiful, dignified, and unconscious, Draxy stood on the +platform, quietly looking at face after face, seeking for the white hair +and gentle eyes of her trusted friend, the old minister. + +George Thayer, with the quick instinct of a stage-driver, was the first to +see that she was a stranger. + +"Where d'ye wish to go, ma'am?" said he, stepping towards her. + +"Thank you," said Draxy, "I expected some one to meet me," and she looked +uneasy; but reassured by the pleasant face, she went on: "the minister +from Clairvend village was to meet me here." + +George Thayer said, two hours afterward, in recounting his share of the +adventure, "I tell ye, boys, when she said that ye might ha' knocked me +down with a feather. I hain't never heard no other woman's voice that's +got jest the sound to't hern has; an' what with that, an' thinkin' how +beat the Elder'd be, an' wonderin' who in thunder she was anyhow, I don't +believe I opened my dum lips for a full minute; but she kind o' smiled, +and sez she, 'Do you know Mr. Kinney?' and that brought me to, and jest +then the Elder he come along, and so I introduced 'em." + +It was not exactly an introduction, however. The Elder, entirely absorbed +in conjecture as to poor little Draxy's probable whereabouts, stumbled on +the platform steps and nearly fell at her very feet, and was recalled to +himself only to be plunged into still greater confusion by George Thayer's +loud "Hallo! here he is. Here's Elder Kinney. Here's a lady askin' for +you, Elder!" + +Even yet it did not dawn upon Elder Kinney who this could be; his little +golden-haired girl was too vividly stamped on his brain; he looked gravely +into the face of this tall and fine-looking young woman and said kindly, +"Did you wish to see me, ma'am?" + +Draxy smiled. She began to understand. "I am afraid you did not expect to +see me so tall, sir," she said. "I am Reuben Miller's daughter,--Draxy," +she added, smiling again, but beginning in her turn to look confused. +Could this erect, vigorous man, with a half-stern look on his dark-bearded +face, be the right Mr. Kinney? her minister? It was a moment which neither +Elder Kinney nor Draxy ever forgot. The unsentimental but kindly George +gave the best description of it which could be given. + +"I vow, boys, I jest wish ye could ha' seen our Elder; an' yet, I dunno's +I do wish so, nuther. He stood a twistin' his hat, jest like any o' us, +an' he kind o' stammered, an' I don't believe neither on 'em knew a word +he said; an' her cheeks kep' gittin' redder'n redder, an' she looked's ef +she was ready to cry, and yet she couldn't keep from larfin, no how. Ye +see she thought he was an old man and he thought she was a little gal, an' +somehow't first they didn't either of 'em feel like nobody; but when I +passed 'em in the road, jest out to Four Corners, they was talkin' as easy +and nateral as could be; an' the Elder he looked some like himself, and +she--wall, boys, you jest wait till you see her; that's all I've got to +say. Ef she ain't a picter!" + +The drive to the village seemed long, however, to both Draxy and the +Elder. Their previous conceptions of each other had been too firmly rooted +to be thus overthrown without a great jar. The Elder felt Draxy's +simplicity and child-like truthfulness more and more with each word she +spoke; but her quiet dignity of manner was something to which he was +unused; to his inexperience she seemed almost a fine lady, in spite of her +sweet and guileless speech. Draxy, on the other hand, was a little +repelled by the Elder's whole appearance. He was a rougher man than she +had known; his pronunciation grated on her ear; and he looked so strong +and dark she felt a sort of fear of him. But the next morning, when Draxy +came down in her neat calico gown and white apron, the Elder's face +brightened. + +"Good morning, my child," he said. "You look as fresh as a pink." The +tears came into Draxy's eyes at the word "child," said as her father said +it. + +"I don't look so old then, this morning, do I, sir?" she asked in a +pleading tone which made the Elder laugh. He was more himself this +morning. All was well. Draxy sat down to breakfast with a lighter heart. + +When Draxy was sitting she looked very young. Her face was as childlike as +it was beautiful: and her attitudes were all singularly unconscious and +free. It was when she rose that her womanhood revealed itself to the +perpetual surprise of every one. As breakfast went on the Elder gradually +regained his old feeling about her; his nature was as simple, as +spontaneous as hers; he called her "child" again several times in the +course of the meal. But when at the end of it Draxy rose, tall, erect, +almost majestic in her fullness of stature, he felt again singularly +removed from her. + +"'Ud puzzle any man to say whether she's a child or a woman," said the +Elder to himself. But his face shone with pleasure as he walked by her +side out into the little front yard. Draxy was speechless with delight. In +the golden east stretched a long range of mountains, purple to the top; +down in the valley, a mile below the Elder's house, lay the village; a +little shining river ran side by side with its main street. To the north +were high hills, some dark green and wooded, some of brown pasture land. + +"Oh, sir," said Draxy, "is there any other spot in your mountain land so +beautiful as this?" + +"No, not one," said the Elder, "not one;" and he, too, looked out silently +on the scene. + +Presently Draxy exclaimed, with a sigh, "Oh, it makes me feel like crying +to think of my father's seeing this!" + +"Shall I tell you now about my father, sir?" she continued; "you ought to +know all about us, you have been so good." + +Then sitting on the low step of the door, while the Elder sat in an +arm-chair in the porch, Draxy told the story of her father's life, and, +unconsciously, of her own. More than once the Elder wiped his eyes; more +than once he rose and walked up and down before the door, gazing with +undefined but intense emotion at this woman telling her pathetic story +with the simple-hearted humility of a child. Draxy looked younger than +ever curled up in the doorway, with her hands lying idle on her white +apron. The Elder was on the point of stroking her hair. Suddenly she rose, +and said, "But I am taking too much of your time, sir; will you take me +now to see the house you spoke of, which we could hire?" She was again the +majestic young woman. The Elder was again thrown back, and puzzled. + +He tried to persuade her to give up all idea of hiring the house: to make +his house their home for the present. But she replied steadfastly, "I must +look at the house, sir, before I decide." They walked down into the +village together. Draxy was utterly unconscious of observation, but the +Elder knew only too well that every eye of Clairvend was at some +window-pane studying his companion's face and figure. All whom they met +stared so undisguisedly that, fearing Draxy would be annoyed, he said,-- + +"You mustn't mind the folks staring so at you. You see they've been +talkin' the matter all over about the land, an' your comin', for a month, +an' it's no more than natural they should want to know how you look;" and +he, too, looked admiringly at Draxy's face. + +"Oh," said Draxy (it was a new idea to her mind), "I never thought of +that." + +"I hope they are all glad we are coming, sir," added she, a moment after. + +"Oh yes, yes; they're glad enough. 'Taint often anything happens up here, +you know, and they've all thought everything of you since your first +letter came." + +Draxy colored. She had not dreamed of taking a whole village into her +confidence. But she was glad of the friendliness; and she met every +inquisitive gaze after this with an open, responsive look of such beaming +good-will that she made friends of all whom she saw. One or two stopped +and spoke; most were afraid to do so, unconsciously repelled, as the Elder +had been at first, by something in Draxy's dress and bearing which to +their extreme inexperience suggested the fine lady. Nothing could have +been plainer than Draxy's cheap gray gown; but her dress always had +character: the tiniest knot of ribbon at her throat assumed the look of a +decoration; and many a lady for whom she worked had envied her the +expression of her simple clothes. + +The house would not answer. Draxy shook her head as soon as she saw it, +and when the Elder told her that in the spring freshets the river washed +into the lower story, she turned instantly away, and said, "Let us go +home, sir; I must think of something else." + +At dinner Draxy was preoccupied, and anxious. The expression of perplexity +made her look older, but no less beautiful. Elder Kinney gazed at her +more steadily than he knew; and he did not call her "child" again. + +After dinner he took her over the house, explaining to her, at every turn, +how useless most of the rooms were to him. In truth, the house was +admirably adapted for two families, with the exception that there was but +one kitchen. "But that could be built on in a very few days, and would +cost very little," said the Elder eagerly. Already all the energies of his +strong nature were kindled by the resolve to keep Draxy under his roof. + +"I suppose it might be so built that it could be easily moved off and +added to our own house when we build for ourselves," said Draxy, +reflectively. + +"Oh, yes," said the Elder, "no sort o' trouble about that," and he glowed +with delight. He felt sure that his cause was gained. + +But he found Draxy very inflexible. There was but one arrangement of which +she would think for a moment. It was, that the Elder should let to them +one half of his house, and that the two families should be entirely +distinct. Until the new kitchen and out-buildings were finished, if the +Elder would consent to take them as boarders, they would live with him; +"otherwise, sir, I must find some one in the village who will take us," +said Draxy in a quiet tone, which Elder Kinney knew instinctively was not +to be argued with. It was a novel experience for the Elder in more ways +than one. He was used to having his parishioners, especially the women, +yield implicitly to his advice. This gentle-voiced girl, who said to him, +"Don't you think, sir?" in an appealing tone which made his blood quicken, +but who afterward, when she disagreed with him, stood her ground +immovably even against entreaties, was a phenomenon in his life. He began +to stand in awe of her. When some one said to him on the third day after +Draxy's arrival: "Well, Elder, I don't know what she'd ha' done without +you," he replied emphatically, "Done without me! You'll find out that all +Reuben Miller's daughter wants of anybody is jest to let her know exactly +how things lay. She ain't beholden to anybody for opinions. She's as +trustin' as a baby, while you're tellin' her facts, but I'd like to see +anybody make her change her mind about what's best to be done; and I +reckon she's generally right; what's more, she's one of the Lord's +favorites, an' He ain't above guidin' in small things no mor'n in great." + +No wonder Elder Kinney was astonished. In forty-eight hours Draxy had +rented one half of his house, made a contract with a carpenter for the +building of a kitchen and out-buildings on the north side of it, engaged +board at the Elder's table for her parents and herself for a month, and +hired Bill Sims to be her father's head man for one year. All the while +she seemed as modestly grateful to the Elder as if he had done it all for +her. On the afternoon of the second day she said to him:-- + +"Now, sir, what is the nearest place for me to buy our furniture?" + +"Why, ain't you goin' to use mine--at least's far's it goes?" said the +poor Elder. "I thought that was in the bargain." + +Draxy looked disturbed. "Oh, how careless of me," she said; "I am afraid +nothing was said about it. But we cannot do that; my father would dislike +it; and as we must have furniture for our new house, we might as well have +it now. I have seven hundred dollars with me, sir; father thought I might +decide to buy a house, and have to pay something down." + +"Please don't be angry with me," she added pleadingly, for the Elder +looked vexed. "You know if I am sure my father would prefer a thing, I +must do it." + +The Elder was disarmed. + +"Well, if you are set on buyin' furniture," he said, "I shouldn't wonder +if you'd have a chance to buy all you'd want cheap down at Squire +Williams's sale in Mill Creek. His wife died the night your first letter +came, an' I heard somebody say he was goin' to sell all out; an' they've +always been well-to-do, the Williamses, an' I reckon you'd fancy some o' +their things better'n anything you'd get at the stores." + +Already the Elder began to divine Draxy's tastes; to feel that she had +finer needs than the women he had known. In less than an hour he was at +the door with Eben Hill's horse and wagon to take Draxy to Squire +Williams's house. + +"Jest more o' the same Providence that follows that girl," thought he when +he saw Draxy's eyes fairly dilate with pleasure as he led her into the +old-fashioned parlor, where the furniture was piled and crowded ready for +the auction. + +"Oh, will they not cost too much for me, dear Mr. Kinney?" whispered +Draxy. + +"No, I guess not," he said, "there ain't much biddin' at these sort of +sales up here," and he mentally resolved that nothing Draxy wanted should +cost too much for her. + +The sale was to be the next day. Draxy made a careful list of the things +she would like to buy. The Elder was to come over and bid them off for +her. + +"Now you just go over 'em again," said the Elder, "and mark off what you'd +like to have if they didn't cost anything, because sometimes things go +for's good 's nothing, if nobody happens to want 'em." So Draxy made a +second list, and laughing a little girlish laugh as she handed the papers +to the Elder, pointed to the words "must haves" at the head of the first +list, and "would-like-to-haves" at the head of the second. The Elder put +them both in his breast-pocket, and he and Draxy drove home. + +The next night two great loads of Squire Williams's furniture were carried +into Elder Kinney's house. As article after article was taken in, Draxy +clapped her hands and almost screamed with delight; all her +"would-like-to-haves" were there. "Oh, the clock, the clock! Have I really +got that, too!" she exclaimed, and she turned to the Elder, half crying, +and said, "How shall I ever thank you, sir?" + +The Elder was uncomfortable. He was in a dilemma. He had not been able to +resist buying the clock for Draxy. He dared not tell her what he had paid +for it. "She'd never let me give her a cent's worth, I know that well +enough. It would be just like her to make me take it back," thought he. +Luckily Draxy was too absorbed in her new riches, all the next day, to ask +for her accounts, and by the next night the Elder had deliberately +resolved to make false returns on his papers as to the price of several +articles. "I'll tell her all about it one o' these days when she knows me +better," he comforted himself by thinking; "I never did think Ananias was +an out an' out liar. It couldn't be denied that all he did say was true!" +and the Elder resolutely and successfully tried to banish the subject from +his mind by thinking about Draxy. + +The furniture was, much of it, valuable old mahogany, dark in color and +quaint in shape. Draxy could hardly contain herself with delight, as she +saw the expression it gave to the rooms; it had cost so little that she +ventured to spend a small sum for muslin curtains, new papers, bright +chintz, and shelves here and there. When all was done, she herself was +astonished at the result. The little home was truly lovely. "Oh, sir, my +father has never had a pretty home like this in all his life," said she to +the Elder, who stood in the doorway of the sitting-room looking with +half-pained wonder at the transformation. He felt, rather than saw, how +lovely the rooms looked; he could not help being glad to see Draxy so +glad; but he felt farther removed from her by this power of hers to create +what he could but dimly comprehend. Already he unconsciously weighed all +things in new balances; already he began to have a strange sense of +humility in the presence of this woman. + +Ten days from the day that Draxy arrived in Clairvend she drove over with +the Elder to meet her father and mother at the station. She had arranged +that the Elder should carry her father back in the wagon; she and her +mother would go in the stage. She counted much on the long, pleasant drive +through the woods as an opening to the acquaintance between her father and +the Elder. She had been too busy to write any but the briefest letters +home, and had said very little about him. To her last note she had added a +post-script,-- + +"I am sure you will like Mr. Kinney, father. He is very kind and very +good. But he is not old as we thought." + +To the Elder she said, as they drove over, "I think you will love my +father, sir, and I know you will do him good. But he will not say much at +first; you will have to talk," and Draxy smiled. The Elder and she +understood each other very well. + +"I don't think there's much danger o' my not lovin' him," replied the +Elder; "by all you tell he must be uncommon lovable." Draxy turned on him +such a beaming smile that he could not help adding, "an' I should think +his bein' your father was enough." + +Draxy looked seriously in his face, and said "Oh, Mr. Kinney, I'm not +anything by the side of father." + +The Elder's eyes twinkled. + +It was a silent though joyful group which gathered around the Elder's +tea-table that night. + +Reuben and Jane were tired, bewildered, but their eyes rested on Draxy +with perpetual smiles. Draxy also smiled more than she spoke. The Elder +felt himself half out of place and wished to go away, but Draxy looked +grieved at his proposal to do so, and he stayed. But nobody could eat, and +old Nancy, who had spent her utmost resources on the supper, was cruelly +disappointed. She bustled in and out on various pretenses, but at last +could keep silence no longer. "Seems to me ye've dreadful slim appetites +for folks that's been travellin' all day. Perhaps ye don't like yer +victuals," she said, glancing sharply at Reuben. + +"Oh yes, madame, yes," said poor Reuben, nervously, "everything is very +nice; much nicer than I am used to." + +Draxy laughed aloud. "My father never eats when he is tired, Nancy. You'll +see how he'll eat to-morrow." + +After Nancy had left the room, Reuben wiped his forehead, and Draxy +laughed again in spite of herself. Old Nancy had been so kind and willing +in helping her, she had grown fond of her, and had quite forgotten her +father's dread. When Reuben bade Draxy good-night, he said under his +breath, "I like your Elder very much, daughter; but I don't know how I'm +ever goin' to stand livin' with that Injun." + +"My Elder," said Draxy to herself as she went up-stairs, "he's everybody's +Elder--and the Lord's most of all I think," and she went to sleep thinking +of the solemn words which she had heard him speak on the last Sunday. + +It was strange how soon the life of the new household adjusted itself; how +full the days were, and how swift. The summer was close upon them; +Reuben's old farmer instincts and habits revived in full force. Bill Sims +proved a most efficient helper; he had been Draxy's sworn knight, from the +moment of her first interview with him. There would be work on Reuben's +farm for many hands, but Reuben was in no haste. The sugar camp assured +him of an income which was wealth to their simple needs; and he wished to +act advisedly and cautiously in undertaking new enterprises. All the land +was wild land--much of it deep swamps. The maple orchard was the only part +immediately profitable. The village people came at once to see them. +Everybody was touched by Jane's worn face and gentle ways; her silence did +not repel them; everybody liked Draxy too, and admired her, but many were +a little afraid of her. The village men had said that she was "the +smartest woman that had ever set foot in Clairvend village," and human +nature is human nature. It would take a great deal of Draxy's kindly +good-will to make her sister women forgive her for being cleverer than +they. Draxy and Reuben were inseparable. They drove; they walked; even +into the swamps courageous Draxy penetrated with her father and Bill Sims, +as they went about surveying the land; and it was Draxy's keen instinct +which in many cases suggested where improvements could be made. + +In the mean time Elder Kinney's existence had become transformed. He dared +not to admit himself how much it meant, this new delight in simply being +alive, for back of his delight lurked a desperate fear; he dared not move. +Day after day he spent more and more time in the company of Draxy and her +father. Reuben and he were fast becoming close friends. Reuben's gentle, +trustful nature found repose in the Elder's firm, sturdy downrightness, +much as it had in Captain Melville's; and the Elder would have loved +Reuben if he had not been Draxy's father. But to Draxy he seemed to draw +no nearer. She was the same frank, affectionate, merry, puzzling +woman-child that she had been at first; yet as he saw more and more how +much she knew of books which he did not know, of people, and of affairs of +which he had never heard--how fluently, graciously, and even wisely she +could talk, he felt himself cut off from her. Her sweet, low tones and +distinct articulation tortured him while they fascinated him; they seemed +to set her so apart. In fact, each separate charm she had, produced in the +poor Elder's humble heart a mixture of delight and pain which could not be +analyzed and could not long be borne. + +He exaggerated all his own defects of manner, and speech, and education; +he felt uncomfortable in Draxy's presence, in spite of all the +affectionate reverence with which she treated him; he said to himself +fifty times a day, "It's only my bein' a minister that makes her think +anythin' o' me." The Elder was fast growing wretched. + +But Draxy was happy. She was still in some ways more child than woman. Her +peculiar training had left her imagination singularly free from fancies +concerning love and marriage. The Elder was a central interest in her +life; she would have said instantly and cordially that she loved him +dearly. She saw him many times every day; she knew all his outgoings and +incomings; she knew the first step of his foot on the threshold; she felt +that he belonged to them, and they to him. Yet as a woman thinks of the +man whose wife she longs to be, Draxy had never once thought of Elder +Kinney. + +But when the new kitchen was finished, and the Millers entered on their +separate housekeeping, a change came. As Reuben and Jane and Draxy sat +down for the first time alone together at their tea-table, Reuben said +cheerily:-- + +"Now this seems like old times. This is nice." + +"Yes," replied Jane. Draxy did not speak. Reuben looked at her. She +colored suddenly, deeply, and said with desperate honesty,-- + +"Yes, father; but I can't help thinking how lonely Mr. Kinney must be." + +"Well, I declare," said Reuben, conscience-stricken; "I suppose he must +be; I hate to think on't. But we'll have him in here's often's he'll +come." + +Just the other side of the narrow entry sat the Elder, leaning both his +elbows on the table, and looking over at the vacant place where the night +before, and for thirty nights before, Draxy had sat. It was more than he +could bear. He sprang up, and leaving his supper untasted, walked out of +the house. + +Draxy heard him go. Draxy had passed in that moment into a new world. She +divined all. + +"He hasn't eaten any supper," thought she; and she listened intently to +hear him come in again. The clock struck ten, he had not returned! Draxy +went to bed, but she could not sleep. The little house was still; the warm +white moonlight lay like summer snow all over it; Draxy looked out of her +window; the Elder was slowly coming up the hill; Draxy knelt down like a +little child and said, "God bless him," and crept back to bed. When she +heard him shut his bedroom door she went to sleep. + +The next day Draxy's eyes did not look as they had looked the day before. +When Elder Kinney first saw her, she was coming down stairs. He was +standing at the foot of the staircase and waited to say "Good morning." +As he looked up at her, he started back and exclaimed: "Why, Draxy, what's +the matter?" + +"Nothing is the matter, sir," said Draxy, as she stepped from the last +stair, and standing close in front of him, lifted the new, sweet, softened +eyes up to his. Draxy was as simple and sincere in this as in all other +emotions and acts of her life. She had no coquetry in her nature. She had +no distinct thought either of a new relation between herself and the +Elder. She simply felt a new oneness with him; and she could not have +understood the suggestion of concealment. If Elder Kinney had been a man +of the world, he would have folded Draxy to his heart that instant. If he +had been even a shade less humble and self-disrustful, he would have done +it, as it was. But he never dreamed that he might. He folded his empty +arms very tight over his faithful, aching, foolish heart, and tried to say +calmly and naturally, "Are you sure? Seems to me you don't look quite +well." + +But after that morning he never felt wholly without hope. He could not +tell precisely why. Draxy did not seek him, did not avoid him. She was +perhaps a little less merry; said fewer words; but she looked glad, and +more than glad. "I think it's the eyes," he said to himself again and +again, as he tried to analyze the new look on Draxy's face which gave him +hope. These were sweet days. There are subtle joys for lovers who dwell +side by side in one house, together and yet apart. The very air is loaded +with significance to them--the door, the window, the stairway. Always +there is hope of meeting; always there is consciousness of presence; +everywhere a mysterious sense that the loved one has passed by. More than +once Seth Kinney knelt and laid his cheek on the stairs which Draxy's feet +had just ascended! Often sweet, guileless Draxy thought, as she went up +and down, "Ah, the dear feet that go over these stairs." One day the +Elder, as he passed by the wall of the room where he knew Draxy was +sitting, brushed his great hand and arm against it so heavily that she +started, thinking he had stumbled. But as the firm step went on, without +pausing, she smiled, she hardly knew why. The next time he did it she laid +down her work, locked and unlocked her hands, and looking toward the door, +whispered under her breath, "Dear hands!" Finally this became almost a +habit of his; he did not at first think Draxy would hear it; but he felt, +as he afterwards told her, "like a great affectionate dog going by her +door, and that was all he could do. He would have liked to lie down on the +rug." + +These were very sweet days; spite of his misgivings, Elder Kinney was +happy; and Draxy, in spite of her unconsciousness, seemed to herself to be +living in a blissful dream. But a sweeter day came. + +One Saturday evening Reuben said to Draxy,-- + +"Daughter, I've done somethin' I'm afraid'll trouble you. I've told th' +Elder about your verses, an' showed him the hymn you wrote when you was +tryin' to give it all up about the land." + +"Oh, father, how could you," gasped Draxy; and she looked as if she would +cry. + +Reuben could not tell just how it happened. It seemed to have come out +before he knew it, and after it had, he could not help showing the hymn. + +Draxy was very seriously disturbed; but she tried to conceal it from her +father, and the subject was dropped. + +The next morning Elder Kinney preached--it seemed to his people--as he +never preached before. His subject was self-renunciation, and he spoke as +one who saw the waving palms of the martyrs and heard their shouts of joy. +There were few dry eyes in the little meeting-house. Tears rolled down +Draxy's face. But she looked up suddenly, on hearing Elder Kinney say, in +an unsteady voice,-- + +"My bretherin, I'm goin' to read to you now a hymn which comes nigher to +expressin' my idea of the kind of resignation God likes than any hymn +that's ever been written or printed in any hymn-book;" and then he +began:-- + +"I cannot think but God must know," etc. + +Draxy's first feeling was one of resentment; but it was a very short-lived +one. The earnest tone, the solemn stillness of the wondering people, the +peaceful summer air floating in at the open windows,--all lifted her out +of herself, and made her glad to hear her own hymn read by the man she +loved, for the worship of God. But her surprise was still greater when the +choir began to sing the lines to a quaint old Methodist tune. They had +been provided with written copies of the hymn, and had practiced it so +faithfully that they sang it well. Draxy broke down and sobbed for a few +moments, so that Elder Kinney was on the point of forgetting everything, +and springing to her side. He had not supposed that anything in the world +could so overthrow Draxy's composure. He did not know how much less +strong her nerves were now than they had been two months before. + +After church, Draxy walked home alone very rapidly. She did not wish to +see any one. She was glad that her father and mother had not been there. +She could not understand the tumult of her feelings. + +At twilight, she stole out of the back door of the house, and walked down +to a little brook which ran near by. As she stood leaning against a young +maple tree she heard steps, and without looking up, knew that the Elder +was coming. She did not move nor speak. He waited some minutes in silence. +Then he said "Oh, Draxy! I never once thought o' painin' you! I thought +you'd like it. Hymns are made to be sung, dear; and that one o' yours is +so beautiful!" He spoke as gently as her father might, and in a voice she +hardly knew. Draxy made no reply. The Elder had never seen her like this. +Her lips quivered, and he saw tears in her eyes. + +"Oh, Draxy, do look up at me--just once! You don't know how hard it is for +a man to think he's hurt anybody--like you!" stammered the poor Elder, +ending his sentence quite differently from what he had intended. + +Draxy smiled through her tears, and looking up, said: "But I am not hurt, +Mr. Kinney; I don't know what I am crying for, sir;" and her eyes fell +again. + +The Elder looked down upon her in silence. Moments passed. "Oh, if I could +make her look up at me again!" he thought. His unspoken wish stirred her +veins; slowly she lifted her eyes; they were calm now, and unutterably +loving. They were more than the Elder could bear." + +"Oh, Draxy, Draxy!" exclaimed he, stretching out both his arms towards +her. + + "My heart grows weaker and more weak + With looking on the thing so dear + Which lies so far, and yet so near!" + +Slowly, very slowly, like a little child learning to walk, with her eyes +full of tears, but her mouth smiling, Draxy moved towards the Elder. He +did not stir, partly because he could not, but partly because he would not +lose one instant of the deliciousness of seeing her, feeling her come. + +When they went back to the house, Reuben was sitting in the porch. The +Elder took his hand and said: + +"Mr. Miller, I meant to have asked you first; but God didn't give me +time." + +Reuben smiled. + +"You've's good's asked me a good while back, Elder; an' I take it you +haint ever had much doubt what my answer'd be." Then, as Draxy knelt down +by his chair and laid her head on his shoulder, he added more solemnly,-- + +"But I'd jest like once to say to ye, Elder, that if ever I get to heaven, +I wouldn't ask anythin' more o' the Lord than to let me see Draxy 'n' you +a comin' in together, an' lookin' as you looked jest now when ye come in't +that gate!" + + + + +The Elder's Wife. + +Sequel to "Draxy Miller's Dowry." + + + +Part I. + + +Draxy and the Elder were married in the little village church, on the +first Sunday in September. + +"O Draxy! let it be on a communion Sunday," the Elder had said, with an +expression on his face which Draxy could not quite fathom; "I can't tell +you what it 'ud be to me to promise myself over again to the blessed +Saviour, the same hour I promise to you, darling, I'm so afraid of loving +Him less. I don't see how I can remember anything about heaven, after I've +got you, Draxy," and tears stood in the Elder's eyes. + +Draxy looked at him wonderingly and with a little pain in her face. To her +serene nature, heaven and earth, this life and all the others which may +follow it, had so long seemed one--love and happiness and duty had become +so blended in one sweet atmosphere of living in daily nearness to God, +that she could not comprehend the Elder's words. + +"Why, Mr. Kinney, it's all Christ," she said, slowly and hesitatingly, +slipping her hand into his, and looking up at him so lovingly that his +face flushed, and he threw his arms around her, and only felt a thousand +times more that heaven had come to mean but one thing to him. + +"Darling," he whispered, "would you feel so if I were to die and leave you +alone?" + +"Yes, I think so," said Draxy, still more slowly, and turning very pale. +"You never can really leave me, and no human being can be really alone; it +would still be all Christ, and it would be living His life and God's +still;" but tears rolled down her cheeks, and she began to sob. + +"Oh, forgive me, Draxy," exclaimed the Elder, wrung to the heart by the +sight of her grief. "I'm nothing but a great brute to say that to you just +now; but, Draxy, you don't know much about a man's heart yet; you're such +a saint yourself, you can't understand how it makes a man feel as if this +earth was enough, and he didn't want any heaven, when he loves a woman as +I love you," and the Elder threw himself on the ground at Draxy's feet, +and laid his face down reverently on the hem of her gown. There were fiery +depths in this man's nature of which he had never dreamed, until this +fair, sweet, strong womanhood crossed his path. His love of Draxy kindled +and transformed his whole consciousness of himself and of life; it was no +wonder that he felt terrors; that he asked himself many times a day what +had become of the simple-minded, earnest, contented worker he used to be. +He was full of vague and restless yearnings; he longed to do, to be, to +become, he knew not what, but something that should be more of kin to this +beautiful nature he worshipped--something that should give her great +joy--something in which she could feel great pride. + +"It ain't right, I know it ain't right, to feel so about any mortal," he +would say to himself; "that's the way I used to feel about Jesus. I wanted +to do all for Him, and now I want to do all for Draxy," and the great, +tender, perplexed heart was sorely afraid of its new bliss. + +They were sitting in the maple grove behind the house. In the tree under +which they sat was a yellow-hammer's nest. The two birds had been +fluttering back and forth in the branches for some time. Suddenly they +both spread their wings and flew swiftly away in opposite directions. +Draxy looked up, smiling through her tears, and, pointing to the fast +fading specks in the distant air, said,-- + +"It would be like that. They are both sent on errands. They won't see each +other again till the errands are done." + +The Elder looked into her illumined face, and, sighing, said: "I can't +help prayin' that the Lord'll have errands for us that we can do together +as long's we live, Draxy." + +"Yes, dear," said Draxy, "I pray for that too," and then they were silent +for some minutes. Draxy spoke first. "But Mr. Kinney, I never heard of +anybody's being married on Sunday--did you?" + +"No," said the Elder, "I never did, but I've always thought it was the +only day a man ought to be married on; I mean the most beautiful, the +sweetest day." + +"Yes," replied Draxy, a solemn and tender light spreading over her whole +face, "it certainly is. I wonder why nobody has ever thought so before. +But perhaps many people have," she added with a merrier smile; "we don't +know everybody." + +Presently she looked up anxiously and said: + +"But do you think the people would like it? Wouldn't they think it very +strange?" + +The Elder hesitated. He, too, had thought of this. + +"Well, I tell you, Draxy, it's just this way: I've tried more than once to +get some of them to come and be married on a Sunday in church, and they +wouldn't, just because they never heard of it before; and I'd like to have +them see that I was in true earnest about it. And they like you so well, +Draxy, and you know they do all love me a great deal more'n I deserve, and +I can't help believing it will do them good all their lives by making them +think more how solemn a thing a marriage ought to be, if they take it as I +think they will; and I do think I know them well enough to be pretty +sure." + +So it was settled that the marriage should take place after the morning +sermon, immediately before the communion service. When Reuben was told of +this, his face expressed such absolute amazement that Draxy laughed +outright, in spite of the deep solemnity of her feeling in regard to it. + +"Why, father," she said, "you couldn't look more surprised if I had told +you I was not to be married at all." + +"But Draxy, Draxy," Reuben gasped, "who ever heard of such a thing? What +will folks say?" + +"I don't know that anybody ever heard of such a thing, father dear," +answered Draxy, "but I am not afraid of what the people will say. They +love Mr. Kinney, and he has always told them that Sunday was the day to be +married on. I shouldn't wonder if every young man and young woman in the +parish looked on it in a new and much holier light after this. I know I +began to as soon as the Elder talked about it, and it wouldn't seem right +to me now to be married on any other day," and Draxy stooped and kissed +her father's forehead very tenderly. There was a tenderness in Draxy's +manner now towards every one which can hardly be described in words. It +had a mixture of humility and of gracious bestowal in it, of entreaty and +of benediction, which were ineffably beautiful and winning. It is ever so +when a woman, who is as strong as she is sweet, comes into the fullness of +her womanhood's estate of love. Her joy overflows on all; currents of +infinite compassion set towards those who must miss that by which she is +thrilled; her incredulity of her own bliss is forever questioning humbly; +she feels herself forever in presence of her lover, at once rich and free +and a queen, and poor and chained and a vassal. So her largess is +perpetual, involuntary, unconscious, and her appeal is tender, wistful, +beseeching. In Draxy's large nature,--her pure, steadfast, loving soul, +quickened and exalted by the swift currents of an exquisitely attuned and +absolutely healthful body,--this new life of love and passion wrought a +change which was vivid and palpable to the commonest eyes. Men and women +upon whom she smiled, in passing, felt themselves lifted and drawn, they +knew not how. A sentiment of love, which had almost reverence in it, grew +up towards her in the hearts of the people. A certain touch of sadness, of +misgiving, mingled with it. + +"I'm afraid she ain't long for this world; she's got such a look o' heaven +in her face," was said more than once, in grieving tones, when the Elder's +approaching marriage was talked of. But old Ike was farther sighted, in +his simplicity, than the rest. "'Tain't that," he said, "that woman's got +in her face. It's the kind o' heaven that God sends down to stay'n this +world, to help make us fit for the next. Shouldn't wonder ef she outlived +th' Elder a long day," and Ike wiped his old eyes slyly with the back of +his hand. + +The day of the marriage was one of those shining September days which only +mountain regions know. The sky was cloudless and of a transcendent blue. +The air was soft as the air of June. Draxy's young friends had decorated +the church with evergreens and clematis vines; and on each side of the +communion-table were tall sheaves of purple asters and golden-rod. Two +children were to be baptized at noon, and on a little table, at the right +of the pulpit, stood the small silver baptismal font, wreathed with white +asters and the pale feathery green of the clematis seed. + +When Draxy walked up the aisle leaning on her father's arm, wearing the +same white dress she had worn on Sundays all summer, it cannot be denied +that there were sighs of disappointment in some of the pews. The people +had hoped for something more. Draxy had kept her own counsel on this point +closely, replying to all inquiries as to what she would wear, "White, of +course," but replying in such a tone that no one had quite dared to ask +more, and there had even been those in the parish who "reckoned" that she +wouldn't "be satisfied with anythin' less than white satin." Her head was +bare, her beautiful brown hair wound tightly round and round in the same +massive knot as usual. Her only ornaments were the creamy white blossoms +of the low cornel; one cluster in the braids of her hair, and one on her +bosom. As she entered the pew and sat down by the side of her mother, +slanting sunbeams from the southern windows fell upon her head, lighting +up the bright hair till it looked like a saintly halo. Elder Kinney sat in +the pulpit, with his best loved friend, Elder Williams, who was to preach +that day and perform the marriage ceremony. When Draxy and her father +entered the door, Elder Kinney rose and remained standing until they +reached their pew. As Draxy sat down and the golden sunbeams flickered +around her, the Elder sank back into his seat and covered his eyes with +his hand. He did not change his posture until the prayers and the hymns +and the sermon were over, and Elder Williams said in a low voice,-- + +"The ceremony of marriage will now be performed." Then he rose, his +countenance glowing like that of one who had come from some Mount of +Transfiguration. With a dignity and grace of bearing such as royal +ambassadors might envy, he walked slowly down to Reuben Miller's pew, and, +with his head reverently bent, received Draxy from her father's hands. + +Passionate love and close contact with Draxy's exquisite nature were +developing, in this comparatively untrained man, a peculiar courteousness +and grace, which added a subtle charm to the simplicity of his manners. As +he walked up the aisle with Draxy clinging to his arm, his tall figure +looked majestic in its strength, but his face was still bent forward, +turned toward her with a look of reverence, of love unspeakable. + +The whole congregation rose, moved by one impulse, and the silence was +almost too solemn. When the short and simple ceremony was over, the Elder +led Draxy to his own pew and sat down by her side. + +After the little children had been baptized, the usual announcement of the +Lord's Supper was made, and the usual invitation given. Absolute silence +followed it, broken only by the steps of the singers leaving their seats +in the gallery to take places below. Not a person moved to leave the body +of the house. Elder Williams glanced at Elder Kinney in perplexity, and +waited for some moments longer. The silence still remained unbroken; there +was not a man, woman, or child there but felt conscious of a tender and +awed impulse to remain and look on at this ceremony, so newly significant +and solemn to their beloved Elder. Tears came into many eyes as he took +the cup of wine from Deacon Plummer's trembling hands and passed it to +Draxy, and many hearts which had never before longed for the right to +partake of the sacred emblems longed for it then. + +After the services, were ended, just as Elder Williams was about to +pronounce the benediction, Elder Kinney rose from his seat, and walking +rapidly to the communion table said,-- + +"My dear friends, I know you don't look for any words from me to-day; but +there are some of you I never before saw at this blessed feast of our +Lord, and I must say one word to you from Him." Then pausing, he looked +round upon them all, and, with an unutterable yearning in the gesture, +stretched out both his arms and said: "O my people, my people! like as a +hen gathereth her chickens under her wing, He would have gathered you long +ago, but ye would not." Then, still holding out his arms towards them, he +pronounced the benediction. + +Silently and solemnly the little congregation dispersed. A few lingered, +and looked longingly at Draxy, as if they would go back and speak to her. +But she stood with her eyes fixed on the Elder's face, utterly unconscious +of the presence of any other human being. Even her father dared not break +the spell of holy beatitude which rested on her countenance. + +"No, no, ma," he said to Jane, who proposed that they should go back to +the pew and walk home with her. "This ain't like any other wedding that +was ever seen on this earth, unless, maybe, that one in Cana. And I don't +believe the Lord was any nearer to that bridegroom than He is to this +one." + +So Jane and Reuben walked home from church alone, for the first time since +they came to Clairvend, and Draxy and her husband followed slowly behind. +The village people who watched them were bewildered by their manner, and +interpreted it variously according to their own temperaments. + +"You'd ha' thought now they'd been married years an' years to look at +'em," said Eben Hill; "they didn't speak a word, nor look at each other +any more 'n old Deacon Plummer 'n his wife, who was joggin' along jest +afore 'em." + +Old Ike--poor, ignorant, loving old Ike, whose tender instinct was like +the wistful sagacity of a faithful dog--read their faces better. He had +hurried out of church and hid himself in the edge of a little pine grove +which the Elder and Draxy must pass. + +"I'd jest like to see 'em a little longer," he said to himself half +apologetically. As they walked silently by, old Ike's face saddened, and +at last became convulsed with grief. Creeping out from beneath the pines, +he slowly followed them up the hill, muttering to himself, in the fashion +which had grown upon him in his solitary life:-- + +"O Lord! O Lord! No such looks as them is long for this earth. O Lord! +which is it ye're goin' to take? I reckon it's the Elder. I reckon 'tis. +That woman's goin' to have her heart broke. O Lord! O Lordy me! I can't +bear the sight on't!" and he leaped a fence and struck off across the +fields towards his house. He did not shut his eyes that night, but tossed +and groaned aloud. Towards morning he formed a resolution which calmed him +somewhat. + +"Ef I kin only be right close to 'em till it comes, p'raps I can be of a +little use. Leastways it 'ud be some comfort to try," he said. + +As the Elder and Draxy were sitting at breakfast the next day, they caught +sight of the old man's bent figure walking up and down outside the gate, +and stopping now and then irresolutely, as if he would come in, but dared +not. + +"Why, there's old Ike," exclaimed the Elder, "What on earth can he want +at this time of day!" + +Draxy looked up with a very tender smile, and said: "I shouldn't wonder if +he wanted just to see how happy you look, Mr. Kinney. Nobody in this world +loves you so well as old Ike does." + +"Oh, Draxy!" said the Elder, reproachfully. + +"No, dear, not even I. Old Ike never dreams of receiving any love in +return. I have seen his eyes follow you with just such a look as dogs' +eyes have. I wish we could do something for him." + +"We will, dear, we will go and see him often. I own it smites me to the +soul sometimes to think how humble he is, and so glad to see me when I +haven't been near him for six months, maybe." + +At this moment Hannah put her head into the door and said, in no pleasant +voice:-- + +"Here's that Ike Sanborn wantin' to speak to ye sir, but I telled him"-- + +"Let him come right in here, Hannah," said Draxy. "Mr. Kinney and I will +be very glad to see him this morning." Hannah's face relaxed in spite of +herself, in answer to Draxy's smile, but she could not forgive Ike for +what seemed to her a most unwarrantable intrusion, and she was grimmer +than ever when she returned to him, saying,-- + +"They'll see ye; but I must say, I sh'd ha' thought ye'd know better'n to +be comin' round here this mornin' of all mornin's. Ain't they to have a +minute's peace to theirselves?" + +Ike looked up appealingly at the hard Indian face. + +"I wa'n't goin' to keep 'em a minute," he said: "I won't go in now. I'll +come agin, ef you say so, Hannah." + +"No, no--go in, now ye're here; ye've interrupted 'em, and ye may's well +take the good on't now," replied the vengeful Hannah, pushing Ike along +towards the sitting-room door. + +"Ef there's anythin' I do hate, it's shiftless white folks," grumbled +Hannah as she went back to her work. If poor Ike had known the angry +contempt for him which filled Hannah's heart, he would have felt still +less courage for the proposition he had come to make. As it was, he stood +in the doorway the very picture of irresolution and embarrassment. + +"Come in, come in, Ike," said the Elder; "you're the first one of the +parish to pay your respects to Mrs. Kinney." Draxy rose from her seat +smiling, and went towards him and said: "And Mrs. Kinney is very glad to +see you, Ike." + +This was too much for the loving old heart. He dropped his hat on the +floor, and began to speak so rapidly and incoherently that both Draxy and +the Elder were almost frightened. + +"O Elder! O Miss Kinney!--I've been a thinkin' that p'raps you'd let me +come an' live with you, an' do all yer chores. I'd bring my two cows, an' +my keepin' wouldn't be very much; an'--oh, sir, ef ye'll only let me, I'll +bless ye all the days o' my life," and Ike began to cry. + +So did Draxy, for that matter, and the Elder was not very far from it. +Draxy spoke first. + +"Why, Ike, do you really want so much to live with us?" + +Ike's first answer was a look. Then he said, very simply,-- + +"I've laid awake all night, ma'am, tryin' to get bold enough to come and +ask ye." + +Draxy looked at her husband, and said in a low voice, "You know what I +told you just now, Mr. Kinney?" + +The Elder saw that Draxy was on Ike's side. + +"Well, well, Ike," he said, "you shall certainly come and try it. Perhaps +you won't like it as well as you think. But don't say anything about it to +any one else till you hear from us. You shall come very soon." + +Ike turned to go, but lingered, and finally stammered: "I hope, sir, ye +don't take it that I'm askin' a charity; I make bold to believe I could be +worth to ye's much's my keepin'; I'm considerable handy 'bout a good many +things, an' I can do a day's mowin' yet with any man in the parish, I +don't care who he is. It's only because--because"--Ike's voice broke, and +it was very nearly with a sob that he added, "because I love ye, sir," and +he hurried away. Draxy sprang after him. + +"I know that very well, Ike, and so does Mr. Kinney, and you will be a +great help to us. You are making us the most valuable wedding present +we've had yet, Ike," and Draxy held out her hand. + +Ike looked at the hand, but he did not touch it. + +"Maybe God'll let me thank ye yet, ma'am," he said, and was gone. + +As he went through the kitchen a sudden misgiving seized him of terror of +Hannah. + +"Supposin' she sh'd take into her head to be agin me," thought he. "They +say the Elder himself's 'fraid on her. I don't s'pose she'd dare to try to +pizen me outright, an' anyhow there's allers eggs an' potatoes. But I'll +bring her round fust or last;" and, made wary by love, Ike began on the +spot to conciliate her, by offering to bring a pail of water from the +well. + +This small attention went farther than he could have dreamed. When Draxy +first told Hannah that Ike was to come and live with them, she said +judiciously,-- + +"It will make your work much easier in many ways, Hannah." + +Hannah answered:-- + +"Yes, missus. He'll bring all the water I spose, an that alone's wuth any +man's keep--not that I've ever found any fault with the well's bein' so +far off. It's 's good water's there is in the world, but it's powerful +heavy." + +The arrival of the two cows crowned Hannah's liking of the plan. If she +had a passion in life it was for cream and for butter-making, and it had +been a sore trial to her in her life as the Elder's housekeeper, that she +must use stinted measures of milk, bought from neighbors. So when poor Ike +came in, trembling and nervous, to his first night's lodging under the +Elder's roof, he found in the kitchen, to his utter surprise, instead of a +frowning and dangerous enemy, a warm ally, as friendly in manner and mien +as Indian blood would permit. + +Thus the little household settled down for the winter: Draxy and the Elder +happy, serene, exalted more than they knew, by their perfect love for each +other, and their childlike love of God, blending in one earnest purpose +of work for souls; Hannah and Ike anything but serene, and yet happy after +their own odd fashions, and held together much more closely than they knew +by the common bond of their devotion to the Elder and his wife. + +In the other side of the house were also two very thankful and contented +hearts. Reuben and Jane were old people now: Reuben's hair was snowy +white, and Jane was sadly bent; but the comfort and peace which had come +so late into their lives had still come early enough to make the sunset a +bright one. It was a sight to do all hearts good to see the two sitting +together on the piazza of the house, in the warm afternoons, and gazing in +delight at the eastern mountain ranges turning rose-pink, and then fading +through shades of purple to dark gray. + +"It's a good deal like our life, ma," Reuben said sometimes; "our sun's +pretty low--most down, I reckon; it's all rosy-light, just these days; but +we shall have to lie down in the shadow presently; but it's all beautiful, +beautiful." + +Jane did not understand him. She never did. But she loved the sound of his +voice best when he said the things which were too subtle for her. + +The two households lived separately as before. The Elder had proposed +their making one family, and Reuben had wistfully seconded it. But Draxy +had firmly said "No." + +"I shall be able to do more for you, father dear, if we do not. It will +not seem so at first, but I know I am right," she said, and it was a rare +wisdom in her sweet soul which led to the decision. At first it was very +hard for Reuben to bear, but as the months went on he saw that it was +best. + +Draxy's loving, thoughtful care of them never relaxed. The excellent woman +whom she had secured for their servant went for her orders quite as often +to Draxy as to Jane; very few meals were set out for them to which Draxy's +hand had not given the last final touch. She flitted back and forth +between the two homes, equally of both the guardian angel; but the line of +division and separation was just as distinctly drawn as if they had been +under different roofs a mile apart. Two or three times in the week they +dined and took tea together, but the habit never was formed of doing this +on a special day. When Reuben said, "Couldn't ye arrange it so's always to +eat your Sunday dinner with us, Draxy?" she replied: + +"Sometimes Sunday dinner; sometimes Thursday; sometimes Saturday, father +dear. If we make it a fixed day, we shall not like it half so well; any of +us. We'll come often enough, you may be sure." And of this, too, Reuben +soon saw the wisdom. + +"O Draxy, Draxy, my little girl!" he said one day, when, just after +breakfast, she ran in, exclaiming,-- + +"Father dear, we're coming to take dinner with you and ma to-day. It's a +surprise party, and the chickens have come first; they're in the kitchen +now!" + +"O Draxy, Draxy," he exclaimed, "it's a great deal nicer not to know it +beforehand. How could you be so wise, child?" + +Draxy put her arms round his neck and did not speak for a moment. Then she +said, "I don't think it is wisdom, dear. Real true love knows by instinct, +just as the bee does, which shaped cell will hold most honey. I'm only a +honey-maker for my darlings." + +Jane looked mystified, but Reuben's face quivered with pleasure. + +"That you are, you blessed child," he said, and as, hearing the Elder's +step in the hall, she flew out of the room, Reuben covered his eyes with +his hand. + +Happy years leave slender records; but for suffering and sin there would +not be history. The winter came, and the spring came, and the summer and +the autumn, and no face in the quiet little parsonage looked a shade older +for the year that had gone; no incident had taken place which could make a +salient point in a story, and not one of the peaceful hearts could believe +that a twelvemonth had flown. Elder Kinney's pathetic fears lest he might +love his Saviour less by reason of his new happiness, had melted like +frost in early sunlight, in the sweet presence of Draxy's child-like +religion. + +"O Draxy!" he said again and again, "seems to me I never half loved all +these souls we are working for, before I had you. I don't see how I could +have been so afraid about it before we were married." + +"Do I really help you, Mr. Kinney?" Draxy would reply, with a lingering +emphasis on the "really," which made her husband draw her closer to him +and forget to speak: "It seems very strange to me that I can. I feel so +ignorant about souls. It frightens me to answer the smallest question the +people ask me. I never do, in any way except to tell them if I have ever +felt so myself, and how God seemed to help me out." + +Blessed Draxy! that was the secret of her influence from first to last: +the magnetic sympathy of a pure and upright soul, to whose rare strength +had been added still rarer simplicity and lovingness. Old and young, men +as well as women, came to her with unhesitating confidence. Before her +marriage, they had all felt a little reserve with her, partly because she +was of finer grain than they, partly because she had, deep down in her +soul, a genuine shyness which showed itself only in quiet reticence. But +now that she was the Elder's wife, they felt that she was in a measure +theirs. There is a very sweet side, as well as an inconvenient and +irritating one, to the old-fashioned rural notion that the parish has +almost as much right to the minister's wife as to the minister. Draxy saw +only the sweet side. With all the loyalty and directness which had made +her, as a little girl, champion and counselor and comfort to her father, +she now set her hand to the work of helping her husband do good to the +people whom he called his children. + +"If they are yours, they must be mine, too, Mr. Kinney," she would say, +with a smile half arch, half solemn. "I hope I shan't undo on week-days +what you do on Sundays." + +"What I do on Sundays is more'n half your work too, Draxy," the Elder +would make reply; and it was very true. Draxy's quicker brain and finer +sense, and in some ways superior culture, were fast moulding the Elder's +habits of thought and speech to an extent of which she never dreamed. +Reuben's income was now far in advance of their simple wants, and +newspapers, magazines, and new books continually found their way to the +parsonage. Draxy had only to mention anything she desired to see, and +Reuben forthwith ordered it. So that it insensibly came to pass that the +daily life of the little household was really an intellectual one, and +Elder Kinney's original and vigorous mind expanded fast in the congenial +atmosphere. Yet he lost none of his old quaintness and simplicity of +phrase, none of his fervor. The people listened to his sermons with +wondering interest, and were not slow to ascribe some of the credit of the +new unction to Draxy. + +"Th' Elder's getting more'n more like Mis' Kinney every day o' his life," +they said: "there's some o' her sayin's in every sermon he writes. + +"And no wonder," would be added by some more enthusiastic worshipper of +Draxy's. "I guess he's got sense enough to know that she's got more real +book-learnin' in her head than he has, twice over. I shouldn't wonder if +she got to writin' some of his sermons for him out'n out, before long." + +Dear Draxy's reverent wifehood would have been grieved and dismayed if she +had known that her efforts to second her husband's appeals to his people +were sometimes so eloquent as to make the Elder's words forgotten. But she +never dreamed of such a thing; she was too simple hearted and humble. + +In the early days of the second winter came the Angel of the Annunciation, +bearing a white lily to Draxy. Her joy and gratitude were unspeakable, and +the exquisite purity and elevation of her nature shone out transcendent in +the new experience. + +"Now I begin to feel surer that God really trusts me," she said, "since he +is going to let me have a child of my own." + +"O my dear friends!" she exclaimed more than once to mothers, "I never +dreamed how happy you were. I thought I knew, but I did not." + +Draxy's spontaneous and unreserved joy of motherhood, while yet her babe +was unborn, was a novel and startling thing to the women among whom she +lived. The false notions on this point, grown out of ignorant and base +thoughts, are too wide-spread, too firm-rooted, to be overthrown in an +hour or a day, even by the presence of angelic truth incarnate. Some of +Draxy's best friends were annoyed and disquieted by her frankness and +unreserve of delight. But as the weeks went on, the true instinct of +complete motherhood thrilled for the first time in many a mother's heart, +under Draxy's glowing words, and women talked tearfully one with another, +in secret, with lowered voices, about the new revelation which had come to +them through her. + +"I've come to see it all quite different, since I've talked with Mis' +Kinney," said one young married woman, holding her baby close to her +breast, and looking down with remorseful tenderness on its placid little +face. "I shan't never feel that I've quite made it up to Benjy, never, for +the thoughts I had about him before he was born. I don't see why nobody +ever told us before, that we was just as much mothers to 'em from the very +first as we ever could be," and tears dropped on Benjy's face; "an' I jest +hope the Lord'll send me's many more's we can manage to feed'n clothe, 'n +I'll see if lovin' 'em right along from the beginnin', with all my heart, +'ll make 'em beautiful an' happy an' strong an' well, 's Mis' Kinney sez. +I b'lieve it's much's ef 'twas in the Bible, after all she told me, and +read me out of a Physiology, an' it stands to natur', which's more'n the +old way o' talkin did." + +This new, strong current of the divinest of truths, stirred the very veins +of the village. Mothers were more loving and fathers more tender, and +maidens were sweeter and graver--all for the coming of this one little +babe into the bosom of full and inspired motherhood. + +On the morning when Draxy's son was born, a stranger passing through the +village would have supposed that some great news of war or of politics had +arrived. Little knots of people stood at gates, on corners, all talking +earnestly; others were walking rapidly to and fro in the street. +Excitement filled the air. + +Never was heir to royal house more welcomed than was the first-born son of +this simple-minded, great-hearted woman, by the lowly people among whom +she dwelt. + +Old Ike's joy was more than he could manage. He had sat on the floor all +night long, with his head buried in his hands. + +The instinct of grief to come, which not even all these long peaceful +months had been able to wholly allay in his faithful heart, had sprung +into full life at the first symptom of danger to Draxy. + +"P'raps it's this way, arter all, the Lord's goin' to do it. O Lord! O +Lord! It'll kill Mr. Kinney, it'll kill him," he kept repeating over and +over, as he rocked to and fro. Hannah eyed him savagely. Her Indian blood +hated groans and tears, and her affection for her master was angered at +the very thought of his being afflicted. + +"I wish it had pleased yer Lord to give ye the sense of a man, Mr. +Sanborn," she said, "while He was a makin' on ye. If ye'd go to bed, now, +instead o' snivelin' round here, you might be good for somethin' in the +mornin', when there'll be plenty to do. Anyhow, I'm not goin' to be +pestered by the sight on ye any longer," and Hannah banged the +kitchen-door violently after her. + +When poor Ike timidly peered into the sitting-room, whither she had +betaken herself, he found her, too, sitting on the floor, in an attitude +not unlike the one she had so scorned in him. But he was too meek to taunt +her. He only said,-- + +"I'm goin' now, Hannah, so ye needn't stay out o' the kitchen for me," and +he climbed slowly up the stairs which led to his room. + +As the rosy day dawned in the east, Draxy's infant son drew his first +mortal breath. His first quivering cry, faint almost as a whisper, yet +sharp and piteous, reached old Ike's ears instantly. He fell on his knees +and remained some minutes motionless, then he rose and went slowly +down-stairs. Hannah met him at the door, her dark face flushed with +emotion which she vainly tried to conceal by sharp words. + +"Hope ye've rested well, Mr. Sanborn. Another time, mebbe ye'll have more +sense. As fine a boy's ye ever see, and Mis' Kinney she's a smilin' into +its face, as nobody's never seen her smile yet, I tell you." + +Ike was gone,--out into the fields, over fences, over brooks, into woods, +trampling down dewy ferns, glistening mosses, scarlet cornels, thickets of +goldenrod and asters,--he knew not where, muttering to himself all the +while, and tossing his arms into the air. At last he returned to the house +saying to himself, "P'raps th' Elder 'll like to have me go down into the +village an' let folks know." + +Elder Kinney was standing bareheaded on the door-steps. His face looked +like the face of a man who had come off a battle-field where victory had +been almost as terrible as defeat. As soon as he saw old Ike running +across the field towards him, he divined all. + +"Loving old heart!" he thought, "Draxy was right," and he held out both +his hands to the old man as he had never done before, and spoke a few +affectionate words, which made tears run down the wrinkled cheeks. Then he +sent him on the errand he knew he craved. + +"You'd better give the news first to Eben Hill, Ike," he called after him. +"It'll be of more use to him than to anybody in the parish." + +It was just two years from Draxy's wedding day, when she stood again in +the aisle of the little village church, dressed in pure white, with the +southern sunlight resting on her beautiful hair. Her husband stood by her +side, holding their infant son in his arms. The child had clear, calm blue +eyes like Draxy's, and an expression of serenity and radiant joy on his +tiny face, which made the people wonder. + +"Reuben Miller Kinney" was his name; and though the parish had hoped that +the child would be named for his father, when they looked at Reuben +Miller's sweet, patient, noble face, and saw its intense happiness as the +words were spoken, they felt that it was better so. + +Again swift months rolled on, and peace and joy brooded over the +parsonage. Draxy's life with her child was something too beautiful to be +told in words; her wifehood was lovely, was intense; but her motherhood +was greater. Day and night her love for her boy protected and guided him, +like pillar of cloud, like pillar of fire. She knew no weariness, no +feebleness; she grew constantly stronger and more beautiful, and the child +grew stronger and more beautiful, with a likeness to her and a oneness +with her which were marvelous. He was a loving and affectionate boy to +all; his father, his grandparents, old Ike, and swarthy Hannah,--all alike +sunned themselves in the delight of his beautiful childhood. But wherever +he was--however amused and delighted--even in his father's arms--his eyes +sought his mother's eyes, and the mute interchange between them was subtle +and constant as between lovers. There was but one drawback on Draxy's +felicity now. She was afraid of her love for her boy. + +"O Seth!" she said,--after little Reuben's birth she for the first time +called her husband by this name; before that, although she lavished on him +all words of endearment, she had never found courage to call him Seth,--"O +Seth!" she said, "I feel now as you did about me before we were married. I +can't make myself think about anything but Reuby. O darling! you don't +think God would take him away from you to punish me, do you?" The Elder +could not comfort her when she was in this frame of mind; in fact, he +himself was sometimes afraid, seeing her utter absorption in the child. +Yet it never for one instant warped her firmness or judiciousness of +control. Draxy could not have comprehended that type of love which can +lose sight for one instant of the best good of the loved one. Her control, +however, was the control of a wise and affectionate companion, never that +of the authoritative parent. Little Reuben never heard the words, "You +must not do thus and so." It was always, "You cannot, because it is not +safe, best, or proper," or, "because if you do, such and such things will +happen." + +"Draxy," said Reuben to her one day, "you never tell Reuby to do anything +without giving him a reason for it. He's the best boy that ever lived, I +do believe, but 'tain't just my idea of obedience for all that." + +Draxy smiled. "I never said a word to him about obeying me in his life; I +never shall. I can't explain it, father dear, but you must let me do my +way. I shall tell him all I know about doing right, and he will decide for +himself more and more. I am not afraid." + +She need not have been. Before Reuby was seven years old his gentle +manliness of behavior was the marvel of the village. "It beats all how +Mis' Kinney's brought that boy o' hern up," was said in the sewing-circle +one day. "She told me herself that she's never so much's said a sharp word +to him; and as for whipping she thinks it's a deadly sin." + +"So do I," spoke up young Mrs. Plummet, the mother of Benjy. "I never did +believe in that; I don't believe in it, even for hosses; it only gets 'em +to go a few rods, and then they're lazier'n ever. My father's broke more +colts than any man in this county, an' he'd never let 'em be struck a +blow. He said one blow spiled 'em, and I guess ye've got more to work on +in a boy than ye have in a colt." + +These discussions often ran high and waxed warm. But Draxy's adherents +were a large majority; and she had so patiently and fully gone over these +disputed grounds with them that they were well fortified with the +arguments and facts which supported her positions. Indeed, it was fast +coming to pass that she was the central force of the life of the village. +"Let me make the songs of the community, and I care not who makes its +laws," was well said. It was song which Draxy supplied to these people's +lives. Not often in verse, in sound, in any shape that could be measured, +but in spirit. She vivified their every sense of beauty, moral and +physical. She opened their eyes to joy; she revealed to them the +sacredness and delight of common things; she made their hearts sing. + +But she was to do more yet for these men and women. Slowly, noiselessly, +in the procession of these beautiful and peaceful days, was drawing near a +day which should anoint Draxy with a new baptism,--set her apart to a +holier work. + +It came, as the great consecrations of life are apt to come, suddenly, +without warning. While we are patiently and faithfully keeping sheep in +the wilderness, the messenger is journeying towards us with the vial of +sacred oil, to make us kings. + +It was on a September morning. Draxy sat at the eastward bay-window of +her sitting-room, reading to Reuby. The child seemed strangely restless, +and slipped from her lap again and again, running to the window to look +out. At last Draxy said, "What is it, Reuby? Don't you want to hear mamma +read any longer?" + +"Where is papa?" replied Reuby. "I want to go and find papa." + +"Papa has gone way down to the Lower Mills, darling; he won't come home +till dinner," said Draxy, looking perplexedly at Reuby's face. She had +never known him to ask for his father in this way before. Still his +restlessness continued, and finally, clasping his mother's hand, he said +earnestly,-- + +"Come and find papa." + +"We can't find him, dear," she replied; "it is too far for Reuby to walk, +but we will go out on the same road papa has gone, and wait for papa to +come;" so saying, she led the child out of the house, and rambled slowly +along the road on which the Elder would return. In a few moments she saw +moving in the distance a large black object she could not define. As it +came nearer she saw that it was several men, walking slowly and apparently +bearing something heavy between them. + +Little Reuby pulled her hand and began to run faster. "Come and find +papa," he said again, in a tone which struck terror to Draxy's heart. At +that instant the men halted. She hurried on. Presently she saw one man +leave the rest and run rapidly towards her. It was old Ike. The rest still +remained motionless and gathered closer around what they were carrying. + +"O Reuby!" groaned Draxy. "Come quicker; find papa," he replied, +impatiently; but old Ike had reached them, and wringing his hands, burst +into tears. "O my Lord!--O Mis' Kinney, yer must go back; they can't bring +him along, an' you 'n' the boy standin' here. O my Lord! O Mis' Kinney, +come right back!" And Ike took hold of her shoulder and of her gown and +almost turned her around. + +"Is Mr. Kinney hurt?" said Draxy in a strange voice, high pitched and +metallic. "I shall not go back. Tell the men to hurry. How dare they lose +time so?" and Draxy tried to run towards them. Old Ike held her by main +force. Sobs choked his voice, but he stammered out: "O Mis' Kinney, ef ye +love Mr. Kinney, go back. He'd tell ye so himself. He won't know ye; the +men won't never move a step till they see you 'n' Reuby goin' first." + +Draxy turned instantly and walked toward the house so swiftly that little +Reuby could not keep up with her. He followed her crying aloud, but she +did not heed him. She flew rather than ran into the house, into the +Elder's study, and dragged a lounge to the very threshold of the door. +There she stood, whiter than any marble, and as still, awaiting the slow, +toiling steps of the overburdened men. Little Reuben stumbled on the steps +and she did not help him. As he came close, clutching her dress in his +pain and terror, she said in a low whisper, "Reuby, it will trouble papa +if he sees us cry. Mamma isn't going to cry." The child stopped instantly +and stood by her side, as calm as she for a moment, then bursting out +again into screams, said: "O mamma, I can't help crying, I can't; but +I'll run away. Don't tell papa I cried." And he ran up-stairs. Draxy did +not see which way he went. Her eyes were fixed on the doorway which Ike +had that moment reached; the men bearing the Elder's body were just behind +him. + +"O Mis' Kinney! can't yer go away jest while we lay him down?" gasped +Ike. "Seem's ef 'twouldn't be so hard." + +Draxy looked past him, as not hearing a word. + +"Bring him in here and lay him on this lounge," she said, in tones so +clear and calm they sent both courage and anguish into every heart. + +Panting, and with grief-stricken faces, the men staggered in and laid the +tall, majestic figure down. As they lifted the head tenderly and propped +it by pillows, Draxy saw the pale, dead face with the sunken eyes and set +lips, and gave one low cry. Then she clasped both hands tight over her +heart and looked up as if she would pierce the very skies whither her +husband had gone. + +"We sent for the doctor right off; he'll be here's soon's he can get +here." + +"He never spoke a word arter we lifted him up. He couldn't ha' suffered +any, Mis' Kinney." + +"P'raps, Mis' Kinney, it'd be a good plan to ondo his clothes afore the +doctor gits here," came in confused and trembling tones from one after +another of the men who stood almost paralyzed in presence of Draxy's +terrible silence. + +"O Mis' Kinney, jest speak a word, can't ye? O Lord! O Lord! she'll die if +she don't. Where's Reuby? I'll fetch him," exclaimed Ike, and left the +room; the men followed him irresolutely, looking back at Draxy, who still +stood motionless, gazing down into the Elder's face. + +"Do not look for Reuby--he has hid," came in a slow, measured whisper from +her lips. "And leave me alone." "Yes, I know. You need not be afraid. I +understand that Mr. Kinney is dead," she added, as the men hesitated and +looked bewilderedly in her face. "I will stay alone with him till the +doctor comes," and Draxy gently closed the door and locked it. In a short +time the little hall and door-yard were crowded with sobbing men and +women. There was little to be told, but that little was told over and +over. The Elder had walked down to the village store with old Ike, and had +just given him some parcels to carry home, saying, "Tell Mrs. +Kinney,"--when a runaway horse had come dashing furiously down the street, +drawing a wagon in which clung, rather than sat, a woman holding a baby in +her arms. The Elder had sprung into the middle of the road, and caught the +horse by the bridle as he swerved a little to one side; but the horse was +too strong and too much frightened to be held by any man's strength. +Rearing high, he had freed his head, and plunging forward had knocked the +Elder down in such a way that both wagon-wheels had run over his neck, +breaking it instantly. + +"He never talked so much like an angel from heaven's he did this mornin'," +sobbed Ike, who looked already decrepit and broken from this sudden blow. +"He was a tellin' me about suthin' new that's jest been discovered in the +sun; I couldn't rightly make it out; but says he, 'Ike, how glorious +'twill be when we can jest fly from one sun to another, all through this +universe o' God's, an' not be a tryin' in these poor little airthly ways +to understand 'bout things.'" + +That Draxy should be all this time alone with her husband's body seemed +dreadful to these sympathizing, simple-hearted people. No sound came from +the room, though the windows were all wide open. + +"O Mr. Miller! don't ye think some on us had better try to git in to her," +said the women; "she don't make no noise." + +"No." replied Reuben, feebly. He, too, was prostrated like Ike by the +fearful blow, and looked years older within the hour. "No: Draxy knows +what's best for her. She's spoke to me once through the door. She hasn't +fainted." + +"When the doctor came, Reuben called to Draxy,-- + +"Daughter, the doctor's come." + +The door opened instantly, but closed as soon as the doctor had entered. +In a few moments it opened again, and the doctor handed a slip of paper to +Reuben. He unfolded it and read it aloud:-- + +"Father dear, please thank all the people for me, and ask them to go home +now. There is nothing they can do. Tell them it grieves me to hear them +cry, and Mr. Kinney would not wish it." + +Slowly and reluctantly the people went, and a silence sadder than the sobs +and grieving voices settled down on the house. Reuben sat on the stairs, +his head leaning against the study-door. Presently he heard a light step +coming down. It was young Mrs. Plummer, the mother of Benjy. She +whispered, "I've found Reuby. He's asleep on the garret floor. He'd +thrown himself down on some old carpet, way out in the darkest corner, +under the eaves. I've covered him up, an' I'm goin' to sit by him till he +wakes up. The longer he sleeps the better. You tell her where he is." + +Reuben nodded; his dulled senses hardly heard the words. When the +study-door next opened, Draxy herself came out, walking with a slow, +measured step which transformed her whole bearing. Her face was perfectly +calm, but colorless as white stone. At sight of her father her lips +quivered, and she stretched out both hands to him; but she only said, +"Where is Reuby?" And as soon as she heard she went quickly up the stairs, +adding, "Do not follow me, father dear; you cannot help me." + +Mrs. Plummer sat in the dark garret, leaning her head against the dusty +rafters, as near as she could get to poor little Reuby. Her eyes were +shut, and tears stood on her cheeks. Suddenly she was startled by Draxy's +low voice, saying,-- + +"Thank you very much, Mrs. Plummer; it was very kind in you to stay here +and not wake him up. I will sit by him now." + +Mrs. Plummer poured forth incoherent words of sympathy and sorrow, but +Draxy hardly seemed to hear her. She stood quietly, making no reply, +waiting for her to go. + +"O Mis' Kinney, Mis' Kinney, do cry a little, can't ye?" exclaimed the +warm-hearted woman; "it scares us to death to see ye this way." + +Draxy smiled. "No, my dear friend. I cannot cry now. I suppose I shall +sometimes, because I am very selfish, and I shall be so lonely; but just +now I am only thinking how happy he is in these first hours in heaven." +The tears stood in her eyes, but her look was as of one who gazed +rapturously inside the pearly gates. Mrs. Plummer stole softly away, +overawed and afraid. As she went out of the house, she said to Reuben: +"Mis' Kinney ain't no mortal woman. She hain't shed a tear yet, and she +jest looks as glorified as the Elder can this minute in sight o' God's +very throne itself. O Mr. Miller, I'm afraid she'll break down. This kind +o' grief is what kills folks." + +"No," said Reuben, "you don't know Draxy. She won't break down. She'll +take care on us all jest the same, but ye won't never see again the same +face you used to see. Oh, I can't be reconciled, I can't!" And Reuben +groaned aloud. + +The next morning, when Draxy came out of the study, her hair was white as +snow. As her father first caught sight of her, he stared wildly for a +moment as at some stranger; then crying out, "O Draxy! O my little girl!" +he tottered and would have fallen if she had not caught him and led him to +a chair. + +"O father dear," she exclaimed, "don't feel so! I wouldn't call him back +this minute if I could," and she smiled piteously. + +"O Draxy--'tain't that," gasped Reuben. "O daughter! you're dyin' and +never lettin' us know it. Your hair's as white's mine." Draxy gave a +startled glance at the mirror, and said, in a much more natural tone than +she had hitherto spoken in: "I don't think that's strange. It's happened +before to people in great trouble. I've read of it: you'll get used to it +very soon, father dear. I'm glad of it; I'll be all in white now," she +added in a lower tone, speaking dreamily, as if to herself,--"they walk in +white; they walk in white." + +Then Reuben noticed that she was dressed in white. He touched her gown, +and looked inquiringly. "Yes, father dear," she said, "always." + +On the day of the funeral, when Draxy entered the church leading little +Reuby by the hand, a visible shudder ran through the congregation. The +news had run like wildfire through the parish, on the morning after the +Elder's death, that Mrs. Kinney's hair had all turned gray in the night. +But nobody was in the least prepared for the effect. It was not gray--it +was silver-white; and as it retained all the silken gloss which had made +it so beautiful the shining of it was marvelous. It kindled her beauty +into something superhuman. The color had left her cheeks also, but in its +place was a clear soft tint which had no pallor in it. She was dressed in +pure white, so also was little Reuby; but for this the parish were +prepared. Very well they knew Draxy's deep-rooted belief that to associate +gloom with the memory of the dead was disloyal alike to them and to +Christ; and so warmly had she imbued most of the people with her +sentiment, that the dismal black garb of so-called mourning was rarely +seen in the village. + +Bareheaded, Draxy and her little son walked from the church to the grave; +their faces the calmest, their steps the steadiest there. Reuben and Jane +walked behind them, bent over and sobbing, and half the congregation were +weeping uncontrollably; but the widowed woman and the fatherless boy +walked with uplifted glances, as if they saw angel-forms in the air by +their side. + +"Tain't nateral; 'tain't noways nateral; thet woman hain't got any nateral +feelin' in her," said Eben Hill, leaning against a grave-stone, and idly +chewing a spray of golden-rod. George Thayer turned upon him like a +blazing sword. + +"Hev ye got any nateral feelin' yourself, Eben Hill, to say that, standin' +here an' lookin' at that woman's white hair an' cheeks, 'n' only last +Sunday she was 's handsome a pictur's ye ever see, her hair a twinklin' in +the sun like a brown beech-tree, an' her cheeks jest like roses? Nateral +feelin's! It's enough to make the Elder rise up afore ye, to hear ye say +sech a thing, Eben Hill; 'n' ef 'twan't jest the funeral that 'tis, I +b'leeve I'd thrash ye right an' left, here'n sight o' yer own mother's +tombstone, ye miserable, sneakin' fool. Ef there was ever a woman that was +carryin' a hull town straight into the Lord's heaven on her own shoulders, +it's Mis' Kinney, an' that blessed boy o' her'n 's goin' to be jest like +her. Look at him now, a workin' his poor little mouth an' lookin' up to +her and tryin' not to cry." + +Poor little Reuby! when the first shovelful of earth fell on the coffin, +his child's heart gave way, and he broke into loud crying, which made the +roughest men there hide their eyes. Draxy caught him up in her arms and +whispered something which quieted him instantly. Then she set him down, +and he stood till the end, looking away from the grave with almost a smile +on his face. He told some one, the next day, that he kept saying over to +himself all that time: "Beautiful gates of precious stones and angels +with harps."--"That's the city, you know, where my papa has gone. It's not +half so far off as we think; and papa is so happy there, he don't even +miss us, though he can see us every minute. And mamma and I are going +there pretty soon; next summer perhaps." + + + +Part II. + + +For the first few days after the funeral, Draxy seemed to sink; the void +was too terrible; only little Reuby's voice roused her from the apathetic +silence in which she would sit by the hour gazing out of the east +bay-window on the road down which she had last seen her husband walk. She +knew just the spot where he had paused and turned and thrown kisses back +to Reuby watching him from the window. + +But her nature was too healthy, too full of energy, and her soul too full +of love to remain in this frame long. She reproached herself bitterly for +the sin of having indulged in it even for a short time. + +"I don't believe my darling can be quite happy even in heaven, while he +sees me living this way," she said sternly to herself one morning. Then +she put on her bonnet, and went down into the village to carry out a +resolution she had been meditating for some days. Very great was the +astonishment of house after house that morning, as Draxy walked quietly +in, as had been her wont. She proposed to the mothers to send their +younger children to her, to be taught half of every day. + +"I can teach Reuby better if I have other children too," she said. "I +think no child ought to be sent into the district school under ten. The +confinement is too much for them. Let me have all the boys and girls +between six and eight, and I'll carry them along with Reuby for the next +two or three years at any rate," she said. + +The parents were delighted and grateful; but their wonder almost swallowed +up all other emotions. + +"To think o' her!" they said. "The Elder not three weeks buried, an' she a +goin' round, jest as calm 'n' sweet's a baby, a gettin' up a school!" + +"She's too good for this earth, that's what she is," said Angy Plummer. "I +should jest like to know if anybody'd know this village, since she came +into 't. Why we ain't one of us the same we used to be. I know I ain't. I +reckon myself's jest about eight years old, if I have got three boys. That +makes me born the summer before her Reuby, 'an that's jest the time I was +born, when my Benjy was seven months old!" + +"You're jest crazy about Mis' Kinney, Angy Plummer," said her mother. "I +b'lieve ye'd go through fire for her quicker 'n ye would for any yer own +flesh an' blood." + +Angy went to her mother and kissed the fretful old face very kindly. +"Mother, you can't say I hain't been a better daughter to you sence I've +knowed Mis' Kinney." + +"No, I can't," grumbled the old woman, "that's a fact; but she's got a +heap o' new fangled notions I don't believe in." + +The school was a triumphant success. From nine until twelve o'clock every +forenoon, twelve happy little children had a sort of frolic of learning +lessons in the Elder's sacred study, which was now Draxy's sitting-room. +Old Ike, who since the Elder's death had never seemed quite clear of +brain, had asked so piteously to come and sit in the room, that Draxy let +him do so. He sat in a big chair by the fire-place, and carved whistles +and ships and fantastic toys for the children, listening all the time +intently to every word which fell from Draxy's lips. He had transferred to +her all the pathetic love he had felt for the Elder; he often followed her +at a distance when she went out, and little Reuby he rarely lost sight of, +from morning till night. He was too feeble now to do much work, but his +presence was a great comfort to Draxy. He seemed a very close link between +her and her husband. Hannah, too, sometimes came into the school at +recess, to the great amusement of the children. She was particularly fond +of looking at the blackboard, when there were chalk-marks on it. + +"Make a mark on me with your white pencil," she would say, offering her +dark cheek to Reuby, who would scrawl hieroglyphics all over it from hair +to chin. + +Then she would invite the whole troop out into the kitchen to a feast of +doughnuts or cookies; very long the recesses sometimes were when the +school was watching Hannah fry the fantastic shapes of sweet dough, or +taking each a turn at the jagged wheel with which she cut them out. + +Reuben also came often to the school-room, and Jane sometimes sat there +with her knitting. A strange content had settled on their lives, in spite +of the sorrow. They saw Draxy calm; she smiled on them as constantly as +ever; and they were very old people, and believed too easily that she was +at peace. + +But the Lord had more work still for this sweet woman's hand. This, too, +was suddenly set before her. Late one Saturday afternoon, as she was +returning, surrounded by her escort of laughing children, from the woods, +where they had been for May-flowers, old Deacon Plummer overtook her. + +"Mis' Kinney, Mis' Kinney," he began several times, but could get no +further. He was evidently in great perplexity how to say the thing he +wished. + +"Mis' Kinney, would you hev-- + +"Mis' Kinney, me and Deacon Swift's been a sayin'-- + +"Mis' Kinney, ain't you got--" + +Draxy smiled outright. She often smiled now, with cordial good cheer, when +things pleased her. + +"What is it, Deacon? out with it. I can't possibly tell unless you make it +plainer." + +Thus encouraged, good Deacon Plummer went on: "Well, Mis' Kinney, it's +jest this: Elder Williams has jest sent word he can't come an' preach +to-morrer, and there ain't nobody anywhere's round thet we can get; and +De'n Swift 'n me, we was a thinkin' whether you wouldn't be willin' some +of us should read one o' the Elder's old sermons. O Mis' Kinney, ye don't +know how we all hanker to hear some o' his blessed words agin." + +Draxy stood still. Her face altered so that the little children crowded +round her in alarm, and Reuby took hold of her hand. Tears came into her +eyes, and she could hardly speak, but she replied,-- + +"Yes, indeed, Mr. Plummer, I should be very glad to have you. I'll look +out a sermon to-night, and you can come up to the house in the morning and +get it." + +"O Mis' Kinney, do forgive me for speakin'. You have allers seem so borne +up, I never mistrusted that't'd do any harm to ask yer," stammered the +poor Deacon, utterly disconcerted by Draxy's tears, for she was crying +hard now. + +"It hasn't done any harm, I assure you. I am very glad to do it," said +Draxy. + +"Yes, sir, my mamma very often cries when she's glad," spoke up Reuby, his +little face getting very red, and his lips quivering. "She's very glad, +sir, if she says so." + +This chivalrous defense calmed poor Draxy, but did not comfort the Deacon, +who hurried away, saying to himself,-- + +"Don't believe there was ever such a woman nor such a boy in this world +before. She never shed a tear when we brought the Elder home dead, nor +even when she see him let down into the very grave; 'n' I don't believe +she's cried afore anybody till to-day; 'n' that little chap a speakin' up +an' tellin' me his ma often cried when she was glad, an' I was to believe +her spite of her crying! I wish I'd made Job Swift go arter her. I'll make +him go arter that sermon anyhow. I won't go near her agin 'bout this +bisness, that's certain;" and the remorse-stricken, but artful deacon +hastened to his brother deacon's house to tell him that it was "all +settled with Mis' Kinney 'bout the sermon, an' she was quite willin';" +and, "O," he added, as if it were quite a second thought, "ye'd better go +up an' git the sermon, Job, in the mornin,' ye're so much nearer, an' +then, 's ye've to do the readin,' maybe she'll have somethin' to explain +to ye about the way it's to be read; th' Elder's writin' wan't any too +easy to make out, 's fur 's I remember it." + +Next morning, just as the first bells were ringing, Deacon Swift knocked +timidly at the door of the Elder's study. Draxy met him with a radiant +face. She had been excited by reading over the sermon she had after long +deliberation selected. The text was,-- + +"Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you." The sermon had been +written soon after their marriage, and was one of her husband's favorites. +There were many eloquent passages in it, which seemed now to take on a new +significance, as coming from the lips of the Elder, absent from his flock +and present with Christ. + +"O Mis' Kinney, I recollect that sermon 's if 'twas only yesterday," said +Deacon Swift. "The hull parish was talkin' on't all the week; ye couldn't +have picked out one they'd be so glad to hear; but dear me! how I'm ever +goin' to read it in any kind o' decent way, I don't know; I never was a +reader, anyhow, 'n' now I've lost my front teeth, some words does pester +me to git out." + +This opened the way for Draxy. Nearly all night she had lain awake, +thinking how terrible it would be to her to hear her husband's beloved +words indistinctly and ineffectively read by Deacon Swift's cracked and +feeble voice. Almost she regretted having given her consent. At last the +thought flashed into her mind, "Why should I not read it myself? I know I +could be heard in every corner of that little church." The more she +thought of it, the more she longed to do it, and the less she shrank from +the idea of facing the congregation. + +"'It's only just like a big family of children,' Seth always used to say, +'and I'm sure I feel as if they were mine now, as much as ever they were +his. I wish I dared do it. I do believe Seth would like it,' and Draxy +fell asleep comforted by the thought. Before breakfast she consulted her +father, and he approved it warmly. + +"I believe your mission isn't done yet, daughter, to these people of your +husband's. The more you speak to 'em the better. It'll be jest like his +voice speaking from heaven to 'em," said Reuben, "an' I shouldn't wonder +if keepin' Elder Williams away was all the Lord's doin', as the blessed +saint used to say." + +Reuben's approval was all that Draxy needed to strengthen her impulse, and +before Deacon Swift arrived her only perplexity was as to the best way of +making the proposition to him. All this difficulty he had himself smoothed +away by his first words. + +"Yes, I know, Deacon Swift," she said. "I've been thinking that perhaps it +would tire you to read for so long a time in a loud voice; and besides, +Mr. Kinney's handwriting is very hard to read." + +Draxy paused and looked sympathizingly in the deacon's face. The mention +of the illegible writing distressed the poor man still more. He took the +sermon from her hand and glanced nervously at the first page. + +"Oh my! Mis' Kinney," he exclaimed, "I can't make out half the words." + +"Can't you?" said Draxy, gently. "It is all as plain as print to me, I +know it so well. But there are some abbreviations Mr. Kinney always used. +I will explain them to you. Perhaps that will make it easier." + +"O Mis' Kinney, Mis' Kinney! I can't never do it in the world," burst out +the poor deacon. "O Mis' Kinney, why can't you read it to the folks? +They'd all like it, I know they would." + +"Do you really think so, Mr. Swift?" replied Draxy; and then, with a +little twinge of conscience, added immediately, "I have been thinking of +that very thing myself, that perhaps, if it wouldn't seem strange to the +people, that would be the best way, because I know the handwriting so +well, and it really is very hard for a stranger to read." + +"Yes, yes, that's the very thing," hastily exclaimed the relieved +deacon,--"that's it, that's it. Why, Mis' Kinney, as for their thinkin' it +strange, there ain't a man in the parish that wouldn't vote for you for +minister twice over if ye wuz only a man. I've heerd 'em all say so more +'n a thousand times sence." Something in Draxy's face cut the Deacon's +sentence short. + +"Very well, Mr. Swift," she said. "Then I will try, since you think it +best. My father thought it would be a good plan too, or else I should not +have been willing," she added, gently. + +"Reuben Miller's daughter" was still as guileless, reverent, potent a +thought in Draxy's heart as when, upon her unconscious childish lips, the +words had been a spell, disarming and winning all hearts to her. + +The news had gone all through the village on Saturday night, that Deacon +Swift was to read one of Elder Kinney's sermons the next day. The whole +parish was present; not a man, not a woman was missing except those who +were kept at home by sickness. A tender solemnity was in every face. Not +often does it happen to a man to be so beloved by a whole community as was +Elder Kinney by this people. + +With some embarrassment and hesitation, Deacon Swift read the hymns and +made one of the prayers; Deacon Plummer made the other. Then there came a +pause. Draxy flushed scarlet and half rose in her pew. She had not thought +to tell the Deacon that he must explain to the people beforehand why she +read the sermon. She had taken it for granted that he would do so; but he +did not comprehend that he ought, and only looked nervously towards her, +waiting for her to come forward. This was the one moment which tried +Draxy's soul; there was almost vexation in her look, as hastily laying +aside her bonnet she walked up to the table in front of the pulpit, and, +turning towards the people, said in her clear, melodious voice,-- + +"Dear friends, I am sorry Deacon Swift did not explain to you that I was +to read the sermon. He asked me to do so because Mr. Kinney's handwriting +is very hard for a stranger to read." + +She paused for a second, and then added: + +"The sermon which I have chosen is one which some of you will remember. It +was written and preached nine years ago. The text is in the beautiful +Gospel of St. John, the 14th chapter and the 27th verse,-- + +"'Peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you.'" + +After pronouncing these words, Draxy paused again, and looking towards her +pew, made a slight sign to Reuby. The child understood instantly, and +walked swiftly to her. + +"Sit in this chair here by mamma, Reuby darling," she whispered, and Reuby +climbed up into the big chair on her right hand, and leaned his fair +golden head against the high mahogany back. Draxy had become conscious, in +that first second, that she could not read with Reuby's wistful face in +sight. Also she felt a sudden yearning for the support of his nearer +presence. + +"Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you," she repeated, and went +on with the sermon. Her tones were low, but clear, and her articulation so +perfect that no syllable was lost; she could have been distinctly heard in +a room twice as large as this. The sight was one which thrilled every +heart that looked on it; no poor laboring man there was so dull of sense +and soul that he did not sit drinking in the wonderful picture: the tall, +queenly woman robed in simple flowing white, her hair a coronet of snowy +silver; her dark blue eyes shining with a light which would have been +flashingly brilliant, except for its steadfast serenity; her mouth almost +smiling, as the clear tones flowed out; sitting quiet, intent, by her +side, the beautiful boy, also dressed in white, his face lighted like hers +by serene and yet gleaming eyes; his head covered with golden curls; his +little hands folded devoutly in his lap. One coming suddenly upon the +scene might well have fancied himself in another clime and age, in the +presence of some rite performed by a mystic priestess clothed in samite. +But the words which fell from the lips were the gentlest words of the +gentlest religion earth has known; and the heart which beat under the +clinging folds of the strange white garb was no priestess' heart, but a +heart full, almost to breaking, of wifehood, of motherhood. + +It does not need experience as an orator to give significance to the +magnetic language of upturned faces. Before Draxy had read ten pages of +the sermon, she was so thrilled by the consciousness that every heart +before her was thrilled too, that her cheeks flushed and her whole face +glowed. + +The sermon had sounded eloquent when the Elder preached it; but now, from +Draxy's lips, it was transcendent. As she read the closing paragraph,-- + +"His peace He leaves with us: his peace He gives unto us: not such peace +as He knew on earth: such peace as He knows now in heaven, on the right +hand of His Father; even that peace He bids us share--that peace, the +peace of God which passeth understanding,"--she seemed to dilate in +stature, and as she let the sermon fall on the table before her, her +lifted eyes seemed arrested in mid air as by a celestial vision. + +Then in a second more, she was again the humble, affectionate Draxy, whom +all the women and all the little children knew and loved; looking round on +them with an appealing expression, she said,-- + +"Dear friends, I hope I have not done wrong in standing up here and taking +it upon me to read such solemn words. I felt that Mr. Kinney would like to +speak to you once more through me." + +Then taking little Reuby by the hand, she walked slowly back to her pew. + +Then Deacon Swift made sad work of reading the hymn,-- + +"Blest be the tie that binds," + +And the choir made sad work of singing it. Nobody's voice could be trusted +for many syllables at a time, but nobody listened to the music. Everybody +was impatient to speak to Draxy. They clustered round her in the aisle; +they crowded into pews to get near her: all the reticence and reserve of +their New England habit had melted away in this wonderful hour. They +thanked her; they touched her; they gazed at her; they did not know what +to do; even Draxy's calm was visibly disturbed by the atmosphere of their +great excitement. + +"O Mis' Kinney, ef ye'll only read us one more! just one more! won't ye, +now? Do say ye will, right off, this arternoon; or read the same one right +over, ef that's any easier for ye. We'd like to hear jest that 'n' nothin' +else for a year to come! O Mis' Kinney! 'twas jest like hearin' the Elder +himself." + +Poor Draxy was trembling. Reuben came to her rescue. + +"I hope you won't take it unkindly of me," he said, "but my daughter's +feeling more than's good for her. She must come home now." And Reuben drew +her hand into his arm. + +The people fell back sorry and conscience-stricken. + +"We orter ha' known better," they said, "but she makes us forgit she's +flesh 'n' blood." + +"I will read you another sermon some time," said Draxy, slowly. "I shall +be very glad to. But not to-day. I could not do it to-day." Then she +smiled on them all, with a smile which was a benediction, and walked away +holding Reuby's hand very tightly, and leaning heavily on her father's +arm. + +The congregation did not disperse; nothing since the Elder's death had so +moved them. They gathered in knots on the church steps and in the aisles, +and talked long and earnestly. There was but one sentiment, one voice. + +"It's a thousand shames she ain't a man," said some of the young men. + +"It 'ud be a thousand times more ef she wuz," retorted Angy Plummer. "I'd +like to see the man that 'ud do what she does, a comin' right close to the +very heart o' yer's ef she was your mother 'n' your sister 'n' your +husband, and a blessed angel o' God, all ter once." + +"But Angy, we only meant that then we could hev her for our minister," +they replied. + +Angy turned very red, but replied, energetically,-- + +"There ain't any law agin a woman's bein' minister, thet I ever heerd on. +Howsomever, Mis' Kinney never'd hear to anythin' o' that kind. I don' no' +for my part how she ever mustered up courage to do what she's done, so +kind o' backward 'n' shy's she is for all her strength. But for my part, I +wouldn't ask for no other preachin' all the rest o' my life, than jest to +hear Mis' Kinney read one o' her husband's sermons every Sunday." + +"Why, Angy Plummer!" burst from more lips than one. But the bold +suggestion was only the half-conscious thought of every one there, and the +discussion grew more and more serious. Slowly the people dispersed to +their homes, but the discussion still continued. Late into night, by many +a fireside, the matter was talked over, and late the next night, and the +next, until a vague hope and a still vaguer purpose sprang up in the +parish. + +"She said she'd read another some day," they reiterated. "Most likely +she'd 's soon do it next Sunday, 'n' sooner, 'cause she'd be more used +to't than ef she waited a spell between." + +"But it won't do to take it for granted she's goin' to, 'n' not git +anybody," said Deacon Swift, in great perplexity. "I think Brother Plummer +'n' me'd better go 'n' ask her." + +"No," said Angy, "let me go. I can talk it over better'n you can. I'll +go." + +And Angy went. The interview between the two women was long. Angy pleaded +as nobody else in the parish could have done; and Draxy's heart was all on +her side. But Draxy's judgment was unconvinced. + +"If I could be sure, Angy, that it would be best for the people, I should +not hesitate. But you know very well, if I begin I shall keep on," she +said. + +She consulted Reuben. His heart, too, was on the people's side, but his +judgment was like hers, perplexed. + +"One thing's very certain, daughter: there is not anybody they can ever +find to settle here, or that they are likely to, who can preach as the +Elder did. His old sermons are worlds better than any new ones they'll +get." + +"Yes, indeed, I know that," said Draxy. "That's what makes me feel as if I +must do it." + +This had been her strongest motive. Only too well she knew what would be +the probable calibre of a man who would come to this poor and lonely +little village which she so loved. + +At last she consented to make the experiment. "I will read for you every +Sunday, two sermons of Mr. Kinney's," she said, "until you hear of some +one whom you would like to settle for your minister." + +Angy Plummer, clapped her hands when her father repeated at tea on +Thursday evening what "Mis' Kinney" had said. + +"That's good's settlin' her," she exclaimed. "Oh, I never thought she'd +come to it," and real tears of joy stood in Angy's eyes. + +"I don't know 'bout that, Angy," replied the Deacon; "there's a good deal +to be thought on, fust 'n' last. Folks '11 talk like everythin', I expect, +'n' say we've got a woman preacher. It wouldn't never do for any great +length o' time; but it will be a blessin' to hear some th' Elder's good +rousin' comfortin' sermons for a spell, arter the stuff we hev been a +havin', 'n' they can't say she's any more 'n' a reader anyhow. That's +quite different from preachin'." + +"Of course it is," said Angy, who was wise enough to keep some of her +thoughts and hopes to herself; "they're's different's any other two +things. I don't suppose anybody'd say you was a settin' up to preach, if +you'd ha' read the sermons, 'n' I don't see why they need to any more o' +Mis' Kinney." And so, on the next Sunday Draxy's ministry to her husband's +people began. Again with softened and gladdened faces the little +congregation looked up to the fair, tall priestess with her snow-white +robes and snow-white hair, and gleaming steadfast eyes, standing meekly +between the communion-table and the chair in which sat her golden-haired +little son. Her voice was clearer and stronger than ever; and there was a +calm peacefulness in her whole atmosphere which had not been there at +first. + +Again the people crowded around, and thanked her, and clasped her hands. +This time she answered them with cordial good cheer, and did not tremble. +To little Reuby also they spoke gratefully. + +"You help too, Reuby, don't you?" said Angy Plummer,--"do you like it?" + +"Very much, ma'am; mamma says I help, but I think she's mistaken," replied +the little fellow, archly. + +"Yes you do, you darling," said Mrs. Plummer, stooping and kissing him +tenderly. Angy Plummer loved Reuby. She never looked at him without +thinking that but for his existence the true mother-heart would perhaps +never have been born in her bosom. + +The reading of the sermons grew easier and easier to Draxy, Sunday by +Sunday. She became conscious of a strange sense of being lifted out of +herself, as soon as she began to speak. She felt more and more as if it +were her husband speaking through her; and she felt more and more closely +drawn into relation with the people. + +"Oh, father dear," she said more than once, "I don't know how I shall ever +give it up when the time comes. It makes me so happy: I feel almost as if +I could see Seth standing right by me and holding my gown while I read. +And father, dear," she proceeded in a lower, slower voice, "I don't know +but you'll think it wrong; I'm almost afraid to tell you, but sometimes I +say words that aren't in the sermons; just a sentence or two, where I +think Seth would put it in if he were here now; and I almost believe he +puts the very words into my head." + +She paused and looked anxiously and inquiringly at her father. + +"No, Draxy," replied Reuben solemnly, "I don't think it wrong. I feel more +and more, every Sunday I listen to you, as if the Lord had set you apart +for this thing; and I don't believe he'd send any other angel except your +husband on the errand of helpin' you." + +The summer passed, and the parish gave no signs of readiness for a new +minister. When Draxy spoke of it, she was met by such heartfelt grief on +all sides that she was silenced. At last she had a long, serious talk with +the deacons, which set her mind more at rest. They had, it seemed, +consulted several neighboring ministers, Elder Williams among the number, +and they had all advised that while the congregation seemed so absorbed in +interest, no change should be made. + +"Elder Williams he sez he'll come over regular for the communion," said +Deacon Plummer, "and for baptisms whenever we want him, and thet's the +main thing, for, thank the Lord, we haint many funerals 'n course of a +year. And Mis' Kinney, ef ye'll excuse my makin' so bold, I'll tell ye +jest what Elder Williams said about ye: sez he, It's my opinion that ef +there was ever a woman born thet was jest cut out for a minister to a +congregation, it's that Elder's wife o' your'n; and sez we to him 'Thet's +jest what the hull town thinks, sir, and it's our opinion that ef we +should try to settle anythin' in the shape of a man in this parish, there +wouldn't be anythin' but empty pews for him to preach to, for the people'd +all be gone up to Mis' Kinney's.'" + +Draxy smiled in spite of herself. But her heart was very solemn. + +"It is a great responsibility, Deacon Plummer," she said, "and I feel +afraid all the time. But my father thinks I ought to do it, and I am so +happy in it, it seems as if it could not be a mistake." + +As months went on, her misgivings grew less and less; and her impulses to +add words of her own to her husband's sermons grew more and more frequent. +She could not but see that she held the hearts of the people in her hands +to mould them like wax; and her intimate knowledge of their conditions and +needs made it impossible for her to refrain from sometimes speaking the +words she knew they ought to hear. Whenever she did so at any length, she +laid her manuscript on the table, that they might know the truth. Her +sense of honesty would not let her do otherwise. It was long before +anybody but Angy Plummer understood the meaning of these intervals. The +rest supposed she knew parts of the sermon by heart. + +But at last came a day when her soul was so stirred within her, that she +rose up boldly before her people and said,-- + +"I have not brought any sermon of Mr. Kinney's to read to you to-day. I am +going to speak to you myself. I am so grieved, so shocked at events which +have taken place in this village, the past week, that I cannot help +speaking about them. And I find among Mr. Kinney's sermons no one which +meets this state of things." + +The circumstances to which Draxy alluded had been some disgraceful scenes +of excitement in connection with the Presidential election. Party spirit +had been growing higher and higher in Clairvend for some years; and when, +on the reckoning of the returns on this occasion, the victorious party +proved to have a majority of but three, sharp quarreling had at once +broken out. Accusations of cheating and lying were freely bandied, and +Deacon Plummer and George Thayer had nearly come to blows on the steps of +the Town House, at high noon, just as the school-children were going home. +Later in the afternoon there had been a renewal of the contest in the +village store, and it had culminated in a fight, part of which Draxy +herself had chanced to see. Long and anxiously she pondered, that night, +the question of her duty. She dared not keep silent. + +"It would be just hypocrisy and nothing less," she exclaimed to herself, +"for me to stand up there and read them one of Seth's sermons, when I am +burning to tell them how shamefully they have behaved. But I suppose it +will be the last time I shall speak to them. They'll never want to hear me +again." + +She did not tell her father of her resolution till they were near the +church. Reuben started, but in a moment he said, deliberately,-- + +"You're quite right, daughter; may the Lord bless you!" + +At Draxy's first words, a thrill of astonishment ran over the whole +congregation. Everybody knew what was coming. George Thayer colored +scarlet to the roots of his hair, and the color never faded till the +sermon was ended. Deacon Plummer coughed nervously, and changed his +position so as to cover his mouth with his hand. Angy put her head down on +the front of the pew and began to cry. + +"Render, therefore, unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's and unto God +the things that are God's," came in clear ringing tones from Draxy's lips. +Then she proceeded, in simple and gentle words, to set forth the right of +every man to his own opinions and convictions; the duty of having earnest +convictions and acting up to them in all the affairs of life. George +Thayer and the Deacon looked easier. Her words seemed, after all, rather a +justification of their vehemence of feeling. + +But when she came to speak of the "things that are God's," her words +pierced their very souls. The only thing that enabled George Thayer to +bear up under it at all was, as he afterwards said in the store, keeping +his "eyes fixed steady on old Plummer," "'cause, you know, boys, I never +jined the church nor made any kind o' profession o' goin' in for any +things o' God's, nohow; not but what I've often wished I could see my way +to: but sez I to myself, ef he kin stan' it I kin, an' so I held out. But +I tell you, boys, I'd rather drive the wust six-hoss team I ever got hold +on down Breakneck Hill 'n the dark, than set there agin under thet woman's +eyes, a blazin' one minnit, 'n fillin' with tears the next: 'n' I don't +care what anybody sez; I'm a goin' to see her an' tell her that she +needn't be afeard o' ever hevin to preach to me s' good s' by my name, in +the meeting 'us agin, by thunder!" + +"Suppose the blessed Saviour had come walking through our streets, looking +for his children last Wednesday," said Draxy, "He would say to himself, +'I shall know them, wherever I find them: I have given them so many +badges, they will be sure to be wearing some of them. They suffer long and +are kind; they envy not, vaunt not, are not puffed up: they are not easily +provoked, think no evil, seek not their own, rejoice in the truth; they do +not behave unseemly.' Alas, would the dear Jesus have turned away, +believing Himself a stranger and friendless in our village? Which one of +you, dear men, could have sprung forward to take him by the hand? What +terrible silence would have fallen upon you as he looked round on your +angry faces!" + +Tears were rolling down little Reuby's face. Slyly he tried to wipe them +away, first with one hand, then with the other, lest his mother should see +them. He had never in his life seen such an expression of suffering on +her face. He had never heard such tones of pain in her voice. He was +sorely perplexed; and the sight of his distressed little face was almost +more than the people could bear. + +When Draxy stopped speaking, Deacon Plummer did a manly thing. He rose +instantly, and saying "Let us pray," poured out as humble and contrite a +petition for forgiveness as ever went up on wings of faith to Heaven. It +cleared the air, like sweet rain; it rolled a burden off everybody's +heart--most of all, perhaps, off Draxy's. + +"He is not angry, after all," she said; "God has laid it to his heart;" +and when, at the end of the services, the old man came up to her and held +out his hand, she took it in both of hers, and said, "Thank you, dear +Deacon Plummer, thank you for helping me so much to-day. Your prayer was +better for the people than my little sermon, a great deal." The deacon +wrung her hands, but did not speak a word, only stooped and kissed Reuby. + +After this day, Draxy had a new hold on the people. They had really felt +very little surprise at her speaking to them as she did. She had slowly +and insensibly to herself grown into the same place which the Elder had +had in their regard; the same in love and confidence, but higher in +reverence, and admiration, for although she sympathized just as lovingly +as he in all their feelings, they never for a moment ceased to feel that +her nature was on a higher plane than his. They could not have put this in +words, but they felt it. + +"Donno, how 'tis," they said, "but Mis' Kinney, even when she's closest to +ye, an' a doin' for ye all the time, don't seem just like a mortal woman." + +"It's easy enough to know how 'tis," replied Angy Plummer, once, in a +moment of unguarded frankness, "Mis Kinney is a kind o' daughter o' God, +somthin' as Jesus Christ was His Son. It's just the way Jesus Christ used +to go round among folks, 's near 's I can make out; 'n' I for one, don't +believe that God jest sent Him, once for all, 'n' haint never sent anybody +else near us, all this time. I reckon He's a sendin' down sons and +daughters to us oftener 'n' we think." + +"Angy Plummer, I call that downright blasphemy," exclaimed her mother. + +"Well, call it what you're a mind to," retorted the crisp Angy. "It's what +I believe." + +"'Tis blasphemy though, to be sayin' it to folks that can't understand," +she muttered to herself as she left the room, "ef blasphemy means what +Mis' Kinney sez it does, to speak stupidly." + +Three years had passed. The novelty of Draxy's relation to her people had +worn off. The neighboring people had ceased to wonder and to talk; and the +neighboring ministers had ceased to doubt and question. Clairvend and she +had a stout supporter in old Elder Williams, who was looked upon as a high +authority throughout the region. He always stayed at Reuben Miller's +house, when he came to the town, and his counsel and sympathy were +invaluable to Draxy. Sometimes he said jocosely, "I am the pastor of +Brother Kinney's old parish and Mis' Kinney is my curate, and I wish +everybody had as good an one." + +It finally grew to be Draxy's custom to read one of her husband's sermons +in the forenoon, and to talk to the people informally in the afternoon. +Sometimes she wrote out what she wished to say, but usually she spoke +without any notes. She also wrote hymns which she read to them, and which +the choir sometimes sang. She was now fully imbued with the feeling that +everything which she could do, belonged to her people. Next to Reuben, +they filled her heart; the sentiment was after all but an expanded and +exalted motherhood. Strangers sometimes came to Clairvend to hear her +preach, for of course the fame of the beautiful white-robed woman-preacher +could not be confined to her own village. This always troubled Draxy very +much. + +"If we were not so far out of the world, I should have to give it up," she +said; "I know it is proper they should come; but it seems to me just as +strange as if they were to walk into the study in the evening when I am +teaching Reuby. I can't make it seem right; and when I see them writing +down what I say, it just paralyzes me." + +It might have seemed so to Draxy, but it did not to her hearers. No one +would have supposed her conscious of any disturbing presence. And more +than one visitor carried away with him written records of her eloquent +words. + +One of her most remarkable sermons was called "The Gospel of Mystery." + +The text was Psalm xix. 2:-- + + "Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge." + +First she dwelt on the sweet meaning of the word Gospel. "Dear friends," +she said, "it is a much simpler word than we realize; it is only 'good +news,' 'good tidings.' We get gospels every day. Our children send us good +news of their lives. What gospels of joy are such letters! And nations to +nations send good news: a race of slaves is set free; a war has ended; +shiploads of grain have been sent to the starving; a good man has been +made ruler; these are good tidings--gospels." + +After dwelling on this first, simplest idea of the word, until every one +of her hearers had begun to think vividly of all the good tidings +journeying in words back and forth between heart and heart, continent and +continent, she spoke of the good news which nature tells without words. +Here she was eloquent. Subtle as the ideas were, they were yet clothed in +the plain speech which the plain people understood: the tidings of the +spring, of the winter, of the river, of the mountain; of gold, of silver, +of electric fire; of blossom and fruit; of seed-time and harvest; of suns +and stars and waters,--these were the "speech" which "day uttered unto +day." + +But "knowledge was greater" than speech: night in her silence "showed" +what day could not tell. Here the faces of the people grew fixed and +earnest. In any other hands than Draxy's the thought would have been too +deep for them, and they would have turned from it wearily. But her +simplicity controlled them always. "Stand on your door-steps on a dark +night," she said,--"a night so dark that you can see nothing: looking out +into this silent darkness, you will presently feel a far greater sense of +how vast the world is, than you do in broad noon-day, when you can see up +to the very sun himself." + +More than one young face in the congregation showed that this sentence +struck home and threw light on hitherto unexplained emotions. "This is +like what I mean," continued Draxy, "by the Gospel of Mystery, the good +tidings of the things we cannot understand. This gospel is everywhere. Not +the wisest man that has ever lived can fully understand the smallest +created thing: a drop of water, a grain of dust, a beam of light, can +baffle his utmost research. So with our own lives, with our own hearts; +every day brings a mystery--sin and grief and death: all these are +mysteries; gospels of mystery, good tidings of mystery; yes, good tidings! +These are what prove that God means to take us into another world after +this one; into a world where all things which perplexed us here will be +explained.... O my dear friends!" she exclaimed at last, clasping her +hands tightly, "thank God for the things which we cannot understand: +except for them, how should we ever be sure of immortality?" + +Then she read them a hymn called "The Gospel of Mystery." Coming after the +sermon, it was sweet and clear to all the people's hearts. Before the +sermon it would have seemed obscure. + + The Gospel of Mystery. + + Good tidings every day, + God's messengers ride fast. + We do not hear one half they say, + There is such noise on the highway, + Where we must wait while they ride past. + + Their banners blaze and shine + With Jesus Christ's dear name, + And story, how by God's design + He saves us, in His love divine, + And lifts us from our sin and shame. + + Their music fills the air, + Their songs sing all of Heaven; + Their ringing trumpet peals declare + What crowns to souls who fight and dare, + And win, shall presently be given. + + Their hands throw treasures round + Among the multitude. + No pause, no choice, no count, no bound, + No questioning how men are found, + If they be evil or be good. + + But all the banners bear + Some words we cannot read; + And mystic echoes in the air, + Which borrow from the songs no share, + In sweetness all the songs exceed. + + And of the multitude, + No man but in his hand + Holds some great gift misunderstood, + Some treasure, for whose use or good + His ignorance sees no demand. + + These are the tokens lent + By immortality; + Birth-marks of our divine descent; + Sureties of ultimate intent, + God's Gospel of Eternity. + + Good tidings every day. + The messengers ride fast; + Thanks be to God for all they say; + There is such noise on the highway, + Let us keep still while they ride past. + +But the sermon which of all others her people loved best was one on the +Love of God. This one she was often asked to repeat,--so often, that she +said one day to Angy, who asked for it, "Why, Angy, I am ashamed to. +Everybody must know it by heart. I am sure I do." + +"Yes, that's jest the way we do know it, Mis' Kinney, by heart," said the +affectionate Angy, "an' that's jest the reason we want it so often. I +never told ye what George Thayer said the last time you read it to us, did +I?" + +"No, Angy," said Draxy. + +"Well, he was singing in the choir that day, 'n place o' his brother, who +was sick; 'n' he jumped up on one o' the seats 'n' swung his hat, jest 's +you was goin' down the aisle, 'n' we all ketched hold on him to pull him +down, 'n' try to hush him; for you can't never tell what George Thayer'll +do when his blood's up, 'n' we was afraid he was agoin' to holler right +out, 's ef he was in the town-'us; but sez he, in a real low, trembly kind +o' voice, + +"'Ye needn't be afraid, I ain't agoin' to whoop;--taint that way I +feel,--but I had to do suthin' or I should bust': 'n' there was reel tears +in his eyes--George Thayer's eyes, Mis' Kinney! Then he jumped down, 'n' +sez he, 'I'll tell ye what that sermon's like: it's jest like one great +rainbow all round ye, and before 'n' behind 'n' everywheres, 'n' the end +on't reaches way to the Throne; it jest dazzles my eyes, that's what it +does.'" + +This sermon had concluded with the following hymn, which Draxy had written +when Reuby was only a few weeks old:-- + + The Love of God. + + Like a cradle rocking, rocking, + Silent, peaceful, to and fro, + Like a mother's sweet looks dropping + On the little face below, + Hangs the green earth, swinging, turning, + Jarless, noiseless, safe and slow; + Falls the light of God's face bending + Down and watching us below. + + And as feeble babes that suffer, + Toss and cry, and will not rest, + Are the ones the tender mother + Holds the closest, loves the best, + So when we are weak and wretched, + By our sins weighed down, distressed, + Then it is that God's great patience + Holds us closest, loves us best. + + O great Heart of God! whose loving + Cannot hindered be nor crossed; + Will not weary, will not even + In our death itself be lost-- + Love divine! of such great loving, + Only mothers know the cost-- + Cost of love, which all love passing, + Gave a Son to save the lost. + +There is little more to tell of Draxy's ministry. It closed as suddenly as +it had begun. + +It was just five years after the Elder's death that she found herself, one +Sunday morning, feeling singularly feeble and lifeless. She was bewildered +at the sensation, for in her apparent health she had never felt it before. +She could hardly walk, could hardly stand. She felt also a strange apathy +which prevented her being alarmed. + +"It is nothing," she said; "I dare say most women are so all the time; I +don't feel in the least ill;" and she insisted upon it that no one should +remain at home with her. It was a communion Sunday and Elder Williams was +to preach. + +"How fortunate it is that Mr. Williams was here!" she thought languidly, +as she seated herself in the eastern bay-window, to watch Reuby down the +hill. He walked between his grandparents, holding each by the hand, +talking merrily and looking up into their faces. + +Draxy watched them until their figures became dim, black specks, and +finally faded out of sight. Then she listened dreamily to the notes of the +slow-tolling bell; when it ceased she closed her eyes, and her thoughts +ran back, far back to the days when she was "little Draxy" and Elder +Kinney was only her pastor. Slowly she lived her life since then over +again, its joy and its sorrow alike softened in her tender, brooding +thoughts. The soft whirring sound of a bird's wings in the air roused her: +as it flew past the window she saw that it was one of the yellow-hammers, +which still built their nests in the maple-grove behind the house. + +"Ah," thought she, "I suppose it can't be one of the same birds we saw +that day. But it's going on errands just the same. I wonder, dear Seth, if +mine are nearly done." + +At that instant a terrible pain shot through her left side and forced a +sharp cry from her lips. She half rose exclaiming, "Reuby, oh, darling!" +and sank back in her chair unconscious. + +Just as Elder Williams was concluding the communion service, the door of +the church was burst open, and old Ike, tottering into the aisle, cried +out in a shrill voice:-- + +"Mis' Kinney's dead! Mis' Kinney's dead!" + +The scene that followed could not be told. With flying feet the whole +congregation sped up the steep hill--Angy Plummer half lifting, half +dragging Reuby, and the poor grandparents supported on each side by strong +men. As they drew near the house, they saw Draxy apparently sitting by the +open window. + +"O mamma! why that's mamma," shrieked Reuby, "she was sitting just so when +we came away. She isn't dead." + +Elder Williams reached the house first, Hannah met him on the threshold, +tearless. + +"She dead, sir. She's cold as ice. She must ha' been dead a long time." + +Old Ike had been rambling around the house, and observing from the outside +that Draxy's position was strange, had compelled Hannah to go into the +room. + +"She was a smilin' just's you see her now," said Hannah, "'n' I couldn't +ha' touched her to move her more'n I could ha' touched an angel." + +There are griefs, as well as joys, to which words offer insult. Draxy was +dead! + +Three days later they laid her by the side of her husband, and the +gray-haired, childless old people, and the golden-haired, fatherless and +motherless boy, returned together broken-hearted to the sunny parsonage. + +On the village a terrible silence, that could be felt, settled down; a +silence in which sorrowing men and women crept about, weeping as those who +cannot be comforted. + +Then week followed after week, and soon all things seemed as they had +seemed before. But Draxy never died to her people. Her hymns are still +sung in the little lonely church; her gospel still lives in the very air +of those quiet hills, and the people smile through their tears as they +teach her name to little children. + + + + +Whose Wife Was She? + + + +I was on my knees before my chrysanthemum-bed, looking at each little +round tight disk of a bud, and trying to believe that it would be a snowy +flower in two weeks. In two weeks my cousin Annie Ware was to be married: +if my white chrysanthemums would only understand and make haste! I was +childish enough to tell them so; but the childishness came of love,--of my +exceeding, my unutterable love for Annie Ware; if flowers have souls, the +chrysanthemums understood me. + +A sharp, quick roll of wheels startled me. I lifted my head. The wheels +stopped at our gate; a hurried step came down the broad garden-path, and +almost before I had had time to spring to my feet, Dr. Fearing had taken +both my hands in his, had said,--"Annie Ware has the fever,"--had turned, +had gone, had shut the garden gate, and the same sharp quick roll of +wheels told that he was far on his way to the next sufferer. + +I do not know how long I stood still in the garden. A miserable sullenness +seemed to benumb my faculties. I repeated,-- + +"Annie Ware has the fever." Then I said,-- + +"Annie Ware cannot die; she is too young, too strong, and we love her +so." + +Then I said again,-- + +"Annie Ware has the fever," and all the time I seemed not to be thinking +about her at all, but about the chrysanthemums, whose tops I still idly +studied. + +For weeks a malignant typhus fever had been slowly creeping about in the +lower part of our village, in all the streets which had been under water +in the spring freshet. + +These streets were occupied chiefly by laboring people, either +mill-operatives, or shopkeepers of the poorer class. It was part of the +cruel "calamity" of their "poverty" that they could not afford to have +homesteads on the high plateau, which lifted itself quite suddenly from +the river meadow, and made our village a by-word of beauty all through New +England. + +Upon this plateau were laid out streets of great regularity, shaded by +grand elms, many of which had been planted by hands that had handled the +ropes of the _Mayflower_. Under the shade of these elms stood large +old-fashioned houses, in that sort of sleepy dignity peculiar to old New +England. We who lived in these houses were also sleepy and dignified. We +knew that "under the hill," as it was called, lived many hundreds of men +and women, who were stifled in summer for want of the breezes which swept +across our heights, cold in winter because the wall of our plateau shut +down upon them the icy airs from the frozen river, and cut off the +afternoon sun. We were sorry for them, and we sent them cold meat and +flannels sometimes; but their life was as remote from our life as if they +never crossed our paths; it is not necessary to go into large cities to +find sharp lines drawn between the well-to-do and the poverty-stricken. +There are, in many small villages, "districts" separated from each other +by as distinct a moral distance as divides Fifth Avenue from the Five +Points. + +And so it had come to pass that while for weeks this malignant fever had +been creeping about on the river shore, we, in our clearer, purer air, had +not felt even a dread of it. There had not been a single case of it west +of the high water mark made by the terrible freshet of the previous +spring. We sent brandy and wine and beef-tea into the poor, comfortless, +grief-stricken houses; and we said at tea-time that it was strange, people +would persist in living down under the bank: what could they expect? and +besides, they were "so careless about drainage and ventilation." + +Now, on the highest and loveliest spot, in the richest and most beautiful +house, the sweetest and fairest girl of all our village lay ill of the +deadly disease. + +"Annie Ware has the fever." I wondered if some fiend were lurking by my +side, who kept saying the words over and over in my ear. With that +indescribable mixture of dulled and preternaturally sharpened sense which +often marks the first moments of such distress, I walked slowly to my +room, and in a short time had made all the necessary preparation for +leaving home. I felt like a thief as I stole slowly down the stairs, with +my travelling-bag in my hand. At the door I met my father. + +"Hey-day, my darling, where now? Off to Annie's, as usual?" + +He had not heard the tidings! Should I tell him? I might never see him +again; only too well I knew the terrible danger into which I was going. +But he might forbid me. + +"Yes, off to Annie's," I said in a gay tone, and kissing him sprang down +the steps. + +I did not see my father again for eighteen days. + +On the steps of my uncle's house I met old Jane, a colored woman who had +nursed Annie Ware when she was a baby, and who lived now in a little +cottage near by, from whose door-steps she could see Annie's window, and +in whose garden she raised flowers of all sorts, solely for the pleasure +of carrying them to Annie every day. + +Jane's face was positively gray with sorrow and fear. She looked at me +with a strange sort of unsympathizing hardness in her eyes. She had never +loved me. I knew what she thought. She was saying to herself: "Why not +this one instead of the other?" + +"O auntie!" I said, "I would die for Annie; you know I would." + +At this she melted. "O honey! don' ye say that. The Lord"--but she could +say no more. She threw her apron up over her head and strode away. + +The doors of the house stood open. I walked through room after room, and +found no human being. At last, at the foot of the stairs in the back part +of the house, I came upon all the servants huddled together in a cowering, +weeping group. Flat on the floor, with his face to the wall, lay black +Cæsar, the coachman. I put my hand on his shoulder. He jerked away +impatiently. + +"Yer jest lemme lone, will yer?" he said in a choking voice; then lifting +up his head, and seeing it was I, he half sprang to his feet, with a look +of shame and alarm, and involuntarily carrying his hand to his head, +said:-- + +"O miss! who's gwine to think yer"--here he too broke down, and buried his +face in his great hands. + +I did not speak, but the little group instinctively opened to let me pass +up the stairs. I had a vague consciousness that they said something as I +turned into a little cross-hall which led to Annie's room; but without +attending to their words I opened her door. The room was empty; the bed +stripped of clothes; the windows wide open. I sank into a chair, and +looked from side to side. I was too late, after all! That was why none of +the servants dared speak to me. A little slipper of Annie's lay on the +floor by the bed. I took it up and turned it over and over in my hands. +Then I became conscious that my Aunt Ann was speaking to me,--was calling +me by name, earnestly, repeatedly, with terror in her voice. + +"My dear, dear child; Helen, Helen, Helen, she is not dead. She is in my +room. Come and see for yourself." + +I had seen my Aunt Ann every day for nineteen years,--I never knew her +until that moment; I never saw her real face until that moment. + +I followed her slowly through rooms and passageways till she reached her +own chamber. The door was open; the room was very dark. On the threshold +she paused, and whispered, "You must not be frightened, darling. She will +not know you. She has not known any one for six hours." + +I knelt down by the bed. In a few moments my eyes became used to the +darkness, and I saw Annie's face lying motionless on the farther edge of +the bed, turned to the wall. It was perfectly white except the lips, which +were almost black, and were swollen and crusted over with the fearful +fever. Her beautiful hair fell in tangled masses, and half covered her +face. + +"She seems to be lying very uncomfortably," said Aunt Ann, "but the doctor +ordered that she should not be disturbed in any way." + +I looked at my aunt's face and listened to her voice in bewilderment. The +whole world had for years called her, and with apparent justice, "a hard +and unsympathizing woman." No human being had ever seen a really free +unconstrained smile on her face, or heard from her lips an impulsive word. +When it was known that the genial, rollicking, open-hearted Henry Ware was +to marry her, everybody shuddered. As years went on, everybody who sat by +Henry Ware's fireside, and was kindled and made welcome by his +undiminished and unconquerable cheeriness, felt at the same time chilled +and paralyzed by the courteous, unexceptionable dignity of Mrs. Ware. Even +I, having the freedom of a daughter in their house, and loving my uncle +hardly less than I loved my father, had never once supposed that anybody +could love Aunt Ann, or that she would permit it. I always felt a little +terror when I saw Annie kiss her, or my uncle put his arm around her. My +own loving, caressing, over-flowing mother had given me by inheritance, +and had taught me by example, a type of love which knew no life without +expression. And very well I knew that that sweet mother of mine, whom the +whole town loved, and who herself loved the whole world, seemed always +turned into stone by the simple presence of Aunt Ann. + +And now Aunt Ann was sitting on the floor by my side, clinging to my hand, +resting my head on her bosom, and, as I felt instantly and instinctively, +revealing in her every tone, look, word, such intensity and passionateness +of feeling as I had never in my whole life seen before. I saw then that +she had always held me side by side with her own child in her heart, and +that she knew the rare quality of the love I had for Annie. + +"I ought not to have let you come here," she said, more as if speaking to +herself than to me; "they, too, have but one." + +"But, Aunt Ann, you could not have kept me out," I whispered. + +"Yes, I knew that, my child," she replied; "but no one else would know +it." + +From that moment there was between my Aunt Ann and me a subtle bond which +partook of all the holiest mysteries of love. There were both motherhood +and the love of lovers in my love for Annie. Annie's mother felt them, and +was willing to have her own motherhood added to and ministered to by them. +From that moment I believe not even her husband seemed so near to her in +her relation with her child as I. + +I will not write out the record of the next two weeks. They seemed, as +they passed, a thousand years; and yet, in looking back on them, they seem +only like one terrible breathless night. My aunt and I alone did all that +was done for Annie. There were whole days and whole nights during which +she talked incessantly, sometimes with such subtle semblance of her own +sweet self that we could hardly believe she did not know what she said; +sometimes with such wild ravings that we shook in terror, and could not +look at her nor at each other. There were other days and nights through +which she lay in a sleep, which seemed-no more like real sleep than the +shrill voice of her ravings had seemed like her real voice. These were +most fearful of all. Through all these days and nights, two men with white +faces and folded arms walked up and down in the rooms below, or crouched +on the thresholds of our doors, listening for sign or word from us. One +was Annie's father, and the other was her lover, George Ware. He was her +second cousin, fifteen years older than she, and had loved her since the +day she was one year old, when at the ceremony of her christening, he, a +proud shy boy of sixteen, had been allowed to carry her up-stairs with her +sweet name resting fresh and new on her little dewy forehead. Ah, seldom +does such love spring and grow and blaze on this earth as had warmed the +very air around Annie from the moment of her birth. George Ware was a man +of rare strength, as this love showed; and with just such faithfulness as +his faithfulness to Annie, he had loved and cared for his mother, who had +been for twenty years a widow. They lived on the outskirts of the town, +in a small house almost buried in the heart of a pine wood. The wood was +threaded in all directions by miles of narrow paths which shone in the +shaded sunlight as if they were satin-floored. For nineteen years it had +been George Ware's joy to roam these paths with his cousin Annie; first, +the baby whom he drew in her wicker wagon; next, the wayward little child +who walked with stumbling steps and clung to his finger; next, the gay +school-girl who brought all her perplexities and all her joys to be +confided to him under the pines; next, the shyer and more silent maiden +who came less often, but lingered helplessly until twilight made the +fragrant aisles solemn and dim as cloisters; at last, the radiant, the +child-like woman, the promised wife! + +No winter could set a barrier across these pine-wood paths. When the whole +country about lay blocked and drifted, and half buried with snow, all +these spicy foot-roads were kept clear and level, and ready for Annie's +feet. Whole days of George Ware's strength went into the work and the joy +of doing this. In open spaces where the snow had drifted deep, he wrought +it into solid walls almost as high on either hand as Annie's head. In dark +nooks, where the spreading pines and hemlocks lay low and wide, he tossed +the snow into fantastic and weird masses on the right and left, and +cleared great spaces where he knew the partridge-berry would be ready with +a tiny scarlet glow to light up the spot. + +This was George Ware's wooing. It never stepped into the glare, the +contention of profaner air. It was not a seeking, a finding, a conquest; +but a slow, sure growth of possession, which had as eternal foundation and +seemed as eternally safe as the results of organic law. + +George's picture hung in Annie's room, opposite the foot of her bed. +Opposite the foot of the bed in her mother's room hung a large engraving +of the Sistine Madonna. I fancied that in Annie's quieter moments her eyes +rested with a troubled look upon this picture, and one day, when she was +in a deep sleep, I exchanged the pictures. I felt as if even lifeless +canvas which had George's face painted upon it, might work her good. + +At last there came a night,--they said it was the fourteenth, but the +words conveyed no meaning to me,--there came a night when Dr. Fearing, who +had been sitting by Annie's bed for two hours, watching her every breath, +sprang suddenly to his feet, and beckoned to my aunt and me to follow him +into the next room. He shut the door, walked very swiftly up to us, looked +first into her face then into mine; then felt her pulse, and then mine, +and then turning to me, said,-- + +"It will have to be you." We looked at him in sudden terror. The tears +were rolling down his wrinkled cheeks. + +"What is it, William?" gasped Aunt Ann. + +"It will have to be you," he went on, looking me in the face, and taking +no notice of her question; "your pulse can be trusted. There has been a +change. When Annie wakes out of this sleep she will know you. It may be in +two hours, and it may not be for six. But if in that first moment she is +alarmed, or agitated in any way, she will die." + +"O William, let me stay. I will be calm," moaned my poor aunt. + +Then I observed, for the first time, that she had called him "William." +And then, for the first and last time, I heard Dr. Fearing call my Aunt +Ann "darling," and I remembered in that instant that it had been said once +in my hearing, that it was because of his love for Mrs. Henry Ware that +Dr. William Fearing had lived and would die a lonely man. + +"Darling," he said, and put one hand on her shoulder, "you would kill your +child. I forbid you to cross the threshold of that room till I come back. +You will thank me to-morrow. Can you not trust me, Ann?" and he looked +down from his full height, this brave old man, into the face of the woman +he had loved, with a look like the look of one who dies to save another. +It was but for one second, and then he was again the physician, and +turning to me, went on, "I have another patient to whom I must instantly +go, and whom I may not be able to leave for hours. You can do all that I +would do,--I believe,"--then he felt my pulse again, and nodding his head +with a sort of grim professional satisfaction, which no amount of emotion +could wholly divert from its delight in the steady nerves and undisturbed +currents of a healthy body,--resumed, "You have but one thing to do: when +she wakes, look perfectly composed; if she speaks, answer her in a +perfectly natural voice; give her two drops of this medicine, and tell her +to go to sleep again. If you do this, she will fall asleep at once. If +you show the least agitation, she may die,--probably will!"--and Dr. +Fearing was gone. + +My aunt sat silently weeping. I kissed her without speaking, and went back +to my chair by Annie's bed. I dropped the two drops of medicine into a +spoon, and propped the spoon carefully on a little silver tray, so that I +could reach it instantly. It was just three o'clock in the morning. Hour +after hour passed. I could not hear Annie's breath. My own dinned in my +ears like the whir of mills. A terror such as I can never describe took +possession of me. What if I were to kill Annie? How could I look composed? +speak naturally? What would she say? If I could but know and have my +answer ready! + +I firmly believe that the dawn of light saved my senses and Annie's life. +When the first red beam shot through the blinds at the farther end of the +room, tears came into my eyes. I felt as if angels were watching outside. +A tiny sunbeam crept between the slats and fell on the carpet. It was no +more than a hair's breadth, but it was companionship to me. Slowly, +steadily it came towards me. I forgot all else in watching it. To this day +I cannot see a slow-moving sunbeam on a crimson floor without a shudder. +The clock struck six, seven, eight, nine. The bells rang for schools; the +distant hum of the town began. Still there was no stir, no symptom of +life, in the colorless face on the pillow. The sunbeam had crept nearly to +my feet. Involuntarily I lifted my right foot and stretched it out-to meet +the golden messenger. Had I dared to move I should have knelt and reached +my hand to it instead. Perhaps even the slight motion I did make, +hastened Annie's waking, for at that instant she turned her head uneasily +on the pillow and opened her eyes. I saw that she knew me. I wondered how +I could have distrusted my own strength to meet her look. I smiled as if +we were at play together, and said,-- + +"Good morning, dear." + +She smiled languidly and said, "How came I in mamma's bed?" + +I said, quietly, "Take this medicine, darling;" and almost before the +drops had passed her lips her eyes closed, and she had fallen asleep +again. + +When Dr. Fearing came into the room at noon, he gave one swift, anxious +glance at her face, and then fell on his knees and folded his face in his +hands. I knew that Annie was safe. + +Then he went into the next room, silently took Aunt Ann by the hand, and +leading her back to Annie's bedside, pointed to the little beads of +moisture on her forehead and said,-- + +"Saved!" + +The revulsion was too much for the poor mother's heart. She sank to the +floor. He lifted her in his arms and carried her out, and for the rest of +that day my Aunt Ann, that "hard and unsympathizing woman," passed from +one strange fainting-fit into another, until we were in almost as great +fear for her life as we had been for Annie's. + +At twilight Annie roused from her sleep again. She was perfectly tranquil, +but too weak to lift even her little hand, which had grown so thin and so +wrinkled that it looked like a wilted white flower lying on the white +counterpane. + +Hour by hour she gained strength under the powerful restoratives which +were used, and still more from the wonderful elasticity of her +temperament. From the very first day, however, an indefinable terror of +misgiving seized me as often as I heard her voice or looked into her eyes. +In vain I said to myself: "It is the weakness after such terrible +illness;" "it is only natural." I felt in the bottom of my heart that it +was more. + +On the fourth day she said suddenly, looking up at the picture of George +Ware,-- + +"Why! Why is Cousin George's picture in here? Where is the Madonna?" + +I replied: "I moved it in here, dear, for you. I thought you would like +it." + +"No," she said, "I like the Madonna best: the dear little baby! Please +carry George back into my room where he belongs." + +My heart stood still with terror. She had never called George Ware her +cousin since their engagement. She especially disliked any allusion to +their relationship. This was her first mention of his name, and it was in +all respects just what it would have been a year before. Dr. Fearing had +forbidden us to allude to him, or to her wedding-day, or, in fact, to any +subject calculated to arouse new trains of thought in her mind. I wondered +afterward that we did not understand from the first how he had feared that +her brain might not fully recover itself, as the rest of her exquisitely +organized body seemed fast doing. + +Day after day passed. Annie could sit up; could walk about her room; she +gained in flesh and color and strength so rapidly that it was a marvel. +She was gentle and gay and loving; her old rare, sweet self in every +little way and trait and expression; not a look, not a smile, not a tone +was wanting; but it was the Annie of last year, and not of this. She made +no allusion to her wedding, the day for which had now passed. She did not +ask for George. The whole year had dropped out of her memory; part of her +brain was still diseased. No human touch could venture to deal with it +without the risk of the most terrible consequences. + +Dr. Fearing's face grew day by day more and more anxious; he was baffled; +he was afraid. He consulted the most eminent physicians who had had +experience in diseases of the brain. They all counseled patience, and +advised against any attempt to hasten her recollections upon any point; +they all had known similar cases, but never one so sharply defined or so +painful as this. Still they were unanimous in advising that nothing should +be said to startle her; that all must be trusted to time. + +Through these terrible days George Ware was braver than any one else. His +faith in the absoluteness of his hold on Annie was too great to be +disturbed. He was by nature as patient as he was resolute. He had not +wooed his wife for eighteen years to lose her now in any way except by +death, he thought. He comforted us all. + +"Do be brave, sweet mother of Annie," he used to say to my poor Aunt Ann; +"all will be well. It is nothing to me to wait another year, after having +waited all these. It is not even hard for me to go without seeing her, if +that is best." + +Nevertheless, his face grew thin and his eye heavy and his form bent, as +week after week passed, and he came daily to the house, only to be told +the same weary thing, that Annie had not asked for him. The physicians had +said that it would be better that she should not see him until she had of +her own accord mentioned his name. Her nerves were still in such a state +that any surprise threw her into palpitation and alarm which did not pass +off for hours. No human being could tell how great might be the shock of +seeing his face; how much it might recall to her; and whether, if it +recalled all, she could bear it. From the outset George believed the +physicians were wrong in this; but he dared not urge his instinct against +their knowledge; and he was patient of nature, and so the days went on, +on, on; and there was no change except that Annie grew steadily better and +our hearts grew steadily sicker and sicker until we almost looked back +with longing on the days when we feared she would die. And yet in every +respect, except the memory of her lover, Annie was the same as before. The +closest scrutiny could discover no other change in her, except perhaps +that she seemed even gayer than she used to seem, and a shade less tender, +but this also was as she had been before she had promised to be George +Ware's wife. + +One morning George brought me a small bunch of lovely wild things from the +pine woods, Tiarella leaves just tipped with claret color by the early +frosts, sprays of Linnea, two or three tiny white maiden's hair ferns, all +tied by a knot of patridge-berry vines thick-set with scarlet berries. + +"Give these to Annie for me, will you, dear Helen?" he said, "and observe +very carefully how she is affected by them." + +I remembered that it was just one year ago that day, that he had asked her +to be his wife, and I trembled to think of what hidden meanings I might be +messenger in carrying her this silent token. But I too felt, as George +did, that she was drifting farther and farther away from the memories we +desired she should regain; and that no physician's knowledge could be so +true as love's instinct; and I asked no counsel of any one, but went +swiftly to Annie with the leaves in my hand. + +"O you darling! How perfectly lovely," she exclaimed with a laugh of +delight. "Why these must have come from George's woods. Have you been up +there?" + +"No, dear," I said, "George brought them for you, this morning." + +"Oh, the good darling!" she exclaimed. "Is it decided about his going to +India?" + +I could not repress a little cry of anguish and terror. A year before, +there had been a plan for his going out to India on a mercantile venture, +which promised great profit. It had been given up, partly because his +mother felt that she could not live without him, partly because he felt +that he could not longer live without Annie. + +"What is it, dear?" she said, in her softest, most sympathizing voice, +with a little flush of alarm on her pale cheek; "what hurt you? are you +ill? Oh, my poor Helen, you are all worn out with nursing me. I will nurse +you presently." + +"Only a little twinge of my old neuralgia, dear," I said faintly; "these +autumn winds are setting it at work again." + +She looked anxiously at me for a few seconds, and then began to untie the +bunch of leaves, and spread out the long vines on the bed. + +"Oh, if I only had some moss," she said. + +I ran to the green-house and brought her handfuls of beautiful dripping +mosses from the rocks in the fernery. She filled a saucer with them, +putting the Tiarella leaves all round the rim, and winding the Linnea +vines in and out as they grow in the woods. Then she leaned back on her +pillows and began breaking the partridge-berry vines into short bits, each +with a scarlet berry on it. These she set upright in the moss, changing +and rearranging them so often that I wondered what could be her purpose, +and leaned forward to see. + +"No, no," she said playfully, pushing me back, "not till it is done." + +Presently she said, "Now look!" + +I looked and saw a perfect, beautifully formed G made by the scarlet +berries on the green moss. + +"There," she said, "I'll send that back to George, to show him that I have +found him in the berries; or, no," she added, "we'll keep it till he comes +to see me. The doctor said I could be carried down-stairs to-morrow, and +then I shall begin to 'receive,'" and she laughed a gay little laugh, and +sank back tired. + +That moment stands out in my memory as the saddest, hardest one of all. I +think at that moment hope died in my heart. + +When I told George of this, and showed him the saucer of moss--for she +had ordered it to be set on the drawing-room table, saying, "It is too +pretty to stay up here with bottles and invalids,"--he buried his face in +his hands for many minutes. When he lifted it, he looked me steadily in +the eye, and said,-- + +"She has utterly forgotten this whole year. But I will win her again." + +Then he knelt down and kissed every little leaf and berry which her hands +had touched, and went away without speaking another word. + +It was decided after this that it could do no harm for him to see her. +Indeed, he now demanded it. His resolution was taken. + +"You need not fear," he said to Dr. Fearing, "that I shall agitate her by +approaching her as if she were my own. She is not my own. But she will +be!" + +We all sat with trembling hands and beating hearts as the hour approached +at which we knew the experiment was to be made. + +Annie had been carried down-stairs, and laid upon a lounge in the western +bay-window of the library. The lounge was covered with dark green damask. +Old Cæsar had so implored to be allowed to carry her down, that Annie had +insisted that he should be gratified; and she went down as she had so +often done in her childhood, with her soft white face lying close to his +shining black one. + +As he put her down, in her rose-colored wrapper, on the dark green damask, +he knelt before her and burst out in spite of himself, into a sort of wild +chant of thanksgiving; but as we entered the door he sprang up ashamed, +and turning to Aunt Ann, said: "Beg pardon, missis, but this rose yere was +too much pink rose for old Cæsar!" + +It was "too much pink rose" for any human eyes to see unmoved. We all +cried: and Annie herself shed a few tears, but finally helped us all by +saying gayly,-- + +"You'll make me ill again if you all go on like this. I hate people that +cry." + +No stranger's eye would have detected the thousandth part of a second's +pause which George Ware's feet made on the threshold of that room when his +eyes first saw Annie. Before the second had ended he was simply the eager, +glad, affectionate cousin, and had taken calmly and lovingly the child's +kiss which Annie gave him as she had given it every day of her life. + +We could not speak. My uncle tried to read his newspaper; my aunt's hands +shook in their pretense of sewing; I threw myself on the floor at the foot +of Annie's lounge and hid my face in its cushions. + +But George Ware's brave voice went steadily on. Annie's sweet glad tones, +weak and low, but still sweeter than any other tones I ever heard, chimed +in and out like fairy bells from upper air. More than an hour passed. I do +not know one word that we said. + +Then George rose, saying: "I must not tire you, little Annie, so I am +going now." + +"Will you come, again to-morrow?" she asked as simply as a little child. + +"Yes, dear, if you are not the worse for this," he replied, and kissed her +forehead and walked very quickly away without looking back. I followed +him instantly into the hall, for I had seen that in his face which had +made me fear that, strong man as he was, he would fall. I found him +sitting on the lowest step of the staircase, just outside the door. + +"My God, Helen," he gasped, "it isn't only this last year she has +forgotten. She has gone back five years." + +"Oh no, dear George," I said; "you are mistaken. She remembers everything +up to a year ago. You know she remembered about your going to India." + +"That is nothing," he said impatiently. "You can't any of you, see what I +mean, I suppose. But I tell you she has forgotten five years of me. She is +to me just as she was when she was fourteen. Do you think I don't know the +face and voice and touch of each day of my darling's life? oh, my God! my +God!" and he sank down on the stair again in a silence which was worse +than groans. I left him there and went back to Annie. + +"How old Cousin George looks," she was saying, as I entered the room; "I +didn't remember that he was so old. Why, he looks as old as you do, sweet +papa. But then," reflectively, "after all, he is pretty old. He is fifteen +years older than I am--and I am nineteen: thirty-four! that is old, is it +not papa?" said she, half petulantly. "Why don't you speak, any of you?" + +"You are getting too tired, my darling," said her father, "and now I shall +carry you up-stairs." + +After Annie was asleep, my Aunt Ann and I sat for hours in the library, +going over and over and over, with weary hopelessness, all her words and +looks, and trying to comfort each other. I think each knew the utter +despair of the other's heart. + +From this time George came and went with all his old familiarity: not a +day passed without his seeing Annie, and planning something for her +amusement or pleasure. Not a day passed without her showing in many ways +that he made a large part of her life, was really a central interest in +it. Even to us who knew the sad truth, and who looked on with intentness +and anxiety hardly less than those with which we had watched her sick-bed +weeks before--even to us it seemed many times as if all must be right. No +stranger but would believe them lovers; not a servant in the house dreamed +but that Miss Annie was still looking forward to her wedding. They had all +been forbidden to allude to it, but they supposed it was only on account +of her weakness and excitability. + +But every day the shadow deepened on George Ware's face. I could see, +though he would not admit it, that the same despair which filled my soul +was settling down upon his. Dr. Fearing, too, who came and spent long +evenings with us, and cautiously watched Annie's every tone and look, grew +more and more uneasy. Dr. ----, one of the most distinguished physicians +of the insane, in the country, was invited to spend a few days in the +house. He was presented to Annie as an old friend of her father's, and won +at once her whole confidence and regard. For four days he studied her +case, and frankly owned himself baffled, and unable to suggest any measure +except the patient waiting which was killing us all. + +To tell this frail and excitable girl, who had more than once fainted at +a sudden noise, that this man whom she regarded only as her loving cousin +had been her promised husband--and that having been within two weeks of +her wedding-day, she had now utterly forgotten it, and all connected with +it--this would be too fearful a risk. It might deprive her forever of her +reason. + +Otherwise, she seemed in every respect, even in the smallest particular, +herself. She recollected her music, her studies, her friends. She was +anxious to resume her old life at all points. Every day she made allusions +to old plans or incidents. She had forgotten absolutely nothing excepting +the loverhood of her lover. Every day she grew stronger, and became more +and more beautiful, There was a slight under-current of arch +mischievousness and half petulance which she had never had before, and +which, added to her sweet sympathetic atmosphere, made her indescribably +charming. As she grew stronger she frolicked with every human being and +every living thing. When the spring first opened and she could be out of +doors, she seemed more like a divine mixture of Ariel and Puck than like a +mortal maiden. + +I found her one day lying at full length on the threshold of the +greenhouse. Twenty great azaleas were in full bloom on the shelves--white, +pink, crimson. She had gathered handfuls of the fallen blossoms, and was +making her gray kitten, which was as intelligent and as well trained as a +dog, jump into the air to catch them as she tossed them up. I sat down on +the grass outside and watched her silently. + +"Oh, you sober old Helen," she said, "you'll be an owl for a thousand +years after you die! Why can't you caper a little? You don't know how nice +it is." + +Just then George came slowly walking down the garden path, his hands +clasped behind him, his head bent forward, and his eyes fixed on the +ground. + +He did not see us. Annie exclaimed,-- + +"There's Cousin George, too! Look at him! Wouldn't you think he had just +heard he was to be executed at twelve to-day! I don't see what ails +everybody." + +"George, George," she called, "come here. For how many years are you +sentenced, dear, and how could you have been so silly as to be found out?" +And then she burst into a peal of the most delicious laughter at his +bewildered look. + +"I don't know, darling, for how many years I am sentenced. We none of us +know," he said, in a tone which was sadder than he meant it should be, and +sobered her loving heart instantly. She sprang to her feet, and threw both +her arms around his right arm, a pretty trick she had kept from her +babyhood, and said,-- + +"Oh you dear, good darling, does anything really trouble you? How +heartless I am. But you don't know how it feels to have been so awfully +ill, and then to get well again. It makes one feel all body and no soul; +but I have soul enough to love you all dearly, you know I have; and I +won't have you troubled; tell me what it is this minute;" and she looked +at him with tears in her eyes. + +One wonders often if there be any limit to human endurance. If there be, +who can say he has reached it? Each year we find that the thing which we +thought had taken our last strength, has left us with strength enough to +bear a harder thing. It seemed so with such scenes as this, in those sunny +spring days when Annie Ware first went out into life again. Each day I +said, "There can never be another moment quite so hard to meet as this!" +and the next day there came a moment which made me forget the one which +had gone before. + +It was an ill fortune which just at this time made it imperatively +necessary for George to go to the West for three months. He had no choice. +His mother's whole property was at stake. No one but he could save it; it +was not certain that he could. His last words to me were,-- + +"I trust more in you, Helen, than in any other human being. Keep my name +constantly in her thought; write me everything which you would tell me if +I were here." + +It had become necessary now to tell the sad story of the result of Annie's +illness to all those friends who would be likely to speak to her of her +marriage. The whole town knew what shadow rested on our hearts; and yet, +as week after week went by, and the gay, sweet, winning, beautiful girl +moved about among people again in her old way, people began to say more +and more that it was, after all, very foolish for Annie Ware's friends to +be so distressed about her; stranger things had happened; she was +evidently a perfectly well woman; and as for the marriage, they had never +liked the match--George Ware was too old and too grave for her; and, +besides, he was her second cousin. + +Oh, the torture of the "ante-mortems" of beloved ones, at which we are +all forced to assist! + +Yet it could not be wondered at, that in this case the whole heart of the +community was alive with interest and speculation. + +Annie Ware's sweet face had been known and loved in every house in our +village. Her father was the richest, most influential man in the county, +and the most benevolent. Many a man and woman had kissed Henry Ware's baby +in her little wagon, for the sake of Henry Ware's good deeds to them or +theirs. And while Mrs. Ware had always repelled persons by her haughty +reticence, Annie, from the first day she could speak until now, had won +all hearts by her sunny, open, sympathizing nature. No wonder that now, +when they saw her again fresh, glad, beautiful, and looking stronger and +in better health than she had ever done, they said that we were wrong, +that Annie and Nature were right, and that all would be well! + +This spring there came to our town a family of wealth and position who had +for many years lived in Europe, and who had now returned to make America +their home. They had taken a furnished house for a year, to make trial of +our air, and also, perhaps, of the society, although rumor, with the usual +jealousy, said that the Neals did not desire any intimacy with their +neighbors. The grounds of the house which they had hired joined my +uncle's, and my Aunt Ann, usually averse to making new acquaintances, had +called upon them at once, and had welcomed them most warmly to her house. +The family consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Neal and two sons, Arthur and Edward. +They were people of culture, and of wide experience; but they were not of +fine organization nor of the highest breeding; and it will ever remain a +mystery to me that there should have seemed to be, from the outset, an +especial bond of intimacy between them and my uncle and aunt. I think it +was partly the sense of relief with which they welcomed a new interest--a +little break in the monotony of anxiety which had been for so many months +corroding their very lives. + +Almost before I knew that the Neals were accepted as familiar friends, I +was startled one morning, while we were at breakfast, by the appearance of +Annie on her pony, looking in at our dining-room window. She had a pretty +way of riding up noiselessly on the green grass, and making her pony, +which was tame as a Newfoundland dog, mount the stone steps, and tap with +his nose on the panes of the long glass door till we opened it. + +I never saw her so angelically beautiful as she was this morning. Her +cheeks were flushed and her dark blue eyes sparkled like gems in the sun. +Presently she said, hesitating a little,-- + +"Edward Neal is at the gate; may I bring him in? I told him he might come, +but he said it was too like burglary;" and she cantered off again without +waiting to hear my mother's permission. + +All that morning Annie Ware and Edward Neal sat with me on our piazza. I +looked and listened and watched like one in a dream, or under a spell. I +foresaw, I foreknew what was to come; with the subtle insight of love, I +saw all. + +Never had I seen Annie so stirred into joyousness by George's presence as +she seemed to be by this boy's. The two together overflowed in a sparkling +current of gayety, which was irresistible. They seemed two divine children +sent out on a mission to set the world at play. What Edward Neal's more +sensuous and material nature lacked, was supplied by the finer, subtler +quality of Annie's. From that first day I could never disguise from myself +that they seemed, so far as mere physical life goes, the absolute +counterparts of each other. + +I need not dwell on this part of my story. When young hearts are drawing +together, summer days speed on very swiftly. George Ware, alas! was kept +at the West week after week, until it came to be month after month. My +uncle and aunt seemed deliberately to shut their eyes to the drift of +events. I think they were so thankful to watch Annie's bounding health and +happiness, to hear glad voices and merry laughs echoing all day in their +house, that they could not allow themselves to ask whether a new kernel of +bitterness, of danger, lay at the core of all this fair seeming. As for +the children, they did not know that they were loving each other as man +and woman. Edward Neal was only twenty-one, Annie but nineteen, and both +were singularly young and innocent of soul. + +And so it came to be once more the early autumn; the maple leaves were +beginning to be red, and my chrysanthemums had again set their tiny round +disks of buds. Edward, and Annie had said no word of love to each other, +but the whole town looked on them as lovers, and people began to reply +impatiently and incredulously to our assurances that no engagement +existed. + +Early in October George came home, very unexpectedly, taking even his +mother by surprise. He told me afterwards that he came at last as one +warned of God. A presentiment of evil, against which he had struggled for +weeks, finally so overwhelmed him that he set off for home without half an +hour's delay. I found him, on the night after his arrival, sitting in his +old place in the big arm-chair at the head of Annie's lounge; she still +clung to some of her old invalid ways, and spent many evenings curled up +like a half-shut pink rose on the green damask cushions. He looked worn +and thin, but glad and eager, and was giving a lively account of his +Western experiences when the library door opened, and coming in +unannounced, with the freedom of one at home, Edward Neal entered. + +"O Edward, here is Cousin George," exclaimed Annie, while a wave of rosy +color spread over her face, and half rising, she took George's hand in +hers as she leaned towards Edward. + +"Oh, I'm so glad to see you, Mr. Ware," said Edward, with that indefinable +tone of gentle respect which marks a very young man's recognition of one +much older, whom he has been led to admire. "Annie has been talking to me +about you all summer. I feel as if I knew you almost as well as she does. +I'm heartily glad to see you." + +A man of finer grain than Edward Neal would have known the whole truth in +that first second, by the blank stern look which spread like a cloud over +George Ware's face; but the open-hearted fellow only thought that he had +perhaps seemed too familiar and went on,-- + +"I beg your pardon, Mr. Ware. It must appear strange to you that I took +the liberty of being so glad; but you don't know how kindly I have been +allowed to feel that your friends here would permit me to call all their +friends mine," and he glanced lovingly and confidently at my aunt and +uncle, who answered by such smiles as they rarely gave. Oh, no wonder they +loved this genial, frank sunny boy, who had brought such light into their +life. + +In a moment George was his courteous self again, and began to express his +pleasure at meeting Mr. Neal, but Annie interrupted him. + +"Oh, now don't be tiresome; of course you are to be just as good friends +with Edward as you are with me: sit down, Edward. He is telling us the +most delicious stories. He is the dearest Cousin George in the world," she +added, stroking his hand which she still kept in hers. + +It gave Edward no more surprise to see her do this than it would have done +to see her sit in her father's lap. Even I felt with a sudden pang that +George Ware seemed at that moment to belong to another generation than +Edward and Annie. + +Edward seated himself on a low cricket at the foot of the lounge, and, +looking up in George's face, said most winningly,-- + +"Please go on, Mr. Ware." Then he turned one full, sweet look of greeting +and welcome upon Annie, who beamed back upon him with such a diffused +smile as only the rarest faces have. Annie's smile was one of her greatest +charms. It changed her whole face; the lips made but a small part of it; +no mortal ever saw it without smiling in answer. + +It was beyond George Ware's power long to endure this. Probably his +instinct felt in both Edward's atmosphere and Annie's more than we did. He +rose very soon and said to me, "If you are going home to-night, Helen, +will you let me walk up with you? I have business in that part of the +town; but I must go now. Perhaps that will hurry you too much?" he added, +with a tone which was almost imploring. + +I was only too glad to go. Our leave-taking was very short. A shade of +indefinable trouble clouded every face but Edward's and Annie's. + +George did not speak until we had left the house. Then he stopped short, +took both my hands in his, with a grasp that both hurt and frightened me, +and exclaimed,-- + +"How dared you keep this from me! How dared you!" + +"O George," I said, "there was nothing to tell." + +"Nothing to tell!" and his voice grew hoarse and loud. "Nothing to tell! +Do you mean to say that you don't know, have not known that Annie loves +that boy, that puppy?" + +I trembled from head to foot. I could not speak. He went on:-- + +"And I trusted you so; O Helen, I can never forgive you." + +I murmured, miserably, for I felt myself in that moment really guilty,-- + +"What makes you think she loves him?" + +"You cannot deceive me, Helen," he replied. "Do not torture me and +yourself by trying. Tell me now, how long this 'Edward' has been sitting +by her lounge. Tell me all." + +Then I told him all. It was not much. He had seen more that evening, and +so had I, than had ever existed before. His presence had been the one +element which had suddenly defined that which before had been hardly +recognized. + +He was very quiet after the first moment of bitterness, and asked me to +forgive his impatient words. When he left me he said,-- + +"I cannot see clearly what I ought to do. Annie's happiness is my only +aim. If this boy can create it, and I cannot--but he cannot: she was as +utterly mine as it is possible for a woman to be. You none of you knew how +utterly! Oh, my God, what shall I do!" and he walked away feebly and +slowly like an old man of seventy. + +The next day Aunt Ann sent for me to come to her. I found her in great +distress. George had returned to the house after leaving me, and had had +almost a stormy interview with my uncle. He insisted upon asking Annie at +once to be his wife; making no reference to the past, but appearing at +once as her suitor. My uncle could not forbid it, for he recognized +George's right, and he sympathized in his suffering. But his terror was +insupportable at the thought of having Annie agitated, and of the possible +results which might follow. He implored George to wait at least a few +weeks. + +"What! and see that young lover at my wife's feet every night!" said +George, fiercely. "No! I will risk all, lose all, if need be. I have been +held back long enough," and he had gone directly from my uncle's room to +Annie herself. + +In a short time Annie had come to her mother in a perfect passion of +weeping, and told her that Cousin George had asked her to be his wife; and +that she had never dreamed of such a thing; and she thought he was very +unkind to be so angry with her; how could she have supposed he cared for +her in that way, when he had been like her elder brother all his life. + +"Why, he seems almost as old as papa," said poor Annie, sobbing and +crying, "and he ought to have known that I should not kiss him and put my +arms around him if--if"--she could not explain; but she knew! + +Annie had gone to her own room, ill. My aunt and I sat together in the +library silently crying; we were wretched. "Oh, if George would only have +waited," said Aunt Ann. + +"I think it would have made no difference, aunty," said I. + +"No, I am afraid not," replied she, and each knew that the other was +thinking of Edward Neal. + +George Ware left town the next day. He sent me a short note. He could not +see any one, he said, and begged me to give a farewell kiss for him to +"the sweet mother of my Annie. For mine she is, and will be in heaven, +though she will be the wife of Edward Neal on earth." + +When I next saw our Annie she was Edward Neal's promised bride. A severe +fit of illness, the result of all these excitements, confined me to my +room for three weeks after George's departure; and I knew only from Aunt +Ann's lips the events which had followed upon it. + +George Ware's presence on that first evening had brought revelation to +Edward Neal as well as to all the other members of that circle. That very +night he had told his parents that Annie would be his wife. + +The next night, while poor George was swiftly borne away, Edward was +sitting in my uncle's library, listening with a blanched cheek to the +story of Annie's old engagement. My uncle's sense of honor would not let +him withhold anything from the man seeking her for his wife. The pain soon +passed by, when he was told that she had that very day refused her cousin, +and betrayed almost resentment at his offer. Edward Neal had not a +sufficiently subtle nature, nor acquaintance enough with psychological +phenomena to be disturbed by any fears for the future. He dismissed it all +as an inexplicable result of the disease, but a fixed fact, and a great +and blessed fortune for him. My uncle, however, was less easily assured. +He insisted upon delay, and upon consulting the same physicians who had +studied Annie's case before. They all agreed that she was now a perfectly +healthy and strong woman, and that to persist in any farther recognition +of the old bond, after she had so intelligently and emphatically +repudiated all thought of such a relation to her cousin, was absurd. Dr. +Fearing alone was in doubt, He said little; but he shook his head and +clasped his hands tight, and implored that at least the marriage should be +deferred for a year. + +Annie herself, however, refused to consent to this: of course no +satisfactory reason could be alleged for any such delay; and she said as +frankly as a little child, "Edward and I have loved each other almost +from the very first; there is nothing for either of us to do in life but +to make each other happy; and we shall not leave papa and mamma: so why +should we wait?" + +They were not married, however, until spring. The whole town stood by in +speechless joy and delight when those two beautiful young beings came out +from the village church man and wife. It was a scene never to be +forgotten. The peculiar atmosphere of almost playful joyousness which they +created whenever they appeared together was something which could not be +described, but which diffused itself like sunlight. + +We all tried resolutely to dismiss memory and misgiving from our hearts. +They seemed disloyalty and sin. George Ware was in India. George Ware's +mother was dead. The cottage among the pines was sold to strangers, and +the glistening brown paths under the trees were neglected and unused. + +Edward and Annie led the same gay child-like lives after their marriage +that they had led before: they looked even younger and gayer and sunnier. +When they dashed cantering through the river meadows, she with rosy cheeks +and pale brown curls flying in the wind, and he with close crisp black +hair, and the rich, dark, glowing skin of a Spaniard, the farming men +turned and rested on their tools, and gazed till they were out of sight. +Sometimes I asked myself wonderingly, "Are they ever still, and tender, +and silent?" "Is this perpetual overflow the whole of love?" But it seemed +treason to doubt in the presence of such merry gladness as shone in +Annie's face, and in her husband's too. It was simply the incarnate +triumph and joy of young life. + +The summer went by; the chrysanthemums bloomed out white and full in my +garden; the frosts came, and then the winter, and then Annie told me one +day that before winter came again she would be a mother. She was a little +sobered as she saw the intense look on my face. + +"Why, darling, aren't you glad? I thought you would be almost as glad as I +am myself?" Annie sometimes misunderstood me now. + +"Glad! O Annie," was all I could say. + +From that day I had but one thought, Annie's baby. Together we wrought all +dainty marvels for its ward-robe; together we planned all possible events +in its life: from the outset I felt as much motherhood to the precious +little unseen one as Annie did. She used to say to me, often,-- + +"Darling, it will be half my baby, and half yours." + +Annie was absolutely and gloriously well through the whole of those +mysterious first months of maternity which are to so many women exhausting +and painful. Every nerve of her body seemed strung and attuned to normal +and perfect harmony. She was more beautiful than ever, stronger than ever, +and so glad that she smiled perpetually without knowing it. For the first +time since the old days, dear Dr. Fearing's face lost the anxious look +with which his eyes always rested upon her. He was more at ease about her +now. + +Before light one Sunday morning in December, a messenger rang furiously +at our bell. We had been looking for such tidings and were not alarmed. It +was a fearful storm; wind and sleet and rain and darkness had attended the +coming of Annie's little "Sunday child" into its human life. + +"A boy--and Miss Annie's all right," old Cæsar said, with a voice almost +as hoarse as the storm outside; and he was gone before we could ask a +question farther. + +In less than an hour I stood on the threshold of Annie's room. But I did +not see her until noon. Then, as I crept softly into the dimly-lighted +chamber, the whole scene so recalled her illness of two years before that +my heart stood still with sudden horror, in spite of all my joy. Now, as +then, I knelt silently at her bedside, and saw the sweet face lying white +and still on the pillow. + +She turned, and seeing me, smiled faintly, but did not speak. + +At her first glance, a speechless terror seized me. This was my Annie! The +woman who for two years had been smiling with my Annie's face had not been +she! The room grew dark. I do not know what supernatural power came to my +aid that I did not faint and fall. + +Annie drew back the bed-clothes with a slow, feeble motion of her right +hand, and pointed to the tiny little head nestled in her bosom. She smiled +again, looked at me gently and steadily for a second, and then shut her +eyes. Presently I saw that she was asleep; I stole into the next room and +sat down with my face buried in my hands. + +In a moment a light step aroused me. Aunt Ann stood before me, her pale +face all aglow with delight. + +"O Helen my darling! She is so well. Thank God! thank God!" and she threw +her arms around me and burst into tears. + +I felt like one turned to stone. Was I mad, or were they? + +What had I seen in that one steady look of Annie's eyes? Was she really +well? I felt as if she had already died! + +Agonizingly I waited to see Dr. Fearing's face. He came in before tea, saw +Annie for a few minutes, and came down-stairs rubbing his hands and +singing in a low tone. + +"I never saw anything like that child's beautiful elasticity in my life," +he said. "We shall have her dancing down-stairs in a month." + +The cloud was utterly lifted from all hearts except mine. My aunt and +uncle looked at each other with swimming eyes. Edward tried to laugh and +look gay, but broke down utterly, and took refuge in the library, where I +found him lying on the floor, with his face buried in Annie's lounge. + +I went home stupefied, bewildered. I could not sleep. A terror-stricken +instinct told me that all was not right. But how should I know more than +physician, mother, husband? + +For ten days I saw my Annie every day for an hour. Her sweet, strange, +gentle, steady look into my eyes when we first met always paralyzed me +with fear, and yet I could not have told why. There was a fathomless +serenity in her face which seemed to me super-human. She said very +little. The doctor had forbidden her to talk. She slept the greater part +of the time, but never allowed the baby to be moved from her arms while +she was awake. + +There was a divine ecstasy in her expression as she looked down into the +little face; it never seemed like human motherhood. + +One day Edward came to me and said,-- + +"Do you think Annie is so well as they say? I suppose they must know; but +she looks to me as if she had died already, and it were only her glorified +angel-body that lies in that bed?" + +I could not speak to him. I knew then that he had seen the same thing that +I had seen: if his strong, rather obtuse material nature had recognized +it, what could so blind her mother and father and the doctor? I burst into +tears and left him. + +At the end of a week I saw a cloud on Dr. Fearing's face. As he left +Annie's room one morning, he stopped me and said abruptly,-- + +"What does Annie talk about?" + +"She hardly speaks at all," I said. + +"Ah," he said. "Well, I have ordered her not to talk. But does she ask any +questions?" he continued. + +"No," I said; "not of me. She has not asked one." + +I saw then that the same vague fear which was filling my heart was taking +shape in his. + +From that moment, he watched her hourly, with an anxiety which soon +betrayed itself to my aunt. + +"William, why does not Annie get stronger?" she said suddenly to him one +day. + +"I do not know why," he answered, with a solemn sadness and emphasis in +his tone which was, as I think, he intended it to be, a partial revelation +to her, and a warning. Aunt Ann staggered to a chair and looked at him +without a word. He answered her look by one equally agonized and silent, +and left the room. + +The baby was now two weeks old. Annie was no stronger than on the day of +his birth. She lay day and night in a tranquil state, smiling with +inexpressible sweetness when she was spoken to, rarely speaking of her own +accord, doing with gentle docility all she was told to do, but looking +more and more like a transfigured saint. All the arch, joyous, playful +look was gone; there was no added age in the look which had taken its +place; neither any sorrow; but something ineffably solemn, rapt, removed +from earth. Sometimes, when Edward came to her bedside, a great wave of +pitying tenderness would sweep over her face, giving it such a heavenly +look that he would fall on his knees. + +"O Helen," he said once, after such a moment as this, "I shall go mad if +Annie does not get well. I do not dare to kiss even her hand. I feel as if +she never had been mine." + +At last the day and the hour and the moment came which I had known would +come. Annie spoke to me in a very gentle voice, and said,-- + +"Helen, darling, you know I am going to die?" + +"Yes dear, I think so," I said, in as quiet a voice as hers. + +"You know it is better that I should, darling?" she said with a trembling +voice. + +"Yes, dear, I know it," I replied. + +She drew a long sigh of relief. "I am so glad, darling; I thought you knew +it, but I could not be sure. I think no one else understands. I hope dear +mamma will never suspect. You will not let her, if you can help it, the +dear doctor will not tell her; he knows, though. Darling, I want you to +have my baby. I think Edward will be willing. He is so young, he will be +happy again before long; he will not miss him. You know we have always +said it was partly your baby. Look at his eyes now, Helen," she said, +turning the little face towards me, and into a full light. + +I started. I had never till that moment seen in them a subtle resemblance +to the eyes of George Ware. We had said that the baby had his mother's +eyes--so he had; but there had always been a likeness between Annie's eyes +and George's though hers were light-blue, and his of a blue so dark that +it was often believed to be black. All the Wares had a very peculiar +luminousness of the eye; it was so marked a family trait that it had +passed into almost proverbial mention, in connection with the +distinguished beauty of the family. "The Ware eye" was always +recognizable, no matter what color it had taken from the admixture of +other blood. + +At that moment I saw, and I knew that Annie had seen, that the baby's eyes +were not so much like her own as like the deeper, sadder, darker eyes of +her cousin--brave, hopeless, dear George, who was toiling under the sun of +India, making a fortune for he knew not whom. + +We neither of us spoke; presently the little unconscious eyes closed in +sweet sleep, and Annie went on, holding him close to her heart. + +"You see, dear, poor mamma will not be able to bear seeing him after I +die. Common mothers would love him for my sake. But mamma is not like +other women. She will come very soon where I am, poor mamma; and then you +will have to take papa home to your house, and papa will have comfort in +little Henry. But he must be your baby, Helen. I shall speak to Edward +about it soon." + +She was not strong enough to talk long. She shed no tears, however, and +looked as calm as if she were telling me of pleasant plans for a coming +earthly summer. I also was perfectly calm, and felt strangely free from +sorrow. Her absolute spirituality bore me up. It was as if I spoke with +her in heaven, thousands of centuries after all human perplexities had +passed away. + +After this day she grew rapidly weaker. She had no pain. There was not a +single physical symptom in her case which the science of medicine could +name or meet. There was literally nothing to be done for her. Neither +tonic nor stimulant produced the least effect. She was noiselessly sinking +out of life, as very old people sometimes die, without a single jar, or +shock, or struggle. Her beautiful serenity and entire freedom from +suffering blinded Aunt Ann's eyes to the fact that she was dying. This was +a great mercy, and we were all careful not by a word or look to rouse her +to the truth. To all her mother's inquiries Annie invariably replied, +"Better, dear mamma, better, only very weak," and Aunt Ann believed, +until the very last, that the spring would make her well again. + +Edward Neal's face during these weeks was like the face of a man lost in a +trackless desert, seeking vainly for some sign of road to save his life. +Sickness and death were as foreign to the young, vital, irrepressible +currents of his life, as if he had been a bird or an antelope. But it was +not now with him the mere bewildered grief of a sensuous animal nature, +such as I should have anticipated that his grief would be. He dimly felt +the truth, and was constantly terrified by it. He came into Annie's +presence more and more reverently each day. He gazed speechlessly into her +eyes, which rested on him always with angelic compassion and tenderness, +but with no more look of human wifely thought than if he and she were +kneeling side by side before God's white throne. Sometimes he dared not +touch even so much as the hand on which his own wedding-ring rested. +Sometimes he would kneel by the bedside and bury his face and weep like a +little child. Then he would throw himself on his horse and gallop away and +not come home until twilight, when he was always found on Annie's lounge +in the library. One night when I went to him there he said, in a tone so +solemn that the voice did not sound like his,-- + +"Helen, there is something I do not understand about Annie. Do people +always seem so when they are going to die? I do not dare to ask her if she +loves me. I feel just as much awe of her as if she had been in heaven. It +seems sometimes as if I must be going mad, for I do not feel in the least +as if she had ever been my wife." + +"She never has, poor boy," I thought, but I only stroked his hair and +said nothing; wondering in my heart at the certainty with which in all +natures love knows how to define, conquer, reclaim his own. + +The day before Annie died she asked for her jewel-case, and spent several +hours in looking over its contents and telling me to whom they should be +given. I observed that she seemed to be searching uneasily for something +she could not find. + +"What is it, dear?" I said. She hesitated for a secondhand then replied,-- + +"Only a little ring I had when I was a girl." + +"When you were a girl, my darling!" I exclaimed. She smiled gently and +said,-- + +"I feel like an old woman now. Oh, here it is," she added, and held it out +to me to open for her the tiny padlock-shaped locket which hung from it. +It had become so tightly fastened together that it was with great +difficulty I could open it. When I did so, I saw lying in the hollow a +little ring of black hair, and I remembered that Annie had worn the ring +when she was twelve years old. + +She asked me to cut a few of the silky hairs from the baby's head, and +then one little curl from her own, and laying them with the other, she +shut the locket and asked for a piece of paper and pencil. She wrote one +word with great difficulty, folded the ring in the paper, wrote another +word on the outside, and laid it in a corner of the jewel-case. Then she +sank back on the pillows, and slipping her left hand under her cheek said +she was very tired, and almost instantly fell into a gentle sleep. She did +not wake until twilight. I was to sleep on the lounge in her room that +night, and when she woke I was preparing it. + +"Darling," she said, "could you sleep as well in my big chair, which can +be tipped back?" + +"Certainly, sweet," I said; "but why?" + +"Because that can be drawn up so much nearer me; it will be like sleeping +together." + +At nine o'clock the nurse brought the baby in and laid him in Annie's +bosom, sound asleep. Annie would not let him lie anywhere else, and was so +grieved at any remonstrance, that the doctor said she must be indulged in +the desire. When she was awake and was not speaking to us, her eyes never +left the baby's face. + +She turned over, with her face to the chair in which I lay, and reached +out her left hand towards me. I took it in mine, and so, with our hands +clasped above the little sleeping baby, we said "good-night" to each +other. + +"I feel much better to-night than I have for some days, dear Helen," she +said; "I should not wonder if we all three slept until morning." + +Very soon I saw that she was asleep. I watched her face for a long time; +it was perfectly colorless and very thin, and yet there was not a look of +illness on it. The ineffable serenity, the holy peace, made it look like +the face of one who had been transfigured, translated; who had not known +and who never could know any death. I cannot account for the sweet calm +which I felt through all these weeks. I shed no tears; I did not seem even +to sorrow. I accepted all, as Annie herself accepted it, without wonder, +without murmur. During the long hours of this last night I lived over +every hour of her precious, beautiful life, as I had known and shared it, +until the whole seemed to me one fragrant and perfect flower, ready to be +gathered and worn in the bosom of angels. At last I fell asleep. + +I was wakened by a low murmur from the baby, who stirred uneasily. Annie's +hand was still locked in mine; as I sought to disengage it cautiously, I +felt, with a sudden horror, that the fingers were lifeless. I sprang to my +feet and bent over her; she did not breathe. Out of that sweet sleep her +body had passed into another which would know no waking, and her soul had +awakened free. Slowly I withdrew the little sleeping baby from her arms +and carried it to the nurse. Then I went to Dr. Fearing's room; he had +slept in the house for a week; I found him dressed, but asleep on a +lounge. He had lain in this way, he told me, for four nights, expecting +that each would be the last. When I touched him on the shoulder he opened +his eyes, without surprise or alarm, and said,-- + +"Did she wake?" + +"No," I replied, and that was all. + +The day was just breaking: as the dark gray and red tints cleared and +rolled away, and left a pale yellow sky, the morning star, which I could +see from Annie's bedside, faded and melted in the pure ether. Even while I +was looking at it it vanished, and I thought that, like it, Annie's bright +soul, disappearing from my sight, had blended in Eternal Day. + + * * * * * + +This was four years ago. My Aunt Ann died, as Annie had said she would, +in a very few months afterward. My uncle came, a broken and trembling man, +to live with us, and Edward Neal gladly gave his little son into my hands, +as Annie had desired. He went abroad immediately, finding it utterly +impossible to bear the sight of the scenes of his lost happiness. He came +back in two years, bringing a bright young wife with him, a sunny-haired +English girl, who, he said, was so marvelously like Annie. She is like the +Annie whom he knew! + +Every day their baby boy is brought to our house to see his brother; but I +think two children of one name never before looked so unlike. + +My little Henry is the centre of his grandfather's life and of mine. He is +a pensive child, and has never been strong; but his beauty and sweetness +are such that we often tremble when we look in his face and remember +Annie. + +George Ware is still in India. Every ship brings brave sweet letters, and +gifts for the baby. I sent him the little paper which I found in the +corner of Annie's jewel-case, bearing his name. I knew that it was for him +when I saw her feeble hands laying the baby's hair and hers together in +the locket. + +In November Annie's grave is snowy with white chrysanthemums. She loved +them better than any other flowers, and I have made the little hillock +almost into a thicket of them. + +In George Ware's last letter he wrote:-- + +"When the baby is ten years old I shall come home. He will not need me +till then; till then, he is better in your hands alone; after that I can +help you." + + + + +The One-Legged Dancers. + + + +Very early one morning in March, ten years ago, I was sitting alone on one +of the crumbling ledges of the Coliseum: larks were singing above my head; +wall-flowers were waving at my feet; a procession of chanting monks was +walking slowly around the great cross in the arena below. I was on the +highest tier, and their voices reached me only as an indistinct wail, like +the notes of a distant Aeolian harp; but the joyous sun and sky and songs, +were darkened and dulled by their presence. A strange sadness oppressed +me, and I sank into a deep reverie. I do not know how long I had been +sitting there, when I was suddenly roused by a cry of pain, or terror, and +the noise of falling stones. I sprang to my feet and, looking over, saw a +young and beautiful woman lying fearfully near the edge of one of the most +insecure of the projecting ledges on the tier below me--the very one from +which I had myself nearly fallen, only a few days before, in stretching +over after some asphodels which were beyond my reach. + +I ran down as fast as possible, but when I reached the spot she had +fainted, and was utterly unconscious. She was alone; I could see no other +human being in the Coliseum. The chanting monks had gone; even the +beggars had not yet come. I tried in vain to rouse her. She had fallen so +that the hot sun was beating full on her face. I dared not leave her +there, for her first unconscious movement might be such that she would +fall over the edge. But I saw that she must have shade and water, or die. +Every instant she grew whiter and her lips looked more rigid. I shouted +aloud, and only the echoes answered me, as if in mockery. A little lark +suddenly flew out from a tuft of yellow wall-flower close by, and burst +into a swift carol of delight as he soared away. At last, with great +efforts, I succeeded in dragging her, by her feet--for I dared not venture +out so far as the spot on which her head lay--to a safer place, and into +the partial shade of a low bush. As I did this, one of her delicate hands +was scratched and torn on the rough stones, and drops of blood came to the +surface. In the other hand were crushed a few spikes of asphodel, the very +flowers, no doubt, which had lured me so near the same dangerous brink. It +seemed impossible to go away and leave her, but it was cruel to delay. My +feet felt like lead as I ran along those dark galleries and down the stone +flights of giddy stairs. Just in the entrance stood one of those +pertinacious sellers of old coins and bits of marble. I threw down a piece +of silver on his little stand, seized a small tin basin in which he had +his choicest coins, emptied them on the ground, and saying, in my poor +Italian, "Lady--ill--water," I had filled the basin at the old stone +fountain near by, and was half way up the first flight of stairs again, +before he knew what had happened. + +When I reached the place where I had left the beautiful stranger she was +not there. Unutterable horror seized me. Had I, after all, left her too +near that crumbling edge? I groaned aloud and turned to run down. A feeble +voice stopped me--a whisper rather than a voice, for there was hardly +strength to speak,-- + +"Who is there?" + +"Oh, thank God," I exclaimed, "you are not dead!" and I sprang to the next +of the cross corridors, from which the sound had come. + +She was there, sitting up, leaning against the wall. She looked almost +more terrified than relieved when she saw me. I bathed her face and hands +in the water, and told her how I had found her insensible, and had drawn +her away from the outer edge before I had gone for the water. She did not +speak for some moments, but looked at me earnestly and steadily, with +tears standing in her large blue eyes. + +Then she said, "I did not know that any one but myself ever came to the +Coliseum so early. I thought I should die here alone; and Robert was not +willing I should come." + +"I owe you my life," she added, bursting into hysterical crying. + +Then in a few moments she half laughed, as if at some droll thought, and +said, "But how could you drag me? You are not nearly so big as I am. The +angels must have helped you;" and holding up the poor crushed asphodels, +she went on: "As soon as I came to myself, I saw the asphodels in my hand, +and I said, 'Asphodel for burial;' and tried to throw them away, so that +if Robert came he would not find me dead with them in my hand, for only +yesterday he said to me, 'Please never pick an asphodel--I can't bear to +see you touch one.'" + +Slowly I soothed her and she recovered her color and strength. The owner +of the basin, followed by a half-dozen chattering vetturini, had climbed +up to us, but we had peremptorily sent them all away. It was evident that +she was not seriously hurt. The terror, rather than the fall, had caused +her fainting. It was probably a sudden dizziness which had come as she +drew back and turned after picking the flowers. Had she fallen in the act +of picking them she must have been dashed to the ground below. At the end +of an hour she was so nearly well, that she walked slowly down the long +stairs, leaning on my arm, and taking frequent rests by the way. I was +about to beckon to one of the vetturini, when she said, "Oh no! my own +carriage is near here, up by the gate of the Palace of the Cæsars. I +rambled on, without thinking at first of coming to the Coliseum: it will +do me good to walk back; every moment of the air makes me feel better." + +So we went slowly on, up the solemn hill, arm in arm like friends, sitting +down now and then on old fallen columns to rest, and looking back at the +silent, majestic ruins, which were brightened almost into a look of life +under the vivid sun. My companion spoke little; the reaction after her +fearful shock had set in; but every few moments her beautiful eyes would +fill with tears as she looked in my face and pressed my arm. I left her at +her apartment on the Via Felice; my own was a mile farther on, in the +Piazza del Popolo, and I would not let her drive so far. + +"It grieves me not to go with you to your door," she said, as she bade me +good-bye, "but I shall come and see you to-morrow and bring my husband." + +"No, you must not," I replied. "To-morrow you will be wise enough--or, if +you are not wise enough, you will be kind enough to me because I ask +it--to lie in bed all day, and I shall come very early in the morning to +see how you are." + +She turned suddenly on the carriage-steps, and, leaning both her hands on +my knees, exclaimed, in a voice full of emotion. + +"Will you let me kiss you? Not even my mother gave me what you have given. +For you have given me back life, when it was too infinitely precious to +lose. Surely you will not think me presuming?" and her cheek flushed a +little. + +"Presuming! my dear child, I loved you the first moment I saw you lying +there on the stones; and I am almost old enough to be your mother, too," I +replied, and I kissed her sweet face warmly. + +This was the beginning of my acquaintance and friendship with Dora +Maynard. + +At eleven o'clock the next morning I went to see her. I was shown into a +room, whose whole air was so unlike that of a Roman apartment, that I +could scarcely believe I had not been transported to English or American +soil. In spite of its elegance, the room was as home-like and cozy as if +it nestled in the Berkshire hills or stood on Worcestershire meadows. The +windows were heavily curtained, and the furniture covered with gay chintz +of a white ground, with moss-rose buds thickly scattered over it between +broad stripes of rose-pink. The same chintz was fluted all around the +cornice of the room, making the walls look less high and stately; the +doorways, also, were curtained with it. Great wreaths and nodding masses +of pampas grass were above the doors; a white heron and a rose-colored +spoonbill stood together on a large bracket in one corner, and a huge gray +owl was perched on what looked like a simple old apple-tree bough, over an +inlaid writing-table which stood at an odd slant near one of the windows. +Books were everywhere--in low swinging shelves, suspended by large green +cords with heavy tassels; on low bracket shelves, in unexpected places, +with deep green fringes or flutings of the chintz; in piles on Moorish +stools or old Venice chests. Every corner looked as if somebody made it a +special haunt and had just gone out. On a round mosaic table stood an +exqusite black-and-gilt Etruscan patera filled with white anemones; on +another table near by stood a silver one filled with the same flowers, +pink and yellow. Each was circled round the edge with fringing masses of +maiden-hair fern. Every lounge and chair had a low, broad foot-stool +before it, ruffled with the chintz; and in one corner of the room were a +square pink and white and green Moorish rug, with ten or a dozen +chintz-covered pillows, piled up in a sort of chair-shaped bed upon it, +and a fantastic ebony box standing near, the lid thrown back, and +battledoors and shuttlecocks, and many other gay-colored games, tossed in +confusion. The walls were literally full of exquisite pictures; no very +large or rare ones, all good for every-day living; some fine old +etchings, exquisite water-colors, a swarthy Campagna herds-boy with a +peacock feather and a scarlet ribbon in his black hat, and for a +companion-picture, the herds-boy of the mountains, fair, rosy, standing +out on a opaline snow-peak, with a glistening Edelweiss in his hand; +opposite these a large picture of Haag's, a camel in the desert, the Arab +wife and baby in a fluttering mass of basket and fringe and shawl and +scarf, on his back; the Arab father walking a few steps in advance, +playing on musical pipes, his tasseled robe blowing back in the wind; on +one side of this a Venice front, and on another a crag of Norway pines; +here and there, small leaves of photographs from original drawings by the +old masters, Leonardo, Raphael, Titian, and Luini; and everywhere, in all +possible and impossible places, flowers and vines. I never saw walls so +decorated. Yellow wall-flowers waved above the picture of the Norway +pines; great scarlet thistles branched out each side of the Venetian +palace; cool maiden-hair ferns seemed to be growing all around the glowing +crimson and yellow picture of the Arabs in the Desert. Afterward I learned +the secret of this beautiful effect; large, flat, wide-mouthed bottles, +filled with water, were hung on the backs of the picture frames, and in +these the vines and flowers were growing; only a worshipper of flowers +would have devised this simple method of at once enshrining them, and +adorning the pictures. + +In one of the windows stood a superbly-carved gilt table, oblong, and with +curiously-twisted legs which bent inward and met a small central shelf +half-way between the top and the floor, then spread out again into four +strange claw-like vases, which bore each two golden lilies standing +upright. On this stood the most singular piece of wood-carving I ever saw. +It was of very light wood, almost yellow in tint; it looked like rough +vine trellises with vines clambering over them; its base was surrounded by +a thick bed of purple anemones; the smaller shelf below was also filled +with purple anemones, and each of the golden lilies held all the purple +anemones it could--not a shade of any other color but the purple and +gold--and rising above them the odd vine trellises in the pale yellow +wood. As I stood looking at this in mute wonder and delight, but sorely +perplexed to make out the design of the carving, I heard a step behind me. +I turned and saw, not my new friend, as I had expected, but her husband. I +thought, in that first instant, I had never seen a manlier face and form, +and I think so to-day. Robert Maynard was not tall; he was not handsome; +but he had a lithe figure, square-shouldered, straight, strong, vitalized +to the last fibre with the swift currents of absolutely healthy blood, and +the still swifter currents of a passionate and pure manhood. His eyes were +blue, his hair and full beard of the bright-brown yellow which we call, +rightly or wrongly, Saxon. He came very quickly toward me with both hands +outstretched and began to speak. "My dear madam," he said, but his voice +broke, and with a sudden, uncontrollable impulse, he turned his back full +upon me for a second, and passed his right hand over his eyes. The next +instant he recovered himself and went on. + +"I do not believe you will wonder that I can't speak, and I do not believe +you will ever wonder that I do not thank you--I never shall," and he +raised both my hands to his lips. + +"Dora is in bed as you bade her to be," he continued. "She is well, but +very weak. She wants to see you immediately, and she has forbidden me to +come back to her room without you. I think, perhaps," he added +hesitatingly, "she is not quite calm enough to talk long. Forgive me for +saying it. I know you love her already." + +"Indeed I do," replied I, "as if I had known her all my life. I will not +stay long;" and I followed him through a small dining-room, also gay with +flowers and vines, to a little room which had one side almost wholly of +glass and opened on a _loggia_ full of orange-trees and oleanders, +geraniums and roses. I will not describe Dora Maynard's bed-room. It was +the dainty room of a dainty woman, but spiritualized and individualized +and made wonderful, just as her sitting-room was, by a creative touch and +a magnetic presence such as few women possess. I believe that she could +not be for twenty-four hours in the barrenest and ugliest room possible, +without contriving to diffuse a certain enchantment through all its +emptiness. + +She looked far more beautiful this morning than she had looked the day +before. I never forgot the picture of her face as I saw it then, lying on +the white pillow and turned toward the door, with the eager expression +which her waiting for me had given it. Neither of us spoke for some +seconds, and when we did speak we took refuge in commonplaces. Our hearts +were too full--mine with a sudden and hardly explicable overflow of +affection toward this beautiful being whom I had saved from dying; hers +with a like affection for me, heightened a thousand fold by the intense +love of love and of living that filled her whole soul and made her +gratitude to me partake almost of the nature of adoration. I think it was +years before she could see me without recalling the whole scene so vividly +that tears would fill her eyes. Often she would suddenly seize both my +hands in hers, kiss them and say, "Oh! but for these dear, strong, brave +little hands, where should I be!" And whenever we parted for a length of +time she was overshadowed by presentiment. "I know it is superstitious and +silly," she would say, "but I cannot shake off the feeling that I am safer +in the same town with you. I believe if any harm were to threaten me you +would be near." + +But the story I am to tell now is not the story of Dora Maynard's life +after I knew her, nor of our friendship and love for each other, rare and +beautiful as they were. It is the story of her girlhood, and of the +strange wood-carving which stood on the gilded table in the bed of purple +anemones. + +One morning in April, as I climbed the long stone stairs which led to her +apartment, I met Anita, the flower-woman who carried flowers to her every +day. Anita looked troubled. + +"What is the matter, my Anita?" said I; "is the Signora ill?" + +"Ah no, thank the Blessed Virgin!" said Anita; "the dearest, most +beautiful of Signoras is well, but I am obliged to tell her to-day that +there are no more anemones. Biagio went yesterday to the farthest corner +of the Villa Doria, to a dark shady spot beyond the Dove-Cote, which the +strangers know not, hoping to find some; but the heavy rains had beaten +them all down--there is no longer one left. And the Signora had tears in +her eyes when I told her; and she did not care for all the other beautiful +flowers; she said none of them could go on the gold table; never yet has +the Signora put any flowers on the gold table except the purple anemones," +and real tears stood in old Anita's eyes. + +"Why, Anita," said I, "I am sure some other flowers would look very pretty +there. I do not believe the Signora will be unhappy about it." + +Anita shook her head and half smiled with a look of pitying compassion. + +"But, Signora, you do not know; that dearest and most beautiful of +Signoras has visions from the angels about her flowers. Holy Virgin! if +she would but come and hang flowers around the Bambino in our church! None +of the Holy Sisters can so weave them as she does; she makes Festa forever +in the house for the Signor; and I think, Signora," crossing herself and +looking sharply at me, "perhaps the gold table is the shrine of her +religion: does the Signora know?" + +I could not help laughing. "Oh no, Anita," I said; "we do not have shrines +in our religion." + +Anita's face clouded. "Iddio mio!" she said, "but the Virgin will keep the +dearest Signora Maynardi. Biagio and I have vowed to keep a candle always +burning for her in Ara Coeli! The dearest, most beautiful of Signoras;" +and Anita walked disconsolately on, down the stairs. + +I found Dora kneeling before the "gold table," arranging great masses of +maiden-hair fern around the wood carving and in the shelf below. As I saw +the rapt and ecstatic expression of her face, I understood why Anita had +believed the gold table to be a shrine. + +"They do not suit it like the anemones," said she, sadly; "and I can have +no more anemones this year." + +"So poor Anita told me just now on the stairs," replied I. "She was almost +crying, she was so sorry she could not get them for you. But I am sure, +dear, the ferns are beautiful on it. I think the pale green looks even +better than the purple with the gold and the pale yellow wood." + +"I like the purple best," said Dora; "besides, we always had purple at +home," and her eyes filled with tears. Then, turning suddenly to me, she +said, "Why have you never asked me what this is? I know you must have +wondered: it looks so strange--this poor little clumsy bit of American +pine, on my gilt table shrined with flowers!" + +"Yes, I have wondered, I acknowledge, for I could not make out the +design," I replied; "but I thought it might have some story connected with +it, which you would tell me if you wished I should know. I did not think +it clumsy; I think it is fantastic, and has a certain sort of weird +life-likeness about it." + +"Do you really think it has any life-like look about it?" and Dora's face +flushed with pleasure. "I think so, but I supposed nobody else could see +anything in it. No one of my acquaintance has ever alluded to it," +continued she, half laughing, half crying, "but I see them trying to +scrutinize it slyly when they are not observed. As for poor old Anita, I +believe she thinks it is our Fetish. She walks round it on tiptoe with her +hands clasped on her apron." + +"But now," she continued, "I will show you the same design in something +else;" and she led the way through her own bedroom to Robert's, which was +beyond. On the threshold she paused, and kissing me, said: "If you can +stay with me to-day, I will tell you the whole story, dear; but I want you +to look at this chintz first." Then she walked to the window, and drawing +out one of the curtains to its full width, held it up for me to see. It +was a green and white chintz, evidently of cheap quality. At first I did +not distinguish any meaning in the pattern; presently I saw that the +figures were all of vines and vine-leaves, linked in a fantastic fashion +together, like those in the wood-carving on the gold table. + +"Oh, yes," I said, "I see; it is exactly like the carving, only it looks +different, being on a flat surface." + +Dora did not speak; she was gazing absently at the chintz she held in her +hand. Her face looked as if her soul were miles and years away. Presently +I saw a tear roll down her cheek. I touched her hand. She started, and +smiling sweetly, said: "Oh! forgive me. Don't think I am crying for any +sorrow; it is for joy. I am so happy, and my life has been so wonderful. +Now would you really have patience to listen to a long story?" she said, +beseechingly; "a long story all about me--and--Robert? I have been +wanting to tell you ever since I knew you. I think you ought to know all +about us." + +For my answer, I sank into a large chair, drew her down into my lap, and +said: "Begin, you dearest child. Nothing could give me such pleasure. +Begin at the beginning." + +She slipped from my lap to a low footstool at my feet, and resting both +her arms on my knees in a graceful way she had, looked up into my face, +and began by a sentence which made me start. + +"I used to work in a factory." My start was so undisguised, so +uncontrollable, that Dora drew back and her cheeks turned red. + +"Perhaps I ought to have told you before." + +"Oh, my dear, beautiful, marvellous child!" I exclaimed; "you cannot so +misjudge me. I was startled only because you had always seemed to me so +much like one born to all possible luxury. I supposed you had been +nurtured on beauty." + +"So I have been," she replied, earnestly, smiling through tears; +"nevertheless, three years ago I was working in a factory in America." + +I did not interrupt her again; hour after hour passed by; not until +twilight was deepening into dusk did the story come to end. I shall try to +give it in Dora's own words--their simplicity adds so much to it; but I +cannot give the heightened effect with which they fell upon my ears as I +looked down into her sweet child-woman's face. + +"I do not remember much about mamma. It is strange, too, that I do not, +because I was thirteen when she died; but I always loved papa best, and +stayed all the time I could in his study. Mamma was very pretty; the +prettiest woman I ever saw; but I don't know how it was, all her +prettiness did not seem to make papa care about her. He was a +clergyman--an Episcopal clergyman--and his father and his father's father +had been too; so you see for three whole generations it had been all books +and study in the family; but mamma's father was a farmer, and mamma was +stronger than papa; she liked to live in the country and be out of doors, +which he hated. I think I know now just how it all was; but it used to +puzzle me till I grew up. When I was sixteen, my Aunt Abby, papa's sister, +told me that mamma was said to be the most beautiful girl in the whole +State, and that papa fell so in love with her when he was just out of +college, that he came very near dying because his father did not wish them +to be married. Poor papa! it was just so always with him; he had such a +poor feeble body that any trouble or worry made him ill. I can see now +that it was because he and all his family had been such scholars, and +lived in the house, and sat still all their lives; their bodies were not +good for anything: and I am thankful enough that my body is like mamma's; +but I don't know what good it would do me, either, if dear papa hadn't +taught me all his ways of seeing things and feeling things. Mamma never +seemed to care much about anything, except when Dick or Abby were sick, +and she always used to go to sleep in church while papa was saying the +most beautiful things; sometimes it used to make me almost hate her. I +hated everybody that didn't listen to him. But Aunt Abby said once that +very few people could understand him, and that was the reason we never +stayed long in one place. People got tired of hearing him preach. This +made me so angry I did not speak to Aunt Abby for two years, except when I +was obliged to. But I see now that she was right. As I read over papa's +sermons I see that they would seem very strange to common men and women. +He saw much more in every little thing than people generally do. I used to +tell him sometimes he 'saw double,' and he would sigh and say that the +world was blind, and did not see half; he never could take any minute by +itself; there was the past to cripple it and the future to shadow it. +Poor, poor papa! I really think I have learned in a very strange way to +understand his capacity for sadness. I understand it by my own capacity +for joy. I often smile to think how I used to accuse him of seeing double, +for it is the very thing which Robert says to me again and again when a +sight or a sound gives me such intense pleasure that I can hardly bear it. +And I see that while I have nearly the same sensitiveness to all +impressions from things or from people which he had, my body compels the +impressions to be joyous. This is what I owe mamma. If papa could have +been well and strong, he would have sung joy such as no poet has ever sung +since suns began to shine. + +"But most that he wrote was sad; and I am afraid most that he taught the +people was sad too, or, at any rate, not hopeful as it ought to be in this +beautiful, blessed world, which 'God so loved' and loves. So perhaps it +was better for people that papa never preached in any one parish more than +three or four years. Probably God took care to send next a man who would +make everybody take courage again. However, it was very hard for mamma, +and very hard for us; although for us there was excitement and fun in +getting into new houses and getting acquainted with new people; but the +worst thing was that we had very little money, and it used it up so to +move from place to place, and buy new things. I knew all about this before +I was ten years old as well as if I had been forty; and by the time I was +twelve, I was a perfect little miser of both clothes and money--I had such +a horror of the terrible days, which sometimes came, when we sorely wanted +both. + +"Early in the spring after I was thirteen--my birthday was in December--we +went to live in a little place called Maynard's Mills. It was a suburban +village near the largest manufacturing town in the State. The other two +homes which I could remember had been very small country villages, where +none of the people were rich, and only a few attended the Episcopal +church. In Maynard's Mills there were many rich people, and almost +everybody went to our church. The whole place was owned by Mr. Maynard, +Robert's father. He had gone out there to live near his mills, and the +place was so beautiful that family after family of the rich mill-owners +had moved out there. At first they used to go into town to church; but it +was a long drive, cold in winter and hot in summer, and so Mr. Maynard +built a beautiful chapel near his house and sent for papa to come and +preach in it. Mr. Maynard had been his classmate in college and loved him +very much, just because they were 'so different,' papa said, and I think +it must have been so, for Mr. Maynard is the merriest man I ever saw. He +laughs as soon as he sees you, whether there is anything to laugh at or +not, and he makes you feel just like laughing yourself, simply by asking +you how you do. I never saw papa so happy as he was the day Mr. Maynard's +letter came asking him to go there. + +"It was a very kind letter, and the salary, of which Mr. Maynard spoke +almost apologetically, saying that it would be increased in a few years as +the village grew, was more than twice as large as papa had ever received, +and there was a nice parsonage besides. + +"We moved in April. I always associate our moving with blue hepaticas, for +I carried a great basketful of them, which I had taken up roots and all, +in the woods, the morning we set out; and what should I find under papa's +study window but a great thicket of wild ferns and cornel bushes +growing--just the place for my hepaticas, and I set them out before I went +into the house. The house was very small, but it was so pretty that papa +and I were perfectly happy in it. Poor mamma did not like the closets and +the kitchen. The house we had left was a huge, old-fashioned house, with +four square rooms on a floor; one of these was the kitchen, and mamma +missed it very much. But she lived only a few days after we moved in. I +never knew of what disease she died. She was ill but a few hours and +suffered great pain. They said she had injured herself in some way in +lifting the furniture. It was all so sudden and so terrible, and we were +surrounded by such confusion and so many strange faces, that I do not +remember anything about it distinctly. I remember the funeral, and the +great masses of white and purple flowers all over the table on which the +coffin stood, and I remember how strangely papa's face looked. + +"And then Aunt Abby came to live with us, and we settled down into such a +new, different life, that it seemed to me as if it had been in some other +world that I had known mamma. My sister Abby was two years old, and my +darling brother Nat was ten, when mamma died. It is very hard to talk +about dear Nat, I love him so. He is so precious, and his sorrow is so +sacred, that I am hardly willing to let strangers pity him, ever so +tenderly. When he was a baby he sprang out of mamma's lap, one day, as she +was reaching up to take something from the mantel piece. He fell on the +andiron-head and injured his spine so that he could never walk. He is +twenty years old now; his head and chest and arms are about as large as +those of a boy of sixteen, but all the rest of his poor body is shrunken +and withered; he has never stood upright, and he cannot turn himself in +his chair or bed. But his head and face are beautiful. It is not only I +who think so. Artists have seen him sitting at the window, or being drawn +about in his little wagon, and have begged permission to paint his face, +for the face of a saint or of a hero, in their pictures. It is the face of +both saint and hero; and after all that must be always so, I think; for +how could a man be one without being the other? I know some very brave men +have been very bad men, but I do not call them heroes. Nat is the only +hero I ever knew; if I were a poet I would write a poem about him. It +should be called 'THE CROWNLESS KING.' Oh, how he _does_ reign over +suffering, and loss, and humiliation, and what a sweet kingdom spreads out +around him wherever he is! He does everybody good, and everybody loves +him. Poor papa used to say sometimes, 'My son is a far better preacher +than I; see, I sit at his feet to learn;' and it was true. Even when he +was a little fellow Nat used to keep up papa's courage. Many a time, when +papa looked dark and sad, Nat would call to him, 'Dear papa, will you +carry me up and down a little while by the window? I want the sky.' Then, +while they were walking, Nat would say such sweet things about the beauty +of the sky, and the delight it gave him to see it, that the tears would +come into papa's eyes, and he would say, 'Who would think that we could +ever forget for a moment this sky which is above us?' and he would go away +to his study comforted. + +"As I said, when mamma died, Nat was ten and I was thirteen. From that +time I took all the care of him. Aunt Abby, was not strong, and she did +not love children. She was just, and she meant to be always kind to us; +but that sort of kindness is quite different from loving-kindness. Poor +Nat never could bear to have her do anything for him, and so it very soon +came about that I took all the care of him. It was not hard, for he was +never ill; he suffered constant pain but in spite of it he was always +cheerful, always said he felt well, and never had any of the small +ailments and diseases which healthy children are apt to have. 'I +shouldn't know what to do without the ache, Dot,' he said to me one day +when he was only twelve years old. 'I've got so used to it, I should miss +it as much as I should miss you said it helps me to be good. I don't think +I should dare have it go away.' A few years later he wrote some lovely +little verses called 'The Angel of Pain,' which I will show you. Our life +after mamma died was very happy and peaceful. It makes me grieve for her, +even now, to think how little she was missed. We had all loved her. She +was always pleasant and good, and took the best possible care of us and of +everything; but she was not one of those persons whose presence makes +itself necessary to people. It seems hardly right to say such a thing, but +I really think papa seemed more cheerful without her, after the first. I +think that while she lived he was always groping and reaching after +something in her which did not exist. The hourly sight of her reminded him +hourly of his ideal of what a wife might be, and he was forever hoping +that she might come a little nearer to it--enter a little more into his +world of thought and feeling. This is how it has looked to me since I have +been married, and can understand just how terrible it must be to have the +person whom you love best, disappoint you in any way. + +"Nat was in all my classes in school. Although he was three years younger +he was much cleverer than I, and had had nothing to do, poor dear, all his +life, but lie in his chair and read. I used to draw him to and from school +in a little wagon; the boys lifted it up and down the steps so carefully +it did not jar him; and papa had a special desk built for him, so high +that part of the wagon could roll under it, and the lid could rest just +wherever Nat needed it for writing or studying. When we went home, there +was always a sort of procession with us; a good many of the children had +to go in the same direction, but many went simply to walk by Nat's wagon +and talk with him. Whenever there was a picnic or a nutting frolic, we +always took him; the boys took turns in drawing him; nobody would hear a +word of his staying at home; he used to sit in his wagon and look on while +the rest played, and sometimes he would be left all alone for a while, but +his face was always the happiest one there. At school the boys used to +tell him everything, and leave things to his decision. Almost every day, +somebody would call out, at recess or intermission, 'Well, I'll leave it +to Nat'--or 'I'll tell Nat.' One day somebody shouted, 'Take it before the +king--let's call him King Nat.' But it almost made Nat cry. He exclaimed, +'Oh, boys, please don't ever say that again;' and they never did. He had a +great deal more influence over them than any teacher. He could make them +do anything. Sometimes the teachers themselves used to come to him +privately and tell him of things they did not like, which the boys were +getting into the way of doing, and ask him to try to stop them. If Nat had +not been a saint, as I said before, all this would have spoiled him; but +he never thought of its being any special power in him. He used to think +it was only because the boys were so kind-hearted that they could not bear +to refuse any request which a poor cripple made. + +"When I think how happy those days were and how fast the darkest days of +our lives were drawing near, it makes me shrink from happiness almost as +much as from grief. It seems only grief's forerunner. On the evening of my +sixteenth birthday, we were all having a very merry time in papa's study, +popping corn over the open fire. We had wheeled Nat near the fire, and +tied the corn-popper on a broom-handle, so that he could shake the popper +himself; and I never saw him laugh so heartily at anything. Papa laughed +too, quite loud, which was a thing that did not happen many times a year. +It was the last time we heard the full sound of dear papa's voice. Late +that night he was called out to see a poor man, one of the factory +operatives, who was dying. It was a terrible snow-storm, and papa had been +so heated over the fire and in playing with us that he took a severe cold. +The next morning he could not speak aloud. The doctor said it was an acute +bronchitis and would pass off; but it did not, and in a very few weeks it +was clear that he was dying of consumption. Probably the cold only +developed a disease which had been long there. + +"I can't tell you about the last months of papa's life. I think I shall +never be able to speak of them. We saw much worse days afterward, but none +that seemed to me so hard to bear; even when I thought Nat and I would +have to go to the almshouse it was not so hard. The love which most +children divide between father and mother I concentrated on my father. I +loved him with an adoration akin to that which a woman feels for her +husband, and with the utmost of filial love added. Nat loved him almost as +much. The most touching thing I ever saw was to see Nat from his wagon, +or wheeled chair, reaching out to take care of papa in the bed. Nobody +else could give him his medicine so well; nobody could prepare his meals +for him, after he was too weak to use a knife and fork, so well as Nat. +How he could do all this with only one hand--for he could not bend himself +in his chair enough to use the hand farthest from the bed--nobody could +understand; but he did, and the very last mouthful of wine papa swallowed +he took, the morning he died, from poor Nat's brave little hand, which did +not shake nor falter, though the tears were rolling down his cheeks. + +"Papa lived nearly a year; but the last nine months he was in bed, and he +never spoke a loud word after that birthday night when we had been so +happy in the study. He died in November, on a dreary stormy day. I never +shall forget it. He had seemed easier that morning, and insisted on our +all going out to breakfast together and leaving him alone, the doors being +open between the study and the dining-room. We had hardly seated ourselves +at the table when his bell rang. Aunt Abby reached him first. It could not +have been a minute, but he did not know her. For the first and only time +in my life I forgot Nat, and was out of the room when I heard him sob. +Dear Nat! not even then would he think of himself. I turned back. 'Oh, +don't stop to take me, Dot,' he said. 'Run!' But I could not; and when I +reached the door, pushing his chair before me, all was over. However, the +doctor said that, even if we had been there at the first, papa could not +have bid us good-by; that the death was from instantaneous suffocation, +and that he probably had no consciousness of it himself. Papa's life had +been insured for five thousand dollars and he had saved, during the three +years we had lived at Maynard's Mills, about one thousand more. This was +all the money we had in the world. + +"Mr. Maynard had been very kind throughout papa's illness. He had +persuaded the church to continue the salary; every day he had sent +flowers, and grapes, and wine, and game, and everything he could think of +that papa could eat; and, what was kindest of all, he had come almost +every day to talk with him and cheer him up. But he did not mean to let +his kindness stop here. The day after the funeral he came to see us, to +propose to adopt me. I forgot to say that Aunt Abby was to be married soon +and would take little Abby with her; so they were provided for, and the +only question was about Nat and me. + +"Fortunately, dear Nat was in the dining-room and did not see Mr. Maynard +when he came. I have told you what a merry man Mr. Maynard is, and how +kind he is, but he is also a very obstinate and high-tempered man. He had +never loved Nat; I do not know why; I think he was the only human being +who ever failed to love him. He pitied him, of course; but he was so +repelled by his deformity that he could not love him. As soon as Mr. +Maynard said, 'Now, my dear child, you must come to my house and make it +your home always,' I saw that he intended to separate me from Nat. + +"I replied, 'I cannot leave Nat, Mr. Maynard. I thank you very much; you +are very good; but it would break my heart to leave him, and I am sure +papa would never forgive me if I should do it.' + +"He made a gesture of impatience. He had foreseen this, and come prepared +for it; but he saw that I promised to prove even more impracticable than +he had feared. + +"'You have sacrificed your whole life already to that miserable +unfortunate boy,' he said, 'and I always told your father he ought not to +permit it.' + +"At this I grew angry, and I replied:-- + +"'Mr. Maynard, Nat does more for us all, every hour of his life, than we +ever could do for him: dear papa used to say so too.' + +"No doubt papa had said this very thing to Mr. Maynard often, for tears +came into his eyes and he went on:-- + +"'I know, I know--he is a wonderful boy, and we might all learn a lesson +of patience from him; but I can't have the whole of your life sacrificed +to him. I will provide for him amply; he shall have every comfort which +money can command.' + +"'But where?' said I. + +"'In an institution I know of, under the charge of a friend of mine.' + +"'A hospital!' exclaimed I; and the very thought of my poor Nat, who had +been the centre of a loving home-circle, of a merry school playground, +ever since he could remember--the very thought of his finding himself +alone among diseased people, and tended by hired attendants, so overcame +me that I burst into floods of tears. + +"Mr. Maynard, who hated the presence of tears and suffering, as mirthful +people always do, rose at once and said kindly, 'Poor child, you are not +strong enough to talk it over yet; but as your aunt must go away so soon, +I thought it better to have it all settled at once.' + +"'It is settled, Mr. Maynard,' said I, in a voice that half frightened me. +'I shall never leave Nat--never, so long as I live.' + +"'Then you'll do him the greatest unkindness you can--that's all,' replied +Mr. Maynard angrily, and walked out of the room. I locked myself up in my +own room and thought the whole matter over. How I could earn my own living +and Nat's, I did not know. We should have about four hundred dollars a +year. I had learned enough in my childhood of poverty to know that we need +not starve while we had that; but simply not starving is a great way off +from really living; and I felt convinced that it would be impossible for +me to keep up courage or hope unless I could contrive, in some way, to +earn money enough to surround our home with at least a semblance of the +old atmosphere. We must have books; we must have a flower sometimes; we +must have sun and air. + +"At last an inspiration came to me. Down stairs, in the saddened empty +study, sat little Miss Penstock, the village dressmaker, sewing on our +gloomy black dresses. She lived all alone in a very small house near Mr. +Maynard's mill. I remembered that I had heard her say how lonely she found +it living by herself since her married sister, who used to live with her, +had gone to the West. Since then, Miss Penstock had sometimes consented to +go for a few days at a time to sew in the houses of her favorite +employers, just to keep from forgetting how to speak,' the poor little +woman said. But she disliked very much to do this. She was a gentlewoman; +and though she accepted with simple dignity the necessity of earning her +bread, it was bitterly disagreeable to her to sit as a hired sewer in +other people's houses. She liked to come to our house better than to any +other. We also were poor. My Aunt Abby was a woman of great simplicity, +and a quiet, stately humility, like Miss Penstock's own; and they enjoyed +sitting side by side whole days, sewing in silence. Miss Penstock had +always spoken with a certain sort of tender reverence to Nat, and I +remembered that he liked to be in the room where she sewed. All these +thoughts passed through my mind in a moment. I sprang to my feet and +exclaimed, 'That is it--that is it!' and I ran hastily down to the study. +Miss Penstock was alone there. She looked up in surprise at my +breathlessness and my red eyes. I knelt down by her side and took the work +out of her hands. + +"'Dear Miss Penstock,' said I, 'would you rent part of your house?' + +"She looked up reflectively, took off her spectacles with her left hand, +and tapped her knees slowly with them, as she always did when puzzling +over a scanty pattern. + +"'I don't know, Dora, but I might; I've thought of it; it's awful lonely +for me as 'tis. But it's such a risk taking in strangers; is it any +friends of yours you're thinking of?' + +"'Nat and me,' said I, concisely. Miss Penstock's spectacles dropped from +her fingers, and she uttered an ejaculation I never heard from her lips on +any other occasion. 'Good Heavens!' + +"'Yes,' said I, beginning to cry, 'Nat and me! I've got to take care of +Nat, and if you would only let us live with you I think I could manage +beautifully.' Then I told her the whole story of Mr. Maynard's proposal. +While we were talking Aunt Abby came in. The problem was no new one to +her. Papa and she had talked it over many a time in the course of the past +sad year. It seemed that he had had to the last a strong hope that Mr. +Maynard would provide for us both. Poor papa! as he drew near the next +world, all the conventionalities and obligations of this seemed so small +to him, he did not shrink from the thought of dependence upon others as he +would have done in health. + +"'But I always told him,' said Aunt Abby, 'that Mr. Maynard wasn't going +to do anything for Nat beyond what money'd do. He'd give him a thousand a +year, or two, if need be, but he'd never set eyes on him if he could help +it.' + +"'Aunt Abby,' exclaimed I, 'please don't say another word about Mr. +Maynard's helping Nat. I'd die before Nat should touch a cent of his +money.' + +"'There is no use talking that way,' said Aunt Abby, whose tenderest +mercies were often cruelly worded. 'Mr. Maynard's a good, generous man, +and I'm sure he's been the saving of us all. But that's no reason he +should set up to take you away from Nat now; and I know well enough Nat +can't live without you; but I don't see how it's to be managed. And Aunt +Abby sighed. Then I told her my plans; they grew clearer and clearer to me +as I unfolded them; the two gentle-faced spinster women looked at me with +surprise. Miss Penstock wiped her eyes over and over. + +"'If I could only be sure I wasn't going against your best interests to +let you come,' said she. + +"'Oh, Miss Penstock,' exclaimed I, 'don't think so--don't dare to say no +for that reason; for I tell you, I shall go away to some other town with +Nat if you don't take us; there is no other house here that would do; +think how much better it would be for Nat to stay among friends.' + +"'It's lucky I am their guardian,' said Aunt Abby, with an unconscious +defiance in her tone. 'There can't anybody hinder their doing anything I +am willing to have them do. My brother wanted to have Mr. Maynard, too; +but I told him no; I'd either be whole guardian or none.' + +"'I think good Aunt Abby had had a dim foreboding that Mr. Maynard's +kindness might take a shape which it would be hard to submit to. Great as +her gratitude was, her family pride resented dictation, and resented also +the implied slight to poor Nat. As I look back now, I can see that, except +for this reaction of feeling, she never would have consented so easily to +my undertaking all I undertook, in going to housekeeping alone with that +helpless child, on four hundred dollars a year. Before night it was all +settled, and Miss Penstock went home two hours before her time, 'so +stirred up, somehow,' as she said, 'to think of those blessed children's +coming to live in my house, I couldn't see to thread a needle.' After tea +Mr. Maynard came again: Aunt Abby saw him alone. When she came up-stairs +she had been crying, but her lips were closed more rigidly than I ever saw +them. Aunt Abby could be as determined as Mr. Maynard. All she said to me +of the interview was, 'I don't know now as he'll really give in that he +can't have things as he wants to. For all his laughing and for all his +goodness, I don't believe he is any too comfortable to live with. I +shouldn't wonder if he never spoke to one of us again.' + +"But Mr. Maynard was too well-bred a man for any such pettiness as that. +His resentment showed itself merely in a greater courtesy than ever, +combined with a careful absence of all inquiries as to our plans. It hurt +me very much, for I knew how it would have hurt dear papa. But I knew, +too, that I was right and Mr. Maynard was wrong, and that comforted me. + +"Four weeks from the day papa was buried, the pretty parsonage was locked +up, cold, dark, empty. Aunt Abby had gone with little Abby to her new +home, and Nat and I were settled at Miss Penstock's. The night before we +moved, Mr. Maynard left a note at the door for me. It contained five +hundred dollars and these words:-- + +"'Miss Dora will not refuse to accept this from one who hoped to be her +father.' + +"But I could not take it. I sent it back to him with a note like this:-- + +"'DEAR MR. MAYNARD:--I shall never forget that you were willing to be my +father, and I shall always be grateful to you; but I cannot take money +from one who is displeased with me for doing what I think right. I promise +you, however, for papa's sake and for Nat's, that if I ever need help I +will ask it of you, and not of any one else.' + + * * * * * + +"The next time I saw Mr. Maynard he put both his hands on my shoulders and +said: 'You are a brave girl; I wish I could forgive you; but remember your +promise.' And that was the last word Mr. Maynard spoke to me for three +years. + +"Our new home was so much pleasanter than we supposed it could be, that at +first, in spite of our grief, both Nat and I were almost gay. It was like +a sort of picnic, or playing at housekeeping. The rooms were sunny and +cozy. Rich people in splendid houses do not dream how pleasant poor +people's little rooms can be, if the sun shines in and there are a few +pretty things. We kept all the books which could ever be of use to Nat, +and a picture of the Sistine Madonna which Mr. Maynard had given us on the +last Christmas Day, and papa's and mamma's portraits. The books, and +these, made our little sitting-room look like home. We had only two rooms +on the first floor; one of these was a tiny one, but it held our little +cooking-stove and a cupboard, with our few dishes; the other we called +'sitting-room;' it had to be dear Nat's bedroom also, because he could not +be carried up and down stairs. But I made a chintz curtain, which shut off +his bed from sight, and really made the room look prettier, for I put it +across a corner and had a shelf put up above it, on which Nat's stuffed +owl sat. My room was over Nat's, and a cord went up from his bed to a +bell over mine, so that he could call me at any moment if he wanted +anything in the night. Then we had one more little chamber, in which we +kept the boxes of papa's sermons, and some trunks of old clothes, and +things which nobody wanted to buy at the auction, and papa's big chair and +writing-table. We would not sell those. I thought perhaps some day we +should have a house of our own--I could not imagine how; but if we did we +should be glad of that chair and table, and so Aunt Abby let us keep them, +though they were of handsome wood, beautifully carved, and would have +brought a good deal of money. For these four rooms we paid Miss Penstock +three dollars a month; the rent would have been a dollar a week, but she +said it was really worth a dollar a month to her to have people who would +not trouble her nor hurt the house; and as Aunt Abby thought so too, I +believed her. + +"My plan was to have Nat keep on at school, and to take in sewing myself, +or to work for Miss Penstock. For the first year all went so smoothly that +I was content. I used to draw Nat to and from school twice a day, and that +gave me air and exercise. Everybody was very kind in giving me sewing, and +I earned four and five dollars a week. We did not have to buy any clothes, +and so we laid up a little money. But the next year people did not give me +so much sewing; they had given it to me the first year because they were +sorry for us, but now they had forgotten. Very often I would sit idle a +whole week, with no work. Then I used to read and study, but I could not +enjoy anything, because I was so worried. I felt that trouble was coming. +Early in the fall dear Nat was taken ill--the first illness of his life. +It was a slow fever. He was ill for three months. I often wonder how I +lived through those months. When he recovered he seemed better than ever. +The doctor said he had passed a sort of crisis and would always be +stronger for it. The doctor was very kind. Several nights he sat up with +Nat and made me go to bed, and he would not let me pay him a cent, though +he came every day for weeks. When I urged him to let us pay the bill he +grew half angry, and said, 'Do you think I am going to take money from +your father's daughter?' and then I felt more willing to take it for +papa's sake. But the medicines had cost a great deal, and I had not earned +anything; and so, at the end of the second year, we had been obliged to +take quite a sum out of our little capital. I did not tell Nat, and I did +not go to Mr. Maynard. I went on from day to day, in a sort of stupor, +wondering what would happen next. I was seventeen years old, but I knew of +nothing I could do except to sew; I did not know enough to teach. All this +time I never once thought of the mills. I used to watch the men and women +going in and out, and envy them, thinking how sure they were of their +wages; and yet it never crossed my mind that I could do the same thing. I +am afraid it was unconscious pride which prevented my thinking of it. + +"But the day came. It was in the early spring. I had been to the +grave-yard to set out some fresh hepaticas on papa's grave. His grave and +mamma's were in an inclosure surrounded by a high, thick hedge of pines +and cedars close to the public street As I knelt down, hidden behind the +trees, I heard steps and voices. They paused opposite me. The persons were +evidently looking over the fence. Then I distinguished the voice of our +kind doctor. + +"'Poor Kent!' he said, 'how it would distress him to see his children now! +That Nat barely pulled through his fever; but he seems to have taken a new +turn since then and is stronger than ever. But I am afraid they are very +poor.' + +"To my astonishment, the voice that replied was Mr. Maynard's. + +"'Of course they are,' said he impatiently; 'but nobody will ever have a +chance to help them till the last cent's gone. That Dora would work her +fingers off in the mills rather than ask or receive help.' + +"'But good heavens! Maynard, you'd never stand by and see Tom Kent's +daughter in the mills?' exclaimed the doctor. + +"I could not hear the reply, for they were walking away. But the words 'in +the mills' rang in my ears. A new world seemed opening before me. I had no +particle of false pride; all I wanted was to earn money honestly. I could +not understand why I had never thought of this way. I knew that many of +the factory operatives, who were industrious and economical, supported +large families of children on their wages. 'It would be strange enough if +I could not support Nat and myself,' thought I, and I almost ran home, I +was so glad. I said nothing to Nat; I knew instinctively that it would +grieve him. + +"The next day after I left him at school I went to the largest mill and +saw the overseer. He was a coarse, disagreeable man; but he had known my +father and he treated me respectfully. He said they could not give me very +good wages at first; but if I learned readily, and was skillful in tending +the looms, I might in time make a very good living. The sums that he named +seemed large, tried by my humble standard. Even at the beginning I should +earn more than I had been able to for many months at my needle. After tea +I told Nat. He lay very still for some moments; the tears rolled down his +cheeks; then he reached up both hands and drew my face down to his, and +said, 'Dear sister, it would be selfish to make it any harder for you than +it must be at best. But oh, Dot, Dot! do you think you can dream what it +is for me to have to lie here and be such a burden on you?' + +"'Oh, Nat!' I said, 'if you don't want to break my heart, don't speak so. +I don't have to earn any more for two than I should have to alone; it does +not cost anything for you; and if it did, you darling, don't you know that +I could not live without you? you are all I have got in the world.' Nat +did not reply; but all that evening his face looked as I never saw it +before. Nat was fifteen; instinct was beginning to torture him with a +man's sense of his helplessness, and it was almost more than even his +childlike faith and trust could bear. + +"The next day I told Miss Penstock. She had been as kind to us as a mother +through this whole year and a half, and I really think we had taken the +place of children in her lonely old heart. But she never could forget that +we were her minister's children; she always called me Miss Dora, and does +to this day. She did not interrupt me while I told her my plan, but the +color mounted higher and higher in her face. As soon as I stopped +speaking, she exclaimed:-- + +"'Dora Kent, are you mad--a girl with a face like yours to go into the +mills? you don't know what you're about.' + +"'Yes I do, dear Pennie,' I said (Nat had called her Pennie ever since his +sickness, when she had taken tender care of him night and day). 'I know +there are many rude, bad men there, but I do not believe they will trouble +me. At any rate I can but try. I must earn more money, Pennie; you know +that as well as I do.' + +"She did indeed know it; but it was very hard for her to give approbation +to this scheme. It was not until after a long argument that I induced her +to promise not to write to Aunt Abby till I had tried the experiment for +one month. + +"The next day I went to the mill. Everything proved much better than I had +feared. Some of the women in the room in which I was placed had belonged +to papa's Sunday-school, and they were all very kind to me, and told the +others who I was; so from the outset I felt myself among friends. In two +weeks I had grown used to the work; the noise of the looms did not +frighten or confuse me, and it did not tire me to stand so many hours. I +found that I should soon be able to do most of my work mechanically, and +think about what I pleased in the mean time. So I hoped to be able to +study at home and recite my lessons to myself in the mill. The only thing +that troubled me was that I could not take Nat to and from school, and he +had to be left alone sometimes. But I found a very pleasant and faithful +Irish boy, who was glad to earn a little money by drawing him back and +forth, often staying with him after school till I came home at six +o'clock. This boy was the son of the Irish gardener on the overseer's +place. The overseer was an Englishman; his name was Wilkins. He is the +only human being I ever disliked so that it was hard to speak to him. His +brother, too, the agent who had charge of all Mr. Maynard's business, was +almost as disagreeable as he. They both looked like bloated frogs; their +wide, shapeless mouths, flat noses, and prominent eyes, made me shudder +when I looked at them. + +"Little Patrick soon grew fond of Nat, as everybody did who came into +close contact with him; and he used often to stay at our house till late +at night, hearing Nat's stories, and watching him draw pictures on the +blackboard. One of the things I had kept was a great blackboard which papa +had made for him. It was mounted on a stout standard, so that it could be +swung close in front of his chair or wagon, and he would lie there and +draw for hours together. Some of the pictures he drew were so beautiful I +could not bear to have them rubbed out. It seemed almost like killing +things that were alive. Whenever I dared to spend a penny for anything not +absolutely needful, I always bought a sheet of drawing-paper or a crayon; +for Nat would rather have them than anything else in the world--even than +a book--unless the book had pictures. + +"One night, when I went home, I found him sitting up very straight in his +wagon, with his cheeks crimson with excitement. Patrick was with him, and +the table and the whole floor were covered with queer, long, jointed +paste-board sheets, with pieces of gay-colored calicoes, pasted on them. +Patrick looked as excited as Nat, and as soon as I opened the door he +exclaimed, 'Och, Miss Dora, see how he's plazed with um.' I was almost +frightened at Nat's face. 'Why Nat, dear,' said I, 'what are they? I don't +think they are very pretty;' and I picked up one of the queer things and +looked at it. 'The colors are bright and pretty, but I am sure almost all +the patterns are hideous.' + +"'Of course they are,' shouted Nat hysterically. 'That's just it. That's +what pleases me so,' and he burst out crying. I was more frightened still. +Trampling the calicoes under my feet, I ran and knelt by his chair, and +put my arms around him. 'Oh, Nat, Nat, what is the matter?' cried I. +'Patrick, what have you done to him?' Poor Patrick could not speak; he was +utterly bewildered; he began hastily picking up the prints and shuffling +them out of sight. + +"'Don't you touch one!' screamed Nat, lifting up his head again, with +tears rolling down his cheeks. 'Dot, Dot,' he went on, speaking louder and +louder, 'don't you see? those are patterns; Patrick says Mr. Wilkins buys +them. I can earn money too; I can draw a million times prettier ones than +those.' + +"Like lightning the thing flashed through my brain. Of course he could. He +drew better ones every day of his life, by dozens, on the old blackboard, +with crumbling bits of chalk. Again and again I had racked my brains to +devise some method by which he might be taught, as artists are taught, and +learn to put his beautiful conceptions into true shapes for the world to +see. But I knew that materials and instruction were both alike out of our +reach, and I had hoped earnestly that such longing had never entered his +heart. I sat down and covered my face with my hands. + +"'You see, sister,' said Nat in a calmer tone, sobered himself by my +excitement--'you see, don't you?' + +"'Yes, dear, I do see,' said I; 'you will earn much more money than I ever +can, and take care of me, after all.' + +"To our inexperience, it seemed as if a mine had opened at our feet. Poor +Patrick stood still, unhappy and bewildered, twisting one of the +pattern-books in his hand. + +"'An' is it these same that Misther Nat'll be afther tryin' to make?' said +he. + +"'Oh no, Patrick,' said Nat, laughing, 'only the pictures from which these +are to be made.' + +"Then we questioned Patrick more closely. All he knew was that Mr. +Wilkins' sister made many of the drawings; Patrick had seen them lying in +piles on Mr. Wilkins' desk; some of them colored, some of them merely in +ink. The pieces of paper were about the size of these patterns, some six +or eight inches square. + +"'Will I ask Miss Wilkins to come and show yees?' said Patrick. + +"'No, no,' said we both, hastily; 'you must not tell anybody. Of course +she would not want other people to be drawing them too.' + +"'Especially if she can't make anything better than these,' said Nat, +pityingly. Already his tone had so changed that I hardly recognized it. In +that moment the artist-soul of my darling brother had felt its first +breath of the sweetness of creative power. + +"Patrick promised not to speak of it to a human being; as he was going out +of the door he turned back, with a radiant face, and said: 'An 'twas +meself that only thought maybe the calikers'd amuse him for a minnit with +their quare colors,' and he almost somerseted off the door-steps, uttering +an Irish howl of delight. + +"'You've made our fortunes! there'll always be calicoes wanted, and I can +draw fifty patterns a day, and I'll give you half of the first pay I get +for them,' called the excited Nat; but Patrick was off. + +"We sat up till midnight. I was scarcely less overwrought than Nat. He +drew design after design and rejected them as not quite perfect. + +"'You know,' he said, 'I must send something so very good to begin with, +that they can't help seeing at first sight how good it is.' + +"'But not so good that you can't ever make another equal to it,' suggested +I out of my practical but inartistic brain. + +"'No danger of that, Dot,' said Nat, confidently. 'Dot, there isn't +anything in this world I can't make a picture of, if I can have paper +enough, and pencils and paint.' + +"At last he finished three designs which he was willing to send. They +were all for spring or summer dresses. One was a curious block pattern, +the blocks of irregular shapes, but all fitting into each other, and all +to be of the gayest colors. Here and there came a white block with one +tiny scarlet dot upon it; 'That's for a black-haired girl, Dot,' said Nat; +'you couldn't wear it.' + +"The second was a group of ferns tied by a little wreath of pansies; +nothing could be more beautiful. The third was a fantastic mixture of +pine-tassels and acorns. I thought it quite ugly, but Nat insisted on it +that it would be pretty for a summer muslin; and so it was the next year, +when it was worn by everybody, the little plumy pine-tassels of a bright +green (which didn't wash at all), and the acorns all tumbling about on +your lap, all sides up at once. + +"It was one o'clock before we went to bed, and we might as well have sat +up all night, for we did not sleep. The next morning I got up before light +and walked into town, to a shop where they sold paints. I had just time to +buy a box of water-colors and get back to the mill before the bell stopped +ringing. All the forenoon the little white parcel lay on the floor at my +feet. As often as I looked at it, I seemed to see Nat's pictures dancing +on the surface. I had given five dollars for the box; I trembled to think +what a sum that was for us to spend on an uncertainty; but I had small +doubt. At noon I ran home; I ate little dinner--Nat would not touch a +mouthful. 'You must see the pansies and ferns done before you go,' he +said. + +"And before my hour was up they were so nearly done that I danced around +Nat's chair with delight. + +"'I know Mr. Wilkins never saw anything so pretty in his life,' said Nat, +calmly. + +"The thought of Mr. Wilkins was a terrible damper to me. Nat had not seen +him: I had. + +"'Nat,' said I, slowly, 'Mr. Wilkins won't know that it is pretty. He is +not a man; he is a frog, and he looks as if he lied. I believe he will +cheat us.' + +"Nat looked shocked. 'Why Dora, I never in my life heard you speak so. You +shall not take them to him. I will have Patrick take me there.' + +"'No, no, dear,' I exclaimed, 'I would not have you see Mr. Wilkins for +the world. He is horrible. But I am not afraid of him.' + +"I meant that I would not for the world have him see Nat. He was coarse +and brutal enough to be insulting to a helpless cripple, and I knew it. +But Nat did not dream of my reason for insisting so strongly on going +myself, and he finally yielded. + +"I took the pictures to the overseer's office at noon. I knew that 'Agent +Wilkins,' as he was called to distinguish him from his brother, was always +there at that time. He looked up at me, as I drew near the desk, with an +expression which almost paralyzed me with disgust. But for Nat's sake I +kept on. I watched him closely as he looked at the pictures. I thought I +detected a start of surprise, but I could not be sure. Then he laid them +down, saying carelessly, 'I am no judge of these things; I will consult +some one who is, and let you know to-morrow noon if we can pay your +brother anything for the designs.' + +"'Of course you know that the market is flooded with this sort of thing, +Miss Kent,' he added, as I was walking away. I made no reply; I was +already revolving in my mind a plan for taking them to another mill in +town, whose overseer was a brother of one of papa's wardens. The next day +at noon I went to the office; my heart beat fast, but I tried to believe +that I did not hope. Both the brothers were there. The overseer spoke +first, but I felt that the agent watched me sharply. + +"'So your lame brother drew these designs, did he, Miss Dora?' + +"'My brother Nat drew them, sir; I have but one brother, said I, trying +hard to speak civilly. + +"'Well' said he, 'they are really very well done--quite remarkable, +considering that they are the work of a child who has had no instruction; +they would have to be rearranged and altered before we could use them, but +we would like to encourage him and to help you too,' he continued, +patronizingly, 'and so we shall buy them just as they are.' + +"'My brother Nat is not a child,' replied I, 'and we do not wished to be +helped. If the designs are not worth money, will you be so good as to give +them back to me?' and I stepped nearer the desk and stretched out my hand +toward the pictures which were lying there. But Agent Wilkins snatched +them up quickly, and casting an angry glance at his brother, exclaimed:-- + +"'Oh, you quite mistake my brother, Miss Kent; the designs are worth money +and we are glad to buy them; but they are not worth so much as they would +be if done by an experienced hand. We will give you ten dollars for the +three,' and he held out the money to me. Involuntarily I exclaimed, 'I had +not dreamed that they would be worth so much.' Nat could earn then in four +hours' work as much as I could in a week; in that one moment the whole of +life seemed thrown open for us. All my distrust vanished. And when the +agent added, kindly, 'Be sure and bring us all the designs which your +brother makes. I think we shall want to buy as many as he will draw; he +certainly has rare talent,'--I could have fallen on the floor at his feet +to thank him, so grateful did I feel for this new source of income for us, +and still more for the inexpressible pleasure for my poor Nat. + +"From that day Nat was a changed boy. He would not go to school in the +afternoons, but spent the hours from two till five in drawing. I had a +cord arranged from our room to Miss Penstock's, so that he could call her +if at any moment he needed help, and she was only too glad to have him in +the house. When I reached home at six, I always found him lying back in +his chair with his work spread out before him, and such a look of content +and joy on his face, that more than once it made me cry instead of +speaking when I bent over to kiss him. 'Oh, Dot--oh, Dot!' he used to say +sometimes, 'it isn't all for the sake of the money, splendid as that is; +but I do feel as if I should yet do something much better than making +designs for calicoes. I feel it growing in me. Oh, if I could only be +taught; if there were only some one here who could tell me about the +things I don't understand!' + +"'But you shall be taught, dear,' I replied; 'we will lay up all the +money you earn. I can earn enough for us to live on, and then, with your +money, in a few years we can certainly contrive some way for you to +study.' + +"It seemed not too visionary a hope, for Nat's designs grew prettier and +prettier, and the agent bought all I carried him. One week I remember he +paid me thirty dollars; and as he handed it to me, seeing how pleased I +looked, he said,-- + +"'Your brother is getting quite rich, is he not, Miss Kent?' Something +sinister in his smile struck me at that moment as it had not done for a +long time, and I resolved to go more seldom to the office. + +"We did not lay up so much as we hoped to; we neither of us had a trace of +the instinct of economy or saving. I could not help buying a geranium or +fuchsia to set in the windows; Nat could not help asking me to buy a book +or a picture sometimes, and his paints and pencils and brushes and paper +cost a good deal in the course of six months. Still we were very happy and +very comfortable, and the days flew by. Our little room was so cozy and +pretty, that Miss Penstock's customers used often to come in to see it; +and if they happened to come when Nat was there, they almost always sent +him something afterward; so, at the end of two years you never would have +known the bare little room. We had flowers in both windows, and as each +window had sun, the flowers prospered; and we had a great many pretty +pictures on the walls, and Nat's sketches pinned up in all sorts of odd +places. A big beam ran across the ceiling in the middle, and that was +hung full of charcoal sketches, with here and there a sheet just painted +in bars of bright color--no meaning to them, except to 'light up,' Nat +said. I did not understand him then, but I could see how differently all +the rest looked after the scarlet and yellow were put by their side. Some +of our pictures had lovely frames to them, which Nat had carved out of old +cigar-boxes that Patrick brought him. Sometimes he used to do nothing but +carve for a week, and he would say, 'Dot, I do not believe drawing is the +thing I want to do, after all. I want more; I hate to have everything +flat.' Then he would get discouraged and think all he had done was good +for nothing. 'I never can do anything except to draw till I go somewhere +to be taught,' he would say, and turn back to the old calico patterns with +fresh zeal. + +"One day a customer of Miss Penstock's brought Nat a book about grapes, +which had some pictures of the different methods of grape-culture in +different countries. One of these pictures pleased him very much. It +showed the grape-vines looped on low trees, in swinging festoons. He had +the book propped up open at that picture day after day, and kept drawing +it over and over on the blackboard and on paper till I was tired of the +sight of it. It did not seem to me remarkably pretty. But Nat said one +day, when I told him so,-- + +"'It isn't the picture itself, but what I want to make from it. Don't you +see that the trees look a little like dancers whirling round, holding each +other by the hand--one-legged dancers?' + +"I could not see it. 'Well,' said Nat, 'look at this, and see if you can +see it any better;' and he drew out of his portfolio a sheet with a rough +charcoal sketch of six or seven low, gnarled, bare trees, with their +boughs inter-locked in such a fantastic manner that the trees seemed +absolutely reeling about in a crazy dance. I laughed as soon as I saw it. +'There!' said Nat triumphantly; 'now, if I can only get the vines to go +just as I want them to, in and out, you see that will dress up the +dancers.' He worked long over this design. The fancy seemed to have taken +possession of his brain. He gave names to the trees, but he called them +all men: 'It's a jolly crew of old kings,' he said; 'that's Sesostris at +the head, and there's Herod; that old fellow with the gouty stomach under +his left arm.' Nat was now so full of freaks and fun, that our little room +rang with laughter night after night. Patrick used to sit on the floor +sometimes, with his broad Irish mouth stiffened into a perpetual grin at +the sight of the mirth, which, though he could not comprehend it, he found +contagious. + +"'But what will you do with it, Nat?' said I. 'It will never do for a +calico pattern.' + +"'I don't know,' said he reflectively; 'I might make it smaller and hide +the faces, and not make the limbs of the trees look so much like legs, and +call it the "vine pattern," and I guess old Wilkins would think it was +graceful, and I dare say Miss Wilkins would wear it, if nobody else did.' + +"'Oh! Nat, Nat, how can you,' exclaimed I, 'when they have been so good to +pay us so much money?' + +"'I know it,' said Nat, 'it's too bad; I'm ashamed now. But doesn't this +look like the two Wilkins brothers? You said they looked like frogs?' he +ran on, holding up a most ludicrous picture of two tall, lank frogs +standing behind a counter, and stretching out four front legs like greedy +hands across the counter, with a motto coming out of the right-hand frog's +mouth: 'More designs, if you please, Mr. Kent--something light and +graceful for summer wear.' + +"These were the words of a note which Mr. Wilkins had sent to Nat a few +weeks before. I laughed till the tears ran down my cheeks, for really the +frogs did look like the brothers Wilkins. The picture haunted my mind for +weeks afterward, and seemed somehow to revive my old distrust of them. + +"A few days after this Nat had finished a set of designs 'for summer +wear,' as the order said, and among them he had put in the 'One-Legged +Dancers.' + +"'It'll do no harm to try it,' said he. 'I think it would be lovely +printed in bright-green on a white ground, and nobody but you and me would +ever see the kings' legs in it.' + +"It really was pretty; still I could not help seeing legs and heads and +King Herod's stomach in it; and, moreover, it was entirely too large a +figure for that year's fashions in calico or muslin. However, I said +nothing and carried it with the rest. When I went the next day, Mr. +Wilkins said, as he handed me the money,-- + +"'Oh, by the way, Miss Kent, one of the drawings has been mislaid. I +suppose it is of no consequence; we could not use it; it was quite too +large a figure, and seemed less graceful than your brother's work usually +is; it was a picture of grape-vines.' + +"'Oh,' said I, 'I told Nat I didn't believe that would be good for +anything. No, it is not of the least consequence.' + +"When I repeated this to Nat, he did not seem surprised at their refusal +of the design; they had already refused several others in the course of +the year. But he seemed singularly disturbed at the loss of the drawing. +At last he urged me to go and ask if it had not been found. + +"'I may do something with it yet, Dot,' he said. 'I know it is a good +design for something, if not for calico, and I don't believe they have +lost it. It is very queer.' + +"But Mr. Wilkins assured me, with great civility and many expressions of +regret, that the design was lost: that they had made careful search for it +everywhere. + +"The thing would have passed out of my mind in a short time but for Nat's +pertinacious reference to it. Every few days he would say, 'It is very +queer, Dot, about the One-Legged Dancers. How could such a thing be lost? +They never lost a drawing before. I believe Miss Wilkins has got it, and +is going to paint a big picture from it herself!' + +"'Why, Nat!' I exclaimed, 'aren't you ashamed? that would be stealing.' + +"'I don't care, Dot,' he said again and again, 'I never shall believe that +paper was lost.' + +"I grew almost out of patience with him; I never knew him to be unjust to +any one, and it grieved me that he should be so to people who had been our +benefactors. + +"About four months later, one warm day in April, I walked over to the +town after my day's work was done, to buy a gown for myself, and a new box +of paints for Nat. I did not go to town more than two or three times a +year, and the shop-windows delighted me as much as if I had been only +eleven years old. As I walked slowly up and down, looking at everything, I +suddenly started back at the sight of a glossy green and white chintz, +which was displayed conspicuously in the central window of one of the +largest shops. There they were, just as Nat had drawn them on the missing +paper, 'The One-Legged Dancers!' Nat was right. It was a pretty pattern, a +very pretty pattern for a chintz; and there was--I laughed out in spite of +myself, as I stood in the crowd on the sidewalk--yes, there was the ugly +great knot in one of the trees which had made King Herod's stomach. But +what did it mean? No chintzes were made in any of Mr. Maynard's mills, +nor, so far as I knew, in any mill in that neighborhood. I was hot with +indignation. Plainly Nat's instinct had been a true one. The Wilkinses had +stolen the design and had sold it to some other manufacturers, not +dreaming that the theft could ever be discovered by two such helpless +children as Nat and I. + +"I went into the shop and asked the price of the chintz in the window. + +"'Oh, the grape-vine pattern? that is a new pattern, just out this spring; +it is one of the most popular patterns we ever had. A lovely thing, miss,' +said the clerk, as he lifted down another piece of it. + +"'I will take one yard,' said I with a choking voice. I was afraid I +should cry in the shop. 'Do you know where this chintz is made?' I added. + +"The clerk glanced at the price-ticket and read me the name. It was made +by a firm I had never heard of, in another State. No wonder the Wilkinses +thought themselves safe. + +"When I showed Nat the chintz he seemed much less excited than I expected. +He was not so very much surprised; and, to my great astonishment, he was +not at first sure that it would be best to let the Wilkinses know that we +had discovered their cheating. But I was firm; I would have no more to do +with them. My impulse was to go to Mr. Maynard. Although during these +three years he had never come to see us, I felt sure that, in the bottom +of his heart, there still was a strong affection for us; and, above all, +he was a just man. He would never keep in his employ for one day any +person capable of such wrong as the Wilkinses had done us. + +"'But,' persisted Nat, 'you do not know that either of the Mr. Wilkinses +had anything to do with it. They may both have honestly supposed it was +lost. It's much more likely that their sister stole it.' + +"I had not thought of this before. Poor Miss Wilkins! Nat's artistic soul +had been so outraged by some of her flagrant calicoes that he believed her +capable of any crime. + +"At last I consented to go first to the Wilkinses themselves, and I +promised to speak very calmly and gently in the beginning, and betray no +suspicion of them. I carried the chintz. When I entered the office, the +overseer was talking in one corner with a gentleman whose back was turned +to me. The agent sat by the counter. + +"'Mr. Wilkins,' said I, 'do you remember the grape-vine pattern my brother +drew last winter--the one which you refused?' + +"The instant I spoke, I saw that he did remember. I saw that he was +guilty, and I saw it all with such certainty that it enabled me to be very +calm. + +"'Let me see,' said he, trying to pretend to be racking his memory; 'the +grape-vine pattern? It seems to me that I do recall something about a +design with that name. Did you say we refused it?' + +"'Yes, you refused it, but you did not return the drawing. You said it had +been lost,' I replied. + +"'Ah, yes, yes--now I recollect,' he said, recovering himself somewhat; +'we made great search for the drawing; I remember all about it now;' and +he paused as if waiting civilly to know what more there could possibly be +to be said on that point. But I watched him closely and saw that he was +agitated. I looked him steadily in the eye and did not speak, while I +slowly opened my little bundle and unrolled the piece of chintz. + +"'Can you possibly explain this mystery, then, sir, that here is my +brother's design printed on this chintz?' said I, in a clear, distinct +tone, holding out the yard of chintz at its full length. As I said the +words 'my brother's design,' the gentleman who had been talking with the +overseer turned quickly round, and I saw that it was Mr. Maynard's +youngest son Robert, who a year before had come home from Germany, and had +recently been taken into the firm as partner. He stepped a little nearer +me, and was evidently listening to my words. + +"'Come into this room, Mr. Maynard, if you please, and we will finish +discussing the matter we were speaking of,' said Overseer Wilkins, turning +pale, and speaking very hurriedly, and trying to draw Mr. Maynard into the +inner office-room. + +"'And--if you will call some other time, Miss Kent,' said Agent Wilkins, +turning away from me and walking toward Mr. Maynard, in his anxiety to +prevent my being seen or heard, 'I will try to attend to this matter; but +just now I have not another moment to spare,' and he began at once to talk +in a loud and voluble manner. + +"I do not know how I had strength and courage to do what I did then; I do +not know where the voice came from with which I spoke then; Robert has +always said that I looked like a young lioness, and that my voice sounded +like the voice of one crying 'fire.' I stepped swiftly up to him, and +before the astounded Wilkins could speak a word, I had held up the chintz +and exclaimed, 'But Mr. Maynard will have time to spare, and I thank God +he is here. Mr. Maynard, this design is one of my brother's drawing; he +has made most of the calico designs printed in your father's mills for a +year and a half: I brought this one to the agent; he said it was not good +for anything, but he stole the paper and sold it, and here it is!' and +then suddenly my strength all disappeared, great terror seized me, and I +burst into tears. Both the agent and the overseer began to speak at once. + +"'Be silent,' thundered Robert, in the most commanding tone I ever heard +out of human lips. 'Be silent, both of you!' Then he took the chintz away +from me, and taking both my hands in his, led me to a chair, saying, in a +voice as sweet and gentle as the other was terrible, 'Pray be calm, my +dear young lady--this matter shall be looked into. Sit down and do not try +to speak for a few minutes.' + +"Then he walked over to the brothers; even through my tears I could see +how terrified they looked; they seemed struck dumb with fright; he spoke +to them now in the most courteous manner, but the courtesy was almost +worse than the anger had been before. + +"'I shall have to ask you for the use of the office for a short time, +gentlemen. This is an affair I prefer to investigate immediately, and I +would like to see this young lady alone.' They both began to speak again, +but he interrupted them. + +"'I will send for you presently; not a word more now, if you please;' and +in spite of themselves they were obliged to walk out of the room. As they +turned to shut the door their faces frightened me. + +"'Oh!' I exclaimed; 'oh, Mr. Maynard, they will kill Nat I must go home at +once,' and I rose trembling in every nerve. He made me sit down again, and +brought me a glass of wine, and said, 'Do not be afraid, my dear child, +they will not dare harm your brother. Drink this, and tell me your whole +story.' + +"Then I told him all. He interrupted me only once, to ask me about the +prices paid us for two or three especial patterns which he happened to +recollect. When I stopped, he jumped up from his chair and walked up and +down in front of me, ejaculating, 'By Jove! this is infernal--I never +heard of such a contemptible bit of rascality in my life. I have told my +father ever since I came home that these men had bad faces, and I have +looked carefully for traces of cheating in their accounts. But they were +too cowardly to try it on a large scale.' + +"He then told me that the originality and beauty of the designs which the +Wilkinses had furnished the firm of late had attracted general attention; +that they had said the best ones were the work of a sister in England, the +others of the sister living with them. When he told me the prices which +had been paid for them, I could not help groaning aloud and burying my +face in my hands. 'Oh, my poor Nat!' I exclaimed, 'you might have had +everything you wanted for that.' + +"'But he shall have it still, Miss Kent,' said Robert--'I shall give you a +check for the whole amount before you leave this room, and I do assure you +that your brother has a fortune in his talent for drawing. Probably this +work is only the beginning of what he will do.' + +"As Robert opened the office-door for me to pass out, I saw the two Mr. +Wilkinses standing together at the gate through which I must go. Robert +answered my look of alarm by saying, 'I shall walk home with you, Miss +Kent. They shall not annoy you.' + +"As we came near, they both lifted their hats with obsequious, angry bows. +Robert did not look at them, but said in a low tone, as we passed, 'Go to +the office and wait there till I return.' + +"When he bade me good-by at my door, he said, 'I shall go now to find my +father, and if he is at home the brothers Wilkins will be dismissed from +our employ in less than one hour,' I looked after him as long as I could +see him. Then I went into our little sitting-room, sank into a chair, and +sat motionless, turning the check over and over in my hand, and wondering +if I really were awake and alive, or if all were a dream. In a few moments +Nat came home. As Patrick lifted the wagon up over the door-steps, and Nat +caught sight of my face, he called out, 'Oh, sister, what is the +matter--are you ill?' I ran to him and put the check into his hands, but +it was some minutes before I could speak. The wonderful fortune did not +overwhelm Nat as it had me. He was much stronger than I. Every stroke of +his pencil during the last year had developed and perfected his soul. He +was fast coming to have that consciousness of power which belongs to the +true artist, and makes a life self-centred. + +"'I have felt that all this would come, dear,' he said, 'and more than +this too,' he added dreamily, 'we shall go on; this is only the outer gate +of our lives,' + +"He prophesied more truly than he knew when he said that--my dear blessed +artist-souled martyr! + +"I need not dwell on the details of the next half-year. A few words can +tell them; and then, again, worlds of words could not tell them. + +"Three months from the day I carried the piece of chintz into the +overseer's office, Robert and I were married in the beautiful chapel where +papa used to preach. All the mills were shut, and the little chapel was +crowded with the workmen and workwomen. When we came out they were all +drawn up in lines on the green, and Robert and Mr. Maynard both made them +little speeches. Nat and Miss Penstock and Patrick were in Mr. Maynard's +carriage, and Robert and I stood on the ground by the carriage-door. After +the people had gone, Mr. Maynard came up to me and put both his hands on +my shoulders, just as he had done three years before, and said, 'You were +a brave girl, but you had to take me for your father, after all.' + +"Nat's wedding-present to me was a wood-carving of the 'One-Legged +Dancers'--the one which stands on the little gilt table. I shall never be +separated from it. + +"When I first found out how very rich Robert was, I was afraid; it seemed +to me almost wrong to have so much money. But I hope we shall not grow +selfish. And I cannot but be grateful for it, when I see what it has done +for my darling brother. He is living now in a beautiful apartment in New +York. Patrick is with him, his devoted servant, and Miss Penstock has gone +to keep house for them. Nat is studying and working hard; the best artists +in the city are his friends, and his pictures are already known and +sought. When Robert first proposed this arrangement, Nat said, 'Oh no, no! +I cannot accept such a weight of obligation from any man, not even from a +brother.' + +"Robert rose and knelt down by Nat's chair, and even then he was so far +above him he had to bend over. + +"'Nat,' said he, in a low tone, 'I never knelt to any human being before: +I didn't kneel to Dora when I asked her to give herself to me, for I was +sure I could so give myself to her as to make her happy; but it is to +you, after all, that I owe it that she is mine; I never can forget it for +an hour, and I never can repay you--no, not in my whole life-time, nor +with all my fortune.' + +"Then he told him that the sum which it would need to support him and Miss +Penstock and Patrick in this way was so small, in comparison with our +whole income, that it was not worth mentioning. 'And at any rate,' he +said, 'it is useless for you to remonstrate, Nat, for I have already made +fifty thousand dollars' worth of stock so entirely yours, that you cannot +escape from it. The papers are all in my father's hands, and the income +will be paid to you, or left subject to your order, quarterly. If you do +not spend it, nobody else will;' and then Robert bent down lower, and +lifting Nat's thin hands tenderly in his, pressed them both against his +check, in the way I often did. It was one of the few caresses Nat loved. I +stood the other side of the chair, and I stooped down and kissed him, and +said:-- + +"'And, Nat, I cannot be quite happy in any other way.' + +"So Nat yielded. + +"It was hard to come away and leave him. For some time I clung to the hope +that he might come with us; but the physicians all said it would be +madness for him to run the risk of a sea-voyage. However, I know that for +him, the next best thing to seeing Europe himself is to see it through my +eyes. I write to him every week, and I shall carry home to him such +art-treasures as he has never dreamed of possessing. + +"Next year we shall go home, and then he will come back to Maynard's +Mills and live with us. Robert is having a large studio built for him on +the north side of the house, with a bed-room and little sitting-room +opening out of it. Miss Penstock, too, will always live with us; we shall +call her 'housekeeper,' to keep her contented, and Patrick is to stay as +Nat's attendant. Poor fellow, he is not quite full-witted, we think; but +he loves Nat so devotedly that he makes a far better servant than a +cleverer boy would with a shade less affection. + +"And now you have heard the story of my life, dear friend," said Dora, as +she rose from the seat and lighted the rose-colored tapers in two low +swinging Etruscan candlesticks just above our heads--"all that I can tell +you," she added slowly. "You will understand that I cannot speak about the +happiest part of it. But you have seen Robert. The only thing that +troubles me is that I have no sorrow. It seems dangerous. Dear Nat, +although he has all he ever hoped for, need not fear being too happy, +because he has the ever-present pain, to make him earnest and keep him +ready for more pain. I said so to him the day before I came away, and he +gave me those verses I told you of, called 'The Angel of Pain,'" + +Then she repeated them to me:-- + + The Angel of Pain. + + Angel of Pain, I think thy face + Will be, in all the heavenly place, + The sweetest face that I shall see, + The swiftest face to smile on me. + All other angels faint and tire; + Joy wearies, and forsakes desire; + Hope falters, face to face with Fate, + And dies because it cannot wait; + And Love cuts short each loving day, + Because fond hearts cannot obey + That subtlest law which measures bliss + By what it is content to miss. + But thou, O loving, faithful Pain-- + Hated, reproached, rejected, slain-- + Dost only closer cling and bless + In sweeter, stronger steadfastness. + Dear, patient angel, to thine own + Thou comest, and art never known + Till late, in some lone twilight place + The light of thy transfigured face + Sudden shines out, and, speechless, they + Know they have walked with Christ all day. + +When she had done we sat for some time silent. Then I rose, and kissing +her, still silent, went out into the unlighted room where the gilt table +stood. A beam of moonlight fell, broad and white, across its top, and +flickered on the vine-leaves and the ferns. In the dim weird light their +shapes were more fantastic than ever. + +The door into the outer hall stood open. As I went toward it, I saw old +Anita toiling slowly up the stairs, with a flat basket on her head. Her +wrinkled face was all aglow with delight. As soon as she reached the +threshold she set the basket down, and exclaiming, "Oh look, look, +Signora!" lifted off the cover. It was full of fresh and beautiful +anemones of all colors. She moved a few on top and showed me that those +beneath were chiefly purple ones. + +"Iddio mio! will not the dearest of Signoras be pleased now!" she said. +"The saints wish that she shall have all she desires; did not my Biagio's +brother come in from Albano this morning? and as I was in the Piazza +Navona, buying oranges, I heard him calling from a long way off, 'Ho +Anita, my Anita, here are anemones for your beautiful Signora with the +bright hair.' + +"They grow around an old tomb a mile away from his vineyard, and he set +out from his home long before light to get them for me; for he once saw +the Signora and he had heard me say that she never could have enough of +anemones. Iddio mio! but my heart is glad of them. Ah, the dearest of +Signoras!" and, with a tender touch, Anita laid the cool vine-leaves +lightly back upon the anemones and hurried on in search of Dora. + + + + +How One Woman Kept Her Husband. + + + +Why my sister married John Gray, I never could understand. I was +twenty-two and she was eighteen when the marriage took place. They had +known each other just one year. He had been passionately in love with her +from the first day of their meeting. She had come more slowly to loving +him: but love him she did, with a love of such depth and fervor as are +rarely seen. He was her equal in nothing except position and wealth. He +had a singular mixture of faults of opposite temperaments. He had the +reticent, dreamy, procrastinating inertia of the bilious melancholic man, +side by side with the impressionable sensuousness, the sensitiveness and +sentimentalism of the most sanguine-nervous type. There is great charm in +such a combination, especially to persons of a keen, alert nature. My +sister was earnest, wise, resolute. John Gray was nonchalant, shrewd, +vacillating. My sister was exact, methodical, ready. John Gray was +careless, spasmodic, dilatory. My sister had affection. He had tenderness. +She was religious of soul; he had a sort of transcendental perceptivity, +so to speak, which kept him more alive to the comforts of religion than +to its obligations. My sister would have gone to the stake rather than +tell a lie. He would tell a lie unhesitatingly, rather than give anybody +pain. My sister lived earnestly, fully, actively, in each moment of the +present. It never seemed quite clear whether he were thinking of to-day, +yesterday, or to-morrow. She was upright because she could not help it. He +was upright,--when he was upright,--because of custom, taste, and the +fitness of things. What fatal discrepancies! what hopeless lack of real +moral strength, enduring purpose, or principle in such a nature as John +Gray's! When I said these things to my sister, she answered always, with a +quiet smile, "I love him." She neither admitted nor denied my accusations. +The strongest expression she ever used, the one which came nearest to +being an indignant repelling of what I had said, was one day, when I +exclaimed:-- + +"Ellen, I would die before I'd risk my happiness in the keeping of such a +man." + +"My happiness is already in his keeping," said she in a steady voice, "and +I believe his is in mine. He is to be my husband and not yours, dear; you +do not know him as I do. You do not understand him." + +But it is not to give an analysis of her character or of his, nor to give +a narrative of their family history, that I write this tale. It is only +one episode of their life that I shall try to reproduce here, and I do it +because I believe that its lesson is of priceless worth to women. + +Ellen had been married fourteen years, and was the mother of five +children, when my story begins. The years had gone in the main peacefully +and pleasantly. The children, three girls and two boys, were fair and +strong. Their life had been a very quiet one, for our village was far +removed from excitements of all kinds. It was one of the suburban villages +of ----, and most of the families living there were the families of +merchants or lawyers doing business in the town, going in early in the +morning, and returning late at night. There is usually in such communities +a strange lack of social intercourse; whether it be that the daily +departure and return of the head of the family keeps up a perpetual +succession of small crises of interest to the exclusion of others, or that +the night finds all the fathers and brothers too tired to enjoy anything +but slippers and cigars, I know not; but certain it is that all such +suburban villages are unspeakably dull and lifeless. There is barely +feeling enough of good neighborhood to keep up the ordinary interchange of +the commonest civilities. + +Except for long visits to the city in the winter, and long journeys in the +summer, I myself should have found life insupportably tedious. But Ellen +was absolutely content. Her days were unvaryingly alike, a simple routine +of motherly duties and housekeeping cares. Her evenings were equally +unvaried, being usually spent in sewing or reading, while her husband, in +seven evenings out of ten, dozed, either on the sofa, or on one of the +children's little beds in the nursery. His exquisite tenderness to the +children, and his quiet delight in simply being where they were, were the +brightest points in John Gray's character and life. + +Such monotony was not good for either of them. He grew more and more +dreamy and inert. She insensibly but continually narrowed and hardened, +and, without dreaming of such a thing, really came to be less and less a +part of her husband's inner life. Faithful, busy, absorbed herself in the +cares of each day, she never observed that he was living more and more in +his children and his reveries, and withdrawing more and more from her. She +did not need constant play and interchange of sentiment as he did. +Affectionate, loyal, devoted as she was, there was a side of husband's +nature which she did not see nor satisfy, perhaps, never could. But +neither of them knew it. + +At this time Mr. Gray was offered a position of importance in the city, +and it became necessary for them to move there to live. How I rejoiced in +the change. How bitterly I regretted it before two years had passed. + +Their city home was a beautiful one, and their connections and +associations were such as to surround them at once with the most desirable +companionships. At first it was hard for Ellen to readjust her system of +living and to accustom herself to the demands of even a moderately social +life. But she was by nature very fond of all such pleasures, and her house +soon became one of the pleasantest centres, in a quiet way, of the +comparatively quiet city. John Gray expanded and brightened in the new +atmosphere; he had always been a man of influence among men. All his +friends,--even his acquaintances,--loved him, and asked his advice. It was +a strange thing that a man so inert and procrastinating in his own +affairs, should be so shrewd and practical and influential in the affairs +of others, or in public affairs. This, however, was no stranger than many +other puzzling incongruities in John Gray's character. Since his college +days he had never mingled at all in general society until this winter, +after their removal to town; and it was with delight that I watched his +enjoyment of people, and their evident liking and admiration for him. His +manners were singularly simple and direct; his face, which was not wholly +pleasing in repose, was superbly handsome when animated in conversation; +its inscrutable reticence which baffled the keenest observation when he +was silent, all disappeared and melted in the glow of cordial +good-fellowship which lighted every feature when he talked. I grew very +proud of my brother as I watched him in his new sphere and surroundings; +and I also enjoyed most keenly seeing Ellen in a wider and more +appreciative circle. I spent a large part of the first winter in their +house, and shared all their social pleasures, and looked forward to ever +increasing delight, as my nieces should grow old enough to enter into +society. + +Early in the spring I went to the West and passed the entire summer with +relatives; I heard from my sister every week; her letters were always +cheerful and natural, and I returned to her in the autumn, full of +anticipations of another gay and pleasant winter. + +They met me in New York, and I remembered afterwards, though in the +excitement of the moment I gave it no second thought, that when John +Gray's eyes first met mine, there was in them a singular and indefinable +expression, which roused in me an instant sense of distrust and +antagonism. He had never thoroughly liked me. He had always had an +undercurrent of fear of me. He knew I thought him weak: he felt that I had +never put full confidence in him. That I really and truly loved him was +small offset for this. Would it not be so to all of us? + +This part of my story is best told in few words. I had not been at home +one week before I found that rumor had been for some months coupling John +Gray's name with the name of Mrs. Emma Long, a widow who had but just +returned to----, after twelve years of married life in Cuba. John had +known her in her girlhood, but there had never been any intimacy or even +friendship between them. My sister, however, had known her well, had +corresponded with her during all her life at the South, and had invited +her to her house immediately upon her return to----. Emma Long was a +singularly fascinating woman. Plain and sharp and self-asserting at +twenty-two, she had become at thirty-five magnetic and winning, full of +tact, and almost beautiful. We see such surprising developments +continually: it seems as if nature did her best to give every woman one +period of triumph and conquest; perhaps only they know its full sweetness +to whom it comes late. In early youth it is accepted unthinkingly, as is +the sunshine,--enjoyed without deliberation, and only weighed at its +fullness when it is over. But a woman who begins at thirty to feel for the +first time what it is to have power over men, must be more or less than +woman not to find the knowledge and the consciousness dangerously sweet. + +I never knew--I do not know to-day, whether Emma Long could be justly +called a coquette. That she keenly enjoyed the admiration of men, there +was no doubt. Whether she ever were conscious of even a possible harm to +them from their relation to her, there was always doubt, even in the minds +of her bitterest enemies. I myself have never doubted that in the affair +between her and John Gray she was the one who suffered most; she was the +one who had a true, deep sentiment, and not only never meant a wrong, but +would have shrunk, for his sake, if not for her own, from the dangers +which she did not foresee, but which were inevitable in their intimacy. I +think that her whole life afterward proved this. I think that even my +sister believed it. + +Mrs. Long had spent six weeks in my sister's house, and had then +established herself in a very beautiful furnished house on the same +street. Almost every day Mrs. Long's carriage was at my sister's door, to +take my sister or the children to drive. Almost every evening Mrs. Long +came with the easy familiarity of an habituated guest in the house, to sit +in my sister's parlor, or sent with the easy familiarity of an old friend +for my sister and her husband to come to her, or to go with her to the +theatre or to the opera. + +What could be more natural?--what could be more delightful, had the +relation been one which centred around my sister instead of around my +sister's husband? What could be done, what offense could be taken, what +obstacle interposed, so long as the relation appeared to be one which +included the whole family? Yet no human being could see John Gray five +minutes in Emma Long's presence without observing that his eyes, his +words, his consciousness were hers. And no one could observe her in his +presence without seeing that she was kindled, stimulated, as she was in no +other companionship. + +All this the city had been seeing and gossiping over for four months. All +this, with weary detail, was poured into my ears by kind friends. + +My sister said no word. For the first time in my life there was a barrier +between us I dared not pass. Her every allusion to Mrs. Long was in the +kindest and most unembarrassed manner. She fell heartily and graciously +into every plan which brought them together: she not only did this, she +also fully reciprocated all entertainments and invitations; it was as +often by Ellen's arrangement as by Mrs. Long's that an evening or a day +was spent by the two families together. Her manner to Mrs. Long was +absolutely unaltered. Her manner to John was absolutely unaltered. When +during an entire evening he sat almost motionless and often quite +speechless, listening to Mrs. Long's conversation with others, Ellen's +face never changed. She could not have seemed more unconscious if she had +been blind. There were many bonds of sympathy between John Gray and Emma +Long, which had never existed between him and his wife. They were both +passionately fond of art, and had studied it. Ellen's taste was +undeveloped, and her instinctive likings those of a child. But she +listened with apparent satisfaction and pleasure to long hours of +conversation, about statues, pictures, principles of art, of which she was +as unable to speak as one of her own babies would have been. Mrs. Long +was also a woman who understood affairs; and one of her great charms to +men of mind was the clear, logical, and yet picturesque and piquant way in +which she talked of men and events. Ellen listened and laughed as heartily +as any member of the circle at her repartee, her brilliant +characterization, her off-hand description. + +To John Gray all this was a new revelation. He had never known this sort +of woman. That a woman could be clever as men are clever, and also be +graceful, adorned, and tender with womanliness, he had not supposed. + +Ah, poor Emma Long! not all my loyalty to my sister ever quite stifled in +my heart the question whether there was not in Mrs. Long's nature +something which John Gray really needed--something which Ellen, +affectionate, wise, upright, womanly woman as she was, could never give to +any man. + +The winter wore on. Idle and malicious tongues grew busier and busier. +Nothing except the constant presence of my sister wherever her husband and +Mrs. Long were seen together, prevented the scandal from taking the most +offensive shape. But Ellen was so wise, so watchful, that not even the +most malignant gossip-monger, could point to anything like a clandestine +intercourse between the two. + +In fact, they met so constantly either in Mrs. Long's house or my +sister's, that there was small opportunity for them to meet elsewhere. I +alone knew that on many occasions when Mrs. Long was spending the evening +at our house, Ellen availed herself of one excuse and another to leave +them alone for a great part of the time. But she did this so naturally, +that is, with such perfect art, that not until long afterward did I know +that it had been intentional. This was one great reason of my silence +during all these months. In her apparent ignorance and unsuspiciousness of +the whole thing, she seemed so gay, so happy, so sweet and loving, how +could I give her a pain? And if she did not see it now, she might never +see it. It could never surely become any more apparent. No man could give, +so far as simple manner was concerned, more unmistakable proof of being +absorbed in passionate love for a woman, than John Gray gave in Emma +Long's presence. I began to do Ellen injustice in my thoughts. I said, +"After all, she has not much heart; no woman who loved a man passionately +could look on unmoved and see him so absorbed in another." + +How little I knew! Towards spring Ellen suddenly began to look ill. She +lost color and strength, and a slight cough which she had had all winter +became very severe. Her husband was alarmed. We all were distressed. Our +old family physician, Dr. Willis, changed color when he felt Ellen's +pulse, and said, involuntarily,-- + +"My dear child, how long have you had such fever as this?" + +Ellen changed color too, under his steady look, and replied,-- + +"I think, doctor, I have had a little fever for some weeks. I have not +felt really well since the autumn, and I have been meaning for some time +to have a long consultation with you. But we will not have it now," she +added playfully, "I have a great deal to tell you which these good people +are not to hear. We will talk it over some other time," and she looked at +him so meaningly that he understood the subject must be dropped. + +That night she told me that she wished me to propose to John to go over +with me and spend the evening at Mrs. Long's; that she had sent for Dr. +Willis, and she wished to have a long talk with him without John's knowing +it. + +"Dear," said I hastily, "I will not go to Mrs. Long's with John. I hate +Mrs. Long." + +"Why, Sally, what do you mean! I never heard you so unjust. Emma is one of +the very sweetest women I ever saw in my life. How can you say such a +thing! Everybody loves and admires her. Don't go if you feel so. I never +dreamed that you disliked her. But I thought John would be less likely to +suspect me of any desire to have him away, if you proposed going there; +and I must have him out of the house. I cannot talk with the doctor if he +is under the roof." She said these last words with an excited emphasis so +unlike her usual manner, that it frightened me. But I thought only of her +physical state; I feared that she suspected the existence of some terrible +disease. + +I went with John to Mrs. Long's almost immediately after tea. He accepted +the proposal with unconcealed delight; and I wondered if Ellen observed +the very nonchalant way in which he replied when she said she did not feel +well enough to go. He already liked better to see Mrs. Long without his +wife's presence, cordial and unembarrassed as her manner always was. His +secret consciousness was always disturbed by it. + +When we reached Mrs. Long's house, we learned that she had gone out to +dinner. John's face became black with the sudden disappointment, and quite +forgetting himself, he exclaimed: "Why, what does that mean? She did not +tell me she was going." + +The servant stared, but made no reply. I was confused and indignant; but +John went on: "We will come in and wait. I am sure it is some very +informal dinner, and Mrs. Long will soon be at home." + +I made no remonstrance, knowing that it might annoy and disturb Ellen to +have us return. John threw himself into a chair in front of the fire, and +looked moodily into the coals, making no attempt at conversation. I took +up a book. Very soon John rose, sauntered abstractedly about the room, +took up Mrs. Long's work-basket, and examined every article in it, and at +last sat down before her little writing-desk, which stood open. Presently +I saw that he was writing. More than an hour passed. I pretended to read; +but I watched my brother-in-law's face. I could not mistake its language. +Suddenly there came a low cry of delight from the door, "Why, John!" + +Mrs. Long had entered the house by a side door, and having met no servant +before reaching the drawing-room, was unprepared for finding any one +there. From the door she could see John, but could not see me, except in +the long mirror, to which she did not raise her eyes, but in which I saw +her swift movement, her outstretched hands, her look of unspeakable +gladness. In less than a second, however, she had seen me, and with no +perceptible change of manner had come rapidly towards me, holding out her +left hand familiarly to him, as she passed him. Emma Long was not a +hypocrite at heart, but she had an almost superhuman power of acting. It +was all lost upon me, however, on that occasion. I observed the quick +motion with which John thrust into a compartment of the desk, the sheet on +which he had been writing; I observed the clasp of their hands as she +glided by him; I observed her face; I observed his; and I knew as I had +never fully known before how intensely they loved each other. + +My resolution was taken. Cost what it might, come what might, I would +speak fully and frankly to my sister the next day. I would not longer +stand by and see this thing go on. At that moment I hated both John Gray +and Emma Long. No possible pain to Ellen seemed to me to weigh for a +moment against my impulse to part them. + +I could not talk. I availed myself of the freedom warranted by the +intimacy between the families, and continued to seem absorbed in my book. +But I lost no word, no look, which passed between the two who sat opposite +me. I never saw Emma Long look so nearly beautiful as she did that night. +She wore a black velvet dress, with fine white lace ruffles at the throat +and wrists. Her hair was fair, and her complexion of that soft pale tint, +with a slight undertone of brown in it, which is at once fair and warm, +and which can kindle in moments of excitement into a brilliance far +outshining any brunette skin. She talked rapidly with much gesture. She +was giving John an account of the stupidity of the people with whom she +had been dining. Her imitative faculty amounted almost to genius. No +smallest peculiarity of manner or speech escaped her, and she could become +a dozen different persons in a minute. John laughed as he listened, but +not so heartily as he was wont to laugh at her humorous sayings. He had +been too deeply stirred in the long interval of solitude before she +returned. His cheeks were flushed and his voice unsteady. She soon felt +the effect of his manner, and her gayety died away; before long they were +sitting in silence, each looking at the fire. I knew I ought to make the +proposition to go home, but I seemed under a spell; I was conscious of a +morbid desire to watch and wait. At length Mrs. Long rose, saying,-- + +"If it will not disturb Sally's reading, I will play for you a lovely +little thing I learned yesterday." + +"Oh, no," said I. "But we must go as soon as I finish this chapter." + +She passed into the music-room and looked back for John to follow her; but +he threw himself at full length on the sofa, and said,-- + +"No, I will listen here." + +My quickened instinct saw that he dared not go; also that he had laid his +cheek in an abandonment of ecstasy on the arm of the sofa on which her +hand had been resting. Even in that moment I had a sharp pang of pity for +him, and the same old misgiving of question, whether my good and sweet and +almost faultless Ellen could be loved just in the same way in which Emma +Long would be! + +As soon as she had finished the nocturne, a sad, low sweet strain, she +came back to the parlor. Not even for the pleasure of giving John the +delight of the music he loved would she stay where she could not see his +face. + +But I had already put down my book, and was ready to go. Our good-nights +were short and more formal than usual. All three were conscious of an +undefined constraint in the air. Mrs. Long glanced up uneasily in John's +face as we left the room. Her eyes were unutterably tender and childlike +when a look of grieved perplexity shadowed them. Again my heart ached for +her and for him. This was no idle caprice, no mere entanglement of senses +between two unemployed and unprincipled hearts. It was a subtle harmony, +organic, spiritual, intellectual, between two susceptible and intense +natures. The bond was as natural and inevitable as any other fact of +nature. And in this very fact lay the terrible danger. + +We walked home in silence. A few steps from our house we met Dr. Willis +walking very rapidly. He did not recognize us at first. When he did, he +half stopped as if about to speak, then suddenly changed his mind, and +merely bowing, passed on. A bright light was burning in Ellen's room. + +"Why, Ellen has not gone to bed!" exclaimed John. + +"Perhaps some one called," said I, guiltily. + +"Oh, I dare say," replied he; "perhaps the doctor has been there. But it +is half-past twelve," added he, pulling out his watch as we entered the +hall. "He could not have stayed until this time." + +I went to my own room immediately. In a few moments I heard John come up, +say a few words to Ellen, and then go down-stairs, calling back, as he +left her room,-- + +"Don't keep awake for me, wifie, I have a huge batch of letters to answer. +I shall not get through before three o'clock." + +I crept noiselessly to Ellen's room. It was dark. She had extinguished the +gas as soon as she had heard us enter the house! I knew by the first sound +of her voice that she had been weeping violently and long. I said,-- + +"Ellen, I must come in and have a talk with you." + +"Not to-night, dear. To-morrow I will talk over everything. All is +settled. Good-night. Don't urge me to-night, Sally. I can't bear any +more." + +It is strange--it is marvellous what power there is in words to mean more +than words. I knew as soon as Ellen had said, "Not to-night, dear," that +she divined all I wanted to say, that she knew all I knew, and that the +final moment, the crisis, had come. Whatever she might have to tell me in +the morning, I should not be surprised. I did not sleep. All night I +tossed wearily, trying to conjecture what Ellen would do, trying to +imagine what I should do in her place. + +At breakfast Ellen seemed better than she had seemed for weeks. Her eyes +were bright and her cheeks pink; but there was an ineffable, almost solemn +tenderness in her manner to John, which was pathetic. Again the suspicion +crossed my mind that she knew that she must die. He too was disturbed by +it; he looked at her constantly with a lingering gaze as if trying to read +her face; and when he bade us good-by to go to the office, he kissed her +over and over as I had not seen him kiss her for months. The tears came +into her eyes, and she threw both arms around his neck for a second,--a +very rare thing for her to do in the presence of others. + +"Why, wifie," he said, "you musn't make it too hard for a fellow to get +off!--Doesn't she look well this morning, Sally?" turning to me. "I was +thinking last night that I must take her to the mountains as soon as it +was warm enough. But such cheeks as these don't need it." And he took her +face in his two hands with a caress full of tenderness, and sprang down +the steps. + +Just at this moment Mrs. Long's carriage came driving swiftly around the +corner, and the driver stopped suddenly at sight of John. + +"Oh, Mr. Gray, Mr. Gray!" called Emma, "I was just coming to take Ellen +and the children for a turn, and we can leave you at the office on our +way." + +"Thank you," said John, "but there are several persons I must see before +going to the office, and it would detain you too long. I am already much +too late," and without a second look he hurried on. + +I saw a slight color rise in Mrs. Long's cheek, but no observer less +jealous than I would have detected it; and there was not a shade less +warmth than usual in her manner to Ellen. + +Ellen told her that she could not go herself, but she would be very glad +to have some of the children go; and then she stood for some moments, +leaning on the carriage-door and talking most animatedly. I looked from +one woman to the other. Ellen at that moment was more beautiful than Mrs. +Long. The strong, serene, upright look which was her most distinguishing +and characteristic expression, actually shone on her face. I wished that +John Gray had stopped to see the two faces side by side. Emma Long might +be the woman to stir and thrill and entrance the soul; to give stimulus to +the intellectual nature; to rouse passionate emotion; but Ellen was the +woman on whose steadfastness he could rest,--in the light of whose sweet +integrity and transparent truthfulness he was a far safer, and would be a +far stronger man than with any other woman in the world. + +As the carriage drove away with all three of the little girls laughing and +shouting and clinging around Mrs. Long, a strange pang seized me. I looked +at Ellen. She stood watching them with a smile which had something +heavenly in it. Turning suddenly to me, she said: "Sally, if I were dying, +it would make me very happy to know that Emma Long would be the mother of +my children." + +I was about to reply with a passionate ejaculation, but she interrupted +me. + +"Hush, dear, hush. I am not going to die,--I have no fear of any such +thing. Come to my room now, and I will tell you all." + +She locked the door, stood for a moment looking at me very earnestly, then +folded me in her arms and kissed me many times; then she made me sit in a +large arm-chair, and drawing up a low foot-stool, sat down at my feet, +rested both arms on my lap, and began to speak. I shall try to tell in her +own words what she said. + +"Sally, I want to tell you in the beginning how I thank you for your +silence. All winter I have known that you were seeing all I saw, feeling +all I felt, and keeping silent for my sake. I never can tell you how much +I thank you; it was the one thing which supported me. It was an +unspeakable comfort to know that you sympathized with me at every point; +but to have had the sympathy expressed even by a look would have made it +impossible for me to bear up. As long as I live, darling, I shall be +grateful to you. And, moreover, it makes it possible for me to trust you +unreservedly now. I had always done you injustice, Sally. I did not think +you had so much self-control." + +Here she hesitated an instant. It was not easy for her to mention John's +name; but it was only for a second that she hesitated. With an impetuous +eagerness unlike herself, she went on. + +"Sally, you must not blame John. He has struggled as constantly and nobly +as a man ever struggled. Neither must you blame Emma. They have neither of +them done wrong. I have watched them both hour by hour. I know my +husband's nature so thoroughly that I know his very thoughts almost as +soon as he knows them himself. I know his emotions before he knows them +himself. I saw the first moment in which his eyes rested on Emma's face as +they used to rest on mine. From that day to this I have known every phase, +every step, every change of his feeling towards her; and I tell you, +Sally, that I pity John from the bottom of my heart. I understand it all +far better than you can, far better than he does. He loves her at once far +more and far less than you believe, and he loves me far more than you +believe! You will say, in the absolute idealization of your inexperienced +heart, that this is impossible. I know that it is not, and I wish I could +make you believe it, for without believing it you cannot be just to John. +He loves me to-day, in spite of all this, with a sort of clinging +tenderness born of this very struggle. He would far rather love me with +all his nature if he could, but just now he cannot. I see very clearly +where Emma gives him what he needs, and has never had in me. I have +learned many things from Emma Long this winter. I can never be like her. +But I need not have been so unlike her as I was. She has armed me with +weapons when she least suspected it. But she is not after all, on the +whole, so nearly what John needs as I am. If I really believed that he +would be a better man, or even a happier one with her as his wife, I +should have but one desire, and that would be to die. But I think that it +is not so. I believe that it is in my power to do for him, and to be to +him, what she never could. I do not wonder that you look pityingly and +incredulously. You will see. But in order to do this, I must leave him." + +I sprang to my feet. "Leave him! Are you mad?" + +"No, dear, not at all; very sane and very determined. I have been for six +months coming to this resolve. I began to think of it in a very few hours +after I first saw him look at Emma as if he loved her. I have thought of +it day and night since, and I know I am right. If I stay, I shall lose his +love. If I go, I shall keep it, regain it, compel it." She spoke here +more hurriedly. "I have borne now all I can bear without betraying my +pain to him. I am jealous of Emma. It almost kills me to see him look at +her, speak to her." + +"My poor, poor darling!" I exclaimed; "and I have been thinking you did +not feel it!" + +She smiled sadly, and tossed back the sleeve of her wrapper so as to show +her arm to the shoulder. I started. It was almost emaciated. I had again +and again in the course of the winter asked her why she did not wear her +usual style of evening dress, and she had replied that it was on account +of her cough. + +"It is well that my face does not show loss of flesh as quickly as the +rest of my body does," she said quietly. "I have lost thirty-five pounds +of flesh in four months, and nobody observed it! Yes, dear," she went on, +"I have felt it. More than that, I have felt it increasingly every hour, +and I can bear no more. Up to this time I have never by look or tone shown +to John that I knew it. He wonders every hour what it means that I do not. +I have never by so much as the slightest act watched him. I have seen +notes in Emma's handwriting lying on his desk, and I have left the house +lest I might be tempted to read them! I know that he has as yet done no +clandestine thing, but at any moment I should have led them both into it +by showing one symptom of jealousy. And I should have roused in his heart +a feeling of irritation and impatience with me, which would have done in +one hour more to intensify his love for her, and to change its nature from +a pure, involuntary sentiment into an acknowledged and guilty one, than +years and years of free intercourse could do. But I have reached the +limit of my physical endurance. My nerves are giving away. I am really +very ill, but nothing is out of order in my body aside from the effects of +this anguish. A month more of this would make me a hopelessly broken-down +woman. A month's absence from the sight of it will almost make me well." + +I could not refrain from interrupting her. + +"Ellen, you are mad! you are mad! You mean to go away and leave him to see +her constantly alone, unrestrained by your presence? It has almost killed +you to see it. How can you bear imagining it, knowing it?" + +"Better than I can bear seeing it, far better. Because I have still +undiminished confidence in the real lastingness of the bond between John +and me. Emma Long would have been no doubt a good, a very good wife for +him. But I am the mother of his children, and just so surely as right is +right, and wrong is wrong, he will return to me and to them. All wrong +things are like diseases, self-limited. It is wrong for a man to love any +woman better than he loves his wife; I don't deny that, dear," she said, +half smiling through her tears at my indignant face; "but a man may seem +to do it when he is really very far from it. He may really do it for days, +for months--for years, perhaps; but if he be a true man, and his wife a +true wife, he will return. John is a true husband and a still truer +father: that I am the mother of his five children, he can never forget. If +I had had no children, it would be different. If I had ever been for one +moment an unloving wife, it would be different; but I am his; I believe +that he is mine; and that I shall live to remind you of all these things, +Sally, after time has proved them true." + +I was almost dumb with surprise. I was astounded. To me it seemed that her +plan was simply suicidal. I told her in the strongest words I could use of +the scene of the night before. + +"I could tell you of still more trying scenes than that, Sally. I know far +more than you. But if I knew ten times as much, I should still believe +that my plan is the only one. Of course I may fail. It is all in God's +hands. We none of us know how much discipline we need. But I know one +thing: if I do not regain John in this way, I cannot in any. If I stay I +shall annoy, vex, disturb, torture him! Once the barriers of my silence +and concealment are broken down, I shall do just what all other jealous +women have done since the world began. There are no torments on earth like +those which a jealous woman inflicts, except those which she bears! I will +die sooner than inflict them on John. Even if the result proves me +mistaken, I shall never regret my course, for I know that the worst is +certain if I remain. But I have absolute faith,"--and her face was +transfigured with it as she spoke,--"John is mine. If I could stay by his +side through it all and preserve the same relation with him which I have +all winter, all would sooner or later be well. I wish I were strong +enough. My heart is, but my body is not, and I must go." + +When she told me the details of her plan, I was more astounded than ever. +She had taken Dr. Willis into her full confidence. (He had been to us +father and physician both ever since our father's death.) He entirely +approved of her course. He was to say--which indeed he could do +conscientiously--that her health imperatively required an entire change of +climate, and that he had advised her to spend at least one year abroad. It +had always been one of John's and Ellen's air-castles to take all the +children to England and to Germany for some years of study. She proposed +to take the youngest four, leaving the eldest girl, who was her father's +especial pet and companion, to stay with him. A maiden aunt of ours was to +come and keep the house, and I was to stay with the family. This was the +hardest of all. + +"Ellen, I cannot!" I exclaimed. "Do not--oh, do not trust me. I shall +never have strength. I shall betray all some day and ruin all your hopes." + +"You cannot, you dare not, Sally, when I tell you that my life's whole +happiness lies in your silence. John is unobservant and also unsuspicious. +He has never had an intimate relation with you. You will have no +difficulty. But you must be here,--because, dear, there is another +reason," and here her voice grew very unsteady, and tears ran down her +cheeks. + +"In spite of all my faith, I do not disguise from myself the possibility +of the worst. I cannot believe my husband would ever do a dishonorable +thing. I do not believe that Emma Long would. And yet, when I remember +what ruin, has overtaken many men and women whom we believed upright, I +dare not be wholly sure. And I must know that some one is here who would +see and understand if a time were approaching at which it would be +needful for me to make one last effort with and for my husband face to +face with him. Unless that comes, I do not wish you to allude to the +subject in your letters. I think I know just how all things will go. I +believe that in one year, or less, all will be well. But if the worst is +to come, you with your instincts will foresee it, and I must be told. I +should return then at once. I should have power, even at the last moment, +I believe, to save John from disgrace. But I should lose his love +irrecoverably; it is to save that that I go." + +I could say but few words. I was lifted up and borne out of myself, as it +were, by my sister's exaltation. She seemed more like some angel-wife than +like a mortal woman. Before I left her room at noon, I believed almost as +fully as she did in the wisdom and the success of her plan. + +There was no time to be lost. Every day between the announcement of her +purpose and the carrying of it out, would be a fearful strain on Ellen's +nerves. Dr. Willis had a long talk with John in his office while Ellen was +talking with me. John came home to dinner looking like a man who had +received a mortal blow. Dr. Willis had purposely given him to understand +that Ellen's life was in great danger. So it was, but not from the cough! +At first John's vehement purpose was to go with them. But she was prepared +for this. His business and official relations were such that it was next +to impossible for him to do it, and it would at best involve a great +pecuniary sacrifice. She overruled and remonstrated, and was so firm in +her objections to every suggestion of his of accompanying or following +her, that finally, in spite of all his anxiety, John seemed almost piqued +at her preference for going alone. In every conversation on the subject I +saw more and more clearly that Ellen was right. He did love her--love her +warmly, devotedly. + +Two weeks from the day of my conversation with her they sailed for +Liverpool. The summer was to be spent in England, and the winter in Nice +or Mentone. + +Alice, the eldest daughter, a loving, sunshiny girl of twelve, was +installed in her mother's room. This was Ellen's especial wish. She knew +that in this way John would be drawn to the room constantly. All her own +little belongings were given to Alice. + +"Only think, Auntie," said she, "mamma has given me, all for my own, her +lovely toilette set, and all the Bohemian glass on the bureau, and her +ivory brushes! She says when she comes home she shall refurnish her room +and papa's too!" + +Oh, my wise Ellen. Could Emma Long have done more subtly! + +Early on the first evening after John returned from New York, having seen +them off, I missed him. I said bitterly to myself, "At Mrs. Long's, I +suppose," and went up-stairs to find Alice. As I drew near her room I +heard his voice, reading aloud. I went in. He and Alice were lying +together on a broad chintz-covered lounge, as I had so often seen him and +Ellen. + +"Oh, Auntie, come here," said Alice, "hear mamma's letter to me! She gave +it to papa in New York. She says it is like the sealed orders they give to +captains sometimes, not to be opened till they are out at sea. It is all +about how I am to fill her place to papa. And there are ever so many +little notes inside, more orders, which even papa himself is not to see! +only I suppose he'll recognize the things when I do them!" + +At that moment, as I watched John Gray's face, with Alice's nestled close, +and his arms clasped tight around her, while they read Ellen's letter, a +great load rolled off my heart. I went through many dark days afterward, +but I never could quite despair when I remembered the fatherhood and the +husbandhood which were in his eyes and his voice that night + +The story of the next twelve months could be told in few words, so far as +its external incidents are concerned. It could not be told in a thousand +volumes, if I attempted to reproduce the subtle undercurrents of John +Gray's life and mine. Each of us was living a double life; he more or less +unconsciously; I with such sharpened senses, such overwrought emotions, +that I only wonder that my health did not give way. I endured vicariously +all the suspense and torment of the deepest jealousy, with a sense of more +than vicarious responsibility added, which was almost more than human +nature could bear. Ellen little knew how heavy would be the burden she +laid upon me. Her most express and explicit direction was that the +familiar intimacy between our family and Mrs. Long's was to be preserved +unaltered. This it would have been impossible for me to do if Mrs. Long +had not herself recognized the necessity of it, for her own full enjoyment +of John's society. But it was a hard thing; my aunt, the ostensible head +of our house, was a quiet woman who had nothing whatever to do with +society, and who felt in the outset a great shrinking from the brilliant +Mrs. Long. I had never been on intimate terms with her, so that John and +Alice were really the only members of the household who could keep up +precisely the old relation. And so it gradually came about that to most of +our meetings under each other's roofs, strangers were asked to fill up the +vacant places, and in spite of all Emma Long's efforts and mine, there was +a change in the atmosphere of our intercourse. But there was intimacy +enough to produce the effect for which Ellen was most anxious, i.e., to +extend the shelter of our recognition to the friendship between John and +Emma, and to remove from them both all temptation to anything clandestine +or secret. They still saw each other almost daily; they still shared most +of each other's interests and pleasures; they still showed most +undisguised delight in each other's presence. Again and again I went with +them to the opera, to the theatre, and sat through the long hours, +watching, with a pain which seemed to me hardly less than Ellen's would +have been, their constant sympathy with each other in every point of +enjoyment, their constant forgetfulness of every one else. + +But there was, all this time, another side to John Gray's life, which I +saw, and Emma Long did not see. By every steamer came packages of the most +marvelous letters from Ellen: letters to us all; but for John, a diary of +every hour of her life. Each night she spent two hours in writing out the +record of the day. I have never seen letters which so reproduced the +atmosphere of the day, the scene, the heart. They were brilliant and +effective to a degree that utterly astonished me; but they were also +ineffably tender and loving, and so natural in their every word, that it +was like seeing Ellen face to face to read them. At first John did not +show them even to me; but soon he began to say, "These are too rare to be +kept to myself; I must just read you this account;" or, "Here is a page I +must read," until it at last became his habit to read them aloud in the +evenings to the family, and even to more intimate friends who chanced to +be with us. He grew proud beyond expression of Ellen's talent for writing; +and well he might. No one who listened to them but exclaimed, "There never +were such letters before!" I think there never were. And I alone knew the +secret of them. + +But these long, brilliant letters were not all. In every mail came also +packages for Alice--secret, mysterious things which nobody could see, but +which proved to be sometimes small notes, to be given to papa at +unexpected times and places; sometimes little fancy articles, as a +pen-wiper, or a cigar-case, half worked by Ellen, to be finished by Alice, +and given to papa on some especial day, the significance of which "only +mamma knows;" sometimes a pressed flower, which was to be put by papa's +plate at breakfast, or put in papa's button-hole as he went out in the +morning. I was more and more lost in astonishment at the subtle and +boundless art of love which could so contrive to reach across an ocean, +and surround a man's daily life with its expression. There were also in +every package, letters to John from all the children: even the baby's +little hand was guided to write by every mail, "Dear papa, I love you +just as much as all the rest do!" or, "Dear papa, I want you to toss me +up!" More than once I saw tears roll down John's face in spite of him, as +he slowly deciphered these illegible little scrawls. The older children's +notes were vivid and loving like their mother's. It was evident that they +were having a season of royal delight in their journey, but also evident +that their thoughts and their longings were constantly reverting to papa. +How much Ellen really indited of these apparently spontaneous letters I do +not know; but no doubt their tone was in part created by her. They showed, +even more than did her own letters, that papa was still the centre of the +family life. No sight was seen without the wish--"Oh, if papa were here!" +and even little Mary, aged five, was making a collection of pressed leaves +for papa, from all the places they visited. Louise had already great +talent for drawing, and in almost every letter came two or three childish +but spirited little pictures, all labelled "Drawn for papa!" "The true +picture of our courier in a rage, for papa to see." "The washerwoman's +dog, for papa," etc., etc. Again and again I sat by, almost trembling with +delight, and saw John spend an entire evening in looking over these little +missives and reading Ellen's letters. Then again I sat alone and anxious +through an entire evening, when I knew he was with Emma Long. But even +after such an evening, he never failed to sit down and write pages in his +journal-letter to Ellen--a practice which he began of his own accord, +after receiving the first journal-letter from her. + +"Ha! little Alice," he said, "we'll keep a journal too, for mamma, won't +we! She shall not out-do us that way." And so, between Alice's letters and +his, the whole record of our family life went every week to Ellen; and I +do not believe, so utterly unaware was John Gray of any pain in his wife's +heart about Emma Long, I do not believe that he ever in a single instance +omitted to mention when he had been with her, where, and how long. + +Emma Long wrote too, and Ellen wrote to her occasional affectionate notes; +but referring her always to John's diary-letters for the details of +interest. I used to study Mrs. Long's face while these letters were read +to her. John's animated delight, his enthusiastic pride, must, it seemed +to me, have been bitter to her. But I never saw even a shade of such a +feeling in her face. There was nothing base or petty in Emma Long's +nature, and, strange as it may seem, she did love Ellen. Only once did I +ever see a trace of pique or resentment in her manner to John, and then I +could not wonder at it. A large package had come from Ellen, just after +tea one night, and we were all gathered in the library, reading our +letters and looking at the photographs--(she always sent unmounted +photographs of the place from which she wrote, and, if possible, of the +house in which they were living, and the children often wrote above the +windows, "_Papa's_ and mamma's room," etc, etc.)--hour after hour passed. +The hall clock had just struck ten, when the door-bell rang violently. +"Good heavens!" exclaimed John, springing up, "that must be Mrs. Long; I +totally forgot that I had promised to go with her to Mrs. Willis's party. +I said I would be there at nine; tell her I am up-stairs dressing," and he +was gone before the servant had had time to open the door. Mrs. Long came +in, with a flushed face and anxious look. "Is Mr. Gray ill?" she said. "He +promised to call for me at nine, to go to Mrs. Willis's, and I have been +afraid he might be ill." + +Before I could reply, the unconscious Alice exclaimed,-- + +"Oh, no; papa isn't ill; he is so sorry, but he forgot all about the party +till he heard you ring the bell. We were so busy over mamma's letters." + +"John will be down in a moment," added I. "He ran up-stairs to dress as +soon as you rang." + +For one second Emma Long's face was sad to see. Such astonishment, such +pain, were in it, my heart ached for her. Then a look of angry resentment +succeeded the pain, and merely saying, "I am very sorry; but I really +cannot wait for him. It is now almost too late to go," she had left the +room and closed the outer door before I could think of any words to say. + +I ran up to John's room, and told him through the closed door. He made no +reply for a moment, and then said,-- + +"No wonder she is vexed. It was unpardonable rudeness. Tell Robert to run +at once for a carriage for me." + +In a very few moments he came down dressed for the party, but with no +shadow of disturbance on his face. He was still thinking of the letters. +He took up his own, and putting it into an inside breast-pocket, said, as +he kissed Alice, "Papa will take mamma's letter to the party, if he can't +take mamma!" + +I shed grateful tears that night before I went to sleep. How I longed to +write to Ellen of the incident; but I had resolved not once to disregard +her request that the whole subject be a sealed one. And I trusted that +Alice would remember to tell it. Well I might! At breakfast Alice said,-- + +"Oh, papa, I told mamma that you carried her to the party in your +breast-pocket; that is, you carried her letter!" + +I fancied that John's cheek flushed a little as he said,-- + +"You might tell mamma that papa carries her everywhere in his +breast-pocket, little girlie, and mamma would understand." + +I think from that day I never feared for Ellen's future. I fancied, too, +that from that day there was a new light in John Gray's eyes. Perhaps it +might have been only the new light in my own; but I think when a man knows +that he has once, for one hour, forgotten a promise to meet a woman whose +presence has been dangerously dear to him, he must be aware of his dawning +freedom. + +The winter was nearly over. Ellen had said nothing to us about returning. + +"Dr. Willis tells me that, from what Ellen writes to him of her health, he +thinks it would be safer for her to remain abroad another year," said John +to me one morning at breakfast. + +"Oh, she never will stay another year!" exclaimed I. + +"Not unless I go out to stay with her," said John, very quietly. + +"Oh, John, could you?" and, "Oh, papa, will you take me?" exclaimed Alice +and I in one breath. + +"Yes," and "yes," said John, laughing, "and Sally too, if she will go." + +He then proceeded to tell me that he had been all winter contemplating +this; that he believed they would never again have so good an opportunity +to travel in Europe, and that Dr. Willis's hesitancy about Ellen's health +had decided the question. He had been planning and deliberating as +silently and unsuspectedly as Ellen had done the year before. Never once +had it crossed my mind that he desired it, or that it could be. But I +found that he had for the last half of the year been arranging his affairs +with a view to it, and had entered into new business connections which +would make it not only easy, but profitable, for him to remain abroad two +years. He urged me to go with them, but I refused. I felt that the father +and the mother and the children ought to be absolutely alone in this +blessed reunion, and I have never regretted my decision, although the old +world is yet an unknown world to me. + +John Gray was a reticent and undemonstrative man, in spite of all the +tenderness and passionateness in his nature. But when he bade me good-by +on the deck of the steamer, as he kissed me he whispered:-- + +"Sally, I shall hold my very breath till I see Ellen. I never knew how I +loved her before." And the tears stood in his eyes. + +I never saw Emma Long after she knew that John was to go abroad to join +Ellen. I found myself suddenly without courage to look in her face. The +hurry of my preparations for Alice was ample excuse for my not going to +her house, and she did not come to ours. I knew that John spent several +evenings with her, and came home late, with a sad and serious face, and +that was all. A week before he sailed she joined a large and gay party for +San Francisco and the Yosemite. In all the newspaper accounts of the +excursion, Mrs. Long was spoken of as the brilliant centre of all +festivities. I understood well that this was the first reaction of her +proud and sensitive nature under an irremediable pain. She never returned +to ----, but established herself in a Southern city, where she lived in +great retirement for a year, doing good to all poor and suffering people, +and spending the larger part of her fortune in charity. Early in the +second year there was an epidemic of yellow fever: Mrs. Long refused to +leave the city, and went as fearlessly as the physicians to visit and +nurse the worst cases. But after the epidemic had passed by, she herself +was taken ill, and died suddenly in a hospital ward, surrounded by the +very patients whom she had nursed back to health. Nothing I could say in +my own words would give so vivid an idea of the meeting between John Gray +and his wife, as the first letter which I received from little Alice:-- + +"DARLING AUNTIE,-- + +"It is too bad you did not come too. The voyage was horrid. Papa was so +much sicker than I, that I had to take care of him all the time; but my +head ached so that I kept seeing black spots if I stooped over to kiss +papa; but papa said, I was just like another mamma. + +"Oh, Auntie, only think, there was a mistake about the letters, and mamma +never got the letter to tell her that we were coming; and she was out on +the balcony of the hotel when we got out of the carriage, and first she +saw me; and the lady who was with her said she turned first red and then +so white the lady thought she was sick; and then the next minute she saw +papa, and she just fell right down among all the people, and looked as if +she was dead; and the very first thing poor papa and I saw, when we got +up-stairs, was mamma being carried by two men, and papa and I both thought +she was dead; and papa fell right down on his knees, and made the men put +mamma down on the floor, and everybody talked out loud, and papa never +spoke a word, but just looked at mamma, and nobody knew who papa was till +I spoke, and I said,-- + +"'That's my mamma, and papa and I have just come all the way from +America,"--and then a gentleman told me to kiss mamma, and I did; and then +she opened her eyes; and just as soon as she saw papa, she got a great +deal whiter and her head fell back again, and I was so sure she was dying, +that I began to cry out loud, and I do think there were more than a +hundred people all round us; but Louise says there were only ten or +twelve; and then the same gentleman that told me to kiss mamma took hold +of papa, and made him go away; and they carried mamma into a room, and +laid her on a bed, and said we must all go out; but I wouldn't: I got +right under the bed, and they didn't see me; and it seemed to me a +thousand years before anybody spoke; and at last I heard mamma's voice, +just as weak as a baby's--but you know nobody could mistake mamma's voice; +and said she, 'Where is John--I saw John;' and then the gentleman +said,--oh, I forgot to tell you he was a doctor,--he said,-- + +"'My dear madam, calm yourself'--and then I cried right out again, and +crept out between his legs and almost knocked him down; and said I, 'Don't +you try to calm my mamma; it is papa--and me too, mamma!' and then mamma +burst out crying; and then the old gentleman ran out, and I guess papa was +at the door, for he came right in; and then he put his arms round mamma, +and they didn't speak for so long, I thought I should die; and all the +people were listening, and going up and down in the halls outside, and I +felt so frightened and ashamed, for fear people would think mamma wasn't +glad to see us. But papa says that is always the way when people are more +glad than they can bear; and the surprise, too, was too much for anybody. +But I said at the tea-table that I hoped I should never be so glad myself +as long as I lived; and then the old gentleman,--he's a very nice old +gentleman, and a great friend of mamma's, and wears gold spectacles,--he +said, 'My dear little girl, I hope you _may_ be some day just as glad,' +and then he looked at papa and mamma and smiled,--and mamma almost cried +again! Oh, altogether it was a horrid time; the worst I ever had; and so +different from what papa and I thought it would be. + +"But it's all over now, and we're all so happy, we laugh so all the time, +that papa says it is disgraceful; that we shall have to go off and hide +ourselves somewhere where people can't see us. + +"But Auntie, you don't know how perfectly splendid mamma is. She is the +prettiest lady in the hotel, Louise says. She is ever so much fatter than +she used to be. And the baby has grown so I did not know her, and her +curls are more than half a yard long. Louise and Mary have got their hair +cut short like boys, but their gowns are splendid; they say it was such a +pity you had any made for me at home. But oh, dear Auntie, don't think I +shall not always like the gowns you made for me. Charlie isn't here; he's +at some horrid school a great way off; I forget the name of the place. But +we are all going there to live for the summer. Mamma said we should keep +house in an 'apartment,' and I was perfectly horrified, and I said, +'Mamma, in one room?' and then Louise and Mary laughed till I was quite +angry; but mamma says that here an 'apartment' means a set of a good many +rooms, quite enough to live in. I don't believe you can have patience to +read this long letter; but I haven't told you half; no, not one half of +half. Good-by, you darling aunty. ALICE. + +"P.S.--I wish you could just see mamma. It isn't only me that thinks she +is so pretty; papa thinks so too. He just sits and looks, and looks at +her, till mamma doesn't quite like it, and asks him to look at baby a +little!" + +Ellen's first letter was short. Her heart was too full. She said at the +end,-- + +"I suppose you will both laugh and cry over Alice's letter. At first I +thought of suppressing it. But it gives you such a graphic picture of the +whole scene that I shall let it go. It is well that I had the excuse of +the surprise for my behavior, but I myself doubt very much if I should +have done any better, had I been prepared for their coming. + +"God bless and thank you, dear Sally, for this last year, as I cannot. + +"ELLEN." + +These events happened many years ago. My sister and I are now old women. +Her life has been from that time to this, one of the sunniest and most +unclouded I ever knew. + +John Gray is a hale old man; white-haired and bent, but clear-eyed and +vigorous. All the good and lovable and pure in his nature have gone on +steadily increasing: his love for his wife is still so full of sentiment +and romance that the world remarks it. + +His grandchildren will read these pages, no doubt, but they will never +dream that it could have been their sweet and placid and beloved old +grandmother who, through such sore straits in her youth, kept her husband! + + + + +Esther Wynn's Love-Letters. + + + +My uncle, Joseph Norton, lived in a very old house. It was one of those +many mansions in which that father of all sleepers, George Washington, +once slept for two nights. This, however, was before the house came into +the possession of our family, and we seldom mentioned the fact. + +The rooms were all square, and high; many of the walls were of wood +throughout, panelled from the floor to the ceiling, and with curious china +tiles set in around the fire-places. In the room in which I always slept +when I visited there, these wooden walls were of pale green; the tiles +were of blue and white, and afforded me endless study and perplexity, +being painted with a series of half-allegorical, half-historical, +half-Scriptural representations which might well have puzzled an older +head than mine. The parlors were white, with gold ornaments; the library +was of oak, with mahogany wainscoting, and so were the two great central +halls, upper and lower. The balustrade of the staircase was of apple-tree +wood, more beautiful than all the rest, having fine red veins on its dark +polished surface. These halls were lined with portraits of dead Nortons, +men and women, who looked as much at home as if the grand old house had +always borne their name. And well they might, for none of the owners who +had gone before had been of as gentle blood as they; and now they would +probably never be taken down from the walls, for my uncle had bought the +house, and my uncle's son would inherit it; and it had never yet been +known that a Norton of our branch of Nortons had lived wastefully or come +to want. + +My uncle had married very late in life: he was now a gray-haired man, with +little children around his knee. It was said once in my presence, by some +one who did not know I listened, that his heart had been broken when he +was little more than a boy, by the faithlessness of a woman older than +himself, and that he would never have married if he had not seen that +another heart would be broken if he did not. Be that as it may, his +bearing towards his wife was always of the most chivalrous and courteous +devotion, so courteous as perhaps to confirm this interpretation of his +marriage. + +My aunt was an uninteresting woman, of whom, if she were not in sight, one +never thought; but she had great strength of affection and much good sense +in affairs. Her children loved her; her husband enjoyed the admirably +ordered system of her management, and her house was a delightful one to +visit. Although she did not contribute to the flavor of living, she never +hindered or thwarted those who could. There was freedom in her presence, +from the very fact that you forgot her, and that she did not in the least +object to being forgotten. Such people are of great use in the world; and +make much comfort. + +At the time when the strange incidents which I am about to tell occurred, +my aunt had been married twelve years, and had four children; three girls, +Sarah, Hilda, and Agnes, and a baby boy, who had as yet no name. Sarah was +called "Princess," and her real name was never heard. She was the oldest, +and was my uncle's inseparable companion. She was a child of uncommon +thoughtfulness and tenderness. The other two were simply healthy, happy +little creatures, who gave no promise of being any more individual than +their serene, quiet mother. + +I was spending the winter in the family, and going to school, and between +my uncle and me there had grown up an intimate and confidential friendship +such as is rare between a man of sixty and a girl of fifteen. I understood +him far better than his wife did; and his affection for me was so great +and so caressing that he used often to say, laughingly, "Nell, my girl, +you'll never have another lover like me!" + +We were sitting at breakfast one morning when Princess came in, holding a +small letter in her hand. + +"Look, papa mia!" she said; "see this queer old letter I found on the +cellar stairs. It looks a hundred years old." + +My uncle glanced up, carelessly at first, but as soon as he saw the paper +he stretched out his hand for it, and looked eager. It did indeed seem as +if it were a hundred years old; yellow, crumpled, torn. It had been folded +in the clumsy old way which was customary before the invention of +envelopes; the part of the page containing the address had been torn out. +He read a few words, and the color mounted in his cheek. + +"Where did you say you found it, Princess?" he said. + +"On the cellar stairs, papa; I went down to find Fido, and he was playing +with it." + +"What is it, Joseph?" said Aunt Sarah, in tones a shade more eager than +their wont. + +"I do not know, my dear," replied my uncle; "it is very old," and he went +on reading with a more and more sobered face. + +"Robert," said he, turning to the waiter, "do you know where this paper +could have come from? Have any old papers been carried down from the +garret, to light the fire in the furnace?" + +"No, sir," said Robert, "not that I know, sir." + +"There are whole barrels of old papers under the eaves in the garret," +said Aunt Sarah; "I have always meant to have them burned up; I dare say +this came out of one of them, in some way;" and she resumed her habitual +expression of nonchalance. + +"Perhaps so," said Uncle Jo, folding up the paper and putting it in his +pocket. "I will look, after breakfast." + +She glanced up, again surprised, and said, "Why? is it of any importance?" + +"Oh, no, no," said he hastily, with a shade of embarrassment in his voice, +"it is only an old letter, but I thought there might be more from the same +person." + +"Who was it?" said Aunt Sarah, languidly. + +"I don't know; only the first name is signed," said he evasively; and the +placid lady asked no more. The children were busy with Fido, and breakfast +went on, but I watched my uncle's face. I had never seen it look just as +it looked then. What could that old yellow letter have been? My magnetic +sympathy with my uncle told me that he was deeply moved. + +At dinner-time my uncle was late, and Aunt Sarah said, with a little less +than her usual dignity, "I never did see such a man as Mr. Norton, when he +takes a notion in his head. He's been all the morning rummaging in clouds +of dust in the garret, to find more of those old letters." + +"Who wrote it, Auntie?" said I. + +"Heaven knows," said she; "some woman or other, fifty years ago. He says +her name was Esther." + +"Did you read it?" I asked tremblingly. Already I felt a shrinking sense +of regard for the unknown Esther. + +Aunt Sarah looked at me with almost amused surprise. "Read it, child? no, +indeed! What do I care what that poor soul wrote half a century ago. But +your uncle's half out of his head about her, and he's had all the servants +up questioning them back and forth till they are nearly as mad as he is. +Cook says she has found several of them on the cellar stairs in the last +few weeks; but she saw they were so old she threw them into the fire, and +never once looked at them; and when she said that, your uncle just +groaned. I never did see such a man as he is when he gets a notion in his +head,"--she repeated, hopelessly. + +My uncle came in flushed and tired. Nothing was said about the letters +till, just as dinner was over, he said suddenly:-- + +"Robert, if you find any more of these old papers anywhere, bring them to +me at once. And give orders to all the servants that no piece of old +paper with writing on it is to be destroyed without my seeing it." + +"Yes, sir," said Robert, without changing a muscle of his face, but I saw +that he too was of Mrs. Norton's opinion as to his master's oddity when he +once got a notion in his head. + +"Who was the lady, papa?" said little Agnes. "Did you know her?" + +"My dear, the letter is as old as papa is himself," said he. "I think the +lady died when papa was a little baby." + +"Then what makes you care so much, papa?" persisted Agnes. + +"I can't tell you, little one," said he, kissing her, and tossing her up +in the air; but he looked at me. + +In the early twilight that afternoon I found my uncle lying with closed +eyes on the lounge in the library. He was very tired by his long +forenoon's work in the garret. I sat down on the floor and stroked his +dear old white hair. + +"Pet," he said, without opening his eyes, "that letter had the whole soul +of a woman in it." + +"I thought so, dear," said I, "by your face." + +After a long interval he said: "I could not find a word more of her +writing; I might have known I should not;" and again, after a still longer +silence, "Would you like to read it, Nell?" + +"I am not sure, Uncle Jo," I said. "It seems hardly right. I think she +would not so much mind your having it, because you are a man; but another +woman! no, uncle dear, I think the letter belongs to you." + +"Oh, you true woman-hearted darling," he said, kissing me; "but some day +I think I shall want you to read it with me. She would not mind your +reading it, if she knew you as I do." + +Just then Aunt Sarah came into the room, and we said no more. + +Several days passed by, and the mysterious letter was forgotten by +everybody except my uncle and me. + +One bitterly cold night we were sitting around a blazing coal fire in the +library. It was very late. Aunt Sarah was asleep in her chair; my uncle +was reading. Suddenly the door opened and Robert came in, bringing a +letter on his little silver tray: it was past eleven o'clock; the evening +mail had been brought in long before. + +"Why, what is that, Robert?" said Uncle Jo, starting up a little alarmed. + +"One of them old letters, sir," replied Robert; "I just got it on the +cellar stairs, sir." + +My uncle took the letter hastily. Robert still stood as if he had more to +say; and his honest, blank face looked stupefied with perplexity. + +"If you please, sir," he began, "it's the queerest thing ever I saw. That +letter's been put on them stairs, sir, within the last five minutes." + +"Why, Robert, what do you mean?" said my uncle, thoroughly excited. + +"Oh dear," groaned Aunt Sarah, creeping out of her nap and chair, "if you +are going into another catechism about those old letters, I am going to +bed;" and she left the room, not staying long enough to understand that +this was a new mystery, and not a vain rediscussing of the old one. + +It seemed that Robert had been down cellar to see that the furnace fire +was in order for the night. As soon as he reached the top of the stairs, +in coming up, he remembered that he had not turned the outside damper +properly, and went back to do it. + +"I wasn't gone three minutes, sir, and when I came back there lay the +letter, right side up, square in the middle of the stairs; and I'd take my +Bible oath, sir, as 'twan't there when I went down." + +"Who was in the hall when you went down, Robert?" said my uncle sternly. + +"Nobody, sir. Every servant in the house had gone to bed, except Jane" (my +aunt's maid), "and she was going up the stairs over my head, sir, when I +first went down into the cellar. I know she was, sir, for she called +through the stairs to me, and she says, 'Master'll hear you, Robert.' You +see, sir, Jane and me didn't know as it was so late, and we was frightened +when we heard the clock strike half-past eleven." + +"That will do, Robert," said Uncle Jo. "You can go," and Robert +disappeared, relieved but puzzled. There seemed no possible explanation of +the appearance of the letter there and then, except that hands had placed +it there during the brief interval of Robert's being in the cellar. There +were no human hands in the house which could have done it. Was a restless +ghost wandering there, bent on betraying poor Esther's secrets to +strangers? What did it, what could it mean? + +"Will you read this one with me, Nell?" said my uncle, turning it over +reverently and opening it. + +"No," I said, "but I will watch you read it;" and I sat down on the floor +at his feet. + +The letter was very short; he read it twice without speaking; and then +said, in an unsteady voice: "This is an earlier letter than the other, I +think. This is a joyous one; poor Esther! I believe I know her whole +story. But the mystery is inexplicable! I would take down these walls if I +thought I could get at the secret." + +Long past midnight we sat and talked it all over; and racked our brains in +vain to invent any theory to account for the appearance of the letters on +that cellar stairway. My uncle's tender interest in the poor dead Esther +was fast being overshadowed by the perplexing mystery. + +A few days after this, Mary the cook found another of the letters when she +first went down-stairs in the morning, and Robert placed it by my uncle's +plate, with the rest of his mail. It was the strangest one of all, for +there was not a word of writing in it that could be read. It was a foreign +letter; some lines of the faded old postmarks were still visible on the +back. The first page looked as if it had been written over with some sort +of sympathetic ink; but not a word could be deciphered. Folded in a small +piece of the thinnest of paper was a mouldy and crumbling flower, of a +dull-brown color; on the paper was written,--"Pomegranate blossom, from +Jaffa," and a few lines of poetry, of which we could make out only here +and there a word. + +Even Aunt Sarah was thoroughly aroused and excited now. Robert had been in +the cellar very late on the previous night, and was sure that at that time +no papers were on the stairs. + +"I never go down them stairs, sir," said Robert, "without looking--and +listening too," he added under his breath, with a furtive look back at the +cook, who was standing in the second doorway of the butler's pantry. The +truth was, Robert had been afraid of the cellar ever since the finding of +the second letter: and all the servants shared his uneasiness. + +Between eleven at night and seven the next morning, this mute ghostly waif +from Palestine, with the half-century old dust of a pomegranate flower in +its keeping, had come up that dark stairway. It appeared now that the +letters were always found on the fourth stair from the top. This fact had +not before been elicited, but there seemed little doubt about it. Even +little Princess said,-- + +"Yes, papa, I am sure that the one I found was on that stair; for I now +remember Fido came up with only just one or two bounds to the top, as soon +as he saw me." + +We were very sober. The little children chattered on; it meant nothing to +them, this breath from such a far past. But to hearts old enough to +comprehend, there was something infinitely sad and suggestive in it. I +already felt, though I had not read one word of her writing, that I loved +the woman called Esther; as for my uncle, his very face was becoming +changed by the thought of her, and the mystery about the appearance of the +letters. He began to be annoyed also; for the servants were growing +suspicious, and unwilling to go into the cellar. Mary the cook declared +that on the morning when she found this last letter, something white +brushed by her at the foot of the stairs; and Robert said that he had for +a long time heard strange sounds from that staircase late at night. + +Just after this, my aunt went away for a visit; and several days passed +without any further discoveries on the stairs. My uncle and I spent long +hours in talking over the mystery, and he urged me to read, or to let him +read to me, the two letters he had. + +"Pet," he said, "I will tell you something. One reason they move me so is, +that they are strangely like words written by a woman whom I knew thirty +years ago. I did not believe two such women had been on the earth." + +I kissed his hand when he said this; yet a strange unwillingness to read +Esther's letters withheld me. I felt that he had right, and I had not. + +But the end of the mystery was near. It was revealed, as it ought to have +been, to my uncle himself. + +One night I was wakened out of my first sleep by a very cautious tap at my +door, and my uncle's voice, saying,-- + +"Nell--Nell, are you awake?" + +I sprang to the door instantly. + +"O uncle, are you ill?" (My aunt had not yet returned.) + +"No, pet. But I want you down-stairs. Dress yourself and come down into +the library." + +My hands trembled with excitement as I dressed. Yet I was not afraid: I +knew it was in some way connected with "Esther," though my uncle had not +mentioned her name. + +I found him sitting before the library table, which was literally covered +with old letters, such as we had before seen. + +"O uncle!" I gasped as soon as I saw them. + +"Yes, dear! I have got them all. There was no ghost!" + +Then he told me in few words what had happened. It seemed that he had gone +down himself into the cellar, partly to satisfy himself that all was right +with the furnace, partly with a vague hope of finding another of the +letters. He had found nothing, had examined the furnace, locked the door +at the head of the cellar stairs, and gone up to his bed-room. While he +was undressing, a strange impulse seized him to go back once more, and see +whether it might not happen to him as it had to Robert, to find a letter +on returning after a few moments' interval. + +He threw on his wrapper, took a candle, and went down. The first thing he +saw, on opening the door, which he had himself locked only five minutes +before, was a letter lying on the same fourth stair! + +"I confess, Nell," said he, "for a minute I felt as frightened as black +Bob. But I sat down on the upper step, and resolved not to go away till I +had discovered how that letter came there, if I stayed till day-light!" + +Nearly an hour passed, he said; the cold wind from the cellar blew up and +swayed the candle-flame to and fro. All sorts of strange sounds seemed to +grow louder and louder, and still he sat, gazing helplessly in a sort of +despair at that motionless letter, which he had not lifted from the stair. +At last, purely by accident, he looked up to the staircase overhead--the +front stairs, down which he had just come from his room. He jumped to his +feet! There, up among the dark cobwebbed shadows, he thought he saw +something white. He held up the candle. It was, yes, it was a tiny corner +of white paper wedged into a crack; by standing on the beam at the side he +could just reach it. He touched it,--pulled it;--it came out +slowly,--another of Esther's letters. They were hid in the upper +staircase! The boards had been worn and jarred a little away from each +other, and the letters were gradually shaken through the opening; some +heavier or quicker step than usual giving always the final impetus to a +letter which had been for days slowly working down towards the fated +outlet. + +Stealthily as any burglar he had crept about his own house, had taken up +the whole of the front staircase carpet, and had with trouble pried off +one board of the stair in which the letters were hid. There had been a +spring, he found, but it was rusted and would not yield. He had carefully +replaced the carpet, carried the letters into the library, and come for +me; it was now half-past one o'clock at night. + +Dear, blessed Uncle Jo! I am an old woman now. Good men and strong men +have given me love, and have shown me of their love for others; but never +did I feel myself so in the living presence of incarnate love as I did +that night, sitting with my white-haired uncle, face to face with the +faded records of the love of Esther Wynn. + +It was only from one note that we discovered her last name. This was +written in the early days of her acquaintance with her lover, and while +she was apparently little more than a child. It was evident that at first +the relation was more like one of pupil and master. For some time the +letters all commenced scrupulously "my dear friend," or "my most beloved +friend." It was not until years had passed that the master became the +lover; we fancied, Uncle Jo and I, as we went reverently over the +beautiful pages, that Esther had grown and developed more and more, until +she was the teacher, the helper, the inspirer. We felt sure, though we +could not tell how, that she was the stronger of the two; that she moved +and lived habitually on a higher plane; that she yearned often to lift the +man she loved to the freer heights on which her soul led its glorified +existence. + +It was strange how little we gathered which could give a clew to her +actual history or to his. The letters almost never gave the name of the +place, only the day and year, many of them only the day. There was dearth +of allusions to persons; it was as if these two had lived in a separate +world of their own. When persons were mentioned at all, it was only by +initials. It was plain that some cruel, inexorable bar separated her from +the man she loved; a bar never spoken of--whose nature we could only +guess,--but one which her strong and pure nature felt itself free to +triumph over in spirit, however submissive the external life might seem. + +Their relation had lasted for many years; so many, that that fact alone +seemed a holy seal and testimony to the purity and immortality of the bond +which united them. Esther must have been a middle-aged woman when, as the +saddened letters revealed, her health failed and she was ordered by the +physicians to go to Europe. The first letter which my uncle had read, the +one which Princess found, was the letter in which she bade farewell to +her lover. There was no record after that; only two letters which had come +from abroad; one was the one that I have mentioned, which contained the +pomegranate blossom from Jaffa, and a little poem which, after long hours +of labor, Uncle Jo and I succeeded in deciphering. The other had two +flowers in it--an Edelweiss which looked as white and pure and immortal as +if it had come from Alpine snows only the day before; and a little crimson +flower of the amaranth species, which was wrapped by itself, and marked +"From Bethlehem of Judea." The only other words in this letter were, "I am +better, darling, but I cannot write yet." + +It was evident that there had been the deepest intellectual sympathy +between them. Closely and fervently and passionately as their hearts must +have loved, the letters were never, from first to last, simply lovers' +letters. Keen interchange of comment and analysis, full revelation of +strongly marked individual life, constant mutual stimulus to mental growth +there must have been between these two. We were inclined to think, from +the exquisitely phrased sentences and rare fancies in the letters, and +from the graceful movement of some of the little poems, that Esther must +have had ambition as a writer. Then, again, she seemed so wholly, simply, +passionately, a woman, to love and be loved, that all thought of anything +else in her nature or her life seemed incongruous. + +"Oh," groaned Uncle Jo, after reading one of the most glowing letters, +"oh, was there really ever in any other man's arms but mine a woman who +could say such things as these between kisses? O Nell, Nell, thank God +that you haven't the dower of such a double fire in your veins as Esther +had!" + +All night we sat reading, and reading, and reading. When the great clock +in the hall struck six, we started like guilty persons. + +"Oh, my childie," said Uncle Jo, "how wrong this has been in me! Poor +little pale face, go to bed now, and remember, I forbid you to go to +school to-day; and I forbid your getting up until noon. I promise you I +will not look at another letter. I will lock them all up till to-morrow +evening, and then we will finish them." + +I obeyed him silently. I was too exhausted to speak; but I was also too +excited to sleep. Until noon I lay wide awake on the bed, in my darkened +room, living over Esther Wynn's life, marvelling at the inexplicable +revelation of it which had been put into our hands, and wondering, until +the uncertainty seemed almost anguish, what was that end which we could +never know. Did she die in the Holy Land? or did she come home well and +strong? and did her lover die some day, leaving his secret treasure of +letters behind him, and poor stricken Esther to go to her grave in fear +lest unfriendly hands might have gained possession of her heart's records? +He was a married man we felt sure. Had the wife whom he did not love paced +up and down and up and down for years over these dumb witnesses to that of +which she had never dreamed? The man himself, when he came to die, did he +writhe, thinking of those silent, eloquent, precious letters which he must +leave to time and chance to destroy or protect? Did men carry him, dead, +down the very stairs on which he had so often knelt unseen and wafted +kisses towards the hidden Esther? + +All these conjectures and questions, and thousands more, hurried in wild +confusion through my brain. In vain I closed my eyes, in vain I pressed my +hands on my eyelids; countless faces, dark, light, beautiful, plain, +happy, sad, threatening, imploring, seemed dancing in the air around my +bed, and saying, "Esther, Esther!" + +We knew she was fair; for there was in one of the letters a tiny curl of +pale brown hair; but we believed from many expressions of hers that she +had no beauty. Oh, if I could but have known how she looked! + +At last I fell asleep, and slept heavily until after dark. This refreshed +my overwrought nerves, and when at nine o'clock in the evening I joined my +uncle in the library, I was calmer than he. + +We said very few words. I sat on his knee, with one arm around his neck, +and hand in hand we reverently lifted the frail, trembling sheets. + +We learned nothing new; in fact, almost any one of the letters was a +rounded revelation of Esther's nature, and of the great love she bore--and +there was little more to learn. There were more than a hundred of the +letters, and they embraced a period of fifteen years. We arranged them in +piles, each year by itself; for some years there were only two or three; +we wondered whether during those years they had lived near each other, and +so had not written, or whether the letters had been destroyed. When the +last letter was laid where it belonged, we looked at each other in +silence, and we both sighed. + +Uncle Jo spoke first. + +"Childie, what shall we do with them?" + +"I do not know, uncle," I said. "I should feel very guilty if we did not +make sure that no one else read them. I should feel very guilty myself, +except that I have read them with you. They seem to me to belong to you, +somehow." + +Uncle Jo kissed me, and we were silent again. Then he said, "There is but +one way to make sure that no human being will ever read them--that is, to +burn them; but it is as hard for me to do it as if they had been written +to me." + +"Could you not put them back in the stair, and nail it up firmly?" said I. + +It was a stormy night. The wind was blowing hard, and sleet and snow +driving against the windows. At this instant a terrible gust rattled the +icy branches of the syringa-bushes against the window, with a noise like +the click of musketry, and above the howling of the wind there came a +strange sound which sounded like a voice crying, "Burn, burn!" + +Uncle Jo and I both heard it, and both sprang to our feet, white with a +nervous terror. In a second he recovered himself, and said, laughing, "Pet +we are both a good deal shaken by this business. But I do think it will be +safer to burn the letters. Poor, poor Esther. I hope she is safe with her +lover now." + +"Oh, do you doubt it?" said I; "I do not." + +"No," said he, "I do not, either. Thank God!" + +"Uncle Jo," said I, "do you think Esther would mind if I copied a few of +these letters, and two or three of the poems? I so want to have them that +it seems to me I cannot give them up; I love her so, I think she would be +willing." + +The storm suddenly died away, and the peaceful silence around us was +almost as startling as the fierce gust had been before. I took it as an +omen that Esther did not refuse my wish, and I selected the four letters +which I most desired to keep. I took also the pomegranate blossom, and the +Edelweiss, and the crimson Amaranth from Bethlehem. + +"I think Esther would rather that these should not be burned," I said. + +"Yes; I think so too," replied Uncle Jo. + +Then we laid the rest upon the fire. The generous hickory logs seemed to +open their arms to them. In a few seconds great panting streams of fire +leaped up and rushed out of our sight, bearing with them all that was +perishable of Esther Wynn's letters. Just as the crackling shadowy shapes +were falling apart and turning black, my uncle sprang to an Indian cabinet +which stood near, and seizing a little box of incense-powder which had +been brought from China by his brother, he shook a few grains of it into +the fire. A pale, fragrant film rose slowly in coiling wreaths and clouds +and hid the last moments of the burning of the letters. When the incense +smoke cleared away, nothing could be seen on the hearth but the bright +hickory coals in their bed of white ashes. + +"I shall make every effort," said Uncle Jo, "to find out who lived in this +house during those years. I presume I can, by old records somewhere." + +"Oh, uncle," I said, "don't. I think they would rather we did not know any +more." + +"You sweet woman child!" he exclaimed. "You are right. Your instinct is +truer than mine. I am only a man, after all! I will never try to learn who +it was that Esther loved." + +"I am very glad," he added, "that this happened when your Aunt Sarah was +away. It would have been a great weariness and annoyance to her to have +read these letters." + +Dear, courteous Uncle Jo! I respected his chivalrous little artifice of +speech, and tried to look as if I believed he would have carried the +letters to his wife if she had been there. + +"And I think, dear," he hesitatingly proceeded, "we would better not speak +of this. It will be one sacred little secret that you and your old uncle +will keep. As no more letters will be found on the stairs, the whole thing +will be soon forgotten." + +"Oh yes, uncle," replied I; "of course it would be terrible to tell. It +isn't our secret, you know; it is dear Esther Wynn's." + +I do not know why it was that I locked up those four letters of Esther +Wynn's and did not look at them for many months. I felt very guilty in +keeping them; but a power I could not resist seemed to paralyze my very +hand when I thought of opening the box in which they were. At last, long +after I had left Uncle Jo's house, I took them out one day, and in the +quiet and warmth of a summer noon I copied them slowly, carefully, word +for word. Then I hid the originals in my bosom, and walked alone, without +telling any one whither I was going, to a wild spot I knew several miles +away, where a little mountain stream came foaming and dashing down +through a narrow gorge to empty itself into our broad and placid river. I +sat down on a mossy granite boulder, and slowly tore the letters into +minutest fragments. One by one I tossed the white and tiny shreds into the +swift water, and watched them as far as I could see them. The brook lifted +them and tossed them over and over, lodged them in mossy crevices, or on +tree roots, then swept them all up and whirled them away in dark depths of +the current from which they would never more come to the surface. It was a +place which Esther would have loved, and I wondered, as I sat there hour +after hour, whether it were really improbable, that she knew just then +what I was doing for her. I wondered, also, as I often before had +wondered, if it might not have been by Esther's will that the sacred hoard +of letters, which had lain undiscovered for so many years, should fall at +last into the hands of my tender and chivalrous Uncle Jo. It was certainly +a strange thing that on the stormy night which I have described, when we +were discussing what should be done with the letters, both Uncle Jo and I +at the same instant should have fancied we heard the words "Burn, burn!" + +The following letter is the earliest one which I copied. It is the one +which Robert found so late at night and brought to us in the library:-- + +"FRIDAY EVENING. + +"SWEETEST:--It is very light in my room to-night. The full moon and the +thought of you! I see to write, but you would forbid me--you who would +see only the moonlight, and not the other. Oh, my darling! my darling! + +"I have been all day in fields and on edges of woods. I have never seen +just such a day: a June sun, and a September wind; clover and butter-cups +under foot, and a sparkling October sky overhead. I think the earth +enjoyed it as a sort of masquerading frolic. The breeze was so strong that +it took the butterflies half off their air-legs, and they fairly reeled +about in the sun. As for me, I sat here and there, on hillocks and stones, +among ferns, and white cornels, and honey-bees, and bobolinks. I was the +only still thing in the fields. I waited so long in each spot, that it was +like being transplanted when I moved myself to the north or the south. And +I discovered a few things in each country in which I lived. For one thing, +I observed that the little busy bee is not busy all the while; that he +does a great amount of aimless, idle snuffing and tasting of all sorts of +things besides flowers; especially he indulges in a running accompaniment +of gymnastics among the grass-stalks, which cannot possibly have anything +to do with honey. I watched one fellow to-day through a series of positive +trapeze movements from top to bottom and bottom to top of a grass-tangle. +When he got through he shook himself, and smoothed off his legs exactly as +the circus-men do. Then he took a long pull at a clover well. + +"Ah, the clover! Dearest! you should have seen how it swung to-day. The +stupidest person in the world could not have helped thinking that it kept +time to invisible band-playing, and was trying to catch hold of the +buttercups. I lay down at full length and looked off through the stems, +and then I saw for the first time how close they were, and that they +constantly swayed and touched, and sometimes locked fast together for a +second. Stately as a minuet it looked, but joyous and loving as the +wildest waltz I ever danced in your arms, my darling. Oh, how dare we +presume to be so sure that the flowers are not glad as we are glad! On +such a day as to-day I never doubt it; and I picked one as reverently and +hesitatingly as I would ask the Queen of the Fairies home to tea if I met +her in a wood. + +"Laughing, are you, darling? Yes, I know it. Poor soul! You cannot help +being a man, I suppose. Nor would I have you help it, my great, strong, +glorious one! How I adore the things which you do, which I could not do. +Oh, my sweet master! Never fear that I do you less reverence than I +should. All the same, I lie back on my ferny hillock, and look you in the +eye, and ask you what you think would become of you if you had no little +one of my kind to bring you honey! And when I say this--you--ah, my +darling, now there are tears in my eyes, and the moonlight grows dim. I +cannot bear the thinking what you would do when I said those words! +Good-night! Perhaps in my sleep I will say them again, and you will be +there to answer. In the morning I shall write out for you to-day's clover +song. + +"YOUR OWN." + +The clover song was not in the letter. We found it afterward on a small +piece of paper, so worn and broken in the folds that we knew it must have +been carried for months in a pocket-book. + + A Song of Clover. + + I wonder what the Clover thinks?-- + Intimate friend of Bob-o-links, + Lover of Daisies slim and white, + Waltzer with Butter-cups at night; + Keeper of Inn for travelling Bees, + Serving to them wine dregs and lees, + Left by the Royal Humming-birds, + Who sip and pay with fine-spun words; + Fellow with all the lowliest, + Peer of the gayest and the best; + Comrade of winds, beloved of sun, + Kissed by the Dew-drops, one by one; + Prophet of Good Luck mystery + By sign of four which few may see; + Symbol of Nature's magic zone, + One out of three, and three in one; + Emblem of comfort in the speech + Which poor men's babies early reach; + Sweet by the roadsides, sweet by sills, + Sweet in the meadows, sweet on hills, + Sweet in its white, sweet in its red, + Oh, half its sweet cannot be said; + Sweet in its every living breath, + Sweetest, perhaps, at last, in death! + Oh, who knows what the Clover thinks? + No one! unless the Bob-o-links! + +The lines which were written on the paper inclosing the pomegranate flower +from Jaffa we deciphered with great trouble. The last verse we were not +quite sure about, for there had been erasures. But I think we were right +finally. + + Pomegranate blossom! Heart of fire! + I dare to be thy death, + To slay thee while the summer sun + Is quickening thy breath; + To rob the autumn of thy wine;-- + Next year of all ripe seeds of thine, + That thou mayest bear one kiss of mine + To my dear love before my death. + + For, Heart of fire, I too am robbed + Like thee! Like thee, I die, + While yet my summer sun of love + Is near, and warm, and high; + The autumn will run red with wine; + The autumn fruits will swing and shine; + But in that little grave of mine + I shall not see them where I lie. + + Pomegranate blossom! Heart of fire! + This kiss, so slow, so sweet, + Thou bearest hence, can never lose + Even in death its heat. + Redder than autumns can run with wine, + Warmer than summer suns can shine, + Forever that dear love of mine + Shall find thy sacred hidden sweet! + +The next letter which I copied was one written five years after the first; +it is not so much a letter as an allegory, and so beautiful, so weird, +that we wondered Esther did not set it to tune as a poem. + +"SUNDAY MORNING. + +"MY DARLING:--Even this blazing September sun looks dull to me this +morning. I have come from such a riotous dream. All last night I walked in +a realm of such golden splendor, that I think even in our fullest noon I +shall only see enough light to grope by for days and days. + +"I do not know how to tell you my dream. I think I must put it in shape +of a story of two people; but you will know, darling, that in my dream it +was you and I. And I honestly did dream it, love, every word just as I +shall write it for you; only there are no words which so glow and light +and blaze as did the chambers through which we walked. I had been reading +about the wonderful gold mines of which every one is talking now, and this +led to my dream. + +"You can laugh if you like, sweet master mine, but I think it is all true, +and I call it + +"The Mine of Gold. + +"There is but one true mine of gold; and of it no man knows, and no woman, +save those who go into it. Neither can they who go tell whether they sink +into the earth's heart or are caught up into the chambers of the air, or +led to the outer pavilions of the sea. Suddenly they perceive that all +around, above, below them is gold: rocks of gold higher than they can see; +caves whose depths are bright with gold; lakes of gold which is molten and +leaps like fire, but in which flowers can be dipped and not wither; sands +of gold, soft and pleasant to touch; innumerable shapes of all things +beautiful, which wave and change, but only from gold to gold; air which +shines and shimmers like refiner's gold; warmth which is like the glow of +the red gold of Ophir; and everywhere golden silence! + +"Hand in hand walk the two to whom it is given to enter here: of the gold, +they may carry away only so much as can be hid in their bosoms; grains +which are spilled, or are left on their garments, turn to ashes; only to +each other may they speak of these mysteries; but all men perceive that +they have riches, and that their faces shine as the faces of angels. + +"Suddenly it comes to pass that one day a golden path leads them farther +than they have ever gone before, and into a vast chamber, too vast to be +measured. Its walls, although they are of gold, are also like crystal. +This is a mystery. Only three sides are walled. The fourth side is the +opening of a gallery which stretches away and away, golden like a broad +sunbeam: from out the distance comes the sound of rushing waters; however +far they walk in that gallery, still the golden sunbeam stretches before +them; still the sound of the waters is no nearer: and so would the sunbeam +and the sound of the waters be forever, for they are Eternity. + +"But there is a fourth mystery. On the walls of crystal gold, on all +sides, shine faces; not dead faces, not pictured faces; living +faces--warm, smiling, reflected faces. + +"Then it is revealed to the two who walk hand in hand that these are the +faces of all who have ever entered in, as they, between the walls of +crystal gold; flashing faces of the sons of God looking into eyes of +earthly women;--these were the first: and after them, all in their +generations until to-day, the sons of men with the women they have loved. +The men's faces smile; but the faces of the women have in them a joy +greater than a smile. + +"Presently the two who walk hand in hand see their own faces added to the +others, with the same smile, the same joy; and it is revealed to them that +these faces are immortal. Through all eternity they will shine on the +walls of crystal gold; and those who have once looked on them can never +more see in each other change or loss of beauty. + +"If as they walk there, in the broad sunbeam, an angel meets them, bearing +the tokens of a golden bowl that is broken and a silver cord that is +unloosed, they follow him without grief or fear, thinking on that chamber +of crystal gold! + +"Good-by, darling! + +"ESTHER." + +The third letter was written three years after this one. Sadness was +beginning to cloud the free, joyous outpourings of Esther's heart. +Probably this sadness was one of the first symptoms of the failure of her +health. It was from this letter chiefly--although there were expressions +in others which deepened the impression--that we inferred that her lover +had tried to stimulate in her an intellectual ambition. + +"WEDNESDAY EVENING. + +"DEAR ONE:--Your last letter gave me great pain. It breaks my heart to see +you looking so earnestly and expectantly into my future. Beloved, that I +have grown and developed so much in the last seven years is no proof that +I can still keep on growing. If you understood, darling, you would see +that it is just the other way. I have grown year by year, hour by hour, +because hour by hour I have loved you more. That is all! I have felt the +growth. I know it, as clearly as you do. But I know the secret of it as +you do not; and I know the limit of it, as you cannot. I cannot love you +more, precious one! Neither would I if I could! One heart-beat more in a +minute, and I should die! But all that you have so much loved and cared +for, dear, calling it intellectual growth and expansion in me, has been +only the clearing, refining, and stimulating of every faculty, every +sense, by my love for you. When I have said or written a word which has +pleased you thus, if there were any special fitness or eloquence in the +word, it was only because I sought after what would best carry my thought +to you, darling; what would be best frame, best setting, to keep the +flowers or the sky which I had to see alone,--to keep them till you could +see them too! Oh, dear one, do understand that there is nothing of me +except my heart and my love! While they were wonderingly, tremblingly, +rapturously growing within me, under the sweet warmth of your love, no +wonder I changed day by day. But, precious one, it is ended. The whole +solemn, steadfast womanhood within me recognizes it. Beloved master, in +one sense you can teach me no more! I am content. I desire nothing. One +moment of full consciousness of you, of life, of your love, is more than +all centuries of learning, all eternities of inspiration. I would rather +at this moment, dear, lay my cheek on your hand, and sit in my old place +by your knee, and feel myself the woman you have made me, than know all +that God knows, and make a universe! + +"Beloved, do not say such things to me any more; and whenever you feel +such ambition and hope stirring in your heart, read over this little +verse, and be sure that your child knew what she said when she wrote +it:-- + + "The End of Harvest. + + "O Love, who walkest slow among my sheaves, + Smiling at tint and shape, thy smile of peace, + But whispering of the next sweet year's increase,-- + O tender Love, thy loving hope but grieves + My heart! I rue my harvest, if it leaves + Thee vainly waiting after harvests cease, + Like one who has been mocked by title lease + To barren fields. + + Dear one, my word deceives + Thee never. Hearts one summer have. Their grain + 'Is sown not that which shall be!' + + Can new pain + Teach me of pain? Or any ecstasy + Be new, that I should speak its name again? + My darling, all there was or is of me + Is harvested for thine Eternity! + + ESTHER." + +The fourth letter was the one which Princess had found, the first which my +uncle had read--Esther's farewell to her lover before going abroad. No +wonder that it so moved him! + +"SUNDAY NIGHT. + +"MY DARLING:--I implore you not to come. Have I not loved you enough, all +these years long, for you to trust me, and believe that it is only because +I love you so much that I cannot, cannot see you now? Dear, did I ever +before ask you to forego your wish for mine? Did I ever before withhold +anything from you, my darling? Ah, love, you know--oh, how well you know, +that always, in every blissful moment we have spent together, my bliss +has been shadowed by a little, interrupted by a little, because my soul +was forever restlessly asking, seeking, longing, for one more joy, +delight, rapture, to give to you! + +"Now listen, darling. You say it is almost a year since we met; true, but +if it were yesterday, would you remember it any more clearly? Why, my +precious one, I can see over again at this moment each little movement +which you made, each look your face wore; I can hear every word; I can +feel every kiss; very solemn kisses they were too, love, as if we had +known. + +"You say we may never meet again. True. But if that is to be so, all the +more I choose to leave with you the memory of the face you saw then, +rather than of the one you would see to-day. Be compassionate, darling, +and spare me the pain of seeing your pain at sight of my poor changed +face. I hope it is not vanity, love, which makes me feel this so strongly. +Being so clearly and calmly conscious as I am that very possibly my +earthly days are near their end, it does not seem as if mere vanity could +linger in my soul. And you know you have always said, dearest, that I had +none. I know I have always wondered unspeakably that you could find +pleasure in my face, except occasionally, when I have felt, as it were, a +great sudden glow and throb of love quicken and heat it under your gaze; +then, as I have looked up in your eyes, I have sometimes had a flash of +consciousness of a transfiguration in the very flesh of my face, just as I +have a sense of rapturous strength sometimes in the very flesh and bone of +my right hand, when I strike on the piano some of Beethoven's chords. But +I know that, except in the light of your presence, I have no beauty. I +had not so much to lose by illness as other women. But, dear one, that +little is gone. I can read in the pitying looks of all my friends how +altered I am. Even if I did not see it with my own eyes, I should read it +in theirs. And I cannot--oh, I cannot read it in yours! + +"If I knew any spell which could make you forget all except some one rare +moment in which you said in your heart, 'she never looked so lovely +before!' oh, how firmly I would bind you by it! All the weary indifferent, +or unhappy looks, love, I would blot out from your memory, and have the +thought of me raise but one picture in your mind. I would have it as if I +had died, and left of my face no record on earth except one wonderful +picture by some great master, who had caught the whole beauty of the one +rarest moment of my life. Darling, if you look back, you will find that +moment; for it must have been in your arms; and let Love be the master who +will paint the immortal picture! + +"As for this thin, pale, listless body, which just now answers to the name +of me, there is nothing in or about it which you know. Presently it will +be carried like a half-lifeless thing on board a ship; the winds will blow +roughly on it and it will not care. If God wills, darling, I will come +back to you well and strong. If I cannot come well and strong, I hope +never to come at all. + +"Don't call me cruel. You would feel the same. I also should combat the +resolve in you, as you do in me. But in my heart I should understand. I +should sympathize, and I should yield. + +"God bless you, darling. I believe He will, for the infinite goodness of +your life. I thank Him daily that He has given it to me to bless you a +little. If I had seen you to say farewell, my beloved, I should not have +kissed you many times, as has been our wont. That is for hours of joy. I +should have kissed you three times--only three times--on your beautiful, +strong, gentle lips, and each kiss would have been a separate sacrament, +with a bond of its own. I send them to you here, love, and this is what +they mean! + + "Three Kisses of Farewell. + + "Three, only three my darling, + Separate, solemn, slow; + Not like the swift and joyous ones + We used to know + When we kissed because we loved each other + Simply to taste love's sweet, + And lavished our kisses as the summer + Lavishes heat,-- + But as they kiss whose hearts are wrung, + When hope and fear are spent, + And nothing is left to give, except + A sacrament! + + "First of the three, my darling, + Is sacred unto pain; + We have hurt each other often; + We shall again, + When we pine because we miss each other, + And do not understand + How the written words are so much colder + Than eye and hand. + I kiss thee, dear, for all such pain + Which we may give or take; + Buried, forgiven, before it comes + For our love's sake! + + "The second kiss, my darling, + Is full of joy's sweet thrill; + We have blessed each other always; + We always will. + We shall reach until we feel each other, + Past all of time and space; + We shall listen till we hear each other + In every place; + The earth is full of messengers, + Which love sends to and fro; + I kiss thee, darling, for all joy + Which we shall know! + + "The last kiss, oh, my darling, + My love--I cannot see + Through my tears, as I remember + What it may be. + We may die and never see each other, + Die with no time to give + Any sign that our hearts are faithful + To die, as live. + Token of what they will not see + Who see our parting breath, + This one last kiss, my darling, seals + The seal of death!" + +It was on my sixteenth birthday that I copied these letters and poems of +Esther Wynn's. I kept them, with a few other very precious things, in a +curious little inlaid box, which came from Venice, and was so old that in +many places its sides were worm-eaten. It was one of my choicest +treasures, and I was never separated from it. + +When I was twenty years old I had been for two years a happy wife, for one +year a glad mother, and had for some time remembered Esther only in the +vague, passing way in which happy souls recall old shadows of the griefs +of other hearts. As my boy entered on a second summer he began to droop a +little, and the physician recommended that we should take him to the +sea-side; so it came to pass that on the morning of my twentieth birthday +I was sitting, with my baby in my arms, on a rocky sea-shore, at one of +the well-known summer resorts of the New Hampshire coast. Near me sat a +woman whose face had interested me strangely ever since my arrival. She +seemed an invalid; but there was an atmosphere of overflowing vitality +about her, in spite of her feebleness, which made her very presence +stimulating and cheering to every one. I had longed to speak with her, but +as yet had not done so. While I sat watching her face and my baby's, and +the face of the sea, she was joined by her husband, who had just come from +a walk in the fields, and had brought her a large bouquet of red clover +and feathery grasses. She took it eagerly with great delight, and +exclaimed:-- + + "I wonder what the Clover thinks? + Intimate friend of Bob-o-links!" + +I could not control the sudden start with which I heard these words. Who +was this that knew Esther Wynn's verses by heart? I could hardly refrain +from speaking to her at once, and betraying all. But I reflected instantly +that I must be very cautious; it would be almost impossible to find out +what I longed to know without revealing how my own acquaintance with the +verses had come about. Days passed before I ventured to allude to the +subject; but one evening, as we were walking together, she stooped and +picked a clover-blossom, and said,-- + +"I really think I love red clover better than any wild flower we have." + +"I thought so," said I, "when I saw you take that big bunch your husband +brought you the other morning. That was before I knew you: I felt almost +rude, I watched you so, in spite of myself." + +"But I had watched you quite as much," said she, smiling; "I thought then +of giving you a part of the clover. Edward always brings me huge bouquets +of it every day; he knows so well how I love it." + +"I heard you quote a little couplet of verse about it then," said I, +looking away from her, that she might not see my face: "I was so near you +I could not help hearing what you said." + +"Oh, yes," said she, + + "I wonder what the Clover thinks? + Intimate friend of Bob-o-links'-- + +"I do not know but that old clover-song is the real reason I love clover +so. My mother taught it to me when I was a little child. It is all very +quaint and sweet. Would you like to hear it?" + +I felt myself color scarlet, but I replied,-- + +"Oh, yes, pray repeat it." + +When she had repeated the verses she went on speaking, to my great relief, +saving me from the necessity of saying anything. + +"That was written a great many years ago, by an aunt of my mother's. My +mother has a little manuscript book bound in red morocco, very faded and +worn, which my grandmother kept on her bureau till she died, last year; +and it has in it this little clover-song and several others, with Aunt +Esther's diary while she was abroad. She died abroad; died in Jerusalem, +and was buried there. There was something mysteriously sad in her life, I +think: grandmother always sighed when she spoke of her, and used to read +in the little red book every day. She was only her half-sister, but she +said she loved her better than she did any sister of her own. Once I asked +grandmamma to tell me about her, but she said, 'There is nothing to tell, +child. She was never married: she died the autumn before your mother was +born, and your mother looked very much like her when she was young. She is +like her, too, in many ways,' and that was all grandmamma would ever say. +But we always called her Aunt Esther, and know all her verses by heart, +and the diary was fascinating. It seems strange to read such vivid written +records of people you never saw; don't you think so?" + +"Yes, it must, very," said I. + +She went on: "I always had a very special love for this old Aunt Esther, +which I could hardly account for. I am to have the little red book when my +mother dies; and"--she hesitated a moment--"and I named my first baby for +her, Esther Wynn. The baby only lived to be a few weeks old, and I often +think, as I look at her little grave-stone, of the other one, so many +thousand miles away, alone in a strange land, bearing the same name." + +On my way home I stopped for a few days' visit at Uncle Jo's. Late one +night, sitting in my old place at his feet in the library, I told him this +sequel to the romance of the letters. + +"Oh, childie, how could you help showing that you knew about her?" said +he. "You must have betrayed it." + +"No, I am sure I did not," I said. "I never spoke about it after that day, +and she was too absorbed herself in the reminiscences to observe my +excitement." + +"What was your friend's name?" said Uncle Jo. + +I told him. He sprang from his chair, and walked rapidly away to the end +of the library; presently he came back, and standing before me, said,-- + +"Nell! Nell! your friend's mother is the woman of whom I once spoke to +you! I might have known that the subtle kinship I felt between Esther Wynn +and her was no chance resemblance. I never heard of the name 'Wynn,' +however. But you said she was only a half-sister; that accounts for it. I +might have known! I might have known!" he exclaimed, more to himself than +to me, and buried his face in his hands I stole away quietly and left him; +but I heard him saying under his breath, "Her aunt! I might have known!" + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Saxe Holm's Stories, by Helen Hunt Jackson + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SAXE HOLM'S STORIES *** + +***** This file should be named 10926-8.txt or 10926-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/9/2/10926/ + +Produced by Distributed Proofreaders + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Saxe Holm's Stories + +Author: Helen Hunt Jackson + +Release Date: February 3, 2004 [EBook #10926] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SAXE HOLM'S STORIES *** + + + + +Produced by Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + +</pre> + +<h1 class="title">Saxe Holm's Stories</h1> + +<h2 class="author">[by Helen Hunt Jackson]</h2> + + + <h3>1873</h3> + + +<br /><br /> + +<div class="chapter" id="toc"> +<h2>Content.</h2> + +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> + + + +<ul> +<li><a href="#ch01">Draxy Miller's Dowry</a></li> +<li><a href="#ch02">The Elder's Wife</a></li> +<li><a href="#ch03">Whose Wife Was She?</a></li> +<li><a href="#ch04">The One-Legged Dancers</a></li> +<li><a href="#ch05">How One Woman Kept Her Husband</a></li> +<li><a href="#ch06">Esther Wynn's Love-Letters</a></li> +</ul> + + +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> + + +</div> + + +<br /><br /> +<div class="chapter" id="ch01"> +<h2>Draxy Miller's Dowry.</h2> + + + +<h3>Part I.</h3> + + +<p>When Draxy Miller's father was a boy, he read a novel in which the heroine +was a Polish girl, named Darachsa. The name stamped itself indelibly upon +his imagination; and when, at the age of thirty-five, he took his +first-born daughter in his arms, his first words were--"I want her called +Darachsa."</p> + +<p>"What!" exclaimed the doctor, turning sharply round, and looking out above +his spectacles; "what heathen kind of a name is that?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Reuben!" groaned a feeble voice from the baby's mother; and the nurse +muttered audibly, as she left the room, "There ain't never no luck comes +of them outlandish names."</p> + +<p>The whole village was in a state of excitement before night. Poor Reuben +Miller had never before been the object of half so much interest. His +slowly dwindling fortunes, the mysterious succession of his ill-lucks, had +not much stirred the hearts of the people. He was a retice'nt man; he +loved books, and had hungered for them all his life; his townsmen +unconsciously resented what they pretended to despise; and so it had +slowly come about that in the village where his father had lived and died, +and where he himself had grown up, and seemed likely to live and die, +Reuben Miller was a lonely man, and came and went almost as a stranger +might come and go. His wife was simply a shadow and echo of himself; one +of those clinging, tender, unselfish, will-less women, who make pleasant, +and affectionate, and sunny wives enough for rich, prosperous, +unsentimental husbands, but who are millstones about the necks of +sensitive, impressionable, unsuccessful men. If Jane Miller had been a +strong, determined woman, Reuben would not have been a failure. The only +thing he had needed in life had been persistent purpose and courage. The +right sort of wife would have given him both. But when he was discouraged, +baffled, Jane clasped her hands, sat down, and looked into his face with +streaming eyes. If he smiled, she smiled; but that was just when it was of +least consequence that she should smile. So the twelve years of their +married life had gone on slowly, very slowly, but still surely, from bad +to worse; nothing prospered in Reuben's hands. The farm which he had +inherited from his father was large, but not profitable. He tried too long +to work the whole of it, and then he sold the parts which he ought to have +kept. He sunk a great portion of his little capital in a flour-mill, which +promised to be a great success, paid well for a couple of years, and then +burnt down, uninsured. He took a contract for building one section of a +canal, which was to pass through part of his land; sub-contractors cheated +him, and he, in his honesty, almost ruined himself to right their wrong. +Then he opened a little store; here, also, he failed. He was too honest, +too sympathizing, too inert. His day-book was a curiosity; he had a vein +of humor which no amount of misfortune could quench; and he used to enter +under the head of "given" all the purchases which he knew were not likely +to be paid for. It was at sight of this book, one day, that Jane Miller, +for the first and only time in her life, lost her temper with Reuben.</p> + +<p>"Well, I must say, Reuben Miller, if I die for it," said she, "I haven't +had so much as a pound of white sugar nor a single lemon in my house for +two years, and I do think it's a burnin' shame for you to go on sellin' +'em to them shiftless Greens, that'll never pay you a cent, and you know +it!"</p> + +<p>Reuben was sitting on the counter smoking his pipe and reading an old +tattered copy of Dryden's translation of Virgil. He lifted his clear blue +eyes in astonishment, put down his pipe, and, slowly swinging his long +legs over the counter, caught Jane by the waist, put both his arms round +her, and said,--</p> + +<p>"Why, mother, what's come over you! You know poor little Eph's dyin' of +that white swellin'. You wouldn't have me refuse his mother anything we've +got, would you?"</p> + +<p>Jane Miller walked back to the house with tears in her eyes, but her +homely sallow face was transfigured by love as she went about her work, +thinking to herself,--</p> + +<p>"There never was such a man's Reuben, anyhow. I guess he'll get interest +one o' these days for all he's lent the Lord, first and last, without +anybody's knowin' it."</p> + +<p>But the Lord has His own system of reckoning compound interest, and His +ways of paying are not our ways. He gave no visible sign of recognition of +indebtedness to Reuben. Things went harder and harder with the Millers, +until they had come to such a pass that when Reuben Miller went after the +doctor, in the early dawn of the day on which little Draxy was born, he +clasped his hands in sorrow and humiliation before he knocked at the +doctor's door; and his only words were hard words for a man of +sensitiveness and pride to speak:--</p> + +<p>"Doctor Cobb, will you come over to my wife? I don't dare to be sure I can +ever pay you; but if there's anything in the store "--</p> + +<p>"Pshaw, pshaw, Reuben, don't speak of that; you'll be all right in a few +years," said the kind old doctor, who had known Reuben from his boyhood, +and understood him far better than any one else did.</p> + +<p>And so little Draxy was born.</p> + +<p>"It's a mercy it's a girl at last," said the village gossips. "Mis' +Miller's had a hard time with them four great boys, and Mr. Miller so +behindhand allers."</p> + +<p>"And who but Reuben Miller'd ever think of givin' a Christian child such a +name!" they added.</p> + +<p>But what the name was nobody rightly made out; nor even whether it had +been actually given to the baby, or had only been talked of; and between +curiosity and antagonism, the villagers were so drawn to Reuben Miller's +store, that it began to look quite like a run of custom.</p> + +<p>"If I hold out a spell on namin' her," said Reuben, as in the twilight of +the third day he sat by his wife's bedside; "if I hold out a spell on +namin' her, I shall get all the folks in the district into the store, and +sell out clean," and he laughed quizzically, and stroked the little +mottled face which lay on the pillow. "There's Squire Williams and Mis' +Conkey both been in this afternoon; and Mis' Conkey took ten pounds of +that old Hyson tea you thought I'd never sell; and Squire Williams, he +took the last of those new-fangled churns, and says he, 'I expect you'll +want to drive trade a little brisker, Reuben, now there's a little girl to +be provided for; and, by the way, what are you going to call her?'</p> + +<p>"'Oh, it's quite too soon to settle, that,' said I, as if I hadn't a name +in my head yet. And then Mis' Conkey spoke up and said: 'Well, I did hear +you were going to name her after a heathen goddess that nobody over heard +of, and I do hope you will consider her feelings when she grows up.'</p> + +<p>"'I hope I always shall, Mis' Conkey,' said I; and she didn't know what to +say next. So she picked up her bundle of tea, and they stepped off +together quite dignified.</p> + +<p>"But I think we'll call her Darachsa, in spite of 'em all, Jane," added +Reuben with a hesitating half laugh.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Reuben!" Jane said again. It was the strongest remonstrance on which +she ever ventured. She did not like the name; but she adored Reuben. So +when the baby was three months old, she was carried into the meeting-house +in a faded blue cashmere cloak, and baptized in the name of the Father, +and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, "Darachsa Lawton Miller."</p> + +<p>Jane Miller's babies always thrived. The passive acquiescence of her +nature was a blessing to them. The currents of their blood were never +rendered unhealthful by overwrought nerves or disturbed temper in their +mother. Their infancy was as placid and quiet as if they had been kittens. +Not until they were old enough to understand words, and to comprehend +deprivations, did they suffer because of their poverty. Then a serious +look began to settle upon their faces; they learned to watch their father +and mother wistfully, and to wonder what was wrong; their childhood was +very short.</p> + +<p>Before Draxy was ten years old she had become her father's inseparable +companion, confidant, and helper. He wondered, sometimes almost in terror, +what it meant, that he could say to this little child what he could not +say to her mother; that he often detected himself in a desire to ask of +this babe advice or suggestion which he never dreamed of asking from his +wife.</p> + +<p>But Draxy was wise. She had the sagacity which comes from great tenderness +and loyalty, combined with a passionate nature. In such a woman's soul +there is sometimes an almost supernatural instinct. She will detect danger +and devise safety with a rapidity and ingenuity which are incredible. But +to such a nature will also come the subtlest and deepest despairs of which +the human heart is capable. The same instinct which foresees and devises +for the loved ones will also recognize their most hidden traits, their +utmost possibilities, their inevitable limitations, with a completeness +and infallibility akin to that of God Himself. Jane Miller, all her life +long, believed in the possibility of Reuben's success; charged his +failures to outside occasions, and hoped always in a better day to come. +Draxy, early in her childhood, instinctively felt, what she was far too +young consciously to know, that her father would never be a happier man; +that "things" would always go against him. She had a deeper reverence for +the uprightness and sweet simplicity of his nature than her mother ever +could have had. She comprehended, Jane believed; Draxy felt, Jane saw. +Without ever having heard of such a thing as fate, little Draxy recognized +that her father was fighting with it, and that fate was the stronger! Her +little arms clasped closer and closer round his neck, and her serene blue +eyes, so like his, and yet so wondrously unlike, by reason of their latent +fire and strength, looked this unseen enemy steadfastly in the face, day +by day.</p> + +<p>She was a wonderful child. Her physical health was perfect. The first ten +years of her life were spent either out of doors, or in her father's lap. +He would not allow her to attend the district school; all she knew she +learned from him. Reuben Miller had never looked into an English grammar +or a history, but he knew Shakespeare by heart, and much of Homer; a few +odd volumes of Walter Scott's novels, some old voyages, a big family +Bible, and a copy of Byron, were the only other books in his house. As +Draxy grew older, Reuben now and then borrowed from the minister books +which he thought would do her good; but the child and he both loved Homer +and the Bible so much better than any later books, that they soon drifted +back to them. It was a little sad, except that it was so beautiful, to +see the isolated life these two led in the family. The boys were good, +sturdy, noisy boys. They went to school in the winter and worked on the +farm in the summer, like all farmers' boys. Reuben, the oldest, was +eighteen when Draxy was ten; he was hired, by a sort of indenture, for +three years, on a neighboring farm, and came home only on alternate +Sundays. Jamie, and Sam, and Lawton were at home; young as they were, they +did men's service in many ways. Jamie had a rare gift for breaking horses, +and for several years the only ready money which the little farm had +yielded was the price of the colts which Jamie raised and trained so +admirably that they sold well. The other two boys were strong and willing, +but they had none of their father's spirituality, or their mother's +gentleness. Thus, in spite of Reuben Miller's deep love for his children, +he was never at ease in his boys' presence; and, as they grew older, +nothing but the influence of their mother's respect for their father +prevented their having an impatient contempt for his unlikeness to the +busy, active, thrifty farmers of the neighborhood.</p> + +<p>It was a strange picture that the little kitchen presented on a winter +evening. Reuben sat always on the left hand of the big fire-place, with a +book on his knees. Draxy was curled up on an old-fashioned cherry-wood +stand close to his chair, but so high that she rested her little dimpled +chin on his head. A tallow candle stood on a high bracket, made from a +fungus which Reuben had found in the woods. When the candle flared and +dripped, Draxy sprang up on the stand, and, poised on one foot, reached +over her father's head to snuff it. She looked like a dainty fairy +half-floating in the air, but nobody knew it. Jane sat in a high-backed +wooden rocking-chair, which had a flag bottom and a ruffled calico +cushion, and could only rock a very few inches back and forth, owing to +the loss of half of one of the rockers. For the first part of the evening, +Jane always knitted; but by eight o'clock the hands relaxed, the needles +dropped, the tired head fell back against the chair, and she was fast +asleep.</p> + +<p>The boys were by themselves in the farther corner of the room, playing +checkers or doing sums, or reading the village newspaper. Reuben and Draxy +were as alone as if the house had been empty. Sometimes he read to her in +a whisper; sometimes he pointed slowly along the lines in silence, and the +wise little eyes from above followed intently. All questions and +explanations were saved till the next morning, when Draxy, still curled up +like a kitten, would sit mounted on the top of the buckwheat barrel in the +store, while her father lay stretched on the counter, smoking. They never +talked to each other, except when no one could hear; that is, they never +spoke in words; there was mysterious and incessant communication between +them whenever they were together, as there is between all true lovers.</p> + +<p>At nine o'clock Reuben always shut the book, and said, "Kiss me, little +daughter." Draxy kissed him, and said, "Good-night, father dear," and that +was all. The other children called him "pa," as was the universal custom +in the village. But Draxy even in her babyhood had never once used the +word. Until she was seven or eight years old she called him "Farver;" +after that, always "father dear." Then Reuben would wake Jane up, sighing +usually, "Poor mother, how tired she is!" Sometimes Jane said when she +kissed Draxy, at the door of her little room, "Why don't you kiss your pa +for good-night?"</p> + +<p>"I kissed father before you waked up, ma," was always Draxy's quiet +answer.</p> + +<p>And so the years went on. There was much discomfort, much deprivation in +Reuben Miller's house. Food was not scarce; the farm yielded enough, such +as it was, very coarse and without variety; but money was hard to get; the +store seemed to be absolutely unremunerative, though customers were not +wanting; and the store and the farm were all that Reuben Miller had in the +world. But in spite of the poor food; in spite of the lack of most which +money buys; in spite of the loyal, tender, passionate despair of her +devotion to her father, Draxy grew fairer and fairer, stronger and +stronger. At fourteen her physique was that of superb womanhood. She had +inherited her body wholly from her father. For generations back, the +Millers had been marked for their fine frames. The men were all over six +feet tall, and magnificently made; and the women were much above the +average size and strength. On Draxy's fourteenth birthday she weighed one +hundred and fifty pounds, and measured five feet six inches in height. Her +coloring was that of an English girl, and her bright brown hair fell below +her waist in thick masses. To see the face of a simple-hearted child, +eager but serene, determined but lovingly gentle, surrounded and glorified +by such splendid physical womanhood, was a rare sight. Reuben Miller's +eyes filled with tears often as he secretly watched his daughter, and said +to himself, "Oh, what is to be her fate! what man is worthy of the wife +she will be?" But the village people saw only a healthy, handsome girl, +"overgrown," they thought, and "as queer as her father before her," they +said, for Draxy, very early in life, had withdrawn herself somewhat from +the companionship of the young people of the town.</p> + +<p>As for Jane, she loved and reverenced Draxy, very much as she did Reuben, +with touching devotion, but without any real comprehension of her nature. +If she sometimes felt a pang in seeing how much more Reuben talked with +Draxy than with her, how much more he sought to be with Draxy than with +her, she stifled it, and, reproaching herself for disloyalty to each, set +herself to work for them harder than before.</p> + +<p>In Draxy's sixteenth year the final blow of misfortune fell upon Reuben +Miller's head.</p> + +<p>A brother of Jane's, for whom, in an hour of foolish generosity, Reuben +had indorsed a note of a considerable amount, failed. Reuben's farm was +already heavily mortgaged. There was nothing to be done but to sell it. +Purchasers were not plenty nor eager; everybody knew that the farm must be +sold for whatever it would bring, and each man who thought of buying hoped +to profit somewhat, in a legitimate and Christian way, by Reuben's +extremity.</p> + +<p>Reuben's courage would have utterly forsaken him now, except for Draxy's +calmness. Jane was utterly unnerved; wept silently from morning till +night, and implored Reuben to see her brother's creditors, and beg them +to release him from his obligation. But Draxy, usually so gentle, grew +almost stern when such suggestions were made.</p> + +<p>"You don't understand, ma," she said, with flushing cheeks. "It is a +promise. Father must pay it. He cannot ask to have it given back to him."</p> + +<p>But with all Draxy's inflexibility of resolve, she could not help being +disheartened. She could not see how they were to live; the three rooms +over the store could easily be fitted up into an endurable dwelling-place; +but what was to supply the food which the farm had hitherto given them? +There was literally no way open for a man or a woman to earn money in that +little farming village. Each family took care of itself and hired no +service, except in the short season of haying. Draxy was an excellent +seamstress, but she knew very well that the price of all the sewing hired +in the village in a year would not keep them from starving. The Store must +be given up, because her father would have no money with which to buy +goods. In fact, for a long time, most of his purchases had been made by +exchanging the spare produce of his farm at large stores in the +neighboring towns. Still Draxy never wavered, and because she did not +waver Reuben did not die. The farm was sold at auction, with the stock, +the utensils, and all of the house-furniture which was not needed to make +the store chambers habitable. The buyer boasted in the village that he had +not given more than two thirds of the real value of the place. After +Reuben's debts were all paid, there remained just one thousand dollars to +be put into the bank.</p> + +<p>"Why, father! That is a fortune," said Draxy, when he told her. "I did +not suppose we should have anything, and it is glorious not to owe any man +a cent."</p> + +<p>It was early in April when the Millers moved into the "store chambers." +The buyer of their farm was a hard-hearted, penurious man, a deacon of the +church in which Draxy had been baptized. He had never been known to give a +penny to any charity excepting Foreign Missions. His wife and children had +never received at his hands the smallest gift. But even his heart was +touched by Draxy's cheerful acquiescence in the hard change, and her +pathetic attempts to make the new home pleasant. The next morning after +Deacon White took possession, he called out over the fence to poor Reuben, +who stood listlessly on the store steps, trying not to look across at the +house which had been his.</p> + +<p>"I say, Miller, that gal o' your'n is what I call the right sort o' woman, +up an' down. I hain't said much to her, but I've noticed that she set a +heap by this garding; an' I expect she'll miss the flowers more'n +anything; now my womenfolks they won't have anythin' to do with such +truck; an' if she's a mind to take care on't jest's she used ter, I'm +willin'; I guess we shall be the gainers on't."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Deacon White; Draxy'll be very glad," was all Reuben could +reply. Something in his tone touched the man's flinty heart still more; +and before he half knew what he was going to say, he had added,--</p> + +<p>"An' there's the vegetable part on't, too, Miller. I never was no hand to +putter with garden sass. If you'll jest keep that up and go halves, fair +and reg'lar, you're welcome."</p> + +<p>This was tangible help. Reuben's face lighted up.</p> + +<p>"I thank you with all my heart," he replied. "That'll be a great help to +me; and I reckon you'll like our vegetables, too," he said, half smiling, +for he knew very well that nothing but potatoes and turnips had been seen +on Deacon White's table for years.</p> + +<p>Then Reuben went to find Draxy; when he told her, the color came into her +face, and she shut both her hands with a quick, nervous motion, which was +habitual to her under excitement.</p> + +<p>"Oh, father, we can almost live off the garden," said she. "I told you we +should not starve."</p> + +<p>But still new sorrows, and still greater changes, were in store for the +poor, disheartened family. In June a malignant fever broke out in the +village, and in one short month Reuben and Jane had laid their two +youngest boys in the grave-yard. There was a dogged look, which was not +all sorrow, on Reuben's face as he watched the sexton fill up the last +grave. Sam and Jamie, at any rate, would not know any more of the +discouragement and hardship of life.</p> + +<p>Jane, too, mourned her boys not as mothers mourn whose sons have a +birthright of gladness. Jane was very tired of the world.</p> + +<p>Draxy was saddened by the strange, solemn presence of death. But her +brothers had not been her companions. She began suddenly to feel a sense +of new and greater relationship to them, now that she thought of them as +angels; she was half terrified and bewildered at the feeling that now, for +the first time, they were near to her.</p> + +<p>On the evening after Sam's funeral, as Reuben was sitting on the store +steps, with his head buried in his hands, a neighbor drove up and threw +him a letter.</p> + +<p>"It's been lyin' in the office a week or more, Merrill said, and he +reckoned I'd better bring it up to you," he called out, as he drove on.</p> + +<p>"It might lie there forever, for all my goin' after it," thought Reuben to +himself, as he picked it up from the dust; "it's no good news, I'll be +bound."</p> + +<p>But it was good news. The letter was from Jane's oldest sister, who had +married only a few years before, and gone to live in a sea-port town on +the New England coast. Her husband was an old captain, who had retired +from his seafaring life with just money enough to live on, in a very +humble way, in an old house which had belonged to his grandfather. He had +lost two wives; his children were all married or dead, and in his +loneliness and old age he had taken for his third wife the gentle, quiet +elder sister who had brought up Jane Miller. She was a gray-haired, +wrinkled spinster woman when she went into Captain Melville's house; but +their life was by no means without romance. Husband and home cannot come +to any womanly heart too late for sentiment and happiness to put forth +pale flowers.</p> + +<p>Emma Melville wrote offering the Millers a home; their last misfortune had +but just come to her knowledge, for Jane had been for months too much out +of heart to write to her relatives. Emma wrote:--</p> + +<p>"We are very poor, too; we haven't anything but the house, and a little +money each year to buy what we need to eat and wear, the plainest sort. +But the house is large; Captain Melville and me never so much as set foot +up-stairs. If you can manage to live on the upper floor, you're more than +welcome, we both say; and we hope you won't let any pride stand in the way +of your coming. It will do us good to have more folks in the house, and it +ain't as if it cost us anything, for we shouldn't never be willing, +neither me nor Captain Melville, to rent the rooms to strangers, not while +we've got enough to live on without."</p> + +<p>There was silence for some minutes between Reuben and Jane and Draxy after +this letter had been read. Jane looked steadily away from Reuben. There +was deep down in the patient woman's heart, a latent pride which was +grievously touched. Reuben turned to Draxy; her lips were parted; her +cheeks were flushed; her eyes glowed. "Oh, father, the sea!" she +exclaimed. This was her first thought; but in a second more she added, +"How kind, how good of Aunt Emma's husband!"</p> + +<p>"Would you like to go, my daughter?" said Reuben, earnestly. + +"Why, I thought of course we should go!" exclaimed Draxy, turning with a +bewildered look to her mother, who was still silent. "What else is the +letter sent for? It means that we must go."</p> + +<p>Her beautiful simplicity was utterly removed from any false sense of +obligation. She accepted help as naturally from a human hand as from the +sunshine; she would give it herself, so far as she had power, just as +naturally and just as unconsciously.</p> + +<p>There was very little discussion about the plan. Draxy's instinct overbore +all her father's misgiving, and all her mother's unwillingness.</p> + +<p>"Oh, how can you feel so, Ma," she exclaimed more than once. "If I had a +sister I could not. I love Aunt Emma already next to you and father; and +you don't know how much we can do for her after we get there, either. I +can earn money there, I know I can; all we need."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Melville had written that there were many strangers in the town in +the summer, and that she presumed Draxy could soon find all the work she +wished as seamstress; also that there were many chances of work for a man +who was accustomed to gardening, as, of course, Reuben must be.</p> + +<p>Draxy's sanguine cheerfulness was infectious; even Jane began to look +forward with interest to the new home; and Reuben smiled when Draxy sang. +Lawton and Reuben were to be left behind; that was the only regret; but it +was merely anticipating by a very little the separation which was +inevitable, as the boys had both become engaged to daughters of the +farmers for whom they had been working, and would very soon take their +positions as sons-in-law on these farms.</p> + +<p>The store was sold, the furniture packed, and Reuben Miller, with his wife +and child, set his face eastward to begin life anew. The change from the +rich wheat fields and glorious forests of Western New York, to the bare +stony stretches of the Atlantic sea-board, is a severe one. No adult heart +can make it without a struggle. When Reuben looked out of the car windows +upon the low gray barrens through which he was nearing his journey end, +his soul sank within him. It was sunset; the sea glistened like glass, and +was as red as the sky. Draxy could not speak for delight; tears stood in +her eyes, and she took hold of her father's hand. But Reuben and Jane saw +only the desolate rocks, and treeless, shrubless, almost--it seemed to +them--grassless fields, and an unutterable sense of gloom came over them. +It was a hot and stifling day; a long drought had parched and shriveled +every living thing; and the white August dust lay everywhere.</p> + +<p>Captain Melville lived in the older part of the town near the water. The +houses were all wooden, weather-beaten, and gray, and had great patches of +yellow lichen on their walls and roofs; thin rims of starved-looking grass +edged the streets, and stray blades stood up here and there among the old +sunken cobble-stones which made the pavements.</p> + +<p>The streets seemed deserted; the silence and the sombre color, and the +strange low plashing of the water against the wharves, oppressed even +Draxy's enthusiastic heart. Her face fell, and she exclaimed +involuntarily, "Oh, what a lonesome place!" Checking herself, she added, +"but it's only the twilight makes it look so, I expect."</p> + +<p>They had some difficulty in finding the house. The lanes and streets +seemed inextricably tangled; the little party was shy of asking direction, +and they were all disappointed and grieved, more than they owned to +themselves, that they had not been met at the station. At last they found +the house. Timidly Draxy lifted the great brass knocker. It looked to her +like splendor, and made her afraid. It fell more heavily than she supposed +it would, and the clang sounded to her over-wrought nerves as if it filled +the whole street. No one came. They looked at the windows. The curtains +were all down. There was no sign of life about the place. Tears came into +Jane's eyes. She was worn out with the fatigue of the journey.</p> + +<p>"Oh dear, oh dear," she said, "I wish we hadn't come."</p> + +<p>"Pshaw, mother," said Reuben, with a voice cheerier than his heart, "very +likely they never got our last letter, and don't know we were to be here +to-day," and he knocked again.</p> + +<p>Instantly a window opened in the opposite house, and a jolly voice said, +"My gracious," and in the twinkling of an eye the jolly owner of the jolly +voice had opened her front door and run bareheaded across the street, and +was shaking hands with Reuben and Jane and Draxy, all three at once, and +talking so fast that they could hardly understand her.</p> + +<p>"My gracious I my gracious! Won't Mrs. Melville be beat! Of course you're +her folks she was expecting from the West, ain't you? I mistrusted it +somehow as soon as I heard the big knock. Now I'll jest let you in the +back door. Oh my, Mis' Melville'll never get over this; to think of her +be'n' away, an' she's been lookin' and looking and worryin' for two weeks, +because she didn't hear from you; and only last night Captain Melville he +said he'd write to-day if they didn't hear.'"</p> + +<p>"We wrote," said Draxy, in her sweet, low voice, "we wrote to Aunt Emma +that we'd come to-day."</p> + +<p>"Now did you!" said the jolly voice. "Well, that's jest the way. You see +your letter's gone somewhere else, and now Mis' Melville she's gone +to"--the rest of the sentence was lost, for the breathless little woman was +running round the house to the back door.</p> + +<p>In a second more the upper half of the big old-fashioned door had swung +open, to Draxy's great delight, who exclaimed, "Oh, father, we read about +such doors as this in that Knickerbocker book, don't you remember?"</p> + +<p>But good Mrs. Carr was drawing them into the house, giving them neighborly +welcome, all the while running on in such voluble ejaculatory talk that +the quiet, saddened, recluse-like people were overwhelmed with +embarrassment, and hardly knew which way to turn. Presently she saw their +confusion and interrupted herself with--</p> + +<p>"Well, well, you're jest all tired out with your journey, an' a cup o' +tea's the thing you want, an' none o' my talk; but you see Mis' Melville +'n me's so intimate that I feel's if I'd known you always, 'n I'm real +glad to see you here, real glad; 'n I'll bring the tea right over; the +kettle was a boilin' when I run out, 'n I'll send Jim right down town for +Captain Melville; he's sure to be to the library. Oh, but won't Mis' +Melville be beat," she continued, half way down the steps; and from the +middle of the street she called back, "'an she ain't coming home till +to-morrow night."</p> + +<p>Reuben and Jane and Draxy sat down with as bewildered a feeling as, if +they had been transported to another world. The house was utterly unlike +anything they had ever seen; high ceilings, wainscoted walls, wooden +cornices and beams, and wooden mantels with heads carved on the corners. +It seemed to them at first appallingly grand. Presently they observed the +bare wooden floors, the flag-bottomed chairs, and faded chintz cushions, +the row of old tin utensils, and plain, cheap crockery in the glass-doored +cupboard, and felt more at home.</p> + +<p>"You know Aunt Emma said they were poor, too," said Draxy, answering her +own unspoken thought as well as her father's and mother's.</p> + +<p>Reuben pushed his hair off his warm forehead and sighed.</p> + +<p>"I suppose we might go up-stairs, mother," he said; "that's to be our +house, as I understand it"</p> + +<p>Draxy bounded at the words. With flying steps she ascended the stairs and +opened the first door. She stood still on the threshold, unable to move +from astonishment. It was still light enough to see the room. Draxy began +to speak, but broke down utterly, and bursting out crying, threw herself +into the arms of her father who had just reached the top of the stairs.</p> + +<p>"Oh, father, it's all fixed for a sitting-room! Father dear, I told you!"</p> + +<p>This was something they had not dreamed of. They had understood the offer +to be merely of rooms in which they could live rent-free. In fact, that +had been Captain Melville's first intention. But his generous sailor's +heart revolted from the thought of stripping the rooms of furniture for +which he had no use. So Emma had rearranged the plain old-fashioned +things, and adding a few more which could be spared as well as not, had +fitted up a sitting-room and two bed-rooms with all that was needed for +comfort. Reuben and Jane and Draxy were all crying when Mrs. Carr came +back with her pitcher of smoking tea. Reuben tried to explain to her why +they were crying, but she interrupted him with,--</p> + +<p>"Well, now, I understand it jest's if 'twas to me it'd all happened; an' I +think it's lucky after all that Mis' Melville wasn't here, for she's +dreadful easy upset if people take on. But now you drink your tea, and get +all settled down's quick's you can, for Captain Melville 'll be here any +minute now I expect, an' he don't like tantrums."</p> + +<p>This frightened Draxy, and made a gloomy look come on Reuben's face. But +the fright and the gloom disappeared in one minute and forever when the +door burst open, and a red-faced, white-haired old man, utterly out of +breath, bounced into the room, and seizing Reuben by the hand gasped out, +puffing between the words like a steam-engine:--</p> + +<p>"Wreck me, if this isn't a hard way to make port. Why, man, we've been +looking for some hail from you for two weeks, till we began to think you'd +given us the go-by altogether. Welcome to Melville Harbor, I say, +welcome!" and he had shaken Reuben's hand, and kissed Jane and turned to +Draxy all in a breath. At the first full sight of Draxy's face he started +and felt dumb. He had never seen so beautiful a woman. He pulled out a red +silk handkerchief and wiped his face nervously as she said, "Kiss me too, +uncle," but her warm lips were on his cheek before he had time to analyze +his own feelings. Then Reuben began to say something, about gratitude, and +the old sailor swore his favorite oath again: "Now, may I be wrecked if I +have a word o' that. We're glad enough to get you all here; and as for the +few things in the rooms, they're of no account anyhow."</p> + +<p>"Few things! Oh, uncle," said Draxy, with a trembling voice, and before he +knew what she was about to do she had snatched his fat, weather-beaten old +hand and kissed it. No woman had ever kissed John Melville's hand before. +From that moment he looked upon Draxy as a princess who had let him once +kiss hers!</p> + +<p>Captain Melville and Reuben were friends before bed-time. Reuben's gentle +simplicity and unworldliness, and patient demeanor, roused in the rough +sailor a sympathy like that he had always felt for women. And to Reuben +the hearty good cheer, and brisk, bluff sailor ways were infinitely +winning and stimulating.</p> + +<p>The next day Mrs. Melville came home. In a short time the little household +had adjusted itself, and settled down into its routine of living. When, in +a few days, the great car-load of the Millers' furniture arrived, Capt. +Melville insisted upon its all going to the auction-rooms excepting the +kitchen furniture, and a few things for which Jane had especial +attachment. It brought two hundred dollars, which, in addition to the +price of the farm, and the store and its stock, gave Reuben just nineteen +hundred dollars to put in the Savings Bank.</p> + +<p>"And I am to be counted at least two thousand more, father dear, so you +are not such a very poor man after all," said Draxy, laughing and dancing +around him.</p> + +<p>Now Draxy Miller's real life began. In after years she used to say, "I +was born first in my native town; second, in the Atlantic Ocean!" The +effect of the strong sea air upon her was something indescribable; joy +seemed to radiate from her whole being. She smiled whenever she saw the +sea. She walked on the beach; she sat on the rocks; she learned to swim in +one lesson, and swam so far out that her uncle dared not follow, and +called to her in imploring terror to return. Her beauty grew more and more +radiant every day. This the sea gave to her body. But there was a far +subtler new life than the physical, a far finer new birth than the birth +of beauty,--which came to Draxy here. This, books gave to her soul. Only a +few years before, a free library had been founded in this town, by a rich +and benevolent man. Every week hundreds of volumes circulated among the +families where books were prized, and could not be owned. When Draxy's +uncle first took her into this library, and explained to her its purpose +and regulations, she stood motionless for a few moments, looking at +him--and at the books: then, with tears in her eyes, and saying, "Don't +follow me, uncle dear; don't mind me, I can't bear it," she ran swiftly +into the street, and never stopped until she had reached home and found +her father. An hour later she entered the library again, leading her +father by the hand. She had told him the story on the way. Reuben's thin +cheeks were flushed. It was almost more than he too could bear. Silently +the father and daughter walked up and down the room, looking into the +alcoves. Then they sat down together, and studied the catalogue. Then +they rose and went out, hand in hand as they had entered, speaking no +word, taking no book. For one day the consciousness of this wealth filled +their hearts beyond the possibility of one added desire. After that, Draxy +and her father were to be seen every night seated at the long table in the +reading-room. They read always together, Draxy's arm being over the back +of her father's chair. Many a man and many a woman stopped and looked long +at the picture. But neither Draxy nor her father knew it.</p> + +<p>At the end of two years, Draxy Miller had culture. She was ignorant still, +of course; she was an uneducated girl; she wept sometimes over her own +deficiencies; but her mind was stored with information of all sorts; she +had added Wordsworth to her Shakespeare; she had journeyed over the world +with every traveller whose works she could find; and she had tasted of +Plato and Epictetus. Reuben's unfailing simplicity and purity of taste +saved her from the mischiefs of many of the modern books. She had hardly +read a single novel; but her love of true poetry was a passion.</p> + +<p>In the mean time she had become the favorite seamstress of the town. Her +face, and voice, and smile would alone have won way for her; but in +addition to those, she was a most dexterous workwoman. If there had only +been twice as many days in a year, she would have been--glad. Her own +earnings in addition to her father's, and to their little income from the +money in the bank, made them comfortable; but with Draxy's expanded +intellectual life had come new desires: she longed to be taught.</p> + +<p>One day she said to her father, "Father dear, what was the name of that +canal contractor who borrowed money of you and never paid it?"</p> + +<p>Reuben looked astonished, but told her.</p> + +<p>"Is he alive yet?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes," said Reuben, "and he's rich now. There was a man here only last +week who said he'd built him a grand house this year."</p> + +<p>Draxy shut her hands nervously. "Father, I shall go and get that money."</p> + +<p>"You, child! Why it's two days' journey; and he'd never pay you a cent. I +tried times enough," replied Reuben.</p> + +<p>"But I think perhaps he would be more likely to pay it to a woman; he +would be ashamed," said Draxy, "especially if he is rich now, and I tell +him how much we need it."</p> + +<p>"No, no, child; I shouldn't hear to your going; no more would mother; and +it would be money wasted besides," said Reuben, with sternness unusual for +him.</p> + +<p>Draxy was silent. The next morning she went to the railway station and +ascertained exactly how much the journey would cost. She was disheartened +at the amount. It would be difficult for her to save so much out of a +whole year's earnings. That day Draxy's face was sad. She was sewing at +the house of one of her warmest friends. All her employers were her +friends, but this one was a woman of rare intelligence and culture, who +had loved Draxy ever since the day she had found her reading a little +volume of Wordsworth, one of the Free Library books, while she was eating +her dinner in the sewing-room.</p> + +<p>Draxy looked her gratitude, but said nothing. Not the least of her +charms, to the well-bred people who employed her, was her exquisite +reticence, her gentle and unconscious withdrawal into herself, in spite of +all familiarity with which she might be treated.</p> + +<p>A few days later Mrs. White sent a note to Draxy with the thirty dollars +inclosed, and this note to Mr. Miller:--</p> + +<p>"MR. MILLER--DEAR SIR:--</p> + +<p>"This money has been contributed, by Draxy's friends. You do not know how +much we all prize and esteem your daughter and wish to help her. I hope +you will be willing that she should use this money for the journey on +which her heart is so set. I really advise you as a friend to let her make +the effort to recover that money; I think she will get it.</p> + +<p>"Truly, your friend,</p> + +<p>"A. WHITE."</p> + +<p>This note brought tears of pride to Reuben's eyes. Draxy watched him +closely, and said:--</p> + +<p>"Father dear, I should like to go to-morrow."</p> + +<p>Her preparations had already been made. She knew beforehand that her cause +was won; that her father's sense of justice would not let him interfere +with her use of the gift for the purpose for which it was made.</p> + +<p>It was on a clear cold morning in January that Draxy set out. It was the +second journey of her life, and she was alone for the first time; but she +felt no more fear than if she had been a sparrow winging its way through a +new field. The morning twilight was just fading away; both the east and +the west were clear and glorious; the east was red, and the west pale +blue; high in the west stood the full moon, golden yellow; below it a long +narrow bar of faint rose-color; below that, another bar of fainter purple; +then the low brown line of a long island; then an arm of the sea; the +water was gray and still; the ice rims stretched far out from the coast, +and swayed up and down at the edges, as the waves pulsed in and out. +Flocks of gulls were wheeling, soaring in the air, or lighting and +floating among the ice fragments, as cold and snowy as they. Draxy leaned +her head against the side of the car and looked out on the marvelous +beauty of the scene with eyes as filled with calm delight as if she had +all her life journeyed for pleasure, and had had nothing to do but feed +and develop her artistic sense.</p> + +<p>A company of travelling actors sat near her; a dozen tawdry women and +coarse men, whose loud voices and vulgar jests made Draxy shudder. She did +not know what they could be; she had never seen such behavior; the men +took out cards and began to play; the women leaned over, looked on, and +clapped the men on their shoulders. Draxy grew afraid, and the expression +of distress on her face attracted the conductor's notice. He touched her +on the shoulder.</p> + +<p>"I'll take you into the next car, Miss, if you don't like to be near these +people. They're only actors; there's no harm in them, but they're a rough +set."</p> + +<p>"Actors," said Draxy, as the kind conductor lifted her from one platform +to another. "I never thought they were like that. Do they play +Shakespeare?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know, I'm sure," said the conductor, puzzled enough: "but I dare +say they do."</p> + +<p>"Then I'm glad I never went to the theatre," thought Draxy, as she +settled herself in her new seat. For a few moments she could not banish +her disturbed and unhappy feeling. She could not stop fancying some of the +grand words which she most loved in Shakespeare, repeated by those +repulsive voices.</p> + +<p>But soon she turned her eyes to the kindling sky, and forgot all else. The +moon was slowly turning from gold to silver; then it would turn from +silver to white cloud, then to film, then vanish away. Draxy knew that day +and the sun would conquer. "Oh, if I only understood it," sighed Draxy. +Then she fell to thinking about the first chapter in Genesis; and while +she looked upon that paling moon, she dreamed of other moons which no +human eyes ever saw. Draxy was a poet; but as yet she had never dared to +show even to her father the little verses she had not been able to help +writing. "Oh, how dare I do this; how dare I?" she said to herself, as +alone in her little room, she wrote line after line. "But if nobody ever +knows, it can do no harm. It is strange I love it, though, when I am so +ashamed."</p> + +<p>This morning Draxy had that mysterious feeling as if all things were new, +which so often comes to poetic souls. It is at once the beauty and the +burden, the exhaustion and the redemption of their lives. No wonder that +even common men can sometimes see the transfiguration which often comes to +him before whose eyes death and resurrection are always following each +other, instant, perpetual, glorious. Draxy took out her little diary. +Folded very small, and hid in the pocket of it, was a short poem that she +had written the year before on a Tiarella plant which had blossomed in +her window. Mrs. White had brought it to her with some ferns and mosses +from the mountains; and all winter long it had flowered as if in summer. +Draxy wondered why this golden moon reminded her of the Tiarella. She did +not know the subtle underlying bonds in nature. These were the Tiarella +verses:--</p> + +<blockquote><p> My little Tiarella,<br /> +If thou art my own,<br /> +Tell me how thus in winter<br /> +Thy shining flowers have blown.<br /> +Art thou a fairy smuggler,<br /> +Defying law?<br /> +Didst take of last year's summer<br /> +More than summer saw?<br /> +Or hast thou stolen frost-flakes<br /> +Secretly at night?<br /> +Thy stamens tipped with silver,<br /> +Thy petals spotless white,<br /> +Are so like those which cover<br /> +My window-pane;<br /> +Wilt thou, like them, turn back at noon<br /> +To drops again?</p> + +<p>Oh, little Tiarella,<br /> +Thy silence speaks;<br /> +No more my foolish question<br /> +Thy secret seeks.<br /> +The sunshine on my window<br /> +Lies all the day.<br /> +How shouldst thou know that summer<br /> +Has passed away?<br /> +The frost-flake's icy silver<br /> +Is dew at noon for thee.<br /> +O winter sun! O winter frost,<br /> +Make summer dews for me!</p></blockquote> + +<p>After reading these over several times, Draxy took out her pencil, and +very shyly screening herself from all observation, wrote on the other side +of the paper these lines:</p> + +<blockquote><h4>The Morning Moon.</h4> + +<p> The gold moon turns to white;<br /> +The white moon fades to cloud;<br /> +It looks so like the gold moon's shroud,<br /> +It makes me think about the dead,<br /> +And hear the words I have heard read,<br /> + By graves for burial rite.</p> + +<p> I wonder now how many moons<br /> +In just such white have died;<br /> +I wonder how the stars divide<br /> +Among themselves their share of light;<br /> +And if there were great years of night<br /> + Before the earth saw noons.</p> + +<p> I wonder why each moon, each sun,<br /> +Which ever has been or shall be,<br /> +In this day's sun and moon I see;<br /> +I think perhaps all of the old<br /> +Is hidden in each new day's hold;<br /> + So the first day is not yet done!</p> + +<p> And then I think--our dust is spent<br /> +Before the balances are swung;<br /> +Shall we be loneliest among<br /> +God's living creatures? Shall we dare<br /> +To speak in this eternal air<br /> + The only discontent?</p></blockquote> + +<p>Then she shut the book resolutely, and sat up straight with a little +laugh, saying to herself, "This is a pretty beginning for a business +journey!"</p> + +<p>Far better than you knew, sweet Draxy! The great successes of life are +never made by the men and women who have no poetic comprehension in their +souls.</p> + +<p>Draxy's first night was spent at the house of a brother of Captain +Melville's, to whom her uncle had given her a letter. All went smoothly, +and her courage rose. The next day at noon she was to change cars in one +of the great railroad centres; as she drew near the city she began to feel +uneasy. But her directions were explicit, and she stepped bravely out into +the dismal, dark, underground station, bought her ticket, and walked up +and down on the platform with her little valise in her hand, waiting for +the train.</p> + +<p>In a few moments it thundered in, enveloped in a blinding, stifling smoke. +The crowd of passengers poured out. "Twenty minutes for refreshments," was +shouted at each car, and in a moment more there was a clearing up of the +smoke, and a lull in the trampling of the crowd. Draxy touched the +conductor on the arm.</p> + +<p>"Is this the train I am to take, sir?" she said showing him her ticket.</p> + +<p>He glanced carelessly at it. "No, no," said he; "this is the express; +don't stop there. You must wait till the afternoon accommodation."</p> + +<p>"But what time will that train get there?" said Draxy, turning pale.</p> + +<p>"About ten o'clock, if it's on time," said the conductor, walking away. He +had not yet glanced at Draxy, but at her "Oh, what shall I do!" he turned +back; Draxy's face held him spellbound, as it had held many a man before. +He stepped near her, and taking the ticket from her hand, turned it over +and over irresolutely. "I wish I could stop there, Miss," he said. "Is it +any one who is sick?"--for Draxy's evident distress suggested but one +explanation.</p> + +<p>"Oh no," replied Draxy, trying in vain to make her voice steady. "But I am +all alone, and I know no one there, and I am afraid--it is so late at +night. My friends thought I should get there before dark."</p> + +<p>"What are you going for, if you don't know anybody?" said the conductor, +in a tone less sympathizing and respectful. He was a man more used to +thinking ill than well of people.</p> + +<p>Draxy colored. But her voice became very steady.</p> + +<p>"I am Reuben Miller's daughter, sir, and I am going there to get some +money which a bad man owed my father. We need the money, and there was no +one else to go for it."</p> + +<p>The conductor had never heard of Una, but the tone of the sentence, "I am +Reuben Miller's daughter," smote upon his heart, and made him as reverent +to the young girl as if she had been a saint.</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon, Miss," he said involuntarily.</p> + +<p>Draxy looked at him with a bewildered expression, but made no reply. She +was too childlike to know that for the rough manner which had hurt her he +ought to ask such pardon.</p> + +<p>The conductor proceeded, still fingering the ticket:--</p> + +<p>"I don't see how I can stop there. It's a great risk for me to take. If +there was only one of the Directors on board now." Draxy looked still more +puzzled. "No," he said, giving her back the ticket: "I can't do it no +how;" and he walked away.</p> + +<p>Draxy stood still in despair. In a few minutes he came back. He could not +account for its seeming to him such an utter impossibility to leave that +girl to go on her journey at night.</p> + +<p>"What shall you do?" said he.</p> + +<p>"I think my father would prefer that I should find some proper place to +spend the night here, and go on in the morning," replied Draxy; "do you +not think that would be better, sir?" she added, with an appealing, +confiding tone which made the conductor feel more like her knight than +ever.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I think so, and I will give you my card to take to the hotel where I +stay," said he, and he plunged into the crowd again.</p> + +<p>Draxy turned to a brakeman who had drawn near.</p> + +<p>"Has the conductor the right to stop the train if he chooses?" said she.</p> + +<p>"Why yes, Miss, he's right enough, if that's all. Of course he's got to +have power to stop the train any minute. But stoppin' jest to let off a +passenger, that's different."</p> + +<p>Draxy closed her lips a little more firmly, and became less pale. When the +conductor came back and gave her his card, with the name of the hotel on +it, she thanked him, took the card, but did not stir. He looked at her +earnestly, said "Good day, Miss," lifted his hat, and disappeared. Draxy +smiled. It yet wanted ten minutes of the time for the train to go. She +stood still, patiently biding her last chance. The first bell rang--the +steam was up--the crowd of passengers poured in; at the last minute but +one came the conductor. As he caught sight of Draxy's erect, dignified +figure, he started; before he could speak, Draxy said, "I waited, sir, for +I thought at the last minute a director might come, or you might change +your mind."</p> + +<p>The conductor laughed out, and seizing Draxy's valise, exclaimed, "By +George, I will stop the train for you, Miss Miller! Hang me if I don't; +jump in!" and in one minute more Draxy was whirling out of the dark +station into the broad sunlight, which dazzled her.</p> + +<p>When the conductor first--came through the car he saw that Draxy had been +crying. "Do her good," he thought to himself; "it always does do women +good; but I'll be bound she wouldn't ha' cried if I'd left her."</p> + +<p>Half an hour later he found her sound asleep, with her head slipping +uneasily about on the back of the seat. Half ashamed of himself, he +brought a heavy coat and put it under her head for a pillow. Seeing a +supercilious and disagreeable smile on the face of a fashionable young man +in the seat before Draxy, he said sharply: "She's come a long journey, and +was put under my care."</p> + +<p>"I guess that's true enough to pass muster," he chuckled to himself as he +walked away. "If ever I'd ha' believed a woman could make me stop this +train for her! An', by George, without askin' me to either!"</p> + +<p>Draxy slept on for hours. The winter twilight came earlier than usual, for +the sky was overcast. When she waked, the lamps were lighted, and the +conductor was bending over her, saying: "We're most there, Miss, and I +thought you'd better get steadied on your feet a little before you get +off, for I don't calculate to make a full stop."</p> + +<p>Draxy laughed like a little child, and put up both hands to her head as if +to make sure where she was. Then she followed the conductor to the door +and stood looking out into the dim light.</p> + +<p>The sharp signal for "down brakes," made experienced passengers spring to +their feet. Windows opened; heads were thrust out. What had happened to +this express train? The unaccustomed sound startled the village also. It +was an aristocratic little place, settled by wealthy men whose business +was in a neighboring city. At many a dinner-table surprised voices said: +"Why, what on earth is the down express stopping here for? Something must +have broken."</p> + +<p>"Some director or other to be put off," said others; "they have it all +their own way on the road."</p> + +<p>In the mean time Draxy Miller was walking slowly up the first street she +saw, wondering what she should do next. The conductor had almost lifted +her off the train; had shaken her hand, said "God bless you, Miss," and +the train was gone, before she could be sure he heard her thank him. "Oh, +why did I not thank him more before we stopped," thought Draxy.</p> + +<p>"I hope she'll get her money," thought the conductor. "I'd like to see the +man that wouldn't give her what she asked for."</p> + +<p>So the benediction and protection of good wishes, from strangers as well +as from friends, floated on the very air through which Draxy walked, all +unconscious of the invisible blessings.</p> + +<p>She walked a long way before she met any one of whom she liked to ask +direction. At last she saw an elderly man standing under a lamp-post, +reading a letter. Draxy studied his face, and then stopped quietly by his +side without speaking. He looked up.</p> + +<p>"I thought as soon as you had finished your letter, sir, I would ask you +to tell me where Stephen Potter lives."</p> + +<p>It was marvelous what an ineffable charm there was in the subtle mixture +of courtesy and simplicity in Draxy's manner.</p> + +<p>"I am going directly by his house myself, and will show you," replied the +old gentleman. "Pray let me take your bag, Miss."</p> + +<p>"Was it for you," he added, suddenly recollecting the strange stopping of +the express train, "was it for you the express train stopped just now?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir," said Draxy. "The conductor very kindly put me off."</p> + +<p>The old gentleman's curiosity was strongly roused, but he forbore asking +any further questions until he left Draxy on the steps of the house, when +he said: "are they expecting you?"</p> + +<p>"Oh no, sir," said Draxy quietly. "I do not know them."</p> + +<p>"Most extraordinary thing," muttered the old gentleman as he walked on. He +was a lawyer, and could not escape from the professional habit of looking +upon all uncommon incidents as clews.</p> + +<p>Draxy Miller's heart beat faster than usual as she was shown into Stephen +Potter's library. She had said to the servant simply, "Tell Mr. Potter +that Miss Miller would like to see him alone."</p> + +<p>The grandeur of the house, the richness of the furniture, would have +embarrassed her, except that it made her stern as she thought of her +father's poverty. "How little a sum it must be to this man," she thought.</p> + +<p>The name roused no associations in Stephen Potter; for years the thought +of Reuben Miller had not crossed his mind, and as he looked in the face of +the tall, beautiful girl who rose as he entered the room, he was utterly +confounded to hear her say,--</p> + +<p>"I am Reuben Miller's daughter. I have come to see if you will pay me the +money you owe him. We are very poor, and need it more than you probably +can conceive."</p> + +<p>Stephen Potter was a bad man, but not a hard-hearted bad man. He had been +dishonest always; but it was the dishonesty of a weak and unscrupulous +nature, not without generosity. At that moment a sharp pang seized him. He +remembered the simple, upright, kindly face of Reuben Miller. He saw the +same look of simple uprightness, kindled by strength, in the beautiful +face of Reuben Miller's daughter. He did not know what to say. Draxy +waited in perfect composure and silence. It seemed to him hours before he +spoke. Then he said, in a miserable, shuffling way,--</p> + +<p>"I suppose you think me a rich man."</p> + +<p>"I think you must be very rich," said Draxy, gently.</p> + +<p>Then, moved by some strange impulse in the presence of this pure, +unworldly girl, Stephen Potter suddenly spoke out, for the first time +since his boyhood, with absolute sincerity.</p> + +<p>"Miss Miller, you are your father over again. I reverenced your father. I +have wronged many men without caring, but it troubled me to wrong him. I +would give you that money to-night, if I had it, or could raise it. I am +not a rich man. I have not a dollar in the world. This house is not mine. +It may be sold over my head any day. I am deep in trouble, but not so deep +as I deserve to be," and he buried his face in his hands.</p> + +<p>Draxy believed him. And it was true. At that moment Stephen Potter was +really a ruined man, and many others were involved in the ruin which was +impending.</p> + +<p>Draxy rose, saying gravely, "I am very sorry for you, Mr. Potter. We +heard that you were rich, or I should not have come. We are very poor, but +we are not unhappy, as you are."</p> + +<p>"Stay, Miss Miller, sit down; I have a thing which might be of value to +your father;" and Mr. Potter opened his safe and took out a bundle of old +yellow papers. "Here is the title to a lot of land in the northern part of +New Hampshire. I took it on a debt years ago, and never thought it was +worth anything. Very likely it has run out, or the town has taken +possession of the land for the taxes. But I did think the other day, that +if worst came to worst, I might take my wife up there and try to farm it. +But I'd rather your father should have it if it's good for anything. I +took it for three thousand dollars, and it ought to be worth something. I +will have the legal transfer made in the morning, and give it to you +before you leave."</p> + +<p>This was not very intelligible to Draxy. The thin and tattered old paper +looked singularly worthless to her. But rising again, she said simply as +before, "I am very sorry for you, Mr. Potter; and I thank you for trying +to pay us! Will you let some one go and show me to the hotel where I ought +to sleep?"</p> + +<p>Stephen Potter was embarrassed. It cut him to the heart to send this +daughter of Reuben Miller's out of his house to pass the night. But he +feared Mrs. Potter very much. He hesitated only a moment.</p> + +<p>"No, Miss Miller. You must sleep here. I will have you shown to your room +at once. I do not ask you to see my wife. It would not be pleasant for you +to do so." And he rang the bell. When the servant came, he said,--</p> + +<p>"William, have a fire kindled in the blue room at once; as soon as it is +done, come and let me know."</p> + +<p>Then he sat down near Draxy and asked many questions about her family, all +of which she answered with childlike candor. She felt a strange sympathy +for this miserable, stricken, wicked man. When she bade him good-night, +she said again, "I am very sorry for you, Mr. Potter. My father would be +glad if he could help you in any way."</p> + +<p>Stephen Potter went into the parlor where his wife sat, reading a novel. +She was a very silly, frivolous woman, and she cared nothing for her +husband, but when she saw his face she exclaimed, in terror, "What was it, +Stephen?"</p> + +<p>"Only Reuben Miller's daughter, come two days' journey after some money I +owe her father and cannot pay," said Stephen, bitterly.</p> + +<p>"Miller? Miller?" said Mrs. Potter, "one of those old canal debts?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Stephen.</p> + +<p>"Well, of course all those are outlawed long ago," said she. "I don't see +why you need worry about that; she can't touch you."</p> + +<p>Stephen looked scornfully at her. She had a worse heart than he. At that +moment Draxy's face and voice, "I am very sorry for you, Mr. Potter," +stood out in the very air before him.</p> + +<p>"I suppose not," said he, moodily; "I wish she could! But I shall give her +a deed of a piece of New Hampshire land which they may get some good of. +God knows I hope she may," and he left the room, turning back, however, to +add, "She is to sleep here to-night. I could not have her go to the hotel. +But you need take no trouble about her."</p> + +<p>"I should think not, Stephen Potter," exclaimed Mrs. Potter, sitting bolt +upright in her angry astonishment; "I never heard of such impudence as her +expecting"--</p> + +<p>"She expected nothing. I obliged her to stay," interrupted Stephen, and +was gone.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Potter's first impulse was to go and order the girl out of her house. +But she thought better of it. She was often afraid of her husband at this +time; she dimly suspected that he was on the verge of ruin. So she sank +back into her chair, buried herself in her novel, and soon forgot the +interruption.</p> + +<p>Draxy's breakfast and dinner were carried to her room, and every +provision made for her comfort. Stephen Potter's servants obeyed him +always. No friend of the family could have been more scrupulously served +than was Draxy Miller. The man-servant carried her bag to the station, +touched his hat to her as she stepped on board the train, and returned to +the house to say in the kitchen: "Well, I don't care what she come for; +she was a real lady, fust to last, an' that's more than Mr. Potter's got +for a wife, I tell you."</p> + +<p>When Stephen Potter went into his library after bidding Draxy good-by, he +found on the table a small envelope addressed to him. It held this note:--</p> + +<p>"MR. POTTER:--I would not take the paper [the word 'money' had been +scratched out and the word 'paper' substituted] for myself; but I think I +ought to for my father, because it was a true debt, and he is an old man +now, and not strong.</p> + +<p>"I am very sorry for you, Mr. Potter, and I hope you will become happy +again. DRAXY MILLER."</p> + +<p>Draxy had intended to write, "I hope you will be 'good' again," but her +heart failed her. "Perhaps he will understand that 'happy' means good," +she said, and so wrote the gentler phrase. Stephen Potter did understand; +and the feeble outreachings which, during the few miserable years more of +his life, he made towards uprightness, were partly the fruit of Draxy +Miller's words.</p> + +<p>Draxy's journey home was uneventful. She was sad and weary. The first +person she saw on entering the house was her father. He divined in an +instant that she had been unsuccessful. "Never mind, little daughter," he +said, gleefully, "I am not disappointed; I knew you would not get it, but +I thought the journey 'd be a good thing for you, may be."</p> + +<p>"But I have got something, father dear," said Draxy; "only I'm afraid it +is not worth much."</p> + +<p>"'Taint likely to be if Steve Potter gave it," said Reuben, as Draxy +handed him the paper. He laughed scornfully as soon as he looked at it. +"'Taint worth the paper it's writ on," said he, "and he knew it; if he +hain't looked the land up all these years, of course 'twas sold at vendue +long ago."</p> + +<p>Draxy turned hastily away. Up to this moment she had clung to a little +hope.</p> + +<p>When the family were all gathered together in the evening, and Draxy had +told the story of her adventures, Reuben and Captain Melville examined the +deed together. It was apparently a good clear title; it was of three +hundred acres of land. Reuben groaned, "Oh, how I should like to see land +by the acre once more." Draxy's face turned scarlet, and she locked and +unlocked her hands, but said nothing. "But it's no use thinking about it," +he went on; "this paper isn't worth a straw. Most likely there's more than +one man well under way on the land by this time."</p> + +<p>They looked the place up on an atlas. It was in the extreme northeast +corner of New Hampshire. A large part of the county was still marked +"ungranted," and the township in which this land lay was bounded on the +north by this uninhabited district. The name of the town was Clairvend.</p> + +<p>"What could it have been named for?" said Draxy. "How pleasantly it +sounds."</p> + +<p>"Most likely some Frenchman," said Captain Melville. "They always give +names that 're kind o' musical."</p> + +<p>"We might as well burn the deed up. It's nothing but a torment to think of +it a lyin' round with it's three hundred acres of land," said Reuben in an +impulsive tone, very rare for him, and prolonging the "three hundred" +with a scornful emphasis; and he sprang up to throw the paper into the +fire.</p> + +<p>"No, no, man," said Captain Melville; "don't be so hasty. No need of +burning things up in such a roomy house's this! Something may come of that +deed yet. Give it to Draxy; I'm sure she's earned it, if there's anything +to it. Put it away for your dowry, dear," and he snatched the paper from +Reuben's hands and tossed it into Draxy's lap. He did not believe what he +said, and the attempt at a joke brought but a faint smile to any face. The +paper fell on the floor, and Draxy let it lie there till she thought her +father was looking another way, when she picked it up and put it in her +pocket.</p> + +<p>For several days there were unusual silence and depression in the +household. They had really set far more hope than they knew on this +venture. It was not easy to take up the old routine and forget the air +castle. Draxy's friend, Mrs. White, was almost as disappointed as Draxy +herself. She had not thought of the chance of Mr. Potter's being really +unable to pay. She told her husband, who was a lawyer, the story of the +deed, and he said at once: "Of course it isn't worth a straw. If Potter +didn't pay the taxes, somebody else did, and the land's been sold long +ago."</p> + +<p>Mrs. White tried to comfort herself by engaging Draxy for one month's +steady sewing, and presenting her with a set of George Eliot's novels. And +Draxy tried steadily and bravely to forget her journey, and the name of +Clairvend.</p> + +<p>About this time she wrote a hymn, and showed it to her father. It was the +first thing of the kind she had ever let him see, and his surprise and +delight showed her that here was one way more in which she could brighten +his life. She had not thought, in her extreme humility, that by hiding her +verses she was depriving him of pleasure. After this she showed him all +she wrote, but the secret was kept religiously between them.</p> + +<blockquote><h4> Draxy's Hymn.</h4> + +<p> I cannot think but God must know<br /> + About the thing I long for so;<br /> + I know He is so good, so kind,<br /> + I cannot think but He will find<br /> + Some way to help, some way to show<br /> + Me to the thing I long for so.</p> + +<p> I stretch my hand--it lies so near:<br /> + It looks so sweet, it looks so dear.<br /> + "Dear Lord," I pray, "Oh, let me know<br /> + If it is wrong to want it so?"<br /> + He only smiles--He does not speak:<br /> + My heart grows weaker and more weak,<br /> + With looking at the thing so dear,<br /> + Which lies so far, and yet so near.</p> + +<p> Now, Lord, I leave at thy loved feet<br /> + This thing which looks so near, so sweet;<br /> + I will not seek, I will not long--<br /> + almost fear I have been wrong.<br /> + I'll go, and work the harder, Lord,<br /> + And wait till by some loud, clear word<br /> + Thou callest me to thy loved feet,<br /> + To take this thing so dear, so sweet.</p></blockquote> + + + +<h3>Part II.</h3> + + +<p>As the spring drew near, a new anxiety began to press upon Draxy. Reuben +drooped. The sea-shore had never suited him. He pined at heart for the +inland air, the green fields, the fragrant woods. This yearning always was +strongest in the spring, when he saw the earth waking up around him; but +now the yearning became more than yearning. It was the home-sickness of +which men have died. Reuben said little, but Draxy divined all. She had +known it from the first, but had tried to hope that he could conquer it.</p> + +<p>Draxy spent many wakeful hours at night now. The deed of the New Hampshire +land lay in her upper bureau drawer, wrapped in an old handkerchief. She +read it over, and over, and over. She looked again and again at the faded +pink township on the old atlas. "Who knows," thought she, "but that land +was overlooked and forgotten? It is so near the 'ungranted lands,' which +must be wilderness, I suppose!" Slowly a dim purpose struggled in Draxy's +brain. It would do no harm to find out. But how? No more journeys must be +taken on uncertainties. At last, late one night, the inspiration came. +Who shall say that it is not an unseen power which sometimes suggests to +sorely tried human hearts the one possible escape? Draxy was in bed. She +rose, lighted her candle, and wrote two letters. Then she went back to bed +and slept peacefully. In the morning when she kissed her father good-by, +she looked wistfully in his face. She had never kept any secret from him +before, except the secret of her verses. "But he must not be disappointed +again," said Draxy; "and there is no real hope."</p> + +<p>She dropped her letter into the post-office and went to her work.</p> + +<p>The letter was addressed--</p> + +<p>"To the Postmaster of Clairvend,</p> + +<p>"New Hampshire."</p> + +<p>It was a very short letter.</p> + +<p>"DEAR SIR:--I wish to ask some help from a minister in your town. If there +is more than one minister, will you please give my letter to the kindest +one. Yours truly,</p> + +<p>"DRAXY MILLER."</p> + +<p>The letter inclosed was addressed--</p> + +<p>"To the Minister of Clairvend."</p> + +<p>This letter also was short.</p> + +<p>"DEAR SIR:--I have asked the Postmaster to give this letter to the kindest +minister in the town.</p> + +<p>"I am Reuben Miller's daughter. My father is very poor. He has not known +how to do as other men do to be rich. He is very good, sir. I think you +can hardly have known any one so good. Mr. Stephen Potter, a man who owed +him money, has given us a deed of land in your town. My father thinks the +deed is not good for anything. But I thought perhaps it might be; and I +would try to find out. My father is very sick, but I think he would get +well if he could come and live on a farm. I have written this letter in +the night, as soon as I thought about you; I mean as soon as I thought +that there must be a minister in Clairvend, and he would be willing to +help me.</p> + +<p>"I have not told my father, because I do not want him to be disappointed +again as he was about the deed.</p> + +<p>"I have copied for you the part of the deed which tells where the land is; +and I put in a stamp to pay for your letter to me, and if you will find +out for us if we can get this land, I shall be grateful to you all my +life. DRAXY MILLER."</p> + +<p>Inclosed was a slip of paper on which Draxy had copied with great care the +description of the boundaries of the land conveyed by the deed. It was all +that was necessary. The wisest lawyer, the shrewdest diplomatist in the +land never put forth a subtler weapon than this simple girl's simple +letter.</p> + +<p>It was on the morning of the 3d of April that Draxy dropped her letter in +the office. Three days later it was taken out of the mail-bag in the +post-office of Clairvend. The post-office was in the one store of the +village. Ten or a dozen men were lounging about curiosity about the odd +name was soon swallowed up in curiosity as to the contents of the letter. +The men of Clairvend had not been so stirred and roused by anything since +the fall election. Luckily for Draxy's poor little letter, there was but +one minister in the village, and the only strife which rose was as to who +should carry him the letter. Finally, two of the most persistent set out +with it, both declaring that they had business on that road, and had meant +all along to go in and see the Elder on their way home.</p> + +<p>Elder Kinney lived in a small cottage high up on a hill, a mile from the +post-office, and on a road very little travelled. As the men toiled up +this hill, they saw a tall figure coming rapidly towards them.</p> + +<p>"By thunder! there's the Elder now! That's too bad," said little Eben +Hill, the greatest gossip in the town.</p> + +<p>The Elder was walking at his most rapid rate; and Elder Kinney's most +rapid rate was said to be one with which horses did not easily keep up. +"No, thank you, friend, I haven't time to ride to-day," he often replied +to a parishioner who, jogging along with an old farm-horse, offered to +give him a lift on the road.</p> + +<p>"Elder! Elder! here's a letter we was a bringin' up to you!" called out +both of the men at once as he passed them like a flash, saying hurriedly +"Good evening! good evening!" and was many steps down the hill beyond them +before he could stop.</p> + +<p>"Oh, thank you!" he said, taking it hastily and dropping it into his +pocket. "Mrs. Williams is dying, they say; I cannot stop a minute," and +he was out of sight while the baffled parishioners stood confounded at +their ill-luck.</p> + +<p>"Now jest as like's not we shan't never know what was in that letter," +said. Eben Hill, disconsolately. "Ef we'd ha'gone in and set down while he +read it, we sh'd ha' had some chance."</p> + +<p>"But then he mightn't ha' read it while we was there," replied Joseph +Bailey resignedly; an' I expect It ain't none o' our business anyhow, one +way or t'other."</p> + +<p>"It's the queerest thing's ever happened in this town," persisted Eben; +"what's a girl--that is, if 'tis a girl--got to do writin' to a minister +she don't know? I don't believe it's any good she's after."</p> + +<p>"Wal, ef she is, she's come to the right place; and there's no knowin' but +that the Lord's guided her, Eben; for ef ever there was a man sent on this +airth to do the Lord's odd jobs o' looking arter folks, it's Elder +Kinney," said Joseph.</p> + +<p>"That's so," answered Eben in a dismal tone, "that's so; but he's dreadful +close-mouthed when he's a mind to be. You can't deny that!"</p> + +<p>"Wal, I dunno's I want ter deny it," said Joseph, who was beginning, in +Eben's company, to grow ashamed of curiosity; "I dunno's it's anything +agin him," and so the men parted.</p> + +<p>It was late at night when Elder Kinney went home from the bedside of the +dying woman. He had forgotten all about the letter. When he undressed, it +fell from his pocket, and lay on the floor. It was the first thing he saw +in the morning. "I declare!" said the Elder, and reaching out a long arm +from the bed, he picked it up.</p> + +<p>The bright winter sun was streaming in on the Elder's face as he read +Draxy's letter. He let it fall on the scarlet and white counterpane, and +lay thinking. The letter touched him unspeakably. Elder Kinney was no +common man; he had a sensitive organization and a magnetic power, which, +if he had had the advantages of education and position, would have made +him a distinguished preacher. As a man, he was tender, chivalrous, and +impulsive; and even the rough, cold, undemonstrative people among whom his +life had been spent had, without suspecting it, almost a romantic +affection for him. He had buried his young wife and her first-born +still-born child together in this little village twelve years before, and +had ever since lived in the same house from which they had been carried to +the grave-yard. "If you ever want any other man to preach to you," he said +to the people, "you've only to say so to the Conference. I don't want to +preach one sermon too many to you. But I shall live and die in this house; +I can't ever go away. I can get a good livin' at farmin'--good as +preachin', any day!"</p> + +<p>The sentence, "I am Reuben Miller's daughter," went to his heart as it +had gone to every man's heart who had heard it before from Draxy's +unconscious lips. But it sunk deeper in his heart than in any other.</p> + +<p>"If baby had lived she would have loved me like this perhaps," thought the +Elder, as he read the pathetic words over and over. Then he studied the +paragraph copied from the deed. Suddenly a thought flashed into his mind. +He knew something about this land. It must be--yes, it must be on a part +of this land that the sugar-camp lay from which he had been sent for, five +years before, to see a Frenchman who was lying very ill in the little log +sugar-house. The Elder racked his brains. Slowly it all came back to him. +He remembered that at the time some ill-will had been shown in the town +toward this Frenchman; that doubts had been expressed about his right to +the land; and that no one would go out into the clearing to help take care +of him. Occasionally, since that time, the Elder had seen the man hanging +about the town. He had an evil look; this was all the Elder could +remember.</p> + +<p>At breakfast he said to old Nancy, his housekeeper: "Nancy, did you ever +know anything about that Frenchman who had a sugar-camp out back of the +swamp road? I went to see him when he had the fever a few years ago."</p> + +<p>Nancy was an Indian woman with a little white blood in her veins. She +never forgot an injury. This Frenchman had once jeered at her from the +steps of the village store, and the village men had laughed.</p> + +<p>"Know anythin' about him? Yes, sir. He's a son o' Satan, an' I reckon he +stays to hum the great part o' the year, for he's never seen round here +except jest sugarin' time."</p> + +<p>The Elder laughed in spite of himself. Nancy's tongue was a member of +which he strongly disapproved; but his efforts to enforce charity and +propriety of speech upon her were sometimes rendered null and void by his +lack of control of his features. Nancy loved her master, but she had no +reverence in her composition, and nothing gave her such delight as to make +him laugh out against his will. She went on to say that the Frenchman came +every spring, bringing with him a gang of men, some twelve or more, "all +sons o' the same father, sir; you'd know 'em's far's you see 'em." They +took a large stock of provisions, went out into the maple clearing, and +lived there during the whole sugar season in rough log huts. "They do say +he's jest carried off a good thousand dollar's worth o' sugar this very +week," said Nancy.</p> + +<p>The Elder brought his hand down hard on the table and said "Whew!" This +was Elder Kinney's one ejaculation. Nancy seldom heard it, and she knew it +meant tremendous excitement. She grew eager, and lingered, hoping for +further questions; but the Elder wanted his next information from a more +accurate and trustworthy source than old Nancy. Immediately after +breakfast he set out for the village; soon he slackened his pace, and +began to reflect. It was necessary to act cautiously; he felt +instinctively sure that the Frenchman had not purchased the land. His +occupation of it had evidently been acquiesced in by the town for many +years; but the Elder was too well aware of the slack and unbusinesslike +way in which much of the town business was managed, to attach much weight +to this fact. He was perplexed--a rare thing for Elder Kinney. He stopped +and sat down on the top of a stone wall to think. In a few minutes he saw +the steaming heads of a pair of oxen coming up the hill. Slowly the cart +came in sight: it was loaded with sugar-buckets; and there, walking by +its side, was--yes! it was--the very Frenchman himself.</p> + +<p>Elder Kinney was too much astonished even to say "Whew!"</p> + +<p>"This begins to look like the Lord's own business," was the first +impulsive thought of his devout heart. "There's plainly something to be +done. That little Draxy's father shall get some o' the next year's sugar +out o' that camp, or my name isn't Seth Kinney;" and the Elder sprang from +the wall and walked briskly towards the Frenchman. As he drew near him, +and saw the forbidding look on the fellow's face, he suddenly abandoned +his first intention, which was to speak to him, and, merely bowing, passed +on down the hill.</p> + +<p>"He's a villain, if I know the look of one," said honest Elder. "I'll +think a little longer. I wonder where he stores his buckets. Now, there's +a chance," and Elder Kinney turned about and followed the plodding cart up +the hill again. It was a long pull and a tedious one; and for Elder Kinney +to keep behind oxen was a torture like being in a straight waistcoat. One +mile, two miles, three miles! the Elder half repented of his undertaking; +but like all wise and magnetic natures, he had great faith in his first +impulses, and he kept on.</p> + +<p>At last the cart turned into a lane on the right-hand side of the road.</p> + +<p>"Why, he's goin' to old Ike's," exclaimed the Elder. "Well, I can get at +all old Ike knows, and it's pretty apt to be all there is worth knowin'," +and Elder Kinney began, in his satisfaction, to whistle</p> + +<p> "Life is the time to serve the Lord,"</p> + +<p>in notes as clear and loud as a bob-o'-link's.</p> + +<p>He walked on rapidly, and was very near overtaking the Frenchman, when a +new thought struck him. "Now, if he's uneasy about himself,--and if he +knows he ain't honest, of course he's uneasy,--he'll may be think I'm on +his track, and be off to his 'hum,' as Nancy calls it," and the Elder +chuckled at the memory, "an' I shouldn't have any chance of ketchin' him +here for another year." The Elder stood still again. Presently he jumped a +fence, and walking off to the left, climbed a hill, from the top of which +he could see old Ike's house. Here, in the edge of a spruce grove, he +walked back and forth, watching the proceedings below. "Seems little too +much like bein' a spy," thought the good man, "but I never felt a clearer +call in a thing in my life than I do in this little girl's letter," and he +fell to singing</p> + +<p> "Rise, my soul, and stretch thy wings,"</p> + +<p>till the crows in the wood were frightened by the strange sound, and came +flying out and flapping their great wings above his head.</p> + +<p>The Frenchman drove into old Ike's yard. Ike came out of the house and +helped him unload the buckets, and carry them into an old corn-house which +stood behind the barn: As soon as the Frenchman had turned his oxen's head +down the lane, the Elder set out for the house, across the fields. Old Ike +was standing in the barn-door. When he saw the tall figure striding +through the pasture, he ran to let down the bars, and hurried up to the +Elder and grasped both his hands. Not in all Elder Kinney's parish was +there a single heart which beat so warmly for him as did the heart of this +poor lonely old man, who had lived by himself in this solitary valley ever +since the Elder came to Clairvend.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Elder, Elder," said he, "it does me reel good to see your face. Be ye +well, sir?" looking closely at him.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Ike, thank you, I'm always well," replied the Elder absently. He was +too absorbed in his errand to have precisely his usual manner, and it was +the slight change which Ike's affectionate instinct felt. But Ike saved +him all perplexity as to introducing the object of his visit by saying at +once, picking up one of the sugar-buckets which had rolled off to one +side, "I'm jest pilin' up Ganew's sugar-buckets for him. He pays me well +for storin' 'em, but I kind o' hate to have anythin' to do with him. Don't +you remember him, sir--him that was so awful bad with the fever down'n the +clearin' five years ago this month? You was down to see him, I know."</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes, I remember," said the Elder, with a manner so nonchalant that +he was frightened at his own diplomacy. "He was a bad fellow, I thought,"</p> + +<p>Ike went on: "Wall, that's everybody's feelin' about him: and there ain't +no great thing to show for 't nuther. But they did say a while back that +he hadn't no reel right to the land. He turned up all of a sudden, and +paid up all there was owin' on the taxes, an' he's paid 'em regular ever +sence. But he hain't never showed how the notes come to be signed by some +other name. Yes, sir, the hull lot--it's nigh on ter three hundred acres, +such's 'tis; a good part on't 's swamp though, that ain't wuth a +copper--the hull lot went to a man down in York State, when the Iron +Company bust up here, and for two or three year the chap he jest sent up +his note for the taxes, and they've a drefful shiftless way o' lettin' +things go in this ere town, 's you know, sir; there wan't nobody that +knowed what a sugar orchard was a lyin' in there, or there'd been plenty +to grab for it; but I don't s'pose there's three men in the town'd ever +been over back o' Birch Hill till this Ganew he come and cut a road in, +and had his sugar-camp agoin' one spring, afore anybody knew what he was +arter. But he's paid all up reg'lar, and well he may, sez everybody, for +he can't get his sugar off, sly's he is, w'thout folks gettin' some kind +o' notion about it, an' they say's he's cleared thousands an' thousands o' +dollars. I expect they ain't overshot the mark nuther, for he's got six +hundred new buckets this spring, and Bill Sims, he's been in with 'em the +last two years, 'n he says there ain't no sugar orchard to compare, except +Squire White's over in Mill Creek, and he's often taken in three thousand +pounds off his'n."</p> + +<p>Ike sighed as he paused, breathless. "It's jest my luck, allers knockin' +about 'n them woods 's I am, not to have struck trail on that air orchard. +I could ha' bought it's well's not in the fust on't, if it had been put up +to vendue, 's't oughter ben, an' nobody knowin' what 'twas wuth."</p> + +<p>Elder Kinney was almost overcome by this unhoped-for corroboration of his +instincts; clearing up of his difficulties. His voice sounded hoarse in +his own ears as he replied:--</p> + +<p>"Well, Ike, the longest lane has a turnin'. It's my belief that God +doesn't often let dishonest people prosper very long. We shall see what +becomes of Ganew. Where does he live? I'd like to see him."</p> + +<p>"Well, he don't live nowhere, 's near's anybody can find out. He's in the +camp with the gang about six weeks, sometimes eight; they say's it's a +kind of settlement down there, an' then he's off again till sugarin' comes +round; but he's dreadful sharp and partikler about the taxes, I tell you, +and he's given a good deal too, fust and last, to the town. Folks say he +wants to make 'em satisfied to let him alone. He's coming up here again +to-morrow with two more loads of buckets, sir: if 'twouldn't be too much +trouble for you to come here agin so soon," added poor Ike, grasping at +the chance of seeing the Elder again.</p> + +<p>"Well, I think perhaps I'll come," replied the Elder, ashamed again of the +readiness with which he found himself taking to tortuous methods, "if I'm +not too busy. What time will he be here?"</p> + +<p>"About this same time," said Ike. "He don't waste no time, mornin' nor +evenin'."</p> + +<p>The Elder went away soon, leaving poor Ike half unhappy.</p> + +<p>"He's got somethin' on his mind, thet's plain enough," thought the loving +old soul. "I wonder now ef it's a woman; I've allus thought the Elder +war'nt no sort of man to live alone all his days."</p> + +<p>"Dear, good little Draxy," thought the Elder, as he walked down the road. +"How shall I ever tell the child of this good luck, and how shall I manage +it all for the best for her?"</p> + +<p>Draxy's interests were in good hands. Before night Elder Kinney had +ascertained that there had never been any sale of this land since it was +sold to "the New York chap," and that Ganew's occupation of it was +illegal. After tea the Elder sat down and wrote two letters.</p> + +<p>The first one was to Draxy, and ran as follows:--</p> + +<p>"MY DEAR CHILD:--</p> + +<p>"I received your letter last night, and by the Lord's help I have found +out all about your father's land today. But I shall write to your father +about it, for you could not understand.</p> + +<p>"I wish the Lord had seen fit to give me just such a daughter as you are.</p> + +<p>"Your friend,</p> + +<p>"SETH KINNEY."</p> + +<p>The letter to Reuben was very long, giving in substance the facts which +have been told above, and concluding thus:--</p> + +<p>"I feel a great call from the Lord to do all I can in this business, and I +hope you won't take it amiss if I make bold to decide what's best to be +done without consulting you. This fellow's got to be dealt with pretty +sharp, and I, being on the ground, can look after him better than you can. +But I'll guarantee that you'll have possession of that land before many +weeks." He then asked Reuben to have an exact copy of the deed made out +and forwarded to him; also any other papers which might throw light on the +transfer of the property, sixteen years back. "Not that I calculate +there'll be any trouble," he added; "we don't deal much in lawyer's tricks +up here, but it's just as well to be provided."</p> + +<p>The Elder went to the post-office before breakfast to post this letter. +The address did not escape the eyes of the postmaster. Before noon Eben +Hill knew that the Elder had written right off by the first mail to a +"Miss Draxy Miller."</p> + +<p>Meantime the Elder was sitting in the doorway of old Ike's barn waiting +for the Frenchman; ten o'clock came, eleven, twelve--he did not appear.</p> + +<p>The Elder's uneasiness grew great, but he talked on and on till poor Ike +was beside himself with delight. At last the distant creak of the wheels +was heard. "There he is," exclaimed Ike. "I'm thinking, sir, that it's a +kind o' providential dispensation thet's hendered him all this time; it's +done me such a sight o' good to hear you talk."</p> + +<p>The Elder smiled tenderly on poor old Ike.</p> + +<p>"Everything is a dispensation, Ike, accordin' to my way o' thinkin';" and +again he thought involuntarily of "little Draxy." + +Ganew assented with a half-surly civility to Elder Kinney's proposition to +ride down with him.</p> + +<p>"I've got a matter of business to talk over with you, Mr. Ganew,"--said +the Elder, "and I came up here on purpose to find you."</p> + +<p>The man turned his stolid black eyes full on the Elder, but made no reply. +It was indeed an evil face. The Elder was conscious that impulses which +he feared were unchristian were rising rapidly in his breast. He had +wished a few times before in his life that he was not a minister. He +wished it now. He would have liked to open his conversation with Ganew +after the manner of the world's people when they deal with thieves. And +again he thought involuntarily of "little Draxy," and her touching "we are +very poor."</p> + +<p>But when he spoke, he spoke gently and slowly.</p> + +<p>"I have some news for you which will be very disagreeable, Mr. Ganew." +Here the Frenchman started, with such a terrified, guilty, malignant look +on his face, that the Elder said to himself: "Good God, I believe the man +knows he's in danger of his life. Stealin's the least of his crimes, I'll +venture."</p> + +<p>He proceeded still more gently. "The owners of the land which you've been +using as your own in this town, have written to inquire about it, and have +put the business in my hands."</p> + +<p>Ganew was silent for a moment. Then trying to speak in an indignant tone, +he said,--</p> + +<p>"Using as my own! I don't know what you mean, Mr. Parson. I have paid my +taxes all regular, and I've got the title-deeds of the land, every acre of +it. I can't help whoever's been writing to you about it; it's all my +land."</p> + +<p>But his face twitched with nervous excitement, and the fright and anger in +his serpent-like black eyes were ugly to see.</p> + +<p>"No, Mr. Ganew, it is not," said the Elder; "and you know it. Now you jest +listen to me; I know the whole truth about the matter, an' all the time +you spend fightin' off the truth'll be wasted, besides addin' lyin' to +havin' been a thief. The owners of the land'll be here, I expect before +long; but they've put it all in my hands, an' I can let you off if I +choose."</p> + +<p>"Let me off! What the devil do you mean?" said Ganew.</p> + +<p>"Why, you don't suppose there's goin' to be nothin' said about all the +thousands o' dollars' wuth of sugar you've carried off here, do"--</p> + +<p>The next thing Elder Kinney knew he was struggling up to his feet in the +middle of the road; he was nearly blinded by blood trickling from a cut on +his forehead, and only saw dimly that Ganew was aiming another blow at him +with his heavy-handled ox-goad.</p> + +<p>But the Frenchman had reckoned without his host. Elder Kinney, even half +stunned, was more than a match for him. In a very few minutes Ganew was +lying in the bottom of his own ox-cart, with his hands securely tied +behind him with a bit of his own rope and the Elder was sitting calmly +down on a big boulder, wiping his forehead and recovering his breath; it +had been an ugly tussle, and the Elder was out of practice.</p> + +<p>Presently he rose, walked up to the cart, and leaning both his arms on the +wheel, looked down on his enemy.</p> + +<p>The Frenchman's murderous little black eyes rolled wildly, but he did not +struggle. He had felt in the first instant that he was but an infant in +the Elder's hands.</p> + +<p>"Ye poor, miserable, cowardly French,--sinner ye," said the Elder, +struggling for an epithet not unbecoming his cloth. "Did you think you was +goin' to get me out o' yer way's easy's that, 's I dare say ye have better +folks than me, before now!"</p> + +<p>Ganew muttered something in a tongue the Elder did not understand, but the +sound of it kindled his wrath anew.</p> + +<p>"Well, call on your Master, if that's what you're doin', 's much's you +like. He don't generally look out for anybody much who's so big a fool's +you must be, to think you was goin' to leave the minister o' this parish +dead in a ditch within stone's throw o' houses and nobody find you out," +and the Elder sat down again on the boulder. He felt very dizzy and faint; +and the blood still trickled steadily from his forehead. Ganew's face at +this moment was horrible. Rage at his own folly, hate of the Elder, and +terror which was uncontrollable, all contended on his livid features.</p> + +<p>At last he spoke. He begged abjectly to be set free. He offered to leave +the town at once and never return if the Elder would only let him go.</p> + +<p>"What an' give up all your land ye've got such a fine clear title to?" +said the Elder, sarcastically. "No; we'll give ye a title there won't be +no disputin' about to a good berth in Mill Creek jail for a spell!"</p> + +<p>At this the terror mastered every other emotion in the Frenchman's face. +What secret reason he had for it all, no one could know but himself; what +iniquitous schemes already waiting him in other places, what complications +of dangers attendant on his identification and detention. He begged, he +besought, in words so wildly imploring, so full of utter unconditional +surrender, that there could be no question as to their sincerity. The +Elder began, in spite of himself, to pity the wretch; he began also to ask +whether after all it would not be the part of policy to let him go. After +some minutes he said, "I can't say I put much confidence in ye yet, Mr. +Ganew; but I'm inclined to think it's the Lord's way o' smoothin' things +for some o' his children, to let you kind o' slink off," and somehow Elder +Kinney fancied he heard little Draxy say, "Oh, sir, let the poor man go." +There was something marvelous in his under-current of consciousness of +"little Draxy."</p> + +<p>He rose to his feet, picked up the heavy ox-goad, struck the near ox +sharply on the side, and walking on a little ahead of the team, said: +"I'll just take ye down a piece, Mr. Ganew, till we're in sight of Jim +Blair's, before I undo ye. I reckon the presence o' a few folks'll +strengthen your good resolutions." "An' I mistrust I ain't quite equal to +another handlin,'" thought the Elder to himself, as he noted how the sunny +road seemed to go up and down under his feet. He was really far more hurt +than he knew.</p> + +<p>When they were in sight of the house, he stopped the oxen, and leaning +again on the wheel, and looking down on Ganew, had one more talk with him, +at the end of which he began cautiously to untie the rope. He held the +ox-goad, however, firmly grasped in his right hand, and it was not without +a little tremor that he loosed the last knots. "Suppose the desperate +critter sh'd have a knife," thought the Elder.</p> + +<p>He need not have feared. A more crestfallen, subdued, wretched being than +Paul Ganew, as he crawled out of that cart, was never seen. He had his own +secret terror, and it had conquered him. "It's more'n me he's afraid of," +said the Elder to himself. "This is the Lord's doin', I reckon. Now, Mr. +Ganew, if you'll jest walk to the heads o' them oxen I'll thank ye," said +he: "an' 's I feel some tired, I'll jump into the cart; an' I'll save ye +carryin' the ox-goad," he added, as he climbed slowly in, still holding +the murderous weapon in his hand. Nothing could extinguish Seth Kinney's +sense of humor.</p> + +<p>"If we meet any folks," he proceeded, "we've only to say that I've had a +bad hurt, and that you're very kindly takin' me home."</p> + +<p>Ganew walked on like a man in a dream. He was nearly paralyzed with +terror. They met no human being, and very few words passed between them. +When the cart stopped at the Elder's door, Ganew stood still without +turning his head. The Elder went up to him and said, with real kindness of +tone,</p> + +<p>"Mr. Ganew, I expect you can't believe it, but I don't bear ye the least +ill-will."</p> + +<p>A faint flicker of something like grateful surprise passed over the hard +face, but no words came.</p> + +<p>"I hope the Lord'll bring ye to himself yet," persisted the good man, +"and forgive me for havin' had anything but pity for ye from the first +on't. Ye won't forget to send me a writing for Bill Sims that the rest of +the buckets in the camp belong to me?"</p> + +<p>Ganew nodded sullenly and went on, and the Elder walked slowly into the +house.</p> + +<p>After dark, a package was left at the Elder's door. It contained the +order on Bill Sims, and a letter. Some of the information in the letter +proved useful in clearing up the mystery of Ganew's having known of this +tract of land. He had been in Potter's employ, it seemed, and had had +access to his papers. What else the letter told no one ever knew; but the +Elder's face always had a horror-stricken look when the Frenchman's name +was mentioned, and when people sometimes wondered if he would ever be seen +again in Clairvend, the emphasis of the Elder's "Never! ye may rely on +that! Never!" had something solemn in it.</p> + +<p>In less than forty-eight hours the whole village knew the story. "The +sooner they know the whole on't the better, and the sooner they'll be +through talkin'," said the Elder, and nobody could have accused him of +being "close-mouthed" now. He even showed "the little gal's letter," as +the townspeople called it, to anybody who asked to see it. It hurt him to +do this, more than he could see reason for, but he felt a strong desire to +have the village heart all ready to welcome "little Draxy" and her father +when they should come. And the village heart was ready! Hardly a man, +woman, or child but knew her name and rejoiced in her good fortune. "Don't +yer remember my tellin' yer that night," said Josiah Bailey to Eben Hill, +"that she'd come to the right place for help when she come to Elder +Kinney?"</p> + +<p>When Draxy took Elder Kinney's letter out of the post-office, her hands +trembled. She walked rapidly away, and opened the letter as soon as she +reached a quiet street. The Elder had not made it so clear as he thought +he had, in his letter to the "child," which way matters had gone. Draxy +feared. Presently she thought, "He says 'your father's land.' That must +mean that we shall have it." But still she had sad misgivings. She almost +decided to read the inclosed letter which was unsealed; she could not have +her father disappointed again; but her keen sense of honor restrained her.</p> + +<p>Reuben had grown really feeble. There were many days now when he could not +work, but sat listlessly on a ledge of rocks near the house, and watched +the restless waves with a sense of misery as restless as they. When Draxy +reached home this night and found that her father was not in the house, +she ran over to the "Black Ledge." There she found him. She sat down by +his side, not knowing how to begin. Presently he said: "I wish I loved +this water, daughter,--it is very beautiful to look at; but I'm thinkin' +it's somethin' like human beings; they may be ever so handsome to look on, +but if you don't love 'em you don't, and that's the end on't, an' it don't +do ye no sort o' good to be where they are."</p> + +<p>"The woods and fields used to do you good, father," said Draxy.</p> + +<p>Reuben was astonished. Draxy was not wont to allude to the lost and +irrecoverable joys. But he only sighed.</p> + +<p>"Read this letter, father dear," said Draxy, hurriedly pushing it into his +hand; "I wrote up to a good old minister to find out, and here's his +answer."</p> + +<p>Reuben looked bewildered. Draxy's words did not make themselves clear. +But the first words of Elder Kinney's letter did. The paper fell from his +hands.</p> + +<p>"Oh, daughter! daughter! it can't be true! It can't!" and Reuben Miller +covered his eyes and cried. Draxy did not cry. One of the finest traits in +her nature was her instantaneous calmness of exterior under sudden and +intense excitement.</p> + +<p>"Yes; father, it is true. It must be. I have believed it from the first! +Oh do, do read the letter," said Draxy, and she forced the letter into his +hands again.</p> + +<p>"No, no, daughter. Read it to me. I can't see the words," replied Reuben, +still weeping. He was utterly unmanned. Then Draxy read the letter aloud +slowly, distinctly, calmly. Her voice did not tremble. She accepted it +all, absolutely, unconditionally, as she had accepted everything which had +ever happened to her. In Draxy's soul the past never confused the present; +her life went on from moment to moment, from step to step as naturally, as +clearly, as irrevocably as plants grow and flower, without hinderance, +without delay. This it was which had kept her serene, strong: this is true +health of nature.</p> + +<p>After a time Reuben grew calmer; Draxy's presence always helped him. They +sat on the rocks until twilight fell, and the great red lamp in the +light-house was lighted.</p> + +<p>"Father, dear," said Draxy, "I think there are light-houses all along our +lives, and God knows when it is time to light the lamps."</p> + +<p>Reuben clasped Draxy's hand tighter, and turned his eyes upon her with a +look whose love was almost reverent.</p> + +<p>Lights shone until morning from the windows of Captain Melville's house. +The little family had sat together until long after midnight, discussing +this new and wonderful turn in their affairs. Jane and Reuben were +bewildered and hardly happy yet; Draxy was alert, enthusiastic, ready as +usual; poor Captain Melville and his wife were in sore straits between +their joy in the Millers' good fortune, and their pain at the prospect of +the breaking up of the family. Their life together had been so beautiful, +so harmonious.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Draxy," said the Captain, "how shall we ever live without you?"</p> + +<p>"Oh! but you will come up there, uncle." said Draxy; "and we shall keep +you after we once get you."</p> + +<p>Captain Melville shook his head. He could never leave the sea. But full +well he knew that the very salt of it would have lost its best savor to +him when this sweet, fair girl had gone out from his house.</p> + +<p>The "good-nights" were sadly and solemnly said. "Oh!" thought Draxy, "does +joy always bring pain in this world?" and she fell asleep with tears on +her cheeks.</p> + +<p>Reuben sat up until near dawn, writing to Elder Kinney. He felt strangely +strong. He was half cured already by the upland air of the fields he had +never seen. The next morning Draxy said, "Do you not think, father, I +ought to write a note too, to thank the kind minister, or will you tell +him how grateful I am?"</p> + +<p>"Put a postscript to my letter, daughter. That will be better," said +Reuben.</p> + +<p>So Draxy wrote at the bottom of the last page:--</p> + +<p>"DEAR MR. KINNEY:--I do not know any words to thank you in; and I think +you will like it better if I do not try. My father seems almost well +already. I am sure it was the Lord that helped you to find out about our +land. I hope we can come very soon.</p> + +<p>"Your grateful friend,</p> + +<p>"DRAXY MILLER."</p> + +<p>When the Elder read this second note of Draxy's, he said aloud, "God bless +her! she's one o' His chosen ones, that child is," and he fell to +wondering how she looked. He found himself picturing her as slight and +fair, with blue eyes, and hair of a pale yellow. "I don't believe she's +more than fourteen at most;" thought he, "she speaks so simple, jest like +a child; an' yet, she goes right to the pint, 's straight's any woman; +though I don't know, come to think on't, 's ever I knew a woman that could +go straight to a pint," reflected the Elder, whose patience was often +sorely tried by the wandering and garrulous female tongues in his parish. +The picture of "Little Draxy" grew strangely distinct in his mind; and his +heart yearned towards her with a yearning akin to that which years before +he had felt over the little silent form of the daughter whose eyes had +never looked into his.</p> + +<p>There was no trouble with the town in regard to the land. If there had +been any doubts, Elder Kinney's vigorous championship of the new claimant +would have put them down. But the sympathy of the entire community was +enlisted on Reuben's side. The whole story from first to last appealed to +every man's heart; and there was not a father in town that did not rest +his hand more lovingly on his little girl's head at night, when he sat in +his door-way talking over "them Millers," and telling about Draxy's +"writin' to th' Elder."</p> + +<p>Before the first of May all was settled. Elder Kinney had urged Mr. Miller +to come at once to his house, and make it a home until he could look about +and decide where he would establish himself.</p> + +<p>"I am a lonely man," he wrote; "I buried my wife and only child many years +ago, and have lived here ever since, with only an old Indian woman to take +care of me. I don't want to press you against your will; and there's a +house in the village that you can hire; but it will go against me sorely +not to have you in my house at the first. I want to see you, and to see +your little daughter; I can't help feeling as if the Lord had laid out for +us to be friends more than common."</p> + +<p>Reuben hesitated. The shyness of his nature made him shrink from other +men's houses. But Draxy inclined strongly to the Elder's proposition. "Oh, +think father, how lonely he must be. Suppose you hadn't mother nor me, +father dear!" and Draxy kissed her father's cheek; "and think how glad you +have been that you came to live with uncle," she added.</p> + +<p>Reuben looked lovingly at Captain Melville, but said nothing.</p> + +<p>"I'll tell ye what I think, Reuben;" said the Captain. "It's my belief +that you'n that parson'll take to each other. His letters sound like your +talk. Somehow, I've got an uncommon respect for that man, considerin' he's +a parson: it's my advice to ye, to take up with his offer."</p> + +<p>"And it seems no more than polite, father," persisted Draxy: "after he +has done so much for us. We need not say how long we will stay in his +house, you know."</p> + +<p>"Supposin' you go up first, Draxy," said Reuben, hesitatingly, "an' see +how 'tis. I always did hate Injuns."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" said Draxy; she had hardly observed the mention of that feature in +the Elder's household, and she laughed outright. Her ideas of the +ancestral savage were too vague to be very alarming. "If she has lived all +these years with this good old minister, she must be civilized and kind," +said Draxy. "I'm not afraid of her."</p> + +<p>"But I think it would be a great deal better for me to go first," she +continued, more and more impressed with the new idea. "Then I can be sure +beforehand about everything, and get things all in order for you; and +there'll be Mr. Kinney to take care of me; I feel as if he was a kind of +father to everybody." And Draxy in her turn began to wonder about the +Elder's appearance as he had wondered about hers. Her mental picture was +quite as unlike the truth as was his. She fancied him not unlike her +father, but much older, with a gentle face, and floating white hair. Dim +purposes of how she might make his lonely old age more cheerful, floated +before her mind. "It must be awful," thought she, "to live years and years +all alone with an Indian."</p> + +<p>When Elder Kinney read Reuben's letter, saying that they would send their +daughter up first to decide what would be best for them to do, he brought +his hand down hard on the table and said "Whew!" again.</p> + +<p>"Well, I do declare," thought he to himself, "I'm afraid they're dreadful +shiftless folks, to send that girl way up here, all alone by herself; and +how's such a child's that goin' to decide anything, I should like to +know?"</p> + +<p>He read again the letter Reuben had written. "My daughter is very young, +but we lean upon her as if she was older. She has helped us bear all our +misfortunes, and we have more confidence in her opinions than in our own +about everything." The Elder was displeased.</p> + +<p>"Lean on her;' I should think you did! Poor little girl! Well, I can look +out for her; that's one comfort." And the Elder wrote a short note to the +effect that he would meet their "child" at the railway station, which was +six miles from their town; that he would do all he could to help her; and +that he hoped soon to see Mr. and Mrs. Miller under his roof.</p> + +<p>The words of the note were most friendly, but there was an indefinable +difference between it and all the others, which Draxy felt without knowing +that she felt it, and her last words to her father as she bade him good-by +from the car window were: "I don't feel so sure as I did about our staying +with Mr. Kinney, father. You leave it all to me, do you, dear, even if I +decide to buy a house?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, daughter," said Reuben, heartily; "all! Nothing but good's ever come +yet of your way o' doin' things."</p> + +<p>"An' I don't in the least hanker after that Injun," he called out as the +cars began to move. Draxy laughed merrily. Reuben was a new man already. +They were very gay together, and felt wonderfully little fear for people +to whom life had been thus far so hard.</p> + +<p>There was not a misgiving in Draxy's heart as she set out again on a two +days' journey to an unknown place. "Oh how different from the day when I +started before," she thought as she looked out on the water sparkling +under the bright May sun. She spent the first night, as before, at the +house of Captain Melville's brother, and set out at eight the following +morning, to ride for ten hours steadily northward. The day was like a day +of June. The spring was opening early; already fruit-trees were white and +pink; banks were green, and birds were noisy.</p> + +<p>By noon mountains came in sight. Draxy was spellbound. "They are grander +than the sea," thought she, "and I never dreamed it; and they are loving, +too. I should like to rest my cheek on them."</p> + +<p>As she drew nearer and nearer, and saw some tops still white with snow, +her heart beat faster, and with a sudden pang almost of +conscience-stricken remorse, she exclaimed, "Oh, I shall never, never once +miss the sea!"</p> + +<p>Elder Kinney had borrowed Eben Hill's horse and wagon to drive over for +Draxy. He was at the station half an hour before the train was due. It had +been years since the steady currents of his life had been so disturbed and +hurried as they were by this little girl.</p> + +<p>"Looks like rain, Elder; I 'spect she'll have to go over with me arter +all," said George Thayer, the handsomest, best-natured stage-driver in the +whole State of New Hampshire. The Elder glanced anxiously at the sky.</p> + +<p>"No, I guess not, George," he replied. "'Twon't be anything more'n a +shower, an' I've got an umbrella and a buffalo-robe. I can keep her dry."</p> + +<p>Everybody at the station knew Draxy's story, and knew that the Elder had +come to meet her. When the train stopped, all eyes eagerly scanned the +passengers who stepped out on the platform. Two men, a boy, and three +women, one after the other; it was but a moment, and the train was off +again.</p> + +<p>"She hain't come," exclaimed voice after voice. The Elder said nothing; he +had stood a little apart from the crowd, watching for his ideal Draxy; as +soon as he saw that she was not there, he had fallen into a perplexed +reverie as to the possible causes of her detention. He was sorely anxious +about the child. "Jest's like's not, she never changed cars down at the +Junction," thought he, "an' 's half way to Montreal by this time," and +the Elder felt hot with resentment against Reuben Miller.</p> + +<p>Meantime, beautiful, dignified, and unconscious, Draxy stood on the +platform, quietly looking at face after face, seeking for the white hair +and gentle eyes of her trusted friend, the old minister.</p> + +<p>George Thayer, with the quick instinct of a stage-driver, was the first to +see that she was a stranger.</p> + +<p>"Where d'ye wish to go, ma'am?" said he, stepping towards her.</p> + +<p>"Thank you," said Draxy, "I expected some one to meet me," and she looked +uneasy; but reassured by the pleasant face, she went on: "the minister +from Clairvend village was to meet me here."</p> + +<p>George Thayer said, two hours afterward, in recounting his share of the +adventure, "I tell ye, boys, when she said that ye might ha' knocked me +down with a feather. I hain't never heard no other woman's voice that's +got jest the sound to't hern has; an' what with that, an' thinkin' how +beat the Elder'd be, an' wonderin' who in thunder she was anyhow, I don't +believe I opened my dum lips for a full minute; but she kind o' smiled, +and sez she, 'Do you know Mr. Kinney?' and that brought me to, and jest +then the Elder he come along, and so I introduced 'em."</p> + +<p>It was not exactly an introduction, however. The Elder, entirely absorbed +in conjecture as to poor little Draxy's probable whereabouts, stumbled on +the platform steps and nearly fell at her very feet, and was recalled to +himself only to be plunged into still greater confusion by George Thayer's +loud "Hallo! here he is. Here's Elder Kinney. Here's a lady askin' for +you, Elder!"</p> + +<p>Even yet it did not dawn upon Elder Kinney who this could be; his little +golden-haired girl was too vividly stamped on his brain; he looked gravely +into the face of this tall and fine-looking young woman and said kindly, +"Did you wish to see me, ma'am?"</p> + +<p>Draxy smiled. She began to understand. "I am afraid you did not expect to +see me so tall, sir," she said. "I am Reuben Miller's daughter,--Draxy," +she added, smiling again, but beginning in her turn to look confused. +Could this erect, vigorous man, with a half-stern look on his dark-bearded +face, be the right Mr. Kinney? her minister? It was a moment which neither +Elder Kinney nor Draxy ever forgot. The unsentimental but kindly George +gave the best description of it which could be given.</p> + +<p>"I vow, boys, I jest wish ye could ha' seen our Elder; an' yet, I dunno's +I do wish so, nuther. He stood a twistin' his hat, jest like any o' us, +an' he kind o' stammered, an' I don't believe neither on 'em knew a word +he said; an' her cheeks kep' gittin' redder'n redder, an' she looked's ef +she was ready to cry, and yet she couldn't keep from larfin, no how. Ye +see she thought he was an old man and he thought she was a little gal, an' +somehow't first they didn't either of 'em feel like nobody; but when I +passed 'em in the road, jest out to Four Corners, they was talkin' as easy +and nateral as could be; an' the Elder he looked some like himself, and +she--wall, boys, you jest wait till you see her; that's all I've got to +say. Ef she ain't a picter!"</p> + +<p>The drive to the village seemed long, however, to both Draxy and the +Elder. Their previous conceptions of each other had been too firmly rooted +to be thus overthrown without a great jar. The Elder felt Draxy's +simplicity and child-like truthfulness more and more with each word she +spoke; but her quiet dignity of manner was something to which he was +unused; to his inexperience she seemed almost a fine lady, in spite of her +sweet and guileless speech. Draxy, on the other hand, was a little +repelled by the Elder's whole appearance. He was a rougher man than she +had known; his pronunciation grated on her ear; and he looked so strong +and dark she felt a sort of fear of him. But the next morning, when Draxy +came down in her neat calico gown and white apron, the Elder's face +brightened.</p> + +<p>"Good morning, my child," he said. "You look as fresh as a pink." The +tears came into Draxy's eyes at the word "child," said as her father said +it.</p> + +<p>"I don't look so old then, this morning, do I, sir?" she asked in a +pleading tone which made the Elder laugh. He was more himself this +morning. All was well. Draxy sat down to breakfast with a lighter heart.</p> + +<p>When Draxy was sitting she looked very young. Her face was as childlike as +it was beautiful: and her attitudes were all singularly unconscious and +free. It was when she rose that her womanhood revealed itself to the +perpetual surprise of every one. As breakfast went on the Elder gradually +regained his old feeling about her; his nature was as simple, as +spontaneous as hers; he called her "child" again several times in the +course of the meal. But when at the end of it Draxy rose, tall, erect, +almost majestic in her fullness of stature, he felt again singularly +removed from her.</p> + +<p>"'Ud puzzle any man to say whether she's a child or a woman," said the +Elder to himself. But his face shone with pleasure as he walked by her +side out into the little front yard. Draxy was speechless with delight. In +the golden east stretched a long range of mountains, purple to the top; +down in the valley, a mile below the Elder's house, lay the village; a +little shining river ran side by side with its main street. To the north +were high hills, some dark green and wooded, some of brown pasture land.</p> + +<p>"Oh, sir," said Draxy, "is there any other spot in your mountain land so +beautiful as this?"</p> + +<p>"No, not one," said the Elder, "not one;" and he, too, looked out silently +on the scene.</p> + +<p>Presently Draxy exclaimed, with a sigh, "Oh, it makes me feel like crying +to think of my father's seeing this!"</p> + +<p>"Shall I tell you now about my father, sir?" she continued; "you ought to +know all about us, you have been so good."</p> + +<p>Then sitting on the low step of the door, while the Elder sat in an +arm-chair in the porch, Draxy told the story of her father's life, and, +unconsciously, of her own. More than once the Elder wiped his eyes; more +than once he rose and walked up and down before the door, gazing with +undefined but intense emotion at this woman telling her pathetic story +with the simple-hearted humility of a child. Draxy looked younger than +ever curled up in the doorway, with her hands lying idle on her white +apron. The Elder was on the point of stroking her hair. Suddenly she rose, +and said, "But I am taking too much of your time, sir; will you take me +now to see the house you spoke of, which we could hire?" She was again the +majestic young woman. The Elder was again thrown back, and puzzled.</p> + +<p>He tried to persuade her to give up all idea of hiring the house: to make +his house their home for the present. But she replied steadfastly, "I must +look at the house, sir, before I decide." They walked down into the +village together. Draxy was utterly unconscious of observation, but the +Elder knew only too well that every eye of Clairvend was at some +window-pane studying his companion's face and figure. All whom they met +stared so undisguisedly that, fearing Draxy would be annoyed, he said,--</p> + +<p>"You mustn't mind the folks staring so at you. You see they've been +talkin' the matter all over about the land, an' your comin', for a month, +an' it's no more than natural they should want to know how you look;" and +he, too, looked admiringly at Draxy's face.</p> + +<p>"Oh," said Draxy (it was a new idea to her mind), "I never thought of +that."</p> + +<p>"I hope they are all glad we are coming, sir," added she, a moment after.</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, yes; they're glad enough. 'Taint often anything happens up here, +you know, and they've all thought everything of you since your first +letter came."</p> + +<p>Draxy colored. She had not dreamed of taking a whole village into her +confidence. But she was glad of the friendliness; and she met every +inquisitive gaze after this with an open, responsive look of such beaming +good-will that she made friends of all whom she saw. One or two stopped +and spoke; most were afraid to do so, unconsciously repelled, as the Elder +had been at first, by something in Draxy's dress and bearing which to +their extreme inexperience suggested the fine lady. Nothing could have +been plainer than Draxy's cheap gray gown; but her dress always had +character: the tiniest knot of ribbon at her throat assumed the look of a +decoration; and many a lady for whom she worked had envied her the +expression of her simple clothes.</p> + +<p>The house would not answer. Draxy shook her head as soon as she saw it, +and when the Elder told her that in the spring freshets the river washed +into the lower story, she turned instantly away, and said, "Let us go +home, sir; I must think of something else."</p> + +<p>At dinner Draxy was preoccupied, and anxious. The expression of perplexity +made her look older, but no less beautiful. Elder Kinney gazed at her +more steadily than he knew; and he did not call her "child" again.</p> + +<p>After dinner he took her over the house, explaining to her, at every turn, +how useless most of the rooms were to him. In truth, the house was +admirably adapted for two families, with the exception that there was but +one kitchen. "But that could be built on in a very few days, and would +cost very little," said the Elder eagerly. Already all the energies of his +strong nature were kindled by the resolve to keep Draxy under his roof.</p> + +<p>"I suppose it might be so built that it could be easily moved off and +added to our own house when we build for ourselves," said Draxy, +reflectively.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes," said the Elder, "no sort o' trouble about that," and he glowed +with delight. He felt sure that his cause was gained.</p> + +<p>But he found Draxy very inflexible. There was but one arrangement of which +she would think for a moment. It was, that the Elder should let to them +one half of his house, and that the two families should be entirely +distinct. Until the new kitchen and out-buildings were finished, if the +Elder would consent to take them as boarders, they would live with him; +"otherwise, sir, I must find some one in the village who will take us," +said Draxy in a quiet tone, which Elder Kinney knew instinctively was not +to be argued with. It was a novel experience for the Elder in more ways +than one. He was used to having his parishioners, especially the women, +yield implicitly to his advice. This gentle-voiced girl, who said to him, +"Don't you think, sir?" in an appealing tone which made his blood quicken, +but who afterward, when she disagreed with him, stood her ground +immovably even against entreaties, was a phenomenon in his life. He began +to stand in awe of her. When some one said to him on the third day after +Draxy's arrival: "Well, Elder, I don't know what she'd ha' done without +you," he replied emphatically, "Done without me! You'll find out that all +Reuben Miller's daughter wants of anybody is jest to let her know exactly +how things lay. She ain't beholden to anybody for opinions. She's as +trustin' as a baby, while you're tellin' her facts, but I'd like to see +anybody make her change her mind about what's best to be done; and I +reckon she's generally right; what's more, she's one of the Lord's +favorites, an' He ain't above guidin' in small things no mor'n in great."</p> + +<p>No wonder Elder Kinney was astonished. In forty-eight hours Draxy had +rented one half of his house, made a contract with a carpenter for the +building of a kitchen and out-buildings on the north side of it, engaged +board at the Elder's table for her parents and herself for a month, and +hired Bill Sims to be her father's head man for one year. All the while +she seemed as modestly grateful to the Elder as if he had done it all for +her. On the afternoon of the second day she said to him:--</p> + +<p>"Now, sir, what is the nearest place for me to buy our furniture?"</p> + +<p>"Why, ain't you goin' to use mine--at least's far's it goes?" said the +poor Elder. "I thought that was in the bargain."</p> + +<p>Draxy looked disturbed. "Oh, how careless of me," she said; "I am afraid +nothing was said about it. But we cannot do that; my father would dislike +it; and as we must have furniture for our new house, we might as well have +it now. I have seven hundred dollars with me, sir; father thought I might +decide to buy a house, and have to pay something down."</p> + +<p>"Please don't be angry with me," she added pleadingly, for the Elder +looked vexed. "You know if I am sure my father would prefer a thing, I +must do it."</p> + +<p>The Elder was disarmed.</p> + +<p>"Well, if you are set on buyin' furniture," he said, "I shouldn't wonder +if you'd have a chance to buy all you'd want cheap down at Squire +Williams's sale in Mill Creek. His wife died the night your first letter +came, an' I heard somebody say he was goin' to sell all out; an' they've +always been well-to-do, the Williamses, an' I reckon you'd fancy some o' +their things better'n anything you'd get at the stores."</p> + +<p>Already the Elder began to divine Draxy's tastes; to feel that she had +finer needs than the women he had known. In less than an hour he was at +the door with Eben Hill's horse and wagon to take Draxy to Squire +Williams's house.</p> + +<p>"Jest more o' the same Providence that follows that girl," thought he when +he saw Draxy's eyes fairly dilate with pleasure as he led her into the +old-fashioned parlor, where the furniture was piled and crowded ready for +the auction.</p> + +<p>"Oh, will they not cost too much for me, dear Mr. Kinney?" whispered +Draxy.</p> + +<p>"No, I guess not," he said, "there ain't much biddin' at these sort of +sales up here," and he mentally resolved that nothing Draxy wanted should +cost too much for her.</p> + +<p>The sale was to be the next day. Draxy made a careful list of the things +she would like to buy. The Elder was to come over and bid them off for +her.</p> + +<p>"Now you just go over 'em again," said the Elder, "and mark off what you'd +like to have if they didn't cost anything, because sometimes things go +for's good 's nothing, if nobody happens to want 'em." So Draxy made a +second list, and laughing a little girlish laugh as she handed the papers +to the Elder, pointed to the words "must haves" at the head of the first +list, and "would-like-to-haves" at the head of the second. The Elder put +them both in his breast-pocket, and he and Draxy drove home.</p> + +<p>The next night two great loads of Squire Williams's furniture were carried +into Elder Kinney's house. As article after article was taken in, Draxy +clapped her hands and almost screamed with delight; all her +"would-like-to-haves" were there. "Oh, the clock, the clock! Have I really +got that, too!" she exclaimed, and she turned to the Elder, half crying, +and said, "How shall I ever thank you, sir?"</p> + +<p>The Elder was uncomfortable. He was in a dilemma. He had not been able to +resist buying the clock for Draxy. He dared not tell her what he had paid +for it. "She'd never let me give her a cent's worth, I know that well +enough. It would be just like her to make me take it back," thought he. +Luckily Draxy was too absorbed in her new riches, all the next day, to ask +for her accounts, and by the next night the Elder had deliberately +resolved to make false returns on his papers as to the price of several +articles. "I'll tell her all about it one o' these days when she knows me +better," he comforted himself by thinking; "I never did think Ananias was +an out an' out liar. It couldn't be denied that all he did say was true!" +and the Elder resolutely and successfully tried to banish the subject from +his mind by thinking about Draxy.</p> + +<p>The furniture was, much of it, valuable old mahogany, dark in color and +quaint in shape. Draxy could hardly contain herself with delight, as she +saw the expression it gave to the rooms; it had cost so little that she +ventured to spend a small sum for muslin curtains, new papers, bright +chintz, and shelves here and there. When all was done, she herself was +astonished at the result. The little home was truly lovely. "Oh, sir, my +father has never had a pretty home like this in all his life," said she to +the Elder, who stood in the doorway of the sitting-room looking with +half-pained wonder at the transformation. He felt, rather than saw, how +lovely the rooms looked; he could not help being glad to see Draxy so +glad; but he felt farther removed from her by this power of hers to create +what he could but dimly comprehend. Already he unconsciously weighed all +things in new balances; already he began to have a strange sense of +humility in the presence of this woman.</p> + +<p>Ten days from the day that Draxy arrived in Clairvend she drove over with +the Elder to meet her father and mother at the station. She had arranged +that the Elder should carry her father back in the wagon; she and her +mother would go in the stage. She counted much on the long, pleasant drive +through the woods as an opening to the acquaintance between her father and +the Elder. She had been too busy to write any but the briefest letters +home, and had said very little about him. To her last note she had added a +post-script,--</p> + +<p>"I am sure you will like Mr. Kinney, father. He is very kind and very +good. But he is not old as we thought."</p> + +<p>To the Elder she said, as they drove over, "I think you will love my +father, sir, and I know you will do him good. But he will not say much at +first; you will have to talk," and Draxy smiled. The Elder and she +understood each other very well.</p> + +<p>"I don't think there's much danger o' my not lovin' him," replied the +Elder; "by all you tell he must be uncommon lovable." Draxy turned on him +such a beaming smile that he could not help adding, "an' I should think +his bein' your father was enough."</p> + +<p>Draxy looked seriously in his face, and said "Oh, Mr. Kinney, I'm not +anything by the side of father."</p> + +<p>The Elder's eyes twinkled.</p> + +<p>It was a silent though joyful group which gathered around the Elder's +tea-table that night.</p> + +<p>Reuben and Jane were tired, bewildered, but their eyes rested on Draxy +with perpetual smiles. Draxy also smiled more than she spoke. The Elder +felt himself half out of place and wished to go away, but Draxy looked +grieved at his proposal to do so, and he stayed. But nobody could eat, and +old Nancy, who had spent her utmost resources on the supper, was cruelly +disappointed. She bustled in and out on various pretenses, but at last +could keep silence no longer. "Seems to me ye've dreadful slim appetites +for folks that's been travellin' all day. Perhaps ye don't like yer +victuals," she said, glancing sharply at Reuben.</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, madame, yes," said poor Reuben, nervously, "everything is very +nice; much nicer than I am used to."</p> + +<p>Draxy laughed aloud. "My father never eats when he is tired, Nancy. You'll +see how he'll eat to-morrow."</p> + +<p>After Nancy had left the room, Reuben wiped his forehead, and Draxy +laughed again in spite of herself. Old Nancy had been so kind and willing +in helping her, she had grown fond of her, and had quite forgotten her +father's dread. When Reuben bade Draxy good-night, he said under his +breath, "I like your Elder very much, daughter; but I don't know how I'm +ever goin' to stand livin' with that Injun."</p> + +<p>"My Elder," said Draxy to herself as she went up-stairs, "he's everybody's +Elder--and the Lord's most of all I think," and she went to sleep thinking +of the solemn words which she had heard him speak on the last Sunday.</p> + +<p>It was strange how soon the life of the new household adjusted itself; how +full the days were, and how swift. The summer was close upon them; +Reuben's old farmer instincts and habits revived in full force. Bill Sims +proved a most efficient helper; he had been Draxy's sworn knight, from the +moment of her first interview with him. There would be work on Reuben's +farm for many hands, but Reuben was in no haste. The sugar camp assured +him of an income which was wealth to their simple needs; and he wished to +act advisedly and cautiously in undertaking new enterprises. All the land +was wild land--much of it deep swamps. The maple orchard was the only part +immediately profitable. The village people came at once to see them. +Everybody was touched by Jane's worn face and gentle ways; her silence did +not repel them; everybody liked Draxy too, and admired her, but many were +a little afraid of her. The village men had said that she was "the +smartest woman that had ever set foot in Clairvend village," and human +nature is human nature. It would take a great deal of Draxy's kindly +good-will to make her sister women forgive her for being cleverer than +they. Draxy and Reuben were inseparable. They drove; they walked; even +into the swamps courageous Draxy penetrated with her father and Bill Sims, +as they went about surveying the land; and it was Draxy's keen instinct +which in many cases suggested where improvements could be made.</p> + +<p>In the mean time Elder Kinney's existence had become transformed. He dared +not to admit himself how much it meant, this new delight in simply being +alive, for back of his delight lurked a desperate fear; he dared not move. +Day after day he spent more and more time in the company of Draxy and her +father. Reuben and he were fast becoming close friends. Reuben's gentle, +trustful nature found repose in the Elder's firm, sturdy downrightness, +much as it had in Captain Melville's; and the Elder would have loved +Reuben if he had not been Draxy's father. But to Draxy he seemed to draw +no nearer. She was the same frank, affectionate, merry, puzzling +woman-child that she had been at first; yet as he saw more and more how +much she knew of books which he did not know, of people, and of affairs of +which he had never heard--how fluently, graciously, and even wisely she +could talk, he felt himself cut off from her. Her sweet, low tones and +distinct articulation tortured him while they fascinated him; they seemed +to set her so apart. In fact, each separate charm she had, produced in the +poor Elder's humble heart a mixture of delight and pain which could not be +analyzed and could not long be borne.</p> + +<p>He exaggerated all his own defects of manner, and speech, and education; +he felt uncomfortable in Draxy's presence, in spite of all the +affectionate reverence with which she treated him; he said to himself +fifty times a day, "It's only my bein' a minister that makes her think +anythin' o' me." The Elder was fast growing wretched.</p> + +<p>But Draxy was happy. She was still in some ways more child than woman. Her +peculiar training had left her imagination singularly free from fancies +concerning love and marriage. The Elder was a central interest in her +life; she would have said instantly and cordially that she loved him +dearly. She saw him many times every day; she knew all his outgoings and +incomings; she knew the first step of his foot on the threshold; she felt +that he belonged to them, and they to him. Yet as a woman thinks of the +man whose wife she longs to be, Draxy had never once thought of Elder +Kinney.</p> + +<p>But when the new kitchen was finished, and the Millers entered on their +separate housekeeping, a change came. As Reuben and Jane and Draxy sat +down for the first time alone together at their tea-table, Reuben said +cheerily:--</p> + +<p>"Now this seems like old times. This is nice."</p> + +<p>"Yes," replied Jane. Draxy did not speak. Reuben looked at her. She +colored suddenly, deeply, and said with desperate honesty,--</p> + +<p>"Yes, father; but I can't help thinking how lonely Mr. Kinney must be."</p> + +<p>"Well, I declare," said Reuben, conscience-stricken; "I suppose he must +be; I hate to think on't. But we'll have him in here's often's he'll +come."</p> + +<p>Just the other side of the narrow entry sat the Elder, leaning both his +elbows on the table, and looking over at the vacant place where the night +before, and for thirty nights before, Draxy had sat. It was more than he +could bear. He sprang up, and leaving his supper untasted, walked out of +the house.</p> + +<p>Draxy heard him go. Draxy had passed in that moment into a new world. She +divined all.</p> + +<p>"He hasn't eaten any supper," thought she; and she listened intently to +hear him come in again. The clock struck ten, he had not returned! Draxy +went to bed, but she could not sleep. The little house was still; the warm +white moonlight lay like summer snow all over it; Draxy looked out of her +window; the Elder was slowly coming up the hill; Draxy knelt down like a +little child and said, "God bless him," and crept back to bed. When she +heard him shut his bedroom door she went to sleep.</p> + +<p>The next day Draxy's eyes did not look as they had looked the day before. +When Elder Kinney first saw her, she was coming down stairs. He was +standing at the foot of the staircase and waited to say "Good morning." +As he looked up at her, he started back and exclaimed: "Why, Draxy, what's +the matter?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing is the matter, sir," said Draxy, as she stepped from the last +stair, and standing close in front of him, lifted the new, sweet, softened +eyes up to his. Draxy was as simple and sincere in this as in all other +emotions and acts of her life. She had no coquetry in her nature. She had +no distinct thought either of a new relation between herself and the +Elder. She simply felt a new oneness with him; and she could not have +understood the suggestion of concealment. If Elder Kinney had been a man +of the world, he would have folded Draxy to his heart that instant. If he +had been even a shade less humble and self-disrustful, he would have done +it, as it was. But he never dreamed that he might. He folded his empty +arms very tight over his faithful, aching, foolish heart, and tried to say +calmly and naturally, "Are you sure? Seems to me you don't look quite +well."</p> + +<p>But after that morning he never felt wholly without hope. He could not +tell precisely why. Draxy did not seek him, did not avoid him. She was +perhaps a little less merry; said fewer words; but she looked glad, and +more than glad. "I think it's the eyes," he said to himself again and +again, as he tried to analyze the new look on Draxy's face which gave him +hope. These were sweet days. There are subtle joys for lovers who dwell +side by side in one house, together and yet apart. The very air is loaded +with significance to them--the door, the window, the stairway. Always +there is hope of meeting; always there is consciousness of presence; +everywhere a mysterious sense that the loved one has passed by. More than +once Seth Kinney knelt and laid his cheek on the stairs which Draxy's feet +had just ascended! Often sweet, guileless Draxy thought, as she went up +and down, "Ah, the dear feet that go over these stairs." One day the +Elder, as he passed by the wall of the room where he knew Draxy was +sitting, brushed his great hand and arm against it so heavily that she +started, thinking he had stumbled. But as the firm step went on, without +pausing, she smiled, she hardly knew why. The next time he did it she laid +down her work, locked and unlocked her hands, and looking toward the door, +whispered under her breath, "Dear hands!" Finally this became almost a +habit of his; he did not at first think Draxy would hear it; but he felt, +as he afterwards told her, "like a great affectionate dog going by her +door, and that was all he could do. He would have liked to lie down on the +rug."</p> + +<p>These were very sweet days; spite of his misgivings, Elder Kinney was +happy; and Draxy, in spite of her unconsciousness, seemed to herself to be +living in a blissful dream. But a sweeter day came.</p> + +<p>One Saturday evening Reuben said to Draxy,--</p> + +<p>"Daughter, I've done somethin' I'm afraid'll trouble you. I've told th' +Elder about your verses, an' showed him the hymn you wrote when you was +tryin' to give it all up about the land."</p> + +<p>"Oh, father, how could you," gasped Draxy; and she looked as if she would +cry.</p> + +<p>Reuben could not tell just how it happened. It seemed to have come out +before he knew it, and after it had, he could not help showing the hymn.</p> + +<p>Draxy was very seriously disturbed; but she tried to conceal it from her +father, and the subject was dropped.</p> + +<p>The next morning Elder Kinney preached--it seemed to his people--as he +never preached before. His subject was self-renunciation, and he spoke as +one who saw the waving palms of the martyrs and heard their shouts of joy. +There were few dry eyes in the little meeting-house. Tears rolled down +Draxy's face. But she looked up suddenly, on hearing Elder Kinney say, in +an unsteady voice,--</p> + +<p>"My bretherin, I'm goin' to read to you now a hymn which comes nigher to +expressin' my idea of the kind of resignation God likes than any hymn +that's ever been written or printed in any hymn-book;" and then he +began:--</p> + +<p>"I cannot think but God must know," etc.</p> + +<p>Draxy's first feeling was one of resentment; but it was a very short-lived +one. The earnest tone, the solemn stillness of the wondering people, the +peaceful summer air floating in at the open windows,--all lifted her out +of herself, and made her glad to hear her own hymn read by the man she +loved, for the worship of God. But her surprise was still greater when the +choir began to sing the lines to a quaint old Methodist tune. They had +been provided with written copies of the hymn, and had practiced it so +faithfully that they sang it well. Draxy broke down and sobbed for a few +moments, so that Elder Kinney was on the point of forgetting everything, +and springing to her side. He had not supposed that anything in the world +could so overthrow Draxy's composure. He did not know how much less +strong her nerves were now than they had been two months before.</p> + +<p>After church, Draxy walked home alone very rapidly. She did not wish to +see any one. She was glad that her father and mother had not been there. +She could not understand the tumult of her feelings.</p> + +<p>At twilight, she stole out of the back door of the house, and walked down +to a little brook which ran near by. As she stood leaning against a young +maple tree she heard steps, and without looking up, knew that the Elder +was coming. She did not move nor speak. He waited some minutes in silence. +Then he said "Oh, Draxy! I never once thought o' painin' you! I thought +you'd like it. Hymns are made to be sung, dear; and that one o' yours is +so beautiful!" He spoke as gently as her father might, and in a voice she +hardly knew. Draxy made no reply. The Elder had never seen her like this. +Her lips quivered, and he saw tears in her eyes.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Draxy, do look up at me--just once! You don't know how hard it is for +a man to think he's hurt anybody--like you!" stammered the poor Elder, +ending his sentence quite differently from what he had intended.</p> + +<p>Draxy smiled through her tears, and looking up, said: "But I am not hurt, +Mr. Kinney; I don't know what I am crying for, sir;" and her eyes fell +again.</p> + +<p>The Elder looked down upon her in silence. Moments passed. "Oh, if I could +make her look up at me again!" he thought. His unspoken wish stirred her +veins; slowly she lifted her eyes; they were calm now, and unutterably +loving. They were more than the Elder could bear."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Draxy, Draxy!" exclaimed he, stretching out both his arms towards +her.</p> + +<blockquote><p> "My heart grows weaker and more weak<br /> +With looking on the thing so dear<br /> +Which lies so far, and yet so near!"</p></blockquote> + +<p>Slowly, very slowly, like a little child learning to walk, with her eyes +full of tears, but her mouth smiling, Draxy moved towards the Elder. He +did not stir, partly because he could not, but partly because he would not +lose one instant of the deliciousness of seeing her, feeling her come.</p> + +<p>When they went back to the house, Reuben was sitting in the porch. The +Elder took his hand and said:</p> + +<p>"Mr. Miller, I meant to have asked you first; but God didn't give me +time."</p> + +<p>Reuben smiled.</p> + +<p>"You've's good's asked me a good while back, Elder; an' I take it you +haint ever had much doubt what my answer'd be." Then, as Draxy knelt down +by his chair and laid her head on his shoulder, he added more solemnly,--</p> + +<p>"But I'd jest like once to say to ye, Elder, that if ever I get to heaven, +I wouldn't ask anythin' more o' the Lord than to let me see Draxy 'n' you +a comin' in together, an' lookin' as you looked jest now when ye come in't +that gate!"</p> +</div> + + +<div class="chapter" id="ch02"> +<h2>The Elder's Wife.</h2> + +<h3>Sequel to "Draxy Miller's Dowry."</h3> + + + +<h3>Part I.</h3> + + +<p>Draxy and the Elder were married in the little village church, on the +first Sunday in September.</p> + +<p>"O Draxy! let it be on a communion Sunday," the Elder had said, with an +expression on his face which Draxy could not quite fathom; "I can't tell +you what it 'ud be to me to promise myself over again to the blessed +Saviour, the same hour I promise to you, darling, I'm so afraid of loving +Him less. I don't see how I can remember anything about heaven, after I've +got you, Draxy," and tears stood in the Elder's eyes.</p> + +<p>Draxy looked at him wonderingly and with a little pain in her face. To her +serene nature, heaven and earth, this life and all the others which may +follow it, had so long seemed one--love and happiness and duty had become +so blended in one sweet atmosphere of living in daily nearness to God, +that she could not comprehend the Elder's words.</p> + +<p>"Why, Mr. Kinney, it's all Christ," she said, slowly and hesitatingly, +slipping her hand into his, and looking up at him so lovingly that his +face flushed, and he threw his arms around her, and only felt a thousand +times more that heaven had come to mean but one thing to him.</p> + +<p>"Darling," he whispered, "would you feel so if I were to die and leave you +alone?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I think so," said Draxy, still more slowly, and turning very pale. +"You never can really leave me, and no human being can be really alone; it +would still be all Christ, and it would be living His life and God's +still;" but tears rolled down her cheeks, and she began to sob.</p> + +<p>"Oh, forgive me, Draxy," exclaimed the Elder, wrung to the heart by the +sight of her grief. "I'm nothing but a great brute to say that to you just +now; but, Draxy, you don't know much about a man's heart yet; you're such +a saint yourself, you can't understand how it makes a man feel as if this +earth was enough, and he didn't want any heaven, when he loves a woman as +I love you," and the Elder threw himself on the ground at Draxy's feet, +and laid his face down reverently on the hem of her gown. There were fiery +depths in this man's nature of which he had never dreamed, until this +fair, sweet, strong womanhood crossed his path. His love of Draxy kindled +and transformed his whole consciousness of himself and of life; it was no +wonder that he felt terrors; that he asked himself many times a day what +had become of the simple-minded, earnest, contented worker he used to be. +He was full of vague and restless yearnings; he longed to do, to be, to +become, he knew not what, but something that should be more of kin to this +beautiful nature he worshipped--something that should give her great +joy--something in which she could feel great pride.</p> + +<p>"It ain't right, I know it ain't right, to feel so about any mortal," he +would say to himself; "that's the way I used to feel about Jesus. I wanted +to do all for Him, and now I want to do all for Draxy," and the great, +tender, perplexed heart was sorely afraid of its new bliss.</p> + +<p>They were sitting in the maple grove behind the house. In the tree under +which they sat was a yellow-hammer's nest. The two birds had been +fluttering back and forth in the branches for some time. Suddenly they +both spread their wings and flew swiftly away in opposite directions. +Draxy looked up, smiling through her tears, and, pointing to the fast +fading specks in the distant air, said,--</p> + +<p>"It would be like that. They are both sent on errands. They won't see each +other again till the errands are done."</p> + +<p>The Elder looked into her illumined face, and, sighing, said: "I can't +help prayin' that the Lord'll have errands for us that we can do together +as long's we live, Draxy."</p> + +<p>"Yes, dear," said Draxy, "I pray for that too," and then they were silent +for some minutes. Draxy spoke first. "But Mr. Kinney, I never heard of +anybody's being married on Sunday--did you?"</p> + +<p>"No," said the Elder, "I never did, but I've always thought it was the +only day a man ought to be married on; I mean the most beautiful, the +sweetest day."</p> + +<p>"Yes," replied Draxy, a solemn and tender light spreading over her whole +face, "it certainly is. I wonder why nobody has ever thought so before. +But perhaps many people have," she added with a merrier smile; "we don't +know everybody."</p> + +<p>Presently she looked up anxiously and said:</p> + +<p>"But do you think the people would like it? Wouldn't they think it very +strange?"</p> + +<p>The Elder hesitated. He, too, had thought of this.</p> + +<p>"Well, I tell you, Draxy, it's just this way: I've tried more than once to +get some of them to come and be married on a Sunday in church, and they +wouldn't, just because they never heard of it before; and I'd like to have +them see that I was in true earnest about it. And they like you so well, +Draxy, and you know they do all love me a great deal more'n I deserve, and +I can't help believing it will do them good all their lives by making them +think more how solemn a thing a marriage ought to be, if they take it as I +think they will; and I do think I know them well enough to be pretty +sure."</p> + +<p>So it was settled that the marriage should take place after the morning +sermon, immediately before the communion service. When Reuben was told of +this, his face expressed such absolute amazement that Draxy laughed +outright, in spite of the deep solemnity of her feeling in regard to it.</p> + +<p>"Why, father," she said, "you couldn't look more surprised if I had told +you I was not to be married at all."</p> + +<p>"But Draxy, Draxy," Reuben gasped, "who ever heard of such a thing? What +will folks say?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know that anybody ever heard of such a thing, father dear," +answered Draxy, "but I am not afraid of what the people will say. They +love Mr. Kinney, and he has always told them that Sunday was the day to be +married on. I shouldn't wonder if every young man and young woman in the +parish looked on it in a new and much holier light after this. I know I +began to as soon as the Elder talked about it, and it wouldn't seem right +to me now to be married on any other day," and Draxy stooped and kissed +her father's forehead very tenderly. There was a tenderness in Draxy's +manner now towards every one which can hardly be described in words. It +had a mixture of humility and of gracious bestowal in it, of entreaty and +of benediction, which were ineffably beautiful and winning. It is ever so +when a woman, who is as strong as she is sweet, comes into the fullness of +her womanhood's estate of love. Her joy overflows on all; currents of +infinite compassion set towards those who must miss that by which she is +thrilled; her incredulity of her own bliss is forever questioning humbly; +she feels herself forever in presence of her lover, at once rich and free +and a queen, and poor and chained and a vassal. So her largess is +perpetual, involuntary, unconscious, and her appeal is tender, wistful, +beseeching. In Draxy's large nature,--her pure, steadfast, loving soul, +quickened and exalted by the swift currents of an exquisitely attuned and +absolutely healthful body,--this new life of love and passion wrought a +change which was vivid and palpable to the commonest eyes. Men and women +upon whom she smiled, in passing, felt themselves lifted and drawn, they +knew not how. A sentiment of love, which had almost reverence in it, grew +up towards her in the hearts of the people. A certain touch of sadness, of +misgiving, mingled with it.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid she ain't long for this world; she's got such a look o' heaven +in her face," was said more than once, in grieving tones, when the Elder's +approaching marriage was talked of. But old Ike was farther sighted, in +his simplicity, than the rest. "'Tain't that," he said, "that woman's got +in her face. It's the kind o' heaven that God sends down to stay'n this +world, to help make us fit for the next. Shouldn't wonder ef she outlived +th' Elder a long day," and Ike wiped his old eyes slyly with the back of +his hand.</p> + +<p>The day of the marriage was one of those shining September days which only +mountain regions know. The sky was cloudless and of a transcendent blue. +The air was soft as the air of June. Draxy's young friends had decorated +the church with evergreens and clematis vines; and on each side of the +communion-table were tall sheaves of purple asters and golden-rod. Two +children were to be baptized at noon, and on a little table, at the right +of the pulpit, stood the small silver baptismal font, wreathed with white +asters and the pale feathery green of the clematis seed.</p> + +<p>When Draxy walked up the aisle leaning on her father's arm, wearing the +same white dress she had worn on Sundays all summer, it cannot be denied +that there were sighs of disappointment in some of the pews. The people +had hoped for something more. Draxy had kept her own counsel on this point +closely, replying to all inquiries as to what she would wear, "White, of +course," but replying in such a tone that no one had quite dared to ask +more, and there had even been those in the parish who "reckoned" that she +wouldn't "be satisfied with anythin' less than white satin." Her head was +bare, her beautiful brown hair wound tightly round and round in the same +massive knot as usual. Her only ornaments were the creamy white blossoms +of the low cornel; one cluster in the braids of her hair, and one on her +bosom. As she entered the pew and sat down by the side of her mother, +slanting sunbeams from the southern windows fell upon her head, lighting +up the bright hair till it looked like a saintly halo. Elder Kinney sat in +the pulpit, with his best loved friend, Elder Williams, who was to preach +that day and perform the marriage ceremony. When Draxy and her father +entered the door, Elder Kinney rose and remained standing until they +reached their pew. As Draxy sat down and the golden sunbeams flickered +around her, the Elder sank back into his seat and covered his eyes with +his hand. He did not change his posture until the prayers and the hymns +and the sermon were over, and Elder Williams said in a low voice,--</p> + +<p>"The ceremony of marriage will now be performed." Then he rose, his +countenance glowing like that of one who had come from some Mount of +Transfiguration. With a dignity and grace of bearing such as royal +ambassadors might envy, he walked slowly down to Reuben Miller's pew, and, +with his head reverently bent, received Draxy from her father's hands.</p> + +<p>Passionate love and close contact with Draxy's exquisite nature were +developing, in this comparatively untrained man, a peculiar courteousness +and grace, which added a subtle charm to the simplicity of his manners. As +he walked up the aisle with Draxy clinging to his arm, his tall figure +looked majestic in its strength, but his face was still bent forward, +turned toward her with a look of reverence, of love unspeakable.</p> + +<p>The whole congregation rose, moved by one impulse, and the silence was +almost too solemn. When the short and simple ceremony was over, the Elder +led Draxy to his own pew and sat down by her side.</p> + +<p>After the little children had been baptized, the usual announcement of the +Lord's Supper was made, and the usual invitation given. Absolute silence +followed it, broken only by the steps of the singers leaving their seats +in the gallery to take places below. Not a person moved to leave the body +of the house. Elder Williams glanced at Elder Kinney in perplexity, and +waited for some moments longer. The silence still remained unbroken; there +was not a man, woman, or child there but felt conscious of a tender and +awed impulse to remain and look on at this ceremony, so newly significant +and solemn to their beloved Elder. Tears came into many eyes as he took +the cup of wine from Deacon Plummer's trembling hands and passed it to +Draxy, and many hearts which had never before longed for the right to +partake of the sacred emblems longed for it then.</p> + +<p>After the services, were ended, just as Elder Williams was about to +pronounce the benediction, Elder Kinney rose from his seat, and walking +rapidly to the communion table said,--</p> + +<p>"My dear friends, I know you don't look for any words from me to-day; but +there are some of you I never before saw at this blessed feast of our +Lord, and I must say one word to you from Him." Then pausing, he looked +round upon them all, and, with an unutterable yearning in the gesture, +stretched out both his arms and said: "O my people, my people! like as a +hen gathereth her chickens under her wing, He would have gathered you long +ago, but ye would not." Then, still holding out his arms towards them, he +pronounced the benediction.</p> + +<p>Silently and solemnly the little congregation dispersed. A few lingered, +and looked longingly at Draxy, as if they would go back and speak to her. +But she stood with her eyes fixed on the Elder's face, utterly unconscious +of the presence of any other human being. Even her father dared not break +the spell of holy beatitude which rested on her countenance.</p> + +<p>"No, no, ma," he said to Jane, who proposed that they should go back to +the pew and walk home with her. "This ain't like any other wedding that +was ever seen on this earth, unless, maybe, that one in Cana. And I don't +believe the Lord was any nearer to that bridegroom than He is to this +one."</p> + +<p>So Jane and Reuben walked home from church alone, for the first time since +they came to Clairvend, and Draxy and her husband followed slowly behind. +The village people who watched them were bewildered by their manner, and +interpreted it variously according to their own temperaments.</p> + +<p>"You'd ha' thought now they'd been married years an' years to look at +'em," said Eben Hill; "they didn't speak a word, nor look at each other +any more 'n old Deacon Plummer 'n his wife, who was joggin' along jest +afore 'em."</p> + +<p>Old Ike--poor, ignorant, loving old Ike, whose tender instinct was like +the wistful sagacity of a faithful dog--read their faces better. He had +hurried out of church and hid himself in the edge of a little pine grove +which the Elder and Draxy must pass.</p> + +<p>"I'd jest like to see 'em a little longer," he said to himself half +apologetically. As they walked silently by, old Ike's face saddened, and +at last became convulsed with grief. Creeping out from beneath the pines, +he slowly followed them up the hill, muttering to himself, in the fashion +which had grown upon him in his solitary life:--</p> + +<p>"O Lord! O Lord! No such looks as them is long for this earth. O Lord! +which is it ye're goin' to take? I reckon it's the Elder. I reckon 'tis. +That woman's goin' to have her heart broke. O Lord! O Lordy me! I can't +bear the sight on't!" and he leaped a fence and struck off across the +fields towards his house. He did not shut his eyes that night, but tossed +and groaned aloud. Towards morning he formed a resolution which calmed him +somewhat.</p> + +<p>"Ef I kin only be right close to 'em till it comes, p'raps I can be of a +little use. Leastways it 'ud be some comfort to try," he said.</p> + +<p>As the Elder and Draxy were sitting at breakfast the next day, they caught +sight of the old man's bent figure walking up and down outside the gate, +and stopping now and then irresolutely, as if he would come in, but dared +not.</p> + +<p>"Why, there's old Ike," exclaimed the Elder, "What on earth can he want +at this time of day!"</p> + +<p>Draxy looked up with a very tender smile, and said: "I shouldn't wonder if +he wanted just to see how happy you look, Mr. Kinney. Nobody in this world +loves you so well as old Ike does."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Draxy!" said the Elder, reproachfully.</p> + +<p>"No, dear, not even I. Old Ike never dreams of receiving any love in +return. I have seen his eyes follow you with just such a look as dogs' +eyes have. I wish we could do something for him."</p> + +<p>"We will, dear, we will go and see him often. I own it smites me to the +soul sometimes to think how humble he is, and so glad to see me when I +haven't been near him for six months, maybe."</p> + +<p>At this moment Hannah put her head into the door and said, in no pleasant +voice:--</p> + +<p>"Here's that Ike Sanborn wantin' to speak to ye sir, but I telled him"--</p> + +<p>"Let him come right in here, Hannah," said Draxy. "Mr. Kinney and I will +be very glad to see him this morning." Hannah's face relaxed in spite of +herself, in answer to Draxy's smile, but she could not forgive Ike for +what seemed to her a most unwarrantable intrusion, and she was grimmer +than ever when she returned to him, saying,--</p> + +<p>"They'll see ye; but I must say, I sh'd ha' thought ye'd know better'n to +be comin' round here this mornin' of all mornin's. Ain't they to have a +minute's peace to theirselves?"</p> + +<p>Ike looked up appealingly at the hard Indian face.</p> + +<p>"I wa'n't goin' to keep 'em a minute," he said: "I won't go in now. I'll +come agin, ef you say so, Hannah."</p> + +<p>"No, no--go in, now ye're here; ye've interrupted 'em, and ye may's well +take the good on't now," replied the vengeful Hannah, pushing Ike along +towards the sitting-room door.</p> + +<p>"Ef there's anythin' I do hate, it's shiftless white folks," grumbled +Hannah as she went back to her work. If poor Ike had known the angry +contempt for him which filled Hannah's heart, he would have felt still +less courage for the proposition he had come to make. As it was, he stood +in the doorway the very picture of irresolution and embarrassment.</p> + +<p>"Come in, come in, Ike," said the Elder; "you're the first one of the +parish to pay your respects to Mrs. Kinney." Draxy rose from her seat +smiling, and went towards him and said: "And Mrs. Kinney is very glad to +see you, Ike."</p> + +<p>This was too much for the loving old heart. He dropped his hat on the +floor, and began to speak so rapidly and incoherently that both Draxy and +the Elder were almost frightened.</p> + +<p>"O Elder! O Miss Kinney!--I've been a thinkin' that p'raps you'd let me +come an' live with you, an' do all yer chores. I'd bring my two cows, an' +my keepin' wouldn't be very much; an'--oh, sir, ef ye'll only let me, I'll +bless ye all the days o' my life," and Ike began to cry.</p> + +<p>So did Draxy, for that matter, and the Elder was not very far from it. +Draxy spoke first.</p> + +<p>"Why, Ike, do you really want so much to live with us?"</p> + +<p>Ike's first answer was a look. Then he said, very simply,--</p> + +<p>"I've laid awake all night, ma'am, tryin' to get bold enough to come and +ask ye."</p> + +<p>Draxy looked at her husband, and said in a low voice, "You know what I +told you just now, Mr. Kinney?"</p> + +<p>The Elder saw that Draxy was on Ike's side.</p> + +<p>"Well, well, Ike," he said, "you shall certainly come and try it. Perhaps +you won't like it as well as you think. But don't say anything about it to +any one else till you hear from us. You shall come very soon."</p> + +<p>Ike turned to go, but lingered, and finally stammered: "I hope, sir, ye +don't take it that I'm askin' a charity; I make bold to believe I could be +worth to ye's much's my keepin'; I'm considerable handy 'bout a good many +things, an' I can do a day's mowin' yet with any man in the parish, I +don't care who he is. It's only because--because"--Ike's voice broke, and +it was very nearly with a sob that he added, "because I love ye, sir," and +he hurried away. Draxy sprang after him.</p> + +<p>"I know that very well, Ike, and so does Mr. Kinney, and you will be a +great help to us. You are making us the most valuable wedding present +we've had yet, Ike," and Draxy held out her hand.</p> + +<p>Ike looked at the hand, but he did not touch it.</p> + +<p>"Maybe God'll let me thank ye yet, ma'am," he said, and was gone.</p> + +<p>As he went through the kitchen a sudden misgiving seized him of terror of +Hannah.</p> + +<p>"Supposin' she sh'd take into her head to be agin me," thought he. "They +say the Elder himself's 'fraid on her. I don't s'pose she'd dare to try to +pizen me outright, an' anyhow there's allers eggs an' potatoes. But I'll +bring her round fust or last;" and, made wary by love, Ike began on the +spot to conciliate her, by offering to bring a pail of water from the +well.</p> + +<p>This small attention went farther than he could have dreamed. When Draxy +first told Hannah that Ike was to come and live with them, she said +judiciously,--</p> + +<p>"It will make your work much easier in many ways, Hannah."</p> + +<p>Hannah answered:--</p> + +<p>"Yes, missus. He'll bring all the water I spose, an that alone's wuth any +man's keep--not that I've ever found any fault with the well's bein' so +far off. It's 's good water's there is in the world, but it's powerful +heavy."</p> + +<p>The arrival of the two cows crowned Hannah's liking of the plan. If she +had a passion in life it was for cream and for butter-making, and it had +been a sore trial to her in her life as the Elder's housekeeper, that she +must use stinted measures of milk, bought from neighbors. So when poor Ike +came in, trembling and nervous, to his first night's lodging under the +Elder's roof, he found in the kitchen, to his utter surprise, instead of a +frowning and dangerous enemy, a warm ally, as friendly in manner and mien +as Indian blood would permit.</p> + +<p>Thus the little household settled down for the winter: Draxy and the Elder +happy, serene, exalted more than they knew, by their perfect love for each +other, and their childlike love of God, blending in one earnest purpose +of work for souls; Hannah and Ike anything but serene, and yet happy after +their own odd fashions, and held together much more closely than they knew +by the common bond of their devotion to the Elder and his wife.</p> + +<p>In the other side of the house were also two very thankful and contented +hearts. Reuben and Jane were old people now: Reuben's hair was snowy +white, and Jane was sadly bent; but the comfort and peace which had come +so late into their lives had still come early enough to make the sunset a +bright one. It was a sight to do all hearts good to see the two sitting +together on the piazza of the house, in the warm afternoons, and gazing in +delight at the eastern mountain ranges turning rose-pink, and then fading +through shades of purple to dark gray.</p> + +<p>"It's a good deal like our life, ma," Reuben said sometimes; "our sun's +pretty low--most down, I reckon; it's all rosy-light, just these days; but +we shall have to lie down in the shadow presently; but it's all beautiful, +beautiful."</p> + +<p>Jane did not understand him. She never did. But she loved the sound of his +voice best when he said the things which were too subtle for her.</p> + +<p>The two households lived separately as before. The Elder had proposed +their making one family, and Reuben had wistfully seconded it. But Draxy +had firmly said "No."</p> + +<p>"I shall be able to do more for you, father dear, if we do not. It will +not seem so at first, but I know I am right," she said, and it was a rare +wisdom in her sweet soul which led to the decision. At first it was very +hard for Reuben to bear, but as the months went on he saw that it was +best.</p> + +<p>Draxy's loving, thoughtful care of them never relaxed. The excellent woman +whom she had secured for their servant went for her orders quite as often +to Draxy as to Jane; very few meals were set out for them to which Draxy's +hand had not given the last final touch. She flitted back and forth +between the two homes, equally of both the guardian angel; but the line of +division and separation was just as distinctly drawn as if they had been +under different roofs a mile apart. Two or three times in the week they +dined and took tea together, but the habit never was formed of doing this +on a special day. When Reuben said, "Couldn't ye arrange it so's always to +eat your Sunday dinner with us, Draxy?" she replied:</p> + +<p>"Sometimes Sunday dinner; sometimes Thursday; sometimes Saturday, father +dear. If we make it a fixed day, we shall not like it half so well; any of +us. We'll come often enough, you may be sure." And of this, too, Reuben +soon saw the wisdom.</p> + +<p>"O Draxy, Draxy, my little girl!" he said one day, when, just after +breakfast, she ran in, exclaiming,--</p> + +<p>"Father dear, we're coming to take dinner with you and ma to-day. It's a +surprise party, and the chickens have come first; they're in the kitchen +now!"</p> + +<p>"O Draxy, Draxy," he exclaimed, "it's a great deal nicer not to know it +beforehand. How could you be so wise, child?"</p> + +<p>Draxy put her arms round his neck and did not speak for a moment. Then she +said, "I don't think it is wisdom, dear. Real true love knows by instinct, +just as the bee does, which shaped cell will hold most honey. I'm only a +honey-maker for my darlings."</p> + +<p>Jane looked mystified, but Reuben's face quivered with pleasure.</p> + +<p>"That you are, you blessed child," he said, and as, hearing the Elder's +step in the hall, she flew out of the room, Reuben covered his eyes with +his hand.</p> + +<p>Happy years leave slender records; but for suffering and sin there would +not be history. The winter came, and the spring came, and the summer and +the autumn, and no face in the quiet little parsonage looked a shade older +for the year that had gone; no incident had taken place which could make a +salient point in a story, and not one of the peaceful hearts could believe +that a twelvemonth had flown. Elder Kinney's pathetic fears lest he might +love his Saviour less by reason of his new happiness, had melted like +frost in early sunlight, in the sweet presence of Draxy's child-like +religion.</p> + +<p>"O Draxy!" he said again and again, "seems to me I never half loved all +these souls we are working for, before I had you. I don't see how I could +have been so afraid about it before we were married."</p> + +<p>"Do I really help you, Mr. Kinney?" Draxy would reply, with a lingering +emphasis on the "really," which made her husband draw her closer to him +and forget to speak: "It seems very strange to me that I can. I feel so +ignorant about souls. It frightens me to answer the smallest question the +people ask me. I never do, in any way except to tell them if I have ever +felt so myself, and how God seemed to help me out."</p> + +<p>Blessed Draxy! that was the secret of her influence from first to last: +the magnetic sympathy of a pure and upright soul, to whose rare strength +had been added still rarer simplicity and lovingness. Old and young, men +as well as women, came to her with unhesitating confidence. Before her +marriage, they had all felt a little reserve with her, partly because she +was of finer grain than they, partly because she had, deep down in her +soul, a genuine shyness which showed itself only in quiet reticence. But +now that she was the Elder's wife, they felt that she was in a measure +theirs. There is a very sweet side, as well as an inconvenient and +irritating one, to the old-fashioned rural notion that the parish has +almost as much right to the minister's wife as to the minister. Draxy saw +only the sweet side. With all the loyalty and directness which had made +her, as a little girl, champion and counselor and comfort to her father, +she now set her hand to the work of helping her husband do good to the +people whom he called his children.</p> + +<p>"If they are yours, they must be mine, too, Mr. Kinney," she would say, +with a smile half arch, half solemn. "I hope I shan't undo on week-days +what you do on Sundays."</p> + +<p>"What I do on Sundays is more'n half your work too, Draxy," the Elder +would make reply; and it was very true. Draxy's quicker brain and finer +sense, and in some ways superior culture, were fast moulding the Elder's +habits of thought and speech to an extent of which she never dreamed. +Reuben's income was now far in advance of their simple wants, and +newspapers, magazines, and new books continually found their way to the +parsonage. Draxy had only to mention anything she desired to see, and +Reuben forthwith ordered it. So that it insensibly came to pass that the +daily life of the little household was really an intellectual one, and +Elder Kinney's original and vigorous mind expanded fast in the congenial +atmosphere. Yet he lost none of his old quaintness and simplicity of +phrase, none of his fervor. The people listened to his sermons with +wondering interest, and were not slow to ascribe some of the credit of the +new unction to Draxy.</p> + +<p>"Th' Elder's getting more'n more like Mis' Kinney every day o' his life," +they said: "there's some o' her sayin's in every sermon he writes.</p> + +<p>"And no wonder," would be added by some more enthusiastic worshipper of +Draxy's. "I guess he's got sense enough to know that she's got more real +book-learnin' in her head than he has, twice over. I shouldn't wonder if +she got to writin' some of his sermons for him out'n out, before long."</p> + +<p>Dear Draxy's reverent wifehood would have been grieved and dismayed if she +had known that her efforts to second her husband's appeals to his people +were sometimes so eloquent as to make the Elder's words forgotten. But she +never dreamed of such a thing; she was too simple hearted and humble.</p> + +<p>In the early days of the second winter came the Angel of the Annunciation, +bearing a white lily to Draxy. Her joy and gratitude were unspeakable, and +the exquisite purity and elevation of her nature shone out transcendent in +the new experience.</p> + +<p>"Now I begin to feel surer that God really trusts me," she said, "since he +is going to let me have a child of my own."</p> + +<p>"O my dear friends!" she exclaimed more than once to mothers, "I never +dreamed how happy you were. I thought I knew, but I did not."</p> + +<p>Draxy's spontaneous and unreserved joy of motherhood, while yet her babe +was unborn, was a novel and startling thing to the women among whom she +lived. The false notions on this point, grown out of ignorant and base +thoughts, are too wide-spread, too firm-rooted, to be overthrown in an +hour or a day, even by the presence of angelic truth incarnate. Some of +Draxy's best friends were annoyed and disquieted by her frankness and +unreserve of delight. But as the weeks went on, the true instinct of +complete motherhood thrilled for the first time in many a mother's heart, +under Draxy's glowing words, and women talked tearfully one with another, +in secret, with lowered voices, about the new revelation which had come to +them through her.</p> + +<p>"I've come to see it all quite different, since I've talked with Mis' +Kinney," said one young married woman, holding her baby close to her +breast, and looking down with remorseful tenderness on its placid little +face. "I shan't never feel that I've quite made it up to Benjy, never, for +the thoughts I had about him before he was born. I don't see why nobody +ever told us before, that we was just as much mothers to 'em from the very +first as we ever could be," and tears dropped on Benjy's face; "an' I jest +hope the Lord'll send me's many more's we can manage to feed'n clothe, 'n +I'll see if lovin' 'em right along from the beginnin', with all my heart, +'ll make 'em beautiful an' happy an' strong an' well, 's Mis' Kinney sez. +I b'lieve it's much's ef 'twas in the Bible, after all she told me, and +read me out of a Physiology, an' it stands to natur', which's more'n the +old way o' talkin did."</p> + +<p>This new, strong current of the divinest of truths, stirred the very veins +of the village. Mothers were more loving and fathers more tender, and +maidens were sweeter and graver--all for the coming of this one little +babe into the bosom of full and inspired motherhood.</p> + +<p>On the morning when Draxy's son was born, a stranger passing through the +village would have supposed that some great news of war or of politics had +arrived. Little knots of people stood at gates, on corners, all talking +earnestly; others were walking rapidly to and fro in the street. +Excitement filled the air.</p> + +<p>Never was heir to royal house more welcomed than was the first-born son of +this simple-minded, great-hearted woman, by the lowly people among whom +she dwelt.</p> + +<p>Old Ike's joy was more than he could manage. He had sat on the floor all +night long, with his head buried in his hands.</p> + +<p>The instinct of grief to come, which not even all these long peaceful +months had been able to wholly allay in his faithful heart, had sprung +into full life at the first symptom of danger to Draxy.</p> + +<p>"P'raps it's this way, arter all, the Lord's goin' to do it. O Lord! O +Lord! It'll kill Mr. Kinney, it'll kill him," he kept repeating over and +over, as he rocked to and fro. Hannah eyed him savagely. Her Indian blood +hated groans and tears, and her affection for her master was angered at +the very thought of his being afflicted.</p> + +<p>"I wish it had pleased yer Lord to give ye the sense of a man, Mr. +Sanborn," she said, "while He was a makin' on ye. If ye'd go to bed, now, +instead o' snivelin' round here, you might be good for somethin' in the +mornin', when there'll be plenty to do. Anyhow, I'm not goin' to be +pestered by the sight on ye any longer," and Hannah banged the +kitchen-door violently after her.</p> + +<p>When poor Ike timidly peered into the sitting-room, whither she had +betaken herself, he found her, too, sitting on the floor, in an attitude +not unlike the one she had so scorned in him. But he was too meek to taunt +her. He only said,--</p> + +<p>"I'm goin' now, Hannah, so ye needn't stay out o' the kitchen for me," and +he climbed slowly up the stairs which led to his room.</p> + +<p>As the rosy day dawned in the east, Draxy's infant son drew his first +mortal breath. His first quivering cry, faint almost as a whisper, yet +sharp and piteous, reached old Ike's ears instantly. He fell on his knees +and remained some minutes motionless, then he rose and went slowly +down-stairs. Hannah met him at the door, her dark face flushed with +emotion which she vainly tried to conceal by sharp words.</p> + +<p>"Hope ye've rested well, Mr. Sanborn. Another time, mebbe ye'll have more +sense. As fine a boy's ye ever see, and Mis' Kinney she's a smilin' into +its face, as nobody's never seen her smile yet, I tell you."</p> + +<p>Ike was gone,--out into the fields, over fences, over brooks, into woods, +trampling down dewy ferns, glistening mosses, scarlet cornels, thickets of +goldenrod and asters,--he knew not where, muttering to himself all the +while, and tossing his arms into the air. At last he returned to the house +saying to himself, "P'raps th' Elder 'll like to have me go down into the +village an' let folks know."</p> + +<p>Elder Kinney was standing bareheaded on the door-steps. His face looked +like the face of a man who had come off a battle-field where victory had +been almost as terrible as defeat. As soon as he saw old Ike running +across the field towards him, he divined all.</p> + +<p>"Loving old heart!" he thought, "Draxy was right," and he held out both +his hands to the old man as he had never done before, and spoke a few +affectionate words, which made tears run down the wrinkled cheeks. Then he +sent him on the errand he knew he craved.</p> + +<p>"You'd better give the news first to Eben Hill, Ike," he called after him. +"It'll be of more use to him than to anybody in the parish."</p> + +<p>It was just two years from Draxy's wedding day, when she stood again in +the aisle of the little village church, dressed in pure white, with the +southern sunlight resting on her beautiful hair. Her husband stood by her +side, holding their infant son in his arms. The child had clear, calm blue +eyes like Draxy's, and an expression of serenity and radiant joy on his +tiny face, which made the people wonder.</p> + +<p>"Reuben Miller Kinney" was his name; and though the parish had hoped that +the child would be named for his father, when they looked at Reuben +Miller's sweet, patient, noble face, and saw its intense happiness as the +words were spoken, they felt that it was better so.</p> + +<p>Again swift months rolled on, and peace and joy brooded over the +parsonage. Draxy's life with her child was something too beautiful to be +told in words; her wifehood was lovely, was intense; but her motherhood +was greater. Day and night her love for her boy protected and guided him, +like pillar of cloud, like pillar of fire. She knew no weariness, no +feebleness; she grew constantly stronger and more beautiful, and the child +grew stronger and more beautiful, with a likeness to her and a oneness +with her which were marvelous. He was a loving and affectionate boy to +all; his father, his grandparents, old Ike, and swarthy Hannah,--all alike +sunned themselves in the delight of his beautiful childhood. But wherever +he was--however amused and delighted--even in his father's arms--his eyes +sought his mother's eyes, and the mute interchange between them was subtle +and constant as between lovers. There was but one drawback on Draxy's +felicity now. She was afraid of her love for her boy.</p> + +<p>"O Seth!" she said,--after little Reuben's birth she for the first time +called her husband by this name; before that, although she lavished on him +all words of endearment, she had never found courage to call him Seth,--"O +Seth!" she said, "I feel now as you did about me before we were married. I +can't make myself think about anything but Reuby. O darling! you don't +think God would take him away from you to punish me, do you?" The Elder +could not comfort her when she was in this frame of mind; in fact, he +himself was sometimes afraid, seeing her utter absorption in the child. +Yet it never for one instant warped her firmness or judiciousness of +control. Draxy could not have comprehended that type of love which can +lose sight for one instant of the best good of the loved one. Her control, +however, was the control of a wise and affectionate companion, never that +of the authoritative parent. Little Reuben never heard the words, "You +must not do thus and so." It was always, "You cannot, because it is not +safe, best, or proper," or, "because if you do, such and such things will +happen."</p> + +<p>"Draxy," said Reuben to her one day, "you never tell Reuby to do anything +without giving him a reason for it. He's the best boy that ever lived, I +do believe, but 'tain't just my idea of obedience for all that."</p> + +<p>Draxy smiled. "I never said a word to him about obeying me in his life; I +never shall. I can't explain it, father dear, but you must let me do my +way. I shall tell him all I know about doing right, and he will decide for +himself more and more. I am not afraid."</p> + +<p>She need not have been. Before Reuby was seven years old his gentle +manliness of behavior was the marvel of the village. "It beats all how +Mis' Kinney's brought that boy o' hern up," was said in the sewing-circle +one day. "She told me herself that she's never so much's said a sharp word +to him; and as for whipping she thinks it's a deadly sin."</p> + +<p>"So do I," spoke up young Mrs. Plummet, the mother of Benjy. "I never did +believe in that; I don't believe in it, even for hosses; it only gets 'em +to go a few rods, and then they're lazier'n ever. My father's broke more +colts than any man in this county, an' he'd never let 'em be struck a +blow. He said one blow spiled 'em, and I guess ye've got more to work on +in a boy than ye have in a colt."</p> + +<p>These discussions often ran high and waxed warm. But Draxy's adherents +were a large majority; and she had so patiently and fully gone over these +disputed grounds with them that they were well fortified with the +arguments and facts which supported her positions. Indeed, it was fast +coming to pass that she was the central force of the life of the village. +"Let me make the songs of the community, and I care not who makes its +laws," was well said. It was song which Draxy supplied to these people's +lives. Not often in verse, in sound, in any shape that could be measured, +but in spirit. She vivified their every sense of beauty, moral and +physical. She opened their eyes to joy; she revealed to them the +sacredness and delight of common things; she made their hearts sing.</p> + +<p>But she was to do more yet for these men and women. Slowly, noiselessly, +in the procession of these beautiful and peaceful days, was drawing near a +day which should anoint Draxy with a new baptism,--set her apart to a +holier work.</p> + +<p>It came, as the great consecrations of life are apt to come, suddenly, +without warning. While we are patiently and faithfully keeping sheep in +the wilderness, the messenger is journeying towards us with the vial of +sacred oil, to make us kings.</p> + +<p>It was on a September morning. Draxy sat at the eastward bay-window of +her sitting-room, reading to Reuby. The child seemed strangely restless, +and slipped from her lap again and again, running to the window to look +out. At last Draxy said, "What is it, Reuby? Don't you want to hear mamma +read any longer?"</p> + +<p>"Where is papa?" replied Reuby. "I want to go and find papa."</p> + +<p>"Papa has gone way down to the Lower Mills, darling; he won't come home +till dinner," said Draxy, looking perplexedly at Reuby's face. She had +never known him to ask for his father in this way before. Still his +restlessness continued, and finally, clasping his mother's hand, he said +earnestly,--</p> + +<p>"Come and find papa."</p> + +<p>"We can't find him, dear," she replied; "it is too far for Reuby to walk, +but we will go out on the same road papa has gone, and wait for papa to +come;" so saying, she led the child out of the house, and rambled slowly +along the road on which the Elder would return. In a few moments she saw +moving in the distance a large black object she could not define. As it +came nearer she saw that it was several men, walking slowly and apparently +bearing something heavy between them.</p> + +<p>Little Reuby pulled her hand and began to run faster. "Come and find +papa," he said again, in a tone which struck terror to Draxy's heart. At +that instant the men halted. She hurried on. Presently she saw one man +leave the rest and run rapidly towards her. It was old Ike. The rest still +remained motionless and gathered closer around what they were carrying.</p> + +<p>"O Reuby!" groaned Draxy. "Come quicker; find papa," he replied, +impatiently; but old Ike had reached them, and wringing his hands, burst +into tears. "O my Lord!--O Mis' Kinney, yer must go back; they can't bring +him along, an' you 'n' the boy standin' here. O my Lord! O Mis' Kinney, +come right back!" And Ike took hold of her shoulder and of her gown and +almost turned her around.</p> + +<p>"Is Mr. Kinney hurt?" said Draxy in a strange voice, high pitched and +metallic. "I shall not go back. Tell the men to hurry. How dare they lose +time so?" and Draxy tried to run towards them. Old Ike held her by main +force. Sobs choked his voice, but he stammered out: "O Mis' Kinney, ef ye +love Mr. Kinney, go back. He'd tell ye so himself. He won't know ye; the +men won't never move a step till they see you 'n' Reuby goin' first."</p> + +<p>Draxy turned instantly and walked toward the house so swiftly that little +Reuby could not keep up with her. He followed her crying aloud, but she +did not heed him. She flew rather than ran into the house, into the +Elder's study, and dragged a lounge to the very threshold of the door. +There she stood, whiter than any marble, and as still, awaiting the slow, +toiling steps of the overburdened men. Little Reuben stumbled on the steps +and she did not help him. As he came close, clutching her dress in his +pain and terror, she said in a low whisper, "Reuby, it will trouble papa +if he sees us cry. Mamma isn't going to cry." The child stopped instantly +and stood by her side, as calm as she for a moment, then bursting out +again into screams, said: "O mamma, I can't help crying, I can't; but +I'll run away. Don't tell papa I cried." And he ran up-stairs. Draxy did +not see which way he went. Her eyes were fixed on the doorway which Ike +had that moment reached; the men bearing the Elder's body were just behind +him.</p> + +<p>"O Mis' Kinney! can't yer go away jest while we lay him down?" gasped +Ike. "Seem's ef 'twouldn't be so hard."</p> + +<p>Draxy looked past him, as not hearing a word.</p> + +<p>"Bring him in here and lay him on this lounge," she said, in tones so +clear and calm they sent both courage and anguish into every heart.</p> + +<p>Panting, and with grief-stricken faces, the men staggered in and laid the +tall, majestic figure down. As they lifted the head tenderly and propped +it by pillows, Draxy saw the pale, dead face with the sunken eyes and set +lips, and gave one low cry. Then she clasped both hands tight over her +heart and looked up as if she would pierce the very skies whither her +husband had gone.</p> + +<p>"We sent for the doctor right off; he'll be here's soon's he can get +here."</p> + +<p>"He never spoke a word arter we lifted him up. He couldn't ha' suffered +any, Mis' Kinney."</p> + +<p>"P'raps, Mis' Kinney, it'd be a good plan to ondo his clothes afore the +doctor gits here," came in confused and trembling tones from one after +another of the men who stood almost paralyzed in presence of Draxy's +terrible silence.</p> + +<p>"O Mis' Kinney, jest speak a word, can't ye? O Lord! O Lord! she'll die if +she don't. Where's Reuby? I'll fetch him," exclaimed Ike, and left the +room; the men followed him irresolutely, looking back at Draxy, who still +stood motionless, gazing down into the Elder's face.</p> + +<p>"Do not look for Reuby--he has hid," came in a slow, measured whisper from +her lips. "And leave me alone." "Yes, I know. You need not be afraid. I +understand that Mr. Kinney is dead," she added, as the men hesitated and +looked bewilderedly in her face. "I will stay alone with him till the +doctor comes," and Draxy gently closed the door and locked it. In a short +time the little hall and door-yard were crowded with sobbing men and +women. There was little to be told, but that little was told over and +over. The Elder had walked down to the village store with old Ike, and had +just given him some parcels to carry home, saying, "Tell Mrs. +Kinney,"--when a runaway horse had come dashing furiously down the street, +drawing a wagon in which clung, rather than sat, a woman holding a baby in +her arms. The Elder had sprung into the middle of the road, and caught the +horse by the bridle as he swerved a little to one side; but the horse was +too strong and too much frightened to be held by any man's strength. +Rearing high, he had freed his head, and plunging forward had knocked the +Elder down in such a way that both wagon-wheels had run over his neck, +breaking it instantly.</p> + +<p>"He never talked so much like an angel from heaven's he did this mornin'," +sobbed Ike, who looked already decrepit and broken from this sudden blow. +"He was a tellin' me about suthin' new that's jest been discovered in the +sun; I couldn't rightly make it out; but says he, 'Ike, how glorious +'twill be when we can jest fly from one sun to another, all through this +universe o' God's, an' not be a tryin' in these poor little airthly ways +to understand 'bout things.'"</p> + +<p>That Draxy should be all this time alone with her husband's body seemed +dreadful to these sympathizing, simple-hearted people. No sound came from +the room, though the windows were all wide open.</p> + +<p>"O Mr. Miller! don't ye think some on us had better try to git in to her," +said the women; "she don't make no noise."</p> + +<p>"No." replied Reuben, feebly. He, too, was prostrated like Ike by the +fearful blow, and looked years older within the hour. "No: Draxy knows +what's best for her. She's spoke to me once through the door. She hasn't +fainted."</p> + +<p>"When the doctor came, Reuben called to Draxy,--</p> + +<p>"Daughter, the doctor's come."</p> + +<p>The door opened instantly, but closed as soon as the doctor had entered. +In a few moments it opened again, and the doctor handed a slip of paper to +Reuben. He unfolded it and read it aloud:--</p> + +<p>"Father dear, please thank all the people for me, and ask them to go home +now. There is nothing they can do. Tell them it grieves me to hear them +cry, and Mr. Kinney would not wish it."</p> + +<p>Slowly and reluctantly the people went, and a silence sadder than the sobs +and grieving voices settled down on the house. Reuben sat on the stairs, +his head leaning against the study-door. Presently he heard a light step +coming down. It was young Mrs. Plummer, the mother of Benjy. She +whispered, "I've found Reuby. He's asleep on the garret floor. He'd +thrown himself down on some old carpet, way out in the darkest corner, +under the eaves. I've covered him up, an' I'm goin' to sit by him till he +wakes up. The longer he sleeps the better. You tell her where he is."</p> + +<p>Reuben nodded; his dulled senses hardly heard the words. When the +study-door next opened, Draxy herself came out, walking with a slow, +measured step which transformed her whole bearing. Her face was perfectly +calm, but colorless as white stone. At sight of her father her lips +quivered, and she stretched out both hands to him; but she only said, +"Where is Reuby?" And as soon as she heard she went quickly up the stairs, +adding, "Do not follow me, father dear; you cannot help me."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Plummer sat in the dark garret, leaning her head against the dusty +rafters, as near as she could get to poor little Reuby. Her eyes were +shut, and tears stood on her cheeks. Suddenly she was startled by Draxy's +low voice, saying,--</p> + +<p>"Thank you very much, Mrs. Plummer; it was very kind in you to stay here +and not wake him up. I will sit by him now."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Plummer poured forth incoherent words of sympathy and sorrow, but +Draxy hardly seemed to hear her. She stood quietly, making no reply, +waiting for her to go.</p> + +<p>"O Mis' Kinney, Mis' Kinney, do cry a little, can't ye?" exclaimed the +warm-hearted woman; "it scares us to death to see ye this way."</p> + +<p>Draxy smiled. "No, my dear friend. I cannot cry now. I suppose I shall +sometimes, because I am very selfish, and I shall be so lonely; but just +now I am only thinking how happy he is in these first hours in heaven." +The tears stood in her eyes, but her look was as of one who gazed +rapturously inside the pearly gates. Mrs. Plummer stole softly away, +overawed and afraid. As she went out of the house, she said to Reuben: +"Mis' Kinney ain't no mortal woman. She hain't shed a tear yet, and she +jest looks as glorified as the Elder can this minute in sight o' God's +very throne itself. O Mr. Miller, I'm afraid she'll break down. This kind +o' grief is what kills folks."</p> + +<p>"No," said Reuben, "you don't know Draxy. She won't break down. She'll +take care on us all jest the same, but ye won't never see again the same +face you used to see. Oh, I can't be reconciled, I can't!" And Reuben +groaned aloud.</p> + +<p>The next morning, when Draxy came out of the study, her hair was white as +snow. As her father first caught sight of her, he stared wildly for a +moment as at some stranger; then crying out, "O Draxy! O my little girl!" +he tottered and would have fallen if she had not caught him and led him to +a chair.</p> + +<p>"O father dear," she exclaimed, "don't feel so! I wouldn't call him back +this minute if I could," and she smiled piteously.</p> + +<p>"O Draxy--'tain't that," gasped Reuben. "O daughter! you're dyin' and +never lettin' us know it. Your hair's as white's mine." Draxy gave a +startled glance at the mirror, and said, in a much more natural tone than +she had hitherto spoken in: "I don't think that's strange. It's happened +before to people in great trouble. I've read of it: you'll get used to it +very soon, father dear. I'm glad of it; I'll be all in white now," she +added in a lower tone, speaking dreamily, as if to herself,--"they walk in +white; they walk in white."</p> + +<p>Then Reuben noticed that she was dressed in white. He touched her gown, +and looked inquiringly. "Yes, father dear," she said, "always."</p> + +<p>On the day of the funeral, when Draxy entered the church leading little +Reuby by the hand, a visible shudder ran through the congregation. The +news had run like wildfire through the parish, on the morning after the +Elder's death, that Mrs. Kinney's hair had all turned gray in the night. +But nobody was in the least prepared for the effect. It was not gray--it +was silver-white; and as it retained all the silken gloss which had made +it so beautiful the shining of it was marvelous. It kindled her beauty +into something superhuman. The color had left her cheeks also, but in its +place was a clear soft tint which had no pallor in it. She was dressed in +pure white, so also was little Reuby; but for this the parish were +prepared. Very well they knew Draxy's deep-rooted belief that to associate +gloom with the memory of the dead was disloyal alike to them and to +Christ; and so warmly had she imbued most of the people with her +sentiment, that the dismal black garb of so-called mourning was rarely +seen in the village.</p> + +<p>Bareheaded, Draxy and her little son walked from the church to the grave; +their faces the calmest, their steps the steadiest there. Reuben and Jane +walked behind them, bent over and sobbing, and half the congregation were +weeping uncontrollably; but the widowed woman and the fatherless boy +walked with uplifted glances, as if they saw angel-forms in the air by +their side.</p> + +<p>"Tain't nateral; 'tain't noways nateral; thet woman hain't got any nateral +feelin' in her," said Eben Hill, leaning against a grave-stone, and idly +chewing a spray of golden-rod. George Thayer turned upon him like a +blazing sword.</p> + +<p>"Hev ye got any nateral feelin' yourself, Eben Hill, to say that, standin' +here an' lookin' at that woman's white hair an' cheeks, 'n' only last +Sunday she was 's handsome a pictur's ye ever see, her hair a twinklin' in +the sun like a brown beech-tree, an' her cheeks jest like roses? Nateral +feelin's! It's enough to make the Elder rise up afore ye, to hear ye say +sech a thing, Eben Hill; 'n' ef 'twan't jest the funeral that 'tis, I +b'leeve I'd thrash ye right an' left, here'n sight o' yer own mother's +tombstone, ye miserable, sneakin' fool. Ef there was ever a woman that was +carryin' a hull town straight into the Lord's heaven on her own shoulders, +it's Mis' Kinney, an' that blessed boy o' her'n 's goin' to be jest like +her. Look at him now, a workin' his poor little mouth an' lookin' up to +her and tryin' not to cry."</p> + +<p>Poor little Reuby! when the first shovelful of earth fell on the coffin, +his child's heart gave way, and he broke into loud crying, which made the +roughest men there hide their eyes. Draxy caught him up in her arms and +whispered something which quieted him instantly. Then she set him down, +and he stood till the end, looking away from the grave with almost a smile +on his face. He told some one, the next day, that he kept saying over to +himself all that time: "Beautiful gates of precious stones and angels +with harps."--"That's the city, you know, where my papa has gone. It's not +half so far off as we think; and papa is so happy there, he don't even +miss us, though he can see us every minute. And mamma and I are going +there pretty soon; next summer perhaps."</p> + + + +<h3>Part II.</h3> + + +<p>For the first few days after the funeral, Draxy seemed to sink; the void +was too terrible; only little Reuby's voice roused her from the apathetic +silence in which she would sit by the hour gazing out of the east +bay-window on the road down which she had last seen her husband walk. She +knew just the spot where he had paused and turned and thrown kisses back +to Reuby watching him from the window.</p> + +<p>But her nature was too healthy, too full of energy, and her soul too full +of love to remain in this frame long. She reproached herself bitterly for +the sin of having indulged in it even for a short time.</p> + +<p>"I don't believe my darling can be quite happy even in heaven, while he +sees me living this way," she said sternly to herself one morning. Then +she put on her bonnet, and went down into the village to carry out a +resolution she had been meditating for some days. Very great was the +astonishment of house after house that morning, as Draxy walked quietly +in, as had been her wont. She proposed to the mothers to send their +younger children to her, to be taught half of every day.</p> + +<p>"I can teach Reuby better if I have other children too," she said. "I +think no child ought to be sent into the district school under ten. The +confinement is too much for them. Let me have all the boys and girls +between six and eight, and I'll carry them along with Reuby for the next +two or three years at any rate," she said.</p> + +<p>The parents were delighted and grateful; but their wonder almost swallowed +up all other emotions.</p> + +<p>"To think o' her!" they said. "The Elder not three weeks buried, an' she a +goin' round, jest as calm 'n' sweet's a baby, a gettin' up a school!"</p> + +<p>"She's too good for this earth, that's what she is," said Angy Plummer. "I +should jest like to know if anybody'd know this village, since she came +into 't. Why we ain't one of us the same we used to be. I know I ain't. I +reckon myself's jest about eight years old, if I have got three boys. That +makes me born the summer before her Reuby, 'an that's jest the time I was +born, when my Benjy was seven months old!"</p> + +<p>"You're jest crazy about Mis' Kinney, Angy Plummer," said her mother. "I +b'lieve ye'd go through fire for her quicker 'n ye would for any yer own +flesh an' blood."</p> + +<p>Angy went to her mother and kissed the fretful old face very kindly. +"Mother, you can't say I hain't been a better daughter to you sence I've +knowed Mis' Kinney."</p> + +<p>"No, I can't," grumbled the old woman, "that's a fact; but she's got a +heap o' new fangled notions I don't believe in."</p> + +<p>The school was a triumphant success. From nine until twelve o'clock every +forenoon, twelve happy little children had a sort of frolic of learning +lessons in the Elder's sacred study, which was now Draxy's sitting-room. +Old Ike, who since the Elder's death had never seemed quite clear of +brain, had asked so piteously to come and sit in the room, that Draxy let +him do so. He sat in a big chair by the fire-place, and carved whistles +and ships and fantastic toys for the children, listening all the time +intently to every word which fell from Draxy's lips. He had transferred to +her all the pathetic love he had felt for the Elder; he often followed her +at a distance when she went out, and little Reuby he rarely lost sight of, +from morning till night. He was too feeble now to do much work, but his +presence was a great comfort to Draxy. He seemed a very close link between +her and her husband. Hannah, too, sometimes came into the school at +recess, to the great amusement of the children. She was particularly fond +of looking at the blackboard, when there were chalk-marks on it.</p> + +<p>"Make a mark on me with your white pencil," she would say, offering her +dark cheek to Reuby, who would scrawl hieroglyphics all over it from hair +to chin.</p> + +<p>Then she would invite the whole troop out into the kitchen to a feast of +doughnuts or cookies; very long the recesses sometimes were when the +school was watching Hannah fry the fantastic shapes of sweet dough, or +taking each a turn at the jagged wheel with which she cut them out.</p> + +<p>Reuben also came often to the school-room, and Jane sometimes sat there +with her knitting. A strange content had settled on their lives, in spite +of the sorrow. They saw Draxy calm; she smiled on them as constantly as +ever; and they were very old people, and believed too easily that she was +at peace.</p> + +<p>But the Lord had more work still for this sweet woman's hand. This, too, +was suddenly set before her. Late one Saturday afternoon, as she was +returning, surrounded by her escort of laughing children, from the woods, +where they had been for May-flowers, old Deacon Plummer overtook her.</p> + +<p>"Mis' Kinney, Mis' Kinney," he began several times, but could get no +further. He was evidently in great perplexity how to say the thing he +wished.</p> + +<p>"Mis' Kinney, would you hev--</p> + +<p>"Mis' Kinney, me and Deacon Swift's been a sayin'--</p> + +<p>"Mis' Kinney, ain't you got--"</p> + +<p>Draxy smiled outright. She often smiled now, with cordial good cheer, when +things pleased her.</p> + +<p>"What is it, Deacon? out with it. I can't possibly tell unless you make it +plainer."</p> + +<p>Thus encouraged, good Deacon Plummer went on: "Well, Mis' Kinney, it's +jest this: Elder Williams has jest sent word he can't come an' preach +to-morrer, and there ain't nobody anywhere's round thet we can get; and +De'n Swift 'n me, we was a thinkin' whether you wouldn't be willin' some +of us should read one o' the Elder's old sermons. O Mis' Kinney, ye don't +know how we all hanker to hear some o' his blessed words agin."</p> + +<p>Draxy stood still. Her face altered so that the little children crowded +round her in alarm, and Reuby took hold of her hand. Tears came into her +eyes, and she could hardly speak, but she replied,--</p> + +<p>"Yes, indeed, Mr. Plummer, I should be very glad to have you. I'll look +out a sermon to-night, and you can come up to the house in the morning and +get it."</p> + +<p>"O Mis' Kinney, do forgive me for speakin'. You have allers seem so borne +up, I never mistrusted that't'd do any harm to ask yer," stammered the +poor Deacon, utterly disconcerted by Draxy's tears, for she was crying +hard now.</p> + +<p>"It hasn't done any harm, I assure you. I am very glad to do it," said +Draxy.</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir, my mamma very often cries when she's glad," spoke up Reuby, his +little face getting very red, and his lips quivering. "She's very glad, +sir, if she says so."</p> + +<p>This chivalrous defense calmed poor Draxy, but did not comfort the Deacon, +who hurried away, saying to himself,--</p> + +<p>"Don't believe there was ever such a woman nor such a boy in this world +before. She never shed a tear when we brought the Elder home dead, nor +even when she see him let down into the very grave; 'n' I don't believe +she's cried afore anybody till to-day; 'n' that little chap a speakin' up +an' tellin' me his ma often cried when she was glad, an' I was to believe +her spite of her crying! I wish I'd made Job Swift go arter her. I'll make +him go arter that sermon anyhow. I won't go near her agin 'bout this +bisness, that's certain;" and the remorse-stricken, but artful deacon +hastened to his brother deacon's house to tell him that it was "all +settled with Mis' Kinney 'bout the sermon, an' she was quite willin';" +and, "O," he added, as if it were quite a second thought, "ye'd better go +up an' git the sermon, Job, in the mornin,' ye're so much nearer, an' +then, 's ye've to do the readin,' maybe she'll have somethin' to explain +to ye about the way it's to be read; th' Elder's writin' wan't any too +easy to make out, 's fur 's I remember it."</p> + +<p>Next morning, just as the first bells were ringing, Deacon Swift knocked +timidly at the door of the Elder's study. Draxy met him with a radiant +face. She had been excited by reading over the sermon she had after long +deliberation selected. The text was,--</p> + +<p>"Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you." The sermon had been +written soon after their marriage, and was one of her husband's favorites. +There were many eloquent passages in it, which seemed now to take on a new +significance, as coming from the lips of the Elder, absent from his flock +and present with Christ.</p> + +<p>"O Mis' Kinney, I recollect that sermon 's if 'twas only yesterday," said +Deacon Swift. "The hull parish was talkin' on't all the week; ye couldn't +have picked out one they'd be so glad to hear; but dear me! how I'm ever +goin' to read it in any kind o' decent way, I don't know; I never was a +reader, anyhow, 'n' now I've lost my front teeth, some words does pester +me to git out."</p> + +<p>This opened the way for Draxy. Nearly all night she had lain awake, +thinking how terrible it would be to her to hear her husband's beloved +words indistinctly and ineffectively read by Deacon Swift's cracked and +feeble voice. Almost she regretted having given her consent. At last the +thought flashed into her mind, "Why should I not read it myself? I know I +could be heard in every corner of that little church." The more she +thought of it, the more she longed to do it, and the less she shrank from +the idea of facing the congregation.</p> + +<p>"'It's only just like a big family of children,' Seth always used to say, +'and I'm sure I feel as if they were mine now, as much as ever they were +his. I wish I dared do it. I do believe Seth would like it,' and Draxy +fell asleep comforted by the thought. Before breakfast she consulted her +father, and he approved it warmly.</p> + +<p>"I believe your mission isn't done yet, daughter, to these people of your +husband's. The more you speak to 'em the better. It'll be jest like his +voice speaking from heaven to 'em," said Reuben, "an' I shouldn't wonder +if keepin' Elder Williams away was all the Lord's doin', as the blessed +saint used to say."</p> + +<p>Reuben's approval was all that Draxy needed to strengthen her impulse, and +before Deacon Swift arrived her only perplexity was as to the best way of +making the proposition to him. All this difficulty he had himself smoothed +away by his first words.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know, Deacon Swift," she said. "I've been thinking that perhaps it +would tire you to read for so long a time in a loud voice; and besides, +Mr. Kinney's handwriting is very hard to read."</p> + +<p>Draxy paused and looked sympathizingly in the deacon's face. The mention +of the illegible writing distressed the poor man still more. He took the +sermon from her hand and glanced nervously at the first page.</p> + +<p>"Oh my! Mis' Kinney," he exclaimed, "I can't make out half the words."</p> + +<p>"Can't you?" said Draxy, gently. "It is all as plain as print to me, I +know it so well. But there are some abbreviations Mr. Kinney always used. +I will explain them to you. Perhaps that will make it easier."</p> + +<p>"O Mis' Kinney, Mis' Kinney! I can't never do it in the world," burst out +the poor deacon. "O Mis' Kinney, why can't you read it to the folks? +They'd all like it, I know they would."</p> + +<p>"Do you really think so, Mr. Swift?" replied Draxy; and then, with a +little twinge of conscience, added immediately, "I have been thinking of +that very thing myself, that perhaps, if it wouldn't seem strange to the +people, that would be the best way, because I know the handwriting so +well, and it really is very hard for a stranger to read."</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes, that's the very thing," hastily exclaimed the relieved +deacon,--"that's it, that's it. Why, Mis' Kinney, as for their thinkin' it +strange, there ain't a man in the parish that wouldn't vote for you for +minister twice over if ye wuz only a man. I've heerd 'em all say so more +'n a thousand times sence." Something in Draxy's face cut the Deacon's +sentence short.</p> + +<p>"Very well, Mr. Swift," she said. "Then I will try, since you think it +best. My father thought it would be a good plan too, or else I should not +have been willing," she added, gently.</p> + +<p>"Reuben Miller's daughter" was still as guileless, reverent, potent a +thought in Draxy's heart as when, upon her unconscious childish lips, the +words had been a spell, disarming and winning all hearts to her.</p> + +<p>The news had gone all through the village on Saturday night, that Deacon +Swift was to read one of Elder Kinney's sermons the next day. The whole +parish was present; not a man, not a woman was missing except those who +were kept at home by sickness. A tender solemnity was in every face. Not +often does it happen to a man to be so beloved by a whole community as was +Elder Kinney by this people.</p> + +<p>With some embarrassment and hesitation, Deacon Swift read the hymns and +made one of the prayers; Deacon Plummer made the other. Then there came a +pause. Draxy flushed scarlet and half rose in her pew. She had not thought +to tell the Deacon that he must explain to the people beforehand why she +read the sermon. She had taken it for granted that he would do so; but he +did not comprehend that he ought, and only looked nervously towards her, +waiting for her to come forward. This was the one moment which tried +Draxy's soul; there was almost vexation in her look, as hastily laying +aside her bonnet she walked up to the table in front of the pulpit, and, +turning towards the people, said in her clear, melodious voice,--</p> + +<p>"Dear friends, I am sorry Deacon Swift did not explain to you that I was +to read the sermon. He asked me to do so because Mr. Kinney's handwriting +is very hard for a stranger to read."</p> + +<p>She paused for a second, and then added:</p> + +<p>"The sermon which I have chosen is one which some of you will remember. It +was written and preached nine years ago. The text is in the beautiful +Gospel of St. John, the 14th chapter and the 27th verse,--</p> + +<p>"'Peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you.'"</p> + +<p>After pronouncing these words, Draxy paused again, and looking towards her +pew, made a slight sign to Reuby. The child understood instantly, and +walked swiftly to her.</p> + +<p>"Sit in this chair here by mamma, Reuby darling," she whispered, and Reuby +climbed up into the big chair on her right hand, and leaned his fair +golden head against the high mahogany back. Draxy had become conscious, in +that first second, that she could not read with Reuby's wistful face in +sight. Also she felt a sudden yearning for the support of his nearer +presence.</p> + +<p>"Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you," she repeated, and went +on with the sermon. Her tones were low, but clear, and her articulation so +perfect that no syllable was lost; she could have been distinctly heard in +a room twice as large as this. The sight was one which thrilled every +heart that looked on it; no poor laboring man there was so dull of sense +and soul that he did not sit drinking in the wonderful picture: the tall, +queenly woman robed in simple flowing white, her hair a coronet of snowy +silver; her dark blue eyes shining with a light which would have been +flashingly brilliant, except for its steadfast serenity; her mouth almost +smiling, as the clear tones flowed out; sitting quiet, intent, by her +side, the beautiful boy, also dressed in white, his face lighted like hers +by serene and yet gleaming eyes; his head covered with golden curls; his +little hands folded devoutly in his lap. One coming suddenly upon the +scene might well have fancied himself in another clime and age, in the +presence of some rite performed by a mystic priestess clothed in samite. +But the words which fell from the lips were the gentlest words of the +gentlest religion earth has known; and the heart which beat under the +clinging folds of the strange white garb was no priestess' heart, but a +heart full, almost to breaking, of wifehood, of motherhood.</p> + +<p>It does not need experience as an orator to give significance to the +magnetic language of upturned faces. Before Draxy had read ten pages of +the sermon, she was so thrilled by the consciousness that every heart +before her was thrilled too, that her cheeks flushed and her whole face +glowed.</p> + +<p>The sermon had sounded eloquent when the Elder preached it; but now, from +Draxy's lips, it was transcendent. As she read the closing paragraph,--</p> + +<p>"His peace He leaves with us: his peace He gives unto us: not such peace +as He knew on earth: such peace as He knows now in heaven, on the right +hand of His Father; even that peace He bids us share--that peace, the +peace of God which passeth understanding,"--she seemed to dilate in +stature, and as she let the sermon fall on the table before her, her +lifted eyes seemed arrested in mid air as by a celestial vision.</p> + +<p>Then in a second more, she was again the humble, affectionate Draxy, whom +all the women and all the little children knew and loved; looking round on +them with an appealing expression, she said,--</p> + +<p>"Dear friends, I hope I have not done wrong in standing up here and taking +it upon me to read such solemn words. I felt that Mr. Kinney would like to +speak to you once more through me."</p> + +<p>Then taking little Reuby by the hand, she walked slowly back to her pew.</p> + +<p>Then Deacon Swift made sad work of reading the hymn,--</p> + +<p>"Blest be the tie that binds,"</p> + +<p>And the choir made sad work of singing it. Nobody's voice could be trusted +for many syllables at a time, but nobody listened to the music. Everybody +was impatient to speak to Draxy. They clustered round her in the aisle; +they crowded into pews to get near her: all the reticence and reserve of +their New England habit had melted away in this wonderful hour. They +thanked her; they touched her; they gazed at her; they did not know what +to do; even Draxy's calm was visibly disturbed by the atmosphere of their +great excitement.</p> + +<p>"O Mis' Kinney, ef ye'll only read us one more! just one more! won't ye, +now? Do say ye will, right off, this arternoon; or read the same one right +over, ef that's any easier for ye. We'd like to hear jest that 'n' nothin' +else for a year to come! O Mis' Kinney! 'twas jest like hearin' the Elder +himself."</p> + +<p>Poor Draxy was trembling. Reuben came to her rescue.</p> + +<p>"I hope you won't take it unkindly of me," he said, "but my daughter's +feeling more than's good for her. She must come home now." And Reuben drew +her hand into his arm.</p> + +<p>The people fell back sorry and conscience-stricken.</p> + +<p>"We orter ha' known better," they said, "but she makes us forgit she's +flesh 'n' blood."</p> + +<p>"I will read you another sermon some time," said Draxy, slowly. "I shall +be very glad to. But not to-day. I could not do it to-day." Then she +smiled on them all, with a smile which was a benediction, and walked away +holding Reuby's hand very tightly, and leaning heavily on her father's +arm.</p> + +<p>The congregation did not disperse; nothing since the Elder's death had so +moved them. They gathered in knots on the church steps and in the aisles, +and talked long and earnestly. There was but one sentiment, one voice.</p> + +<p>"It's a thousand shames she ain't a man," said some of the young men.</p> + +<p>"It 'ud be a thousand times more ef she wuz," retorted Angy Plummer. "I'd +like to see the man that 'ud do what she does, a comin' right close to the +very heart o' yer's ef she was your mother 'n' your sister 'n' your +husband, and a blessed angel o' God, all ter once."</p> + +<p>"But Angy, we only meant that then we could hev her for our minister," +they replied.</p> + +<p>Angy turned very red, but replied, energetically,--</p> + +<p>"There ain't any law agin a woman's bein' minister, thet I ever heerd on. +Howsomever, Mis' Kinney never'd hear to anythin' o' that kind. I don' no' +for my part how she ever mustered up courage to do what she's done, so +kind o' backward 'n' shy's she is for all her strength. But for my part, I +wouldn't ask for no other preachin' all the rest o' my life, than jest to +hear Mis' Kinney read one o' her husband's sermons every Sunday."</p> + +<p>"Why, Angy Plummer!" burst from more lips than one. But the bold +suggestion was only the half-conscious thought of every one there, and the +discussion grew more and more serious. Slowly the people dispersed to +their homes, but the discussion still continued. Late into night, by many +a fireside, the matter was talked over, and late the next night, and the +next, until a vague hope and a still vaguer purpose sprang up in the +parish.</p> + +<p>"She said she'd read another some day," they reiterated. "Most likely +she'd 's soon do it next Sunday, 'n' sooner, 'cause she'd be more used +to't than ef she waited a spell between."</p> + +<p>"But it won't do to take it for granted she's goin' to, 'n' not git +anybody," said Deacon Swift, in great perplexity. "I think Brother Plummer +'n' me'd better go 'n' ask her."</p> + +<p>"No," said Angy, "let me go. I can talk it over better'n you can. I'll +go."</p> + +<p>And Angy went. The interview between the two women was long. Angy pleaded +as nobody else in the parish could have done; and Draxy's heart was all on +her side. But Draxy's judgment was unconvinced.</p> + +<p>"If I could be sure, Angy, that it would be best for the people, I should +not hesitate. But you know very well, if I begin I shall keep on," she +said.</p> + +<p>She consulted Reuben. His heart, too, was on the people's side, but his +judgment was like hers, perplexed.</p> + +<p>"One thing's very certain, daughter: there is not anybody they can ever +find to settle here, or that they are likely to, who can preach as the +Elder did. His old sermons are worlds better than any new ones they'll +get."</p> + +<p>"Yes, indeed, I know that," said Draxy. "That's what makes me feel as if I +must do it."</p> + +<p>This had been her strongest motive. Only too well she knew what would be +the probable calibre of a man who would come to this poor and lonely +little village which she so loved.</p> + +<p>At last she consented to make the experiment. "I will read for you every +Sunday, two sermons of Mr. Kinney's," she said, "until you hear of some +one whom you would like to settle for your minister."</p> + +<p>Angy Plummer, clapped her hands when her father repeated at tea on +Thursday evening what "Mis' Kinney" had said.</p> + +<p>"That's good's settlin' her," she exclaimed. "Oh, I never thought she'd +come to it," and real tears of joy stood in Angy's eyes.</p> + +<p>"I don't know 'bout that, Angy," replied the Deacon; "there's a good deal +to be thought on, fust 'n' last. Folks '11 talk like everythin', I expect, +'n' say we've got a woman preacher. It wouldn't never do for any great +length o' time; but it will be a blessin' to hear some th' Elder's good +rousin' comfortin' sermons for a spell, arter the stuff we hev been a +havin', 'n' they can't say she's any more 'n' a reader anyhow. That's +quite different from preachin'."</p> + +<p>"Of course it is," said Angy, who was wise enough to keep some of her +thoughts and hopes to herself; "they're's different's any other two +things. I don't suppose anybody'd say you was a settin' up to preach, if +you'd ha' read the sermons, 'n' I don't see why they need to any more o' +Mis' Kinney." And so, on the next Sunday Draxy's ministry to her husband's +people began. Again with softened and gladdened faces the little +congregation looked up to the fair, tall priestess with her snow-white +robes and snow-white hair, and gleaming steadfast eyes, standing meekly +between the communion-table and the chair in which sat her golden-haired +little son. Her voice was clearer and stronger than ever; and there was a +calm peacefulness in her whole atmosphere which had not been there at +first.</p> + +<p>Again the people crowded around, and thanked her, and clasped her hands. +This time she answered them with cordial good cheer, and did not tremble. +To little Reuby also they spoke gratefully.</p> + +<p>"You help too, Reuby, don't you?" said Angy Plummer,--"do you like it?"</p> + +<p>"Very much, ma'am; mamma says I help, but I think she's mistaken," replied +the little fellow, archly.</p> + +<p>"Yes you do, you darling," said Mrs. Plummer, stooping and kissing him +tenderly. Angy Plummer loved Reuby. She never looked at him without +thinking that but for his existence the true mother-heart would perhaps +never have been born in her bosom.</p> + +<p>The reading of the sermons grew easier and easier to Draxy, Sunday by +Sunday. She became conscious of a strange sense of being lifted out of +herself, as soon as she began to speak. She felt more and more as if it +were her husband speaking through her; and she felt more and more closely +drawn into relation with the people.</p> + +<p>"Oh, father dear," she said more than once, "I don't know how I shall ever +give it up when the time comes. It makes me so happy: I feel almost as if +I could see Seth standing right by me and holding my gown while I read. +And father, dear," she proceeded in a lower, slower voice, "I don't know +but you'll think it wrong; I'm almost afraid to tell you, but sometimes I +say words that aren't in the sermons; just a sentence or two, where I +think Seth would put it in if he were here now; and I almost believe he +puts the very words into my head." + +She paused and looked anxiously and inquiringly at her father.</p> + +<p>"No, Draxy," replied Reuben solemnly, "I don't think it wrong. I feel more +and more, every Sunday I listen to you, as if the Lord had set you apart +for this thing; and I don't believe he'd send any other angel except your +husband on the errand of helpin' you."</p> + +<p>The summer passed, and the parish gave no signs of readiness for a new +minister. When Draxy spoke of it, she was met by such heartfelt grief on +all sides that she was silenced. At last she had a long, serious talk with +the deacons, which set her mind more at rest. They had, it seemed, +consulted several neighboring ministers, Elder Williams among the number, +and they had all advised that while the congregation seemed so absorbed in +interest, no change should be made.</p> + +<p>"Elder Williams he sez he'll come over regular for the communion," said +Deacon Plummer, "and for baptisms whenever we want him, and thet's the +main thing, for, thank the Lord, we haint many funerals 'n course of a +year. And Mis' Kinney, ef ye'll excuse my makin' so bold, I'll tell ye +jest what Elder Williams said about ye: sez he, It's my opinion that ef +there was ever a woman born thet was jest cut out for a minister to a +congregation, it's that Elder's wife o' your'n; and sez we to him 'Thet's +jest what the hull town thinks, sir, and it's our opinion that ef we +should try to settle anythin' in the shape of a man in this parish, there +wouldn't be anythin' but empty pews for him to preach to, for the people'd +all be gone up to Mis' Kinney's.'"</p> + +<p>Draxy smiled in spite of herself. But her heart was very solemn.</p> + +<p>"It is a great responsibility, Deacon Plummer," she said, "and I feel +afraid all the time. But my father thinks I ought to do it, and I am so +happy in it, it seems as if it could not be a mistake."</p> + +<p>As months went on, her misgivings grew less and less; and her impulses to +add words of her own to her husband's sermons grew more and more frequent. +She could not but see that she held the hearts of the people in her hands +to mould them like wax; and her intimate knowledge of their conditions and +needs made it impossible for her to refrain from sometimes speaking the +words she knew they ought to hear. Whenever she did so at any length, she +laid her manuscript on the table, that they might know the truth. Her +sense of honesty would not let her do otherwise. It was long before +anybody but Angy Plummer understood the meaning of these intervals. The +rest supposed she knew parts of the sermon by heart.</p> + +<p>But at last came a day when her soul was so stirred within her, that she +rose up boldly before her people and said,--</p> + +<p>"I have not brought any sermon of Mr. Kinney's to read to you to-day. I am +going to speak to you myself. I am so grieved, so shocked at events which +have taken place in this village, the past week, that I cannot help +speaking about them. And I find among Mr. Kinney's sermons no one which +meets this state of things."</p> + +<p>The circumstances to which Draxy alluded had been some disgraceful scenes +of excitement in connection with the Presidential election. Party spirit +had been growing higher and higher in Clairvend for some years; and when, +on the reckoning of the returns on this occasion, the victorious party +proved to have a majority of but three, sharp quarreling had at once +broken out. Accusations of cheating and lying were freely bandied, and +Deacon Plummer and George Thayer had nearly come to blows on the steps of +the Town House, at high noon, just as the school-children were going home. +Later in the afternoon there had been a renewal of the contest in the +village store, and it had culminated in a fight, part of which Draxy +herself had chanced to see. Long and anxiously she pondered, that night, +the question of her duty. She dared not keep silent.</p> + +<p>"It would be just hypocrisy and nothing less," she exclaimed to herself, +"for me to stand up there and read them one of Seth's sermons, when I am +burning to tell them how shamefully they have behaved. But I suppose it +will be the last time I shall speak to them. They'll never want to hear me +again."</p> + +<p>She did not tell her father of her resolution till they were near the +church. Reuben started, but in a moment he said, deliberately,--</p> + +<p>"You're quite right, daughter; may the Lord bless you!"</p> + +<p>At Draxy's first words, a thrill of astonishment ran over the whole +congregation. Everybody knew what was coming. George Thayer colored +scarlet to the roots of his hair, and the color never faded till the +sermon was ended. Deacon Plummer coughed nervously, and changed his +position so as to cover his mouth with his hand. Angy put her head down on +the front of the pew and began to cry.</p> + +<p>"Render, therefore, unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's and unto God +the things that are God's," came in clear ringing tones from Draxy's lips. +Then she proceeded, in simple and gentle words, to set forth the right of +every man to his own opinions and convictions; the duty of having earnest +convictions and acting up to them in all the affairs of life. George +Thayer and the Deacon looked easier. Her words seemed, after all, rather a +justification of their vehemence of feeling.</p> + +<p>But when she came to speak of the "things that are God's," her words +pierced their very souls. The only thing that enabled George Thayer to +bear up under it at all was, as he afterwards said in the store, keeping +his "eyes fixed steady on old Plummer," "'cause, you know, boys, I never +jined the church nor made any kind o' profession o' goin' in for any +things o' God's, nohow; not but what I've often wished I could see my way +to: but sez I to myself, ef he kin stan' it I kin, an' so I held out. But +I tell you, boys, I'd rather drive the wust six-hoss team I ever got hold +on down Breakneck Hill 'n the dark, than set there agin under thet woman's +eyes, a blazin' one minnit, 'n fillin' with tears the next: 'n' I don't +care what anybody sez; I'm a goin' to see her an' tell her that she +needn't be afeard o' ever hevin to preach to me s' good s' by my name, in +the meeting 'us agin, by thunder!"</p> + +<p>"Suppose the blessed Saviour had come walking through our streets, looking +for his children last Wednesday," said Draxy, "He would say to himself, +'I shall know them, wherever I find them: I have given them so many +badges, they will be sure to be wearing some of them. They suffer long and +are kind; they envy not, vaunt not, are not puffed up: they are not easily +provoked, think no evil, seek not their own, rejoice in the truth; they do +not behave unseemly.' Alas, would the dear Jesus have turned away, +believing Himself a stranger and friendless in our village? Which one of +you, dear men, could have sprung forward to take him by the hand? What +terrible silence would have fallen upon you as he looked round on your +angry faces!"</p> + +<p>Tears were rolling down little Reuby's face. Slyly he tried to wipe them +away, first with one hand, then with the other, lest his mother should see +them. He had never in his life seen such an expression of suffering on +her face. He had never heard such tones of pain in her voice. He was +sorely perplexed; and the sight of his distressed little face was almost +more than the people could bear.</p> + +<p>When Draxy stopped speaking, Deacon Plummer did a manly thing. He rose +instantly, and saying "Let us pray," poured out as humble and contrite a +petition for forgiveness as ever went up on wings of faith to Heaven. It +cleared the air, like sweet rain; it rolled a burden off everybody's +heart--most of all, perhaps, off Draxy's.</p> + +<p>"He is not angry, after all," she said; "God has laid it to his heart;" +and when, at the end of the services, the old man came up to her and held +out his hand, she took it in both of hers, and said, "Thank you, dear +Deacon Plummer, thank you for helping me so much to-day. Your prayer was +better for the people than my little sermon, a great deal." The deacon +wrung her hands, but did not speak a word, only stooped and kissed Reuby.</p> + +<p>After this day, Draxy had a new hold on the people. They had really felt +very little surprise at her speaking to them as she did. She had slowly +and insensibly to herself grown into the same place which the Elder had +had in their regard; the same in love and confidence, but higher in +reverence, and admiration, for although she sympathized just as lovingly +as he in all their feelings, they never for a moment ceased to feel that +her nature was on a higher plane than his. They could not have put this in +words, but they felt it.</p> + +<p>"Donno, how 'tis," they said, "but Mis' Kinney, even when she's closest to +ye, an' a doin' for ye all the time, don't seem just like a mortal woman."</p> + +<p>"It's easy enough to know how 'tis," replied Angy Plummer, once, in a +moment of unguarded frankness, "Mis Kinney is a kind o' daughter o' God, +somthin' as Jesus Christ was His Son. It's just the way Jesus Christ used +to go round among folks, 's near 's I can make out; 'n' I for one, don't +believe that God jest sent Him, once for all, 'n' haint never sent anybody +else near us, all this time. I reckon He's a sendin' down sons and +daughters to us oftener 'n' we think."</p> + +<p>"Angy Plummer, I call that downright blasphemy," exclaimed her mother.</p> + +<p>"Well, call it what you're a mind to," retorted the crisp Angy. "It's what +I believe."</p> + +<p>"'Tis blasphemy though, to be sayin' it to folks that can't understand," +she muttered to herself as she left the room, "ef blasphemy means what +Mis' Kinney sez it does, to speak stupidly."</p> + +<p>Three years had passed. The novelty of Draxy's relation to her people had +worn off. The neighboring people had ceased to wonder and to talk; and the +neighboring ministers had ceased to doubt and question. Clairvend and she +had a stout supporter in old Elder Williams, who was looked upon as a high +authority throughout the region. He always stayed at Reuben Miller's +house, when he came to the town, and his counsel and sympathy were +invaluable to Draxy. Sometimes he said jocosely, "I am the pastor of +Brother Kinney's old parish and Mis' Kinney is my curate, and I wish +everybody had as good an one."</p> + +<p>It finally grew to be Draxy's custom to read one of her husband's sermons +in the forenoon, and to talk to the people informally in the afternoon. +Sometimes she wrote out what she wished to say, but usually she spoke +without any notes. She also wrote hymns which she read to them, and which +the choir sometimes sang. She was now fully imbued with the feeling that +everything which she could do, belonged to her people. Next to Reuben, +they filled her heart; the sentiment was after all but an expanded and +exalted motherhood. Strangers sometimes came to Clairvend to hear her +preach, for of course the fame of the beautiful white-robed woman-preacher +could not be confined to her own village. This always troubled Draxy very +much.</p> + +<p>"If we were not so far out of the world, I should have to give it up," she +said; "I know it is proper they should come; but it seems to me just as +strange as if they were to walk into the study in the evening when I am +teaching Reuby. I can't make it seem right; and when I see them writing +down what I say, it just paralyzes me."</p> + +<p>It might have seemed so to Draxy, but it did not to her hearers. No one +would have supposed her conscious of any disturbing presence. And more +than one visitor carried away with him written records of her eloquent +words.</p> + +<p>One of her most remarkable sermons was called "The Gospel of Mystery."</p> + +<p>The text was Psalm xix. 2:--</p> + +<blockquote><p> "Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge."</p></blockquote> + +<p>First she dwelt on the sweet meaning of the word Gospel. "Dear friends," +she said, "it is a much simpler word than we realize; it is only 'good +news,' 'good tidings.' We get gospels every day. Our children send us good +news of their lives. What gospels of joy are such letters! And nations to +nations send good news: a race of slaves is set free; a war has ended; +shiploads of grain have been sent to the starving; a good man has been +made ruler; these are good tidings--gospels."</p> + +<p>After dwelling on this first, simplest idea of the word, until every one +of her hearers had begun to think vividly of all the good tidings +journeying in words back and forth between heart and heart, continent and +continent, she spoke of the good news which nature tells without words. +Here she was eloquent. Subtle as the ideas were, they were yet clothed in +the plain speech which the plain people understood: the tidings of the +spring, of the winter, of the river, of the mountain; of gold, of silver, +of electric fire; of blossom and fruit; of seed-time and harvest; of suns +and stars and waters,--these were the "speech" which "day uttered unto +day."</p> + +<p>But "knowledge was greater" than speech: night in her silence "showed" +what day could not tell. Here the faces of the people grew fixed and +earnest. In any other hands than Draxy's the thought would have been too +deep for them, and they would have turned from it wearily. But her +simplicity controlled them always. "Stand on your door-steps on a dark +night," she said,--"a night so dark that you can see nothing: looking out +into this silent darkness, you will presently feel a far greater sense of +how vast the world is, than you do in broad noon-day, when you can see up +to the very sun himself."</p> + +<p>More than one young face in the congregation showed that this sentence +struck home and threw light on hitherto unexplained emotions. "This is +like what I mean," continued Draxy, "by the Gospel of Mystery, the good +tidings of the things we cannot understand. This gospel is everywhere. Not +the wisest man that has ever lived can fully understand the smallest +created thing: a drop of water, a grain of dust, a beam of light, can +baffle his utmost research. So with our own lives, with our own hearts; +every day brings a mystery--sin and grief and death: all these are +mysteries; gospels of mystery, good tidings of mystery; yes, good tidings! +These are what prove that God means to take us into another world after +this one; into a world where all things which perplexed us here will be +explained.... O my dear friends!" she exclaimed at last, clasping her +hands tightly, "thank God for the things which we cannot understand: +except for them, how should we ever be sure of immortality?"</p> + +<p>Then she read them a hymn called "The Gospel of Mystery." Coming after the +sermon, it was sweet and clear to all the people's hearts. Before the +sermon it would have seemed obscure.</p> + +<blockquote><h4> The Gospel of Mystery.</h4> + +<p> Good tidings every day,<br /> +God's messengers ride fast.<br /> + We do not hear one half they say,<br /> + There is such noise on the highway,<br /> +Where we must wait while they ride past.</p> + +<p> Their banners blaze and shine<br /> +With Jesus Christ's dear name,<br /> +And story, how by God's design<br /> + He saves us, in His love divine,<br /> +And lifts us from our sin and shame.</p> + +<p> Their music fills the air,<br /> +Their songs sing all of Heaven;<br /> + Their ringing trumpet peals declare<br /> + What crowns to souls who fight and dare,<br /> +And win, shall presently be given.</p> + +<p> Their hands throw treasures round<br /> +Among the multitude.<br /> + No pause, no choice, no count, no bound,<br /> + No questioning how men are found,<br /> +If they be evil or be good.</p> + +<p> But all the banners bear<br /> +Some words we cannot read;<br /> + And mystic echoes in the air,<br /> + Which borrow from the songs no share,<br /> +In sweetness all the songs exceed.</p> + +<p> And of the multitude,<br /> +No man but in his hand<br /> + Holds some great gift misunderstood,<br /> + Some treasure, for whose use or good<br /> +His ignorance sees no demand.</p> + +<p> These are the tokens lent<br /> +By immortality;<br /> + Birth-marks of our divine descent;<br /> + Sureties of ultimate intent,<br /> +God's Gospel of Eternity.</p> + +<p> Good tidings every day.<br /> +The messengers ride fast;<br /> + Thanks be to God for all they say;<br /> + There is such noise on the highway,<br /> +Let us keep still while they ride past.</p></blockquote> + +<p>But the sermon which of all others her people loved best was one on the +Love of God. This one she was often asked to repeat,--so often, that she +said one day to Angy, who asked for it, "Why, Angy, I am ashamed to. +Everybody must know it by heart. I am sure I do."</p> + +<p>"Yes, that's jest the way we do know it, Mis' Kinney, by heart," said the +affectionate Angy, "an' that's jest the reason we want it so often. I +never told ye what George Thayer said the last time you read it to us, did +I?"</p> + +<p>"No, Angy," said Draxy.</p> + +<p>"Well, he was singing in the choir that day, 'n place o' his brother, who +was sick; 'n' he jumped up on one o' the seats 'n' swung his hat, jest 's +you was goin' down the aisle, 'n' we all ketched hold on him to pull him +down, 'n' try to hush him; for you can't never tell what George Thayer'll +do when his blood's up, 'n' we was afraid he was agoin' to holler right +out, 's ef he was in the town-'us; but sez he, in a real low, trembly kind +o' voice,</p> + +<p>"'Ye needn't be afraid, I ain't agoin' to whoop;--taint that way I +feel,--but I had to do suthin' or I should bust': 'n' there was reel tears +in his eyes--George Thayer's eyes, Mis' Kinney! Then he jumped down, 'n' +sez he, 'I'll tell ye what that sermon's like: it's jest like one great +rainbow all round ye, and before 'n' behind 'n' everywheres, 'n' the end +on't reaches way to the Throne; it jest dazzles my eyes, that's what it +does.'"</p> + +<p>This sermon had concluded with the following hymn, which Draxy had written +when Reuby was only a few weeks old:--</p> + +<blockquote><h4> The Love of God.</h4> + +<p>Like a cradle rocking, rocking,<br /> + Silent, peaceful, to and fro,<br /> +Like a mother's sweet looks dropping<br /> + On the little face below,<br /> +Hangs the green earth, swinging, turning,<br /> + Jarless, noiseless, safe and slow;<br /> +Falls the light of God's face bending<br /> + Down and watching us below.</p> + +<p>And as feeble babes that suffer,<br /> + Toss and cry, and will not rest,<br /> +Are the ones the tender mother<br /> + Holds the closest, loves the best,<br /> +So when we are weak and wretched,<br /> + By our sins weighed down, distressed,<br /> +Then it is that God's great patience<br /> + Holds us closest, loves us best.</p> + +<p>O great Heart of God! whose loving<br /> + Cannot hindered be nor crossed;<br /> +Will not weary, will not even<br /> + In our death itself be lost--<br /> +Love divine! of such great loving,<br /> + Only mothers know the cost--<br /> +Cost of love, which all love passing,<br /> + Gave a Son to save the lost.</p></blockquote> + +<p>There is little more to tell of Draxy's ministry. It closed as suddenly as +it had begun.</p> + +<p>It was just five years after the Elder's death that she found herself, one +Sunday morning, feeling singularly feeble and lifeless. She was bewildered +at the sensation, for in her apparent health she had never felt it before. +She could hardly walk, could hardly stand. She felt also a strange apathy +which prevented her being alarmed.</p> + +<p>"It is nothing," she said; "I dare say most women are so all the time; I +don't feel in the least ill;" and she insisted upon it that no one should +remain at home with her. It was a communion Sunday and Elder Williams was +to preach.</p> + +<p>"How fortunate it is that Mr. Williams was here!" she thought languidly, +as she seated herself in the eastern bay-window, to watch Reuby down the +hill. He walked between his grandparents, holding each by the hand, +talking merrily and looking up into their faces.</p> + +<p>Draxy watched them until their figures became dim, black specks, and +finally faded out of sight. Then she listened dreamily to the notes of the +slow-tolling bell; when it ceased she closed her eyes, and her thoughts +ran back, far back to the days when she was "little Draxy" and Elder +Kinney was only her pastor. Slowly she lived her life since then over +again, its joy and its sorrow alike softened in her tender, brooding +thoughts. The soft whirring sound of a bird's wings in the air roused her: +as it flew past the window she saw that it was one of the yellow-hammers, +which still built their nests in the maple-grove behind the house.</p> + +<p>"Ah," thought she, "I suppose it can't be one of the same birds we saw +that day. But it's going on errands just the same. I wonder, dear Seth, if +mine are nearly done."</p> + +<p>At that instant a terrible pain shot through her left side and forced a +sharp cry from her lips. She half rose exclaiming, "Reuby, oh, darling!" +and sank back in her chair unconscious.</p> + +<p>Just as Elder Williams was concluding the communion service, the door of +the church was burst open, and old Ike, tottering into the aisle, cried +out in a shrill voice:--</p> + +<p>"Mis' Kinney's dead! Mis' Kinney's dead!"</p> + +<p>The scene that followed could not be told. With flying feet the whole +congregation sped up the steep hill--Angy Plummer half lifting, half +dragging Reuby, and the poor grandparents supported on each side by strong +men. As they drew near the house, they saw Draxy apparently sitting by the +open window.</p> + +<p>"O mamma! why that's mamma," shrieked Reuby, "she was sitting just so when +we came away. She isn't dead."</p> + +<p>Elder Williams reached the house first, Hannah met him on the threshold, +tearless.</p> + +<p>"She dead, sir. She's cold as ice. She must ha' been dead a long time."</p> + +<p>Old Ike had been rambling around the house, and observing from the outside +that Draxy's position was strange, had compelled Hannah to go into the +room.</p> + +<p>"She was a smilin' just's you see her now," said Hannah, "'n' I couldn't +ha' touched her to move her more'n I could ha' touched an angel."</p> + +<p>There are griefs, as well as joys, to which words offer insult. Draxy was +dead!</p> + +<p>Three days later they laid her by the side of her husband, and the +gray-haired, childless old people, and the golden-haired, fatherless and +motherless boy, returned together broken-hearted to the sunny parsonage.</p> + +<p>On the village a terrible silence, that could be felt, settled down; a +silence in which sorrowing men and women crept about, weeping as those who +cannot be comforted.</p> + +<p>Then week followed after week, and soon all things seemed as they had +seemed before. But Draxy never died to her people. Her hymns are still +sung in the little lonely church; her gospel still lives in the very air +of those quiet hills, and the people smile through their tears as they +teach her name to little children.</p> +</div> + + +<div class="chapter" id="ch03"> +<h2>Whose Wife Was She?</h2> + + + +<p>I was on my knees before my chrysanthemum-bed, looking at each little +round tight disk of a bud, and trying to believe that it would be a snowy +flower in two weeks. In two weeks my cousin Annie Ware was to be married: +if my white chrysanthemums would only understand and make haste! I was +childish enough to tell them so; but the childishness came of love,--of my +exceeding, my unutterable love for Annie Ware; if flowers have souls, the +chrysanthemums understood me.</p> + +<p>A sharp, quick roll of wheels startled me. I lifted my head. The wheels +stopped at our gate; a hurried step came down the broad garden-path, and +almost before I had had time to spring to my feet, Dr. Fearing had taken +both my hands in his, had said,--"Annie Ware has the fever,"--had turned, +had gone, had shut the garden gate, and the same sharp quick roll of +wheels told that he was far on his way to the next sufferer.</p> + +<p>I do not know how long I stood still in the garden. A miserable sullenness +seemed to benumb my faculties. I repeated,--</p> + +<p>"Annie Ware has the fever." Then I said,--</p> + +<p>"Annie Ware cannot die; she is too young, too strong, and we love her +so."</p> + +<p>Then I said again,--</p> + +<p>"Annie Ware has the fever," and all the time I seemed not to be thinking +about her at all, but about the chrysanthemums, whose tops I still idly +studied.</p> + +<p>For weeks a malignant typhus fever had been slowly creeping about in the +lower part of our village, in all the streets which had been under water +in the spring freshet.</p> + +<p>These streets were occupied chiefly by laboring people, either +mill-operatives, or shopkeepers of the poorer class. It was part of the +cruel "calamity" of their "poverty" that they could not afford to have +homesteads on the high plateau, which lifted itself quite suddenly from +the river meadow, and made our village a by-word of beauty all through New +England.</p> + +<p>Upon this plateau were laid out streets of great regularity, shaded by +grand elms, many of which had been planted by hands that had handled the +ropes of the <i>Mayflower</i>. Under the shade of these elms stood large +old-fashioned houses, in that sort of sleepy dignity peculiar to old New +England. We who lived in these houses were also sleepy and dignified. We +knew that "under the hill," as it was called, lived many hundreds of men +and women, who were stifled in summer for want of the breezes which swept +across our heights, cold in winter because the wall of our plateau shut +down upon them the icy airs from the frozen river, and cut off the +afternoon sun. We were sorry for them, and we sent them cold meat and +flannels sometimes; but their life was as remote from our life as if they +never crossed our paths; it is not necessary to go into large cities to +find sharp lines drawn between the well-to-do and the poverty-stricken. +There are, in many small villages, "districts" separated from each other +by as distinct a moral distance as divides Fifth Avenue from the Five +Points.</p> + +<p>And so it had come to pass that while for weeks this malignant fever had +been creeping about on the river shore, we, in our clearer, purer air, had +not felt even a dread of it. There had not been a single case of it west +of the high water mark made by the terrible freshet of the previous +spring. We sent brandy and wine and beef-tea into the poor, comfortless, +grief-stricken houses; and we said at tea-time that it was strange, people +would persist in living down under the bank: what could they expect? and +besides, they were "so careless about drainage and ventilation."</p> + +<p>Now, on the highest and loveliest spot, in the richest and most beautiful +house, the sweetest and fairest girl of all our village lay ill of the +deadly disease.</p> + +<p>"Annie Ware has the fever." I wondered if some fiend were lurking by my +side, who kept saying the words over and over in my ear. With that +indescribable mixture of dulled and preternaturally sharpened sense which +often marks the first moments of such distress, I walked slowly to my +room, and in a short time had made all the necessary preparation for +leaving home. I felt like a thief as I stole slowly down the stairs, with +my travelling-bag in my hand. At the door I met my father.</p> + +<p>"Hey-day, my darling, where now? Off to Annie's, as usual?"</p> + +<p>He had not heard the tidings! Should I tell him? I might never see him +again; only too well I knew the terrible danger into which I was going. +But he might forbid me.</p> + +<p>"Yes, off to Annie's," I said in a gay tone, and kissing him sprang down +the steps.</p> + +<p>I did not see my father again for eighteen days.</p> + +<p>On the steps of my uncle's house I met old Jane, a colored woman who had +nursed Annie Ware when she was a baby, and who lived now in a little +cottage near by, from whose door-steps she could see Annie's window, and +in whose garden she raised flowers of all sorts, solely for the pleasure +of carrying them to Annie every day.</p> + +<p>Jane's face was positively gray with sorrow and fear. She looked at me +with a strange sort of unsympathizing hardness in her eyes. She had never +loved me. I knew what she thought. She was saying to herself: "Why not +this one instead of the other?"</p> + +<p>"O auntie!" I said, "I would die for Annie; you know I would."</p> + +<p>At this she melted. "O honey! don' ye say that. The Lord"--but she could +say no more. She threw her apron up over her head and strode away.</p> + +<p>The doors of the house stood open. I walked through room after room, and +found no human being. At last, at the foot of the stairs in the back part +of the house, I came upon all the servants huddled together in a cowering, +weeping group. Flat on the floor, with his face to the wall, lay black +Cæsar, the coachman. I put my hand on his shoulder. He jerked away +impatiently.</p> + +<p>"Yer jest lemme lone, will yer?" he said in a choking voice; then lifting +up his head, and seeing it was I, he half sprang to his feet, with a look +of shame and alarm, and involuntarily carrying his hand to his head, +said:--</p> + +<p>"O miss! who's gwine to think yer"--here he too broke down, and buried his +face in his great hands.</p> + +<p>I did not speak, but the little group instinctively opened to let me pass +up the stairs. I had a vague consciousness that they said something as I +turned into a little cross-hall which led to Annie's room; but without +attending to their words I opened her door. The room was empty; the bed +stripped of clothes; the windows wide open. I sank into a chair, and +looked from side to side. I was too late, after all! That was why none of +the servants dared speak to me. A little slipper of Annie's lay on the +floor by the bed. I took it up and turned it over and over in my hands. +Then I became conscious that my Aunt Ann was speaking to me,--was calling +me by name, earnestly, repeatedly, with terror in her voice.</p> + +<p>"My dear, dear child; Helen, Helen, Helen, she is not dead. She is in my +room. Come and see for yourself."</p> + +<p>I had seen my Aunt Ann every day for nineteen years,--I never knew her +until that moment; I never saw her real face until that moment.</p> + +<p>I followed her slowly through rooms and passageways till she reached her +own chamber. The door was open; the room was very dark. On the threshold +she paused, and whispered, "You must not be frightened, darling. She will +not know you. She has not known any one for six hours."</p> + +<p>I knelt down by the bed. In a few moments my eyes became used to the +darkness, and I saw Annie's face lying motionless on the farther edge of +the bed, turned to the wall. It was perfectly white except the lips, which +were almost black, and were swollen and crusted over with the fearful +fever. Her beautiful hair fell in tangled masses, and half covered her +face.</p> + +<p>"She seems to be lying very uncomfortably," said Aunt Ann, "but the doctor +ordered that she should not be disturbed in any way."</p> + +<p>I looked at my aunt's face and listened to her voice in bewilderment. The +whole world had for years called her, and with apparent justice, "a hard +and unsympathizing woman." No human being had ever seen a really free +unconstrained smile on her face, or heard from her lips an impulsive word. +When it was known that the genial, rollicking, open-hearted Henry Ware was +to marry her, everybody shuddered. As years went on, everybody who sat by +Henry Ware's fireside, and was kindled and made welcome by his +undiminished and unconquerable cheeriness, felt at the same time chilled +and paralyzed by the courteous, unexceptionable dignity of Mrs. Ware. Even +I, having the freedom of a daughter in their house, and loving my uncle +hardly less than I loved my father, had never once supposed that anybody +could love Aunt Ann, or that she would permit it. I always felt a little +terror when I saw Annie kiss her, or my uncle put his arm around her. My +own loving, caressing, over-flowing mother had given me by inheritance, +and had taught me by example, a type of love which knew no life without +expression. And very well I knew that that sweet mother of mine, whom the +whole town loved, and who herself loved the whole world, seemed always +turned into stone by the simple presence of Aunt Ann.</p> + +<p>And now Aunt Ann was sitting on the floor by my side, clinging to my hand, +resting my head on her bosom, and, as I felt instantly and instinctively, +revealing in her every tone, look, word, such intensity and passionateness +of feeling as I had never in my whole life seen before. I saw then that +she had always held me side by side with her own child in her heart, and +that she knew the rare quality of the love I had for Annie.</p> + +<p>"I ought not to have let you come here," she said, more as if speaking to +herself than to me; "they, too, have but one."</p> + +<p>"But, Aunt Ann, you could not have kept me out," I whispered.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I knew that, my child," she replied; "but no one else would know +it."</p> + +<p>From that moment there was between my Aunt Ann and me a subtle bond which +partook of all the holiest mysteries of love. There were both motherhood +and the love of lovers in my love for Annie. Annie's mother felt them, and +was willing to have her own motherhood added to and ministered to by them. +From that moment I believe not even her husband seemed so near to her in +her relation with her child as I.</p> + +<p>I will not write out the record of the next two weeks. They seemed, as +they passed, a thousand years; and yet, in looking back on them, they seem +only like one terrible breathless night. My aunt and I alone did all that +was done for Annie. There were whole days and whole nights during which +she talked incessantly, sometimes with such subtle semblance of her own +sweet self that we could hardly believe she did not know what she said; +sometimes with such wild ravings that we shook in terror, and could not +look at her nor at each other. There were other days and nights through +which she lay in a sleep, which seemed-no more like real sleep than the +shrill voice of her ravings had seemed like her real voice. These were +most fearful of all. Through all these days and nights, two men with white +faces and folded arms walked up and down in the rooms below, or crouched +on the thresholds of our doors, listening for sign or word from us. One +was Annie's father, and the other was her lover, George Ware. He was her +second cousin, fifteen years older than she, and had loved her since the +day she was one year old, when at the ceremony of her christening, he, a +proud shy boy of sixteen, had been allowed to carry her up-stairs with her +sweet name resting fresh and new on her little dewy forehead. Ah, seldom +does such love spring and grow and blaze on this earth as had warmed the +very air around Annie from the moment of her birth. George Ware was a man +of rare strength, as this love showed; and with just such faithfulness as +his faithfulness to Annie, he had loved and cared for his mother, who had +been for twenty years a widow. They lived on the outskirts of the town, +in a small house almost buried in the heart of a pine wood. The wood was +threaded in all directions by miles of narrow paths which shone in the +shaded sunlight as if they were satin-floored. For nineteen years it had +been George Ware's joy to roam these paths with his cousin Annie; first, +the baby whom he drew in her wicker wagon; next, the wayward little child +who walked with stumbling steps and clung to his finger; next, the gay +school-girl who brought all her perplexities and all her joys to be +confided to him under the pines; next, the shyer and more silent maiden +who came less often, but lingered helplessly until twilight made the +fragrant aisles solemn and dim as cloisters; at last, the radiant, the +child-like woman, the promised wife!</p> + +<p>No winter could set a barrier across these pine-wood paths. When the whole +country about lay blocked and drifted, and half buried with snow, all +these spicy foot-roads were kept clear and level, and ready for Annie's +feet. Whole days of George Ware's strength went into the work and the joy +of doing this. In open spaces where the snow had drifted deep, he wrought +it into solid walls almost as high on either hand as Annie's head. In dark +nooks, where the spreading pines and hemlocks lay low and wide, he tossed +the snow into fantastic and weird masses on the right and left, and +cleared great spaces where he knew the partridge-berry would be ready with +a tiny scarlet glow to light up the spot.</p> + +<p>This was George Ware's wooing. It never stepped into the glare, the +contention of profaner air. It was not a seeking, a finding, a conquest; +but a slow, sure growth of possession, which had as eternal foundation and +seemed as eternally safe as the results of organic law.</p> + +<p>George's picture hung in Annie's room, opposite the foot of her bed. +Opposite the foot of the bed in her mother's room hung a large engraving +of the Sistine Madonna. I fancied that in Annie's quieter moments her eyes +rested with a troubled look upon this picture, and one day, when she was +in a deep sleep, I exchanged the pictures. I felt as if even lifeless +canvas which had George's face painted upon it, might work her good.</p> + +<p>At last there came a night,--they said it was the fourteenth, but the +words conveyed no meaning to me,--there came a night when Dr. Fearing, who +had been sitting by Annie's bed for two hours, watching her every breath, +sprang suddenly to his feet, and beckoned to my aunt and me to follow him +into the next room. He shut the door, walked very swiftly up to us, looked +first into her face then into mine; then felt her pulse, and then mine, +and then turning to me, said,--</p> + +<p>"It will have to be you." We looked at him in sudden terror. The tears +were rolling down his wrinkled cheeks.</p> + +<p>"What is it, William?" gasped Aunt Ann.</p> + +<p>"It will have to be you," he went on, looking me in the face, and taking +no notice of her question; "your pulse can be trusted. There has been a +change. When Annie wakes out of this sleep she will know you. It may be in +two hours, and it may not be for six. But if in that first moment she is +alarmed, or agitated in any way, she will die."</p> + +<p>"O William, let me stay. I will be calm," moaned my poor aunt.</p> + +<p>Then I observed, for the first time, that she had called him "William." +And then, for the first and last time, I heard Dr. Fearing call my Aunt +Ann "darling," and I remembered in that instant that it had been said once +in my hearing, that it was because of his love for Mrs. Henry Ware that +Dr. William Fearing had lived and would die a lonely man.</p> + +<p>"Darling," he said, and put one hand on her shoulder, "you would kill your +child. I forbid you to cross the threshold of that room till I come back. +You will thank me to-morrow. Can you not trust me, Ann?" and he looked +down from his full height, this brave old man, into the face of the woman +he had loved, with a look like the look of one who dies to save another. +It was but for one second, and then he was again the physician, and +turning to me, went on, "I have another patient to whom I must instantly +go, and whom I may not be able to leave for hours. You can do all that I +would do,--I believe,"--then he felt my pulse again, and nodding his head +with a sort of grim professional satisfaction, which no amount of emotion +could wholly divert from its delight in the steady nerves and undisturbed +currents of a healthy body,--resumed, "You have but one thing to do: when +she wakes, look perfectly composed; if she speaks, answer her in a +perfectly natural voice; give her two drops of this medicine, and tell her +to go to sleep again. If you do this, she will fall asleep at once. If +you show the least agitation, she may die,--probably will!"--and Dr. +Fearing was gone.</p> + +<p>My aunt sat silently weeping. I kissed her without speaking, and went back +to my chair by Annie's bed. I dropped the two drops of medicine into a +spoon, and propped the spoon carefully on a little silver tray, so that I +could reach it instantly. It was just three o'clock in the morning. Hour +after hour passed. I could not hear Annie's breath. My own dinned in my +ears like the whir of mills. A terror such as I can never describe took +possession of me. What if I were to kill Annie? How could I look composed? +speak naturally? What would she say? If I could but know and have my +answer ready!</p> + +<p>I firmly believe that the dawn of light saved my senses and Annie's life. +When the first red beam shot through the blinds at the farther end of the +room, tears came into my eyes. I felt as if angels were watching outside. +A tiny sunbeam crept between the slats and fell on the carpet. It was no +more than a hair's breadth, but it was companionship to me. Slowly, +steadily it came towards me. I forgot all else in watching it. To this day +I cannot see a slow-moving sunbeam on a crimson floor without a shudder. +The clock struck six, seven, eight, nine. The bells rang for schools; the +distant hum of the town began. Still there was no stir, no symptom of +life, in the colorless face on the pillow. The sunbeam had crept nearly to +my feet. Involuntarily I lifted my right foot and stretched it out-to meet +the golden messenger. Had I dared to move I should have knelt and reached +my hand to it instead. Perhaps even the slight motion I did make, +hastened Annie's waking, for at that instant she turned her head uneasily +on the pillow and opened her eyes. I saw that she knew me. I wondered how +I could have distrusted my own strength to meet her look. I smiled as if +we were at play together, and said,--</p> + +<p>"Good morning, dear."</p> + +<p>She smiled languidly and said, "How came I in mamma's bed?"</p> + +<p>I said, quietly, "Take this medicine, darling;" and almost before the +drops had passed her lips her eyes closed, and she had fallen asleep +again.</p> + +<p>When Dr. Fearing came into the room at noon, he gave one swift, anxious +glance at her face, and then fell on his knees and folded his face in his +hands. I knew that Annie was safe.</p> + +<p>Then he went into the next room, silently took Aunt Ann by the hand, and +leading her back to Annie's bedside, pointed to the little beads of +moisture on her forehead and said,--</p> + +<p>"Saved!"</p> + +<p>The revulsion was too much for the poor mother's heart. She sank to the +floor. He lifted her in his arms and carried her out, and for the rest of +that day my Aunt Ann, that "hard and unsympathizing woman," passed from +one strange fainting-fit into another, until we were in almost as great +fear for her life as we had been for Annie's.</p> + +<p>At twilight Annie roused from her sleep again. She was perfectly tranquil, +but too weak to lift even her little hand, which had grown so thin and so +wrinkled that it looked like a wilted white flower lying on the white +counterpane.</p> + +<p>Hour by hour she gained strength under the powerful restoratives which +were used, and still more from the wonderful elasticity of her +temperament. From the very first day, however, an indefinable terror of +misgiving seized me as often as I heard her voice or looked into her eyes. +In vain I said to myself: "It is the weakness after such terrible +illness;" "it is only natural." I felt in the bottom of my heart that it +was more.</p> + +<p>On the fourth day she said suddenly, looking up at the picture of George +Ware,--</p> + +<p>"Why! Why is Cousin George's picture in here? Where is the Madonna?"</p> + +<p>I replied: "I moved it in here, dear, for you. I thought you would like +it."</p> + +<p>"No," she said, "I like the Madonna best: the dear little baby! Please +carry George back into my room where he belongs."</p> + +<p>My heart stood still with terror. She had never called George Ware her +cousin since their engagement. She especially disliked any allusion to +their relationship. This was her first mention of his name, and it was in +all respects just what it would have been a year before. Dr. Fearing had +forbidden us to allude to him, or to her wedding-day, or, in fact, to any +subject calculated to arouse new trains of thought in her mind. I wondered +afterward that we did not understand from the first how he had feared that +her brain might not fully recover itself, as the rest of her exquisitely +organized body seemed fast doing.</p> + +<p>Day after day passed. Annie could sit up; could walk about her room; she +gained in flesh and color and strength so rapidly that it was a marvel. +She was gentle and gay and loving; her old rare, sweet self in every +little way and trait and expression; not a look, not a smile, not a tone +was wanting; but it was the Annie of last year, and not of this. She made +no allusion to her wedding, the day for which had now passed. She did not +ask for George. The whole year had dropped out of her memory; part of her +brain was still diseased. No human touch could venture to deal with it +without the risk of the most terrible consequences.</p> + +<p>Dr. Fearing's face grew day by day more and more anxious; he was baffled; +he was afraid. He consulted the most eminent physicians who had had +experience in diseases of the brain. They all counseled patience, and +advised against any attempt to hasten her recollections upon any point; +they all had known similar cases, but never one so sharply defined or so +painful as this. Still they were unanimous in advising that nothing should +be said to startle her; that all must be trusted to time.</p> + +<p>Through these terrible days George Ware was braver than any one else. His +faith in the absoluteness of his hold on Annie was too great to be +disturbed. He was by nature as patient as he was resolute. He had not +wooed his wife for eighteen years to lose her now in any way except by +death, he thought. He comforted us all.</p> + +<p>"Do be brave, sweet mother of Annie," he used to say to my poor Aunt Ann; +"all will be well. It is nothing to me to wait another year, after having +waited all these. It is not even hard for me to go without seeing her, if +that is best."</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, his face grew thin and his eye heavy and his form bent, as +week after week passed, and he came daily to the house, only to be told +the same weary thing, that Annie had not asked for him. The physicians had +said that it would be better that she should not see him until she had of +her own accord mentioned his name. Her nerves were still in such a state +that any surprise threw her into palpitation and alarm which did not pass +off for hours. No human being could tell how great might be the shock of +seeing his face; how much it might recall to her; and whether, if it +recalled all, she could bear it. From the outset George believed the +physicians were wrong in this; but he dared not urge his instinct against +their knowledge; and he was patient of nature, and so the days went on, +on, on; and there was no change except that Annie grew steadily better and +our hearts grew steadily sicker and sicker until we almost looked back +with longing on the days when we feared she would die. And yet in every +respect, except the memory of her lover, Annie was the same as before. The +closest scrutiny could discover no other change in her, except perhaps +that she seemed even gayer than she used to seem, and a shade less tender, +but this also was as she had been before she had promised to be George +Ware's wife.</p> + +<p>One morning George brought me a small bunch of lovely wild things from the +pine woods, Tiarella leaves just tipped with claret color by the early +frosts, sprays of Linnea, two or three tiny white maiden's hair ferns, all +tied by a knot of patridge-berry vines thick-set with scarlet berries.</p> + +<p>"Give these to Annie for me, will you, dear Helen?" he said, "and observe +very carefully how she is affected by them."</p> + +<p>I remembered that it was just one year ago that day, that he had asked her +to be his wife, and I trembled to think of what hidden meanings I might be +messenger in carrying her this silent token. But I too felt, as George +did, that she was drifting farther and farther away from the memories we +desired she should regain; and that no physician's knowledge could be so +true as love's instinct; and I asked no counsel of any one, but went +swiftly to Annie with the leaves in my hand.</p> + +<p>"O you darling! How perfectly lovely," she exclaimed with a laugh of +delight. "Why these must have come from George's woods. Have you been up +there?"</p> + +<p>"No, dear," I said, "George brought them for you, this morning."</p> + +<p>"Oh, the good darling!" she exclaimed. "Is it decided about his going to +India?"</p> + +<p>I could not repress a little cry of anguish and terror. A year before, +there had been a plan for his going out to India on a mercantile venture, +which promised great profit. It had been given up, partly because his +mother felt that she could not live without him, partly because he felt +that he could not longer live without Annie.</p> + +<p>"What is it, dear?" she said, in her softest, most sympathizing voice, +with a little flush of alarm on her pale cheek; "what hurt you? are you +ill? Oh, my poor Helen, you are all worn out with nursing me. I will nurse +you presently."</p> + +<p>"Only a little twinge of my old neuralgia, dear," I said faintly; "these +autumn winds are setting it at work again."</p> + +<p>She looked anxiously at me for a few seconds, and then began to untie the +bunch of leaves, and spread out the long vines on the bed.</p> + +<p>"Oh, if I only had some moss," she said.</p> + +<p>I ran to the green-house and brought her handfuls of beautiful dripping +mosses from the rocks in the fernery. She filled a saucer with them, +putting the Tiarella leaves all round the rim, and winding the Linnea +vines in and out as they grow in the woods. Then she leaned back on her +pillows and began breaking the partridge-berry vines into short bits, each +with a scarlet berry on it. These she set upright in the moss, changing +and rearranging them so often that I wondered what could be her purpose, +and leaned forward to see.</p> + +<p>"No, no," she said playfully, pushing me back, "not till it is done."</p> + +<p>Presently she said, "Now look!"</p> + +<p>I looked and saw a perfect, beautifully formed G made by the scarlet +berries on the green moss.</p> + +<p>"There," she said, "I'll send that back to George, to show him that I have +found him in the berries; or, no," she added, "we'll keep it till he comes +to see me. The doctor said I could be carried down-stairs to-morrow, and +then I shall begin to 'receive,'" and she laughed a gay little laugh, and +sank back tired.</p> + +<p>That moment stands out in my memory as the saddest, hardest one of all. I +think at that moment hope died in my heart.</p> + +<p>When I told George of this, and showed him the saucer of moss--for she +had ordered it to be set on the drawing-room table, saying, "It is too +pretty to stay up here with bottles and invalids,"--he buried his face in +his hands for many minutes. When he lifted it, he looked me steadily in +the eye, and said,--</p> + +<p>"She has utterly forgotten this whole year. But I will win her again."</p> + +<p>Then he knelt down and kissed every little leaf and berry which her hands +had touched, and went away without speaking another word.</p> + +<p>It was decided after this that it could do no harm for him to see her. +Indeed, he now demanded it. His resolution was taken.</p> + +<p>"You need not fear," he said to Dr. Fearing, "that I shall agitate her by +approaching her as if she were my own. She is not my own. But she will +be!"</p> + +<p>We all sat with trembling hands and beating hearts as the hour approached +at which we knew the experiment was to be made.</p> + +<p>Annie had been carried down-stairs, and laid upon a lounge in the western +bay-window of the library. The lounge was covered with dark green damask. +Old Cæsar had so implored to be allowed to carry her down, that Annie had +insisted that he should be gratified; and she went down as she had so +often done in her childhood, with her soft white face lying close to his +shining black one.</p> + +<p>As he put her down, in her rose-colored wrapper, on the dark green damask, +he knelt before her and burst out in spite of himself, into a sort of wild +chant of thanksgiving; but as we entered the door he sprang up ashamed, +and turning to Aunt Ann, said: "Beg pardon, missis, but this rose yere was +too much pink rose for old Cæsar!"</p> + +<p>It was "too much pink rose" for any human eyes to see unmoved. We all +cried: and Annie herself shed a few tears, but finally helped us all by +saying gayly,--</p> + +<p>"You'll make me ill again if you all go on like this. I hate people that +cry."</p> + +<p>No stranger's eye would have detected the thousandth part of a second's +pause which George Ware's feet made on the threshold of that room when his +eyes first saw Annie. Before the second had ended he was simply the eager, +glad, affectionate cousin, and had taken calmly and lovingly the child's +kiss which Annie gave him as she had given it every day of her life.</p> + +<p>We could not speak. My uncle tried to read his newspaper; my aunt's hands +shook in their pretense of sewing; I threw myself on the floor at the foot +of Annie's lounge and hid my face in its cushions.</p> + +<p>But George Ware's brave voice went steadily on. Annie's sweet glad tones, +weak and low, but still sweeter than any other tones I ever heard, chimed +in and out like fairy bells from upper air. More than an hour passed. I do +not know one word that we said.</p> + +<p>Then George rose, saying: "I must not tire you, little Annie, so I am +going now."</p> + +<p>"Will you come, again to-morrow?" she asked as simply as a little child.</p> + +<p>"Yes, dear, if you are not the worse for this," he replied, and kissed her +forehead and walked very quickly away without looking back. I followed +him instantly into the hall, for I had seen that in his face which had +made me fear that, strong man as he was, he would fall. I found him +sitting on the lowest step of the staircase, just outside the door.</p> + +<p>"My God, Helen," he gasped, "it isn't only this last year she has +forgotten. She has gone back five years."</p> + +<p>"Oh no, dear George," I said; "you are mistaken. She remembers everything +up to a year ago. You know she remembered about your going to India."</p> + +<p>"That is nothing," he said impatiently. "You can't any of you, see what I +mean, I suppose. But I tell you she has forgotten five years of me. She is +to me just as she was when she was fourteen. Do you think I don't know the +face and voice and touch of each day of my darling's life? oh, my God! my +God!" and he sank down on the stair again in a silence which was worse +than groans. I left him there and went back to Annie.</p> + +<p>"How old Cousin George looks," she was saying, as I entered the room; "I +didn't remember that he was so old. Why, he looks as old as you do, sweet +papa. But then," reflectively, "after all, he is pretty old. He is fifteen +years older than I am--and I am nineteen: thirty-four! that is old, is it +not papa?" said she, half petulantly. "Why don't you speak, any of you?"</p> + +<p>"You are getting too tired, my darling," said her father, "and now I shall +carry you up-stairs."</p> + +<p>After Annie was asleep, my Aunt Ann and I sat for hours in the library, +going over and over and over, with weary hopelessness, all her words and +looks, and trying to comfort each other. I think each knew the utter +despair of the other's heart.</p> + +<p>From this time George came and went with all his old familiarity: not a +day passed without his seeing Annie, and planning something for her +amusement or pleasure. Not a day passed without her showing in many ways +that he made a large part of her life, was really a central interest in +it. Even to us who knew the sad truth, and who looked on with intentness +and anxiety hardly less than those with which we had watched her sick-bed +weeks before--even to us it seemed many times as if all must be right. No +stranger but would believe them lovers; not a servant in the house dreamed +but that Miss Annie was still looking forward to her wedding. They had all +been forbidden to allude to it, but they supposed it was only on account +of her weakness and excitability.</p> + +<p>But every day the shadow deepened on George Ware's face. I could see, +though he would not admit it, that the same despair which filled my soul +was settling down upon his. Dr. Fearing, too, who came and spent long +evenings with us, and cautiously watched Annie's every tone and look, grew +more and more uneasy. Dr. ----, one of the most distinguished physicians +of the insane, in the country, was invited to spend a few days in the +house. He was presented to Annie as an old friend of her father's, and won +at once her whole confidence and regard. For four days he studied her +case, and frankly owned himself baffled, and unable to suggest any measure +except the patient waiting which was killing us all.</p> + +<p>To tell this frail and excitable girl, who had more than once fainted at +a sudden noise, that this man whom she regarded only as her loving cousin +had been her promised husband--and that having been within two weeks of +her wedding-day, she had now utterly forgotten it, and all connected with +it--this would be too fearful a risk. It might deprive her forever of her +reason.</p> + +<p>Otherwise, she seemed in every respect, even in the smallest particular, +herself. She recollected her music, her studies, her friends. She was +anxious to resume her old life at all points. Every day she made allusions +to old plans or incidents. She had forgotten absolutely nothing excepting +the loverhood of her lover. Every day she grew stronger, and became more +and more beautiful, There was a slight under-current of arch +mischievousness and half petulance which she had never had before, and +which, added to her sweet sympathetic atmosphere, made her indescribably +charming. As she grew stronger she frolicked with every human being and +every living thing. When the spring first opened and she could be out of +doors, she seemed more like a divine mixture of Ariel and Puck than like a +mortal maiden.</p> + +<p>I found her one day lying at full length on the threshold of the +greenhouse. Twenty great azaleas were in full bloom on the shelves--white, +pink, crimson. She had gathered handfuls of the fallen blossoms, and was +making her gray kitten, which was as intelligent and as well trained as a +dog, jump into the air to catch them as she tossed them up. I sat down on +the grass outside and watched her silently.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you sober old Helen," she said, "you'll be an owl for a thousand +years after you die! Why can't you caper a little? You don't know how nice +it is."</p> + +<p>Just then George came slowly walking down the garden path, his hands +clasped behind him, his head bent forward, and his eyes fixed on the +ground.</p> + +<p>He did not see us. Annie exclaimed,--</p> + +<p>"There's Cousin George, too! Look at him! Wouldn't you think he had just +heard he was to be executed at twelve to-day! I don't see what ails +everybody."</p> + +<p>"George, George," she called, "come here. For how many years are you +sentenced, dear, and how could you have been so silly as to be found out?" +And then she burst into a peal of the most delicious laughter at his +bewildered look.</p> + +<p>"I don't know, darling, for how many years I am sentenced. We none of us +know," he said, in a tone which was sadder than he meant it should be, and +sobered her loving heart instantly. She sprang to her feet, and threw both +her arms around his right arm, a pretty trick she had kept from her +babyhood, and said,--</p> + +<p>"Oh you dear, good darling, does anything really trouble you? How +heartless I am. But you don't know how it feels to have been so awfully +ill, and then to get well again. It makes one feel all body and no soul; +but I have soul enough to love you all dearly, you know I have; and I +won't have you troubled; tell me what it is this minute;" and she looked +at him with tears in her eyes.</p> + +<p>One wonders often if there be any limit to human endurance. If there be, +who can say he has reached it? Each year we find that the thing which we +thought had taken our last strength, has left us with strength enough to +bear a harder thing. It seemed so with such scenes as this, in those sunny +spring days when Annie Ware first went out into life again. Each day I +said, "There can never be another moment quite so hard to meet as this!" +and the next day there came a moment which made me forget the one which +had gone before.</p> + +<p>It was an ill fortune which just at this time made it imperatively +necessary for George to go to the West for three months. He had no choice. +His mother's whole property was at stake. No one but he could save it; it +was not certain that he could. His last words to me were,--</p> + +<p>"I trust more in you, Helen, than in any other human being. Keep my name +constantly in her thought; write me everything which you would tell me if +I were here."</p> + +<p>It had become necessary now to tell the sad story of the result of Annie's +illness to all those friends who would be likely to speak to her of her +marriage. The whole town knew what shadow rested on our hearts; and yet, +as week after week went by, and the gay, sweet, winning, beautiful girl +moved about among people again in her old way, people began to say more +and more that it was, after all, very foolish for Annie Ware's friends to +be so distressed about her; stranger things had happened; she was +evidently a perfectly well woman; and as for the marriage, they had never +liked the match--George Ware was too old and too grave for her; and, +besides, he was her second cousin.</p> + +<p>Oh, the torture of the "ante-mortems" of beloved ones, at which we are +all forced to assist! + +Yet it could not be wondered at, that in this case the whole heart of the +community was alive with interest and speculation.</p> + +<p>Annie Ware's sweet face had been known and loved in every house in our +village. Her father was the richest, most influential man in the county, +and the most benevolent. Many a man and woman had kissed Henry Ware's baby +in her little wagon, for the sake of Henry Ware's good deeds to them or +theirs. And while Mrs. Ware had always repelled persons by her haughty +reticence, Annie, from the first day she could speak until now, had won +all hearts by her sunny, open, sympathizing nature. No wonder that now, +when they saw her again fresh, glad, beautiful, and looking stronger and +in better health than she had ever done, they said that we were wrong, +that Annie and Nature were right, and that all would be well!</p> + +<p>This spring there came to our town a family of wealth and position who had +for many years lived in Europe, and who had now returned to make America +their home. They had taken a furnished house for a year, to make trial of +our air, and also, perhaps, of the society, although rumor, with the usual +jealousy, said that the Neals did not desire any intimacy with their +neighbors. The grounds of the house which they had hired joined my +uncle's, and my Aunt Ann, usually averse to making new acquaintances, had +called upon them at once, and had welcomed them most warmly to her house. +The family consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Neal and two sons, Arthur and Edward. +They were people of culture, and of wide experience; but they were not of +fine organization nor of the highest breeding; and it will ever remain a +mystery to me that there should have seemed to be, from the outset, an +especial bond of intimacy between them and my uncle and aunt. I think it +was partly the sense of relief with which they welcomed a new interest--a +little break in the monotony of anxiety which had been for so many months +corroding their very lives.</p> + +<p>Almost before I knew that the Neals were accepted as familiar friends, I +was startled one morning, while we were at breakfast, by the appearance of +Annie on her pony, looking in at our dining-room window. She had a pretty +way of riding up noiselessly on the green grass, and making her pony, +which was tame as a Newfoundland dog, mount the stone steps, and tap with +his nose on the panes of the long glass door till we opened it.</p> + +<p>I never saw her so angelically beautiful as she was this morning. Her +cheeks were flushed and her dark blue eyes sparkled like gems in the sun. +Presently she said, hesitating a little,--</p> + +<p>"Edward Neal is at the gate; may I bring him in? I told him he might come, +but he said it was too like burglary;" and she cantered off again without +waiting to hear my mother's permission.</p> + +<p>All that morning Annie Ware and Edward Neal sat with me on our piazza. I +looked and listened and watched like one in a dream, or under a spell. I +foresaw, I foreknew what was to come; with the subtle insight of love, I +saw all.</p> + +<p>Never had I seen Annie so stirred into joyousness by George's presence as +she seemed to be by this boy's. The two together overflowed in a sparkling +current of gayety, which was irresistible. They seemed two divine children +sent out on a mission to set the world at play. What Edward Neal's more +sensuous and material nature lacked, was supplied by the finer, subtler +quality of Annie's. From that first day I could never disguise from myself +that they seemed, so far as mere physical life goes, the absolute +counterparts of each other.</p> + +<p>I need not dwell on this part of my story. When young hearts are drawing +together, summer days speed on very swiftly. George Ware, alas! was kept +at the West week after week, until it came to be month after month. My +uncle and aunt seemed deliberately to shut their eyes to the drift of +events. I think they were so thankful to watch Annie's bounding health and +happiness, to hear glad voices and merry laughs echoing all day in their +house, that they could not allow themselves to ask whether a new kernel of +bitterness, of danger, lay at the core of all this fair seeming. As for +the children, they did not know that they were loving each other as man +and woman. Edward Neal was only twenty-one, Annie but nineteen, and both +were singularly young and innocent of soul.</p> + +<p>And so it came to be once more the early autumn; the maple leaves were +beginning to be red, and my chrysanthemums had again set their tiny round +disks of buds. Edward, and Annie had said no word of love to each other, +but the whole town looked on them as lovers, and people began to reply +impatiently and incredulously to our assurances that no engagement +existed.</p> + +<p>Early in October George came home, very unexpectedly, taking even his +mother by surprise. He told me afterwards that he came at last as one +warned of God. A presentiment of evil, against which he had struggled for +weeks, finally so overwhelmed him that he set off for home without half an +hour's delay. I found him, on the night after his arrival, sitting in his +old place in the big arm-chair at the head of Annie's lounge; she still +clung to some of her old invalid ways, and spent many evenings curled up +like a half-shut pink rose on the green damask cushions. He looked worn +and thin, but glad and eager, and was giving a lively account of his +Western experiences when the library door opened, and coming in +unannounced, with the freedom of one at home, Edward Neal entered.</p> + +<p>"O Edward, here is Cousin George," exclaimed Annie, while a wave of rosy +color spread over her face, and half rising, she took George's hand in +hers as she leaned towards Edward.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'm so glad to see you, Mr. Ware," said Edward, with that indefinable +tone of gentle respect which marks a very young man's recognition of one +much older, whom he has been led to admire. "Annie has been talking to me +about you all summer. I feel as if I knew you almost as well as she does. +I'm heartily glad to see you."</p> + +<p>A man of finer grain than Edward Neal would have known the whole truth in +that first second, by the blank stern look which spread like a cloud over +George Ware's face; but the open-hearted fellow only thought that he had +perhaps seemed too familiar and went on,--</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon, Mr. Ware. It must appear strange to you that I took +the liberty of being so glad; but you don't know how kindly I have been +allowed to feel that your friends here would permit me to call all their +friends mine," and he glanced lovingly and confidently at my aunt and +uncle, who answered by such smiles as they rarely gave. Oh, no wonder they +loved this genial, frank sunny boy, who had brought such light into their +life.</p> + +<p>In a moment George was his courteous self again, and began to express his +pleasure at meeting Mr. Neal, but Annie interrupted him.</p> + +<p>"Oh, now don't be tiresome; of course you are to be just as good friends +with Edward as you are with me: sit down, Edward. He is telling us the +most delicious stories. He is the dearest Cousin George in the world," she +added, stroking his hand which she still kept in hers.</p> + +<p>It gave Edward no more surprise to see her do this than it would have done +to see her sit in her father's lap. Even I felt with a sudden pang that +George Ware seemed at that moment to belong to another generation than +Edward and Annie.</p> + +<p>Edward seated himself on a low cricket at the foot of the lounge, and, +looking up in George's face, said most winningly,--</p> + +<p>"Please go on, Mr. Ware." Then he turned one full, sweet look of greeting +and welcome upon Annie, who beamed back upon him with such a diffused +smile as only the rarest faces have. Annie's smile was one of her greatest +charms. It changed her whole face; the lips made but a small part of it; +no mortal ever saw it without smiling in answer.</p> + +<p>It was beyond George Ware's power long to endure this. Probably his +instinct felt in both Edward's atmosphere and Annie's more than we did. He +rose very soon and said to me, "If you are going home to-night, Helen, +will you let me walk up with you? I have business in that part of the +town; but I must go now. Perhaps that will hurry you too much?" he added, +with a tone which was almost imploring.</p> + +<p>I was only too glad to go. Our leave-taking was very short. A shade of +indefinable trouble clouded every face but Edward's and Annie's.</p> + +<p>George did not speak until we had left the house. Then he stopped short, +took both my hands in his, with a grasp that both hurt and frightened me, +and exclaimed,--</p> + +<p>"How dared you keep this from me! How dared you!"</p> + +<p>"O George," I said, "there was nothing to tell."</p> + +<p>"Nothing to tell!" and his voice grew hoarse and loud. "Nothing to tell! +Do you mean to say that you don't know, have not known that Annie loves +that boy, that puppy?"</p> + +<p>I trembled from head to foot. I could not speak. He went on:--</p> + +<p>"And I trusted you so; O Helen, I can never forgive you."</p> + +<p>I murmured, miserably, for I felt myself in that moment really guilty,--</p> + +<p>"What makes you think she loves him?"</p> + +<p>"You cannot deceive me, Helen," he replied. "Do not torture me and +yourself by trying. Tell me now, how long this 'Edward' has been sitting +by her lounge. Tell me all."</p> + +<p>Then I told him all. It was not much. He had seen more that evening, and +so had I, than had ever existed before. His presence had been the one +element which had suddenly defined that which before had been hardly +recognized.</p> + +<p>He was very quiet after the first moment of bitterness, and asked me to +forgive his impatient words. When he left me he said,--</p> + +<p>"I cannot see clearly what I ought to do. Annie's happiness is my only +aim. If this boy can create it, and I cannot--but he cannot: she was as +utterly mine as it is possible for a woman to be. You none of you knew how +utterly! Oh, my God, what shall I do!" and he walked away feebly and +slowly like an old man of seventy.</p> + +<p>The next day Aunt Ann sent for me to come to her. I found her in great +distress. George had returned to the house after leaving me, and had had +almost a stormy interview with my uncle. He insisted upon asking Annie at +once to be his wife; making no reference to the past, but appearing at +once as her suitor. My uncle could not forbid it, for he recognized +George's right, and he sympathized in his suffering. But his terror was +insupportable at the thought of having Annie agitated, and of the possible +results which might follow. He implored George to wait at least a few +weeks.</p> + +<p>"What! and see that young lover at my wife's feet every night!" said +George, fiercely. "No! I will risk all, lose all, if need be. I have been +held back long enough," and he had gone directly from my uncle's room to +Annie herself.</p> + +<p>In a short time Annie had come to her mother in a perfect passion of +weeping, and told her that Cousin George had asked her to be his wife; and +that she had never dreamed of such a thing; and she thought he was very +unkind to be so angry with her; how could she have supposed he cared for +her in that way, when he had been like her elder brother all his life.</p> + +<p>"Why, he seems almost as old as papa," said poor Annie, sobbing and +crying, "and he ought to have known that I should not kiss him and put my +arms around him if--if"--she could not explain; but she knew!</p> + +<p>Annie had gone to her own room, ill. My aunt and I sat together in the +library silently crying; we were wretched. "Oh, if George would only have +waited," said Aunt Ann.</p> + +<p>"I think it would have made no difference, aunty," said I.</p> + +<p>"No, I am afraid not," replied she, and each knew that the other was +thinking of Edward Neal.</p> + +<p>George Ware left town the next day. He sent me a short note. He could not +see any one, he said, and begged me to give a farewell kiss for him to +"the sweet mother of my Annie. For mine she is, and will be in heaven, +though she will be the wife of Edward Neal on earth."</p> + +<p>When I next saw our Annie she was Edward Neal's promised bride. A severe +fit of illness, the result of all these excitements, confined me to my +room for three weeks after George's departure; and I knew only from Aunt +Ann's lips the events which had followed upon it.</p> + +<p>George Ware's presence on that first evening had brought revelation to +Edward Neal as well as to all the other members of that circle. That very +night he had told his parents that Annie would be his wife.</p> + +<p>The next night, while poor George was swiftly borne away, Edward was +sitting in my uncle's library, listening with a blanched cheek to the +story of Annie's old engagement. My uncle's sense of honor would not let +him withhold anything from the man seeking her for his wife. The pain soon +passed by, when he was told that she had that very day refused her cousin, +and betrayed almost resentment at his offer. Edward Neal had not a +sufficiently subtle nature, nor acquaintance enough with psychological +phenomena to be disturbed by any fears for the future. He dismissed it all +as an inexplicable result of the disease, but a fixed fact, and a great +and blessed fortune for him. My uncle, however, was less easily assured. +He insisted upon delay, and upon consulting the same physicians who had +studied Annie's case before. They all agreed that she was now a perfectly +healthy and strong woman, and that to persist in any farther recognition +of the old bond, after she had so intelligently and emphatically +repudiated all thought of such a relation to her cousin, was absurd. Dr. +Fearing alone was in doubt, He said little; but he shook his head and +clasped his hands tight, and implored that at least the marriage should be +deferred for a year.</p> + +<p>Annie herself, however, refused to consent to this: of course no +satisfactory reason could be alleged for any such delay; and she said as +frankly as a little child, "Edward and I have loved each other almost +from the very first; there is nothing for either of us to do in life but +to make each other happy; and we shall not leave papa and mamma: so why +should we wait?"</p> + +<p>They were not married, however, until spring. The whole town stood by in +speechless joy and delight when those two beautiful young beings came out +from the village church man and wife. It was a scene never to be +forgotten. The peculiar atmosphere of almost playful joyousness which they +created whenever they appeared together was something which could not be +described, but which diffused itself like sunlight.</p> + +<p>We all tried resolutely to dismiss memory and misgiving from our hearts. +They seemed disloyalty and sin. George Ware was in India. George Ware's +mother was dead. The cottage among the pines was sold to strangers, and +the glistening brown paths under the trees were neglected and unused.</p> + +<p>Edward and Annie led the same gay child-like lives after their marriage +that they had led before: they looked even younger and gayer and sunnier. +When they dashed cantering through the river meadows, she with rosy cheeks +and pale brown curls flying in the wind, and he with close crisp black +hair, and the rich, dark, glowing skin of a Spaniard, the farming men +turned and rested on their tools, and gazed till they were out of sight. +Sometimes I asked myself wonderingly, "Are they ever still, and tender, +and silent?" "Is this perpetual overflow the whole of love?" But it seemed +treason to doubt in the presence of such merry gladness as shone in +Annie's face, and in her husband's too. It was simply the incarnate +triumph and joy of young life.</p> + +<p>The summer went by; the chrysanthemums bloomed out white and full in my +garden; the frosts came, and then the winter, and then Annie told me one +day that before winter came again she would be a mother. She was a little +sobered as she saw the intense look on my face.</p> + +<p>"Why, darling, aren't you glad? I thought you would be almost as glad as I +am myself?" Annie sometimes misunderstood me now.</p> + +<p>"Glad! O Annie," was all I could say.</p> + +<p>From that day I had but one thought, Annie's baby. Together we wrought all +dainty marvels for its ward-robe; together we planned all possible events +in its life: from the outset I felt as much motherhood to the precious +little unseen one as Annie did. She used to say to me, often,--</p> + +<p>"Darling, it will be half my baby, and half yours."</p> + +<p>Annie was absolutely and gloriously well through the whole of those +mysterious first months of maternity which are to so many women exhausting +and painful. Every nerve of her body seemed strung and attuned to normal +and perfect harmony. She was more beautiful than ever, stronger than ever, +and so glad that she smiled perpetually without knowing it. For the first +time since the old days, dear Dr. Fearing's face lost the anxious look +with which his eyes always rested upon her. He was more at ease about her +now.</p> + +<p>Before light one Sunday morning in December, a messenger rang furiously +at our bell. We had been looking for such tidings and were not alarmed. It +was a fearful storm; wind and sleet and rain and darkness had attended the +coming of Annie's little "Sunday child" into its human life.</p> + +<p>"A boy--and Miss Annie's all right," old Cæsar said, with a voice almost +as hoarse as the storm outside; and he was gone before we could ask a +question farther.</p> + +<p>In less than an hour I stood on the threshold of Annie's room. But I did +not see her until noon. Then, as I crept softly into the dimly-lighted +chamber, the whole scene so recalled her illness of two years before that +my heart stood still with sudden horror, in spite of all my joy. Now, as +then, I knelt silently at her bedside, and saw the sweet face lying white +and still on the pillow.</p> + +<p>She turned, and seeing me, smiled faintly, but did not speak.</p> + +<p>At her first glance, a speechless terror seized me. This was my Annie! The +woman who for two years had been smiling with my Annie's face had not been +she! The room grew dark. I do not know what supernatural power came to my +aid that I did not faint and fall.</p> + +<p>Annie drew back the bed-clothes with a slow, feeble motion of her right +hand, and pointed to the tiny little head nestled in her bosom. She smiled +again, looked at me gently and steadily for a second, and then shut her +eyes. Presently I saw that she was asleep; I stole into the next room and +sat down with my face buried in my hands.</p> + +<p>In a moment a light step aroused me. Aunt Ann stood before me, her pale +face all aglow with delight.</p> + +<p>"O Helen my darling! She is so well. Thank God! thank God!" and she threw +her arms around me and burst into tears.</p> + +<p>I felt like one turned to stone. Was I mad, or were they?</p> + +<p>What had I seen in that one steady look of Annie's eyes? Was she really +well? I felt as if she had already died!</p> + +<p>Agonizingly I waited to see Dr. Fearing's face. He came in before tea, saw +Annie for a few minutes, and came down-stairs rubbing his hands and +singing in a low tone.</p> + +<p>"I never saw anything like that child's beautiful elasticity in my life," +he said. "We shall have her dancing down-stairs in a month."</p> + +<p>The cloud was utterly lifted from all hearts except mine. My aunt and +uncle looked at each other with swimming eyes. Edward tried to laugh and +look gay, but broke down utterly, and took refuge in the library, where I +found him lying on the floor, with his face buried in Annie's lounge.</p> + +<p>I went home stupefied, bewildered. I could not sleep. A terror-stricken +instinct told me that all was not right. But how should I know more than +physician, mother, husband?</p> + +<p>For ten days I saw my Annie every day for an hour. Her sweet, strange, +gentle, steady look into my eyes when we first met always paralyzed me +with fear, and yet I could not have told why. There was a fathomless +serenity in her face which seemed to me super-human. She said very +little. The doctor had forbidden her to talk. She slept the greater part +of the time, but never allowed the baby to be moved from her arms while +she was awake.</p> + +<p>There was a divine ecstasy in her expression as she looked down into the +little face; it never seemed like human motherhood.</p> + +<p>One day Edward came to me and said,--</p> + +<p>"Do you think Annie is so well as they say? I suppose they must know; but +she looks to me as if she had died already, and it were only her glorified +angel-body that lies in that bed?"</p> + +<p>I could not speak to him. I knew then that he had seen the same thing that +I had seen: if his strong, rather obtuse material nature had recognized +it, what could so blind her mother and father and the doctor? I burst into +tears and left him.</p> + +<p>At the end of a week I saw a cloud on Dr. Fearing's face. As he left +Annie's room one morning, he stopped me and said abruptly,--</p> + +<p>"What does Annie talk about?"</p> + +<p>"She hardly speaks at all," I said.</p> + +<p>"Ah," he said. "Well, I have ordered her not to talk. But does she ask any +questions?" he continued.</p> + +<p>"No," I said; "not of me. She has not asked one."</p> + +<p>I saw then that the same vague fear which was filling my heart was taking +shape in his.</p> + +<p>From that moment, he watched her hourly, with an anxiety which soon +betrayed itself to my aunt.</p> + +<p>"William, why does not Annie get stronger?" she said suddenly to him one +day.</p> + +<p>"I do not know why," he answered, with a solemn sadness and emphasis in +his tone which was, as I think, he intended it to be, a partial revelation +to her, and a warning. Aunt Ann staggered to a chair and looked at him +without a word. He answered her look by one equally agonized and silent, +and left the room.</p> + +<p>The baby was now two weeks old. Annie was no stronger than on the day of +his birth. She lay day and night in a tranquil state, smiling with +inexpressible sweetness when she was spoken to, rarely speaking of her own +accord, doing with gentle docility all she was told to do, but looking +more and more like a transfigured saint. All the arch, joyous, playful +look was gone; there was no added age in the look which had taken its +place; neither any sorrow; but something ineffably solemn, rapt, removed +from earth. Sometimes, when Edward came to her bedside, a great wave of +pitying tenderness would sweep over her face, giving it such a heavenly +look that he would fall on his knees.</p> + +<p>"O Helen," he said once, after such a moment as this, "I shall go mad if +Annie does not get well. I do not dare to kiss even her hand. I feel as if +she never had been mine."</p> + +<p>At last the day and the hour and the moment came which I had known would +come. Annie spoke to me in a very gentle voice, and said,--</p> + +<p>"Helen, darling, you know I am going to die?"</p> + +<p>"Yes dear, I think so," I said, in as quiet a voice as hers.</p> + +<p>"You know it is better that I should, darling?" she said with a trembling +voice.</p> + +<p>"Yes, dear, I know it," I replied.</p> + +<p>She drew a long sigh of relief. "I am so glad, darling; I thought you knew +it, but I could not be sure. I think no one else understands. I hope dear +mamma will never suspect. You will not let her, if you can help it, the +dear doctor will not tell her; he knows, though. Darling, I want you to +have my baby. I think Edward will be willing. He is so young, he will be +happy again before long; he will not miss him. You know we have always +said it was partly your baby. Look at his eyes now, Helen," she said, +turning the little face towards me, and into a full light.</p> + +<p>I started. I had never till that moment seen in them a subtle resemblance +to the eyes of George Ware. We had said that the baby had his mother's +eyes--so he had; but there had always been a likeness between Annie's eyes +and George's though hers were light-blue, and his of a blue so dark that +it was often believed to be black. All the Wares had a very peculiar +luminousness of the eye; it was so marked a family trait that it had +passed into almost proverbial mention, in connection with the +distinguished beauty of the family. "The Ware eye" was always +recognizable, no matter what color it had taken from the admixture of +other blood.</p> + +<p>At that moment I saw, and I knew that Annie had seen, that the baby's eyes +were not so much like her own as like the deeper, sadder, darker eyes of +her cousin--brave, hopeless, dear George, who was toiling under the sun of +India, making a fortune for he knew not whom.</p> + +<p>We neither of us spoke; presently the little unconscious eyes closed in +sweet sleep, and Annie went on, holding him close to her heart.</p> + +<p>"You see, dear, poor mamma will not be able to bear seeing him after I +die. Common mothers would love him for my sake. But mamma is not like +other women. She will come very soon where I am, poor mamma; and then you +will have to take papa home to your house, and papa will have comfort in +little Henry. But he must be your baby, Helen. I shall speak to Edward +about it soon."</p> + +<p>She was not strong enough to talk long. She shed no tears, however, and +looked as calm as if she were telling me of pleasant plans for a coming +earthly summer. I also was perfectly calm, and felt strangely free from +sorrow. Her absolute spirituality bore me up. It was as if I spoke with +her in heaven, thousands of centuries after all human perplexities had +passed away.</p> + +<p>After this day she grew rapidly weaker. She had no pain. There was not a +single physical symptom in her case which the science of medicine could +name or meet. There was literally nothing to be done for her. Neither +tonic nor stimulant produced the least effect. She was noiselessly sinking +out of life, as very old people sometimes die, without a single jar, or +shock, or struggle. Her beautiful serenity and entire freedom from +suffering blinded Aunt Ann's eyes to the fact that she was dying. This was +a great mercy, and we were all careful not by a word or look to rouse her +to the truth. To all her mother's inquiries Annie invariably replied, +"Better, dear mamma, better, only very weak," and Aunt Ann believed, +until the very last, that the spring would make her well again.</p> + +<p>Edward Neal's face during these weeks was like the face of a man lost in a +trackless desert, seeking vainly for some sign of road to save his life. +Sickness and death were as foreign to the young, vital, irrepressible +currents of his life, as if he had been a bird or an antelope. But it was +not now with him the mere bewildered grief of a sensuous animal nature, +such as I should have anticipated that his grief would be. He dimly felt +the truth, and was constantly terrified by it. He came into Annie's +presence more and more reverently each day. He gazed speechlessly into her +eyes, which rested on him always with angelic compassion and tenderness, +but with no more look of human wifely thought than if he and she were +kneeling side by side before God's white throne. Sometimes he dared not +touch even so much as the hand on which his own wedding-ring rested. +Sometimes he would kneel by the bedside and bury his face and weep like a +little child. Then he would throw himself on his horse and gallop away and +not come home until twilight, when he was always found on Annie's lounge +in the library. One night when I went to him there he said, in a tone so +solemn that the voice did not sound like his,--</p> + +<p>"Helen, there is something I do not understand about Annie. Do people +always seem so when they are going to die? I do not dare to ask her if she +loves me. I feel just as much awe of her as if she had been in heaven. It +seems sometimes as if I must be going mad, for I do not feel in the least +as if she had ever been my wife."</p> + +<p>"She never has, poor boy," I thought, but I only stroked his hair and +said nothing; wondering in my heart at the certainty with which in all +natures love knows how to define, conquer, reclaim his own.</p> + +<p>The day before Annie died she asked for her jewel-case, and spent several +hours in looking over its contents and telling me to whom they should be +given. I observed that she seemed to be searching uneasily for something +she could not find.</p> + +<p>"What is it, dear?" I said. She hesitated for a secondhand then replied,--</p> + +<p>"Only a little ring I had when I was a girl."</p> + +<p>"When you were a girl, my darling!" I exclaimed. She smiled gently and +said,--</p> + +<p>"I feel like an old woman now. Oh, here it is," she added, and held it out +to me to open for her the tiny padlock-shaped locket which hung from it. +It had become so tightly fastened together that it was with great +difficulty I could open it. When I did so, I saw lying in the hollow a +little ring of black hair, and I remembered that Annie had worn the ring +when she was twelve years old.</p> + +<p>She asked me to cut a few of the silky hairs from the baby's head, and +then one little curl from her own, and laying them with the other, she +shut the locket and asked for a piece of paper and pencil. She wrote one +word with great difficulty, folded the ring in the paper, wrote another +word on the outside, and laid it in a corner of the jewel-case. Then she +sank back on the pillows, and slipping her left hand under her cheek said +she was very tired, and almost instantly fell into a gentle sleep. She did +not wake until twilight. I was to sleep on the lounge in her room that +night, and when she woke I was preparing it.</p> + +<p>"Darling," she said, "could you sleep as well in my big chair, which can +be tipped back?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly, sweet," I said; "but why?"</p> + +<p>"Because that can be drawn up so much nearer me; it will be like sleeping +together."</p> + +<p>At nine o'clock the nurse brought the baby in and laid him in Annie's +bosom, sound asleep. Annie would not let him lie anywhere else, and was so +grieved at any remonstrance, that the doctor said she must be indulged in +the desire. When she was awake and was not speaking to us, her eyes never +left the baby's face.</p> + +<p>She turned over, with her face to the chair in which I lay, and reached +out her left hand towards me. I took it in mine, and so, with our hands +clasped above the little sleeping baby, we said "good-night" to each +other.</p> + +<p>"I feel much better to-night than I have for some days, dear Helen," she +said; "I should not wonder if we all three slept until morning."</p> + +<p>Very soon I saw that she was asleep. I watched her face for a long time; +it was perfectly colorless and very thin, and yet there was not a look of +illness on it. The ineffable serenity, the holy peace, made it look like +the face of one who had been transfigured, translated; who had not known +and who never could know any death. I cannot account for the sweet calm +which I felt through all these weeks. I shed no tears; I did not seem even +to sorrow. I accepted all, as Annie herself accepted it, without wonder, +without murmur. During the long hours of this last night I lived over +every hour of her precious, beautiful life, as I had known and shared it, +until the whole seemed to me one fragrant and perfect flower, ready to be +gathered and worn in the bosom of angels. At last I fell asleep.</p> + +<p>I was wakened by a low murmur from the baby, who stirred uneasily. Annie's +hand was still locked in mine; as I sought to disengage it cautiously, I +felt, with a sudden horror, that the fingers were lifeless. I sprang to my +feet and bent over her; she did not breathe. Out of that sweet sleep her +body had passed into another which would know no waking, and her soul had +awakened free. Slowly I withdrew the little sleeping baby from her arms +and carried it to the nurse. Then I went to Dr. Fearing's room; he had +slept in the house for a week; I found him dressed, but asleep on a +lounge. He had lain in this way, he told me, for four nights, expecting +that each would be the last. When I touched him on the shoulder he opened +his eyes, without surprise or alarm, and said,--</p> + +<p>"Did she wake?"</p> + +<p>"No," I replied, and that was all.</p> + +<p>The day was just breaking: as the dark gray and red tints cleared and +rolled away, and left a pale yellow sky, the morning star, which I could +see from Annie's bedside, faded and melted in the pure ether. Even while I +was looking at it it vanished, and I thought that, like it, Annie's bright +soul, disappearing from my sight, had blended in Eternal Day.</p> + +<hr width="80%" /> + +<p>This was four years ago. My Aunt Ann died, as Annie had said she would, +in a very few months afterward. My uncle came, a broken and trembling man, +to live with us, and Edward Neal gladly gave his little son into my hands, +as Annie had desired. He went abroad immediately, finding it utterly +impossible to bear the sight of the scenes of his lost happiness. He came +back in two years, bringing a bright young wife with him, a sunny-haired +English girl, who, he said, was so marvelously like Annie. She is like the +Annie whom he knew!</p> + +<p>Every day their baby boy is brought to our house to see his brother; but I +think two children of one name never before looked so unlike.</p> + +<p>My little Henry is the centre of his grandfather's life and of mine. He is +a pensive child, and has never been strong; but his beauty and sweetness +are such that we often tremble when we look in his face and remember +Annie.</p> + +<p>George Ware is still in India. Every ship brings brave sweet letters, and +gifts for the baby. I sent him the little paper which I found in the +corner of Annie's jewel-case, bearing his name. I knew that it was for him +when I saw her feeble hands laying the baby's hair and hers together in +the locket.</p> + +<p>In November Annie's grave is snowy with white chrysanthemums. She loved +them better than any other flowers, and I have made the little hillock +almost into a thicket of them.</p> + +<p>In George Ware's last letter he wrote:--</p> + +<p>"When the baby is ten years old I shall come home. He will not need me +till then; till then, he is better in your hands alone; after that I can +help you."</p> +</div> + + +<div class="chapter" id="ch04"> +<h2>The One-Legged Dancers.</h2> + + + +<p>Very early one morning in March, ten years ago, I was sitting alone on one +of the crumbling ledges of the Coliseum: larks were singing above my head; +wall-flowers were waving at my feet; a procession of chanting monks was +walking slowly around the great cross in the arena below. I was on the +highest tier, and their voices reached me only as an indistinct wail, like +the notes of a distant Aeolian harp; but the joyous sun and sky and songs, +were darkened and dulled by their presence. A strange sadness oppressed +me, and I sank into a deep reverie. I do not know how long I had been +sitting there, when I was suddenly roused by a cry of pain, or terror, and +the noise of falling stones. I sprang to my feet and, looking over, saw a +young and beautiful woman lying fearfully near the edge of one of the most +insecure of the projecting ledges on the tier below me--the very one from +which I had myself nearly fallen, only a few days before, in stretching +over after some asphodels which were beyond my reach.</p> + +<p>I ran down as fast as possible, but when I reached the spot she had +fainted, and was utterly unconscious. She was alone; I could see no other +human being in the Coliseum. The chanting monks had gone; even the +beggars had not yet come. I tried in vain to rouse her. She had fallen so +that the hot sun was beating full on her face. I dared not leave her +there, for her first unconscious movement might be such that she would +fall over the edge. But I saw that she must have shade and water, or die. +Every instant she grew whiter and her lips looked more rigid. I shouted +aloud, and only the echoes answered me, as if in mockery. A little lark +suddenly flew out from a tuft of yellow wall-flower close by, and burst +into a swift carol of delight as he soared away. At last, with great +efforts, I succeeded in dragging her, by her feet--for I dared not venture +out so far as the spot on which her head lay--to a safer place, and into +the partial shade of a low bush. As I did this, one of her delicate hands +was scratched and torn on the rough stones, and drops of blood came to the +surface. In the other hand were crushed a few spikes of asphodel, the very +flowers, no doubt, which had lured me so near the same dangerous brink. It +seemed impossible to go away and leave her, but it was cruel to delay. My +feet felt like lead as I ran along those dark galleries and down the stone +flights of giddy stairs. Just in the entrance stood one of those +pertinacious sellers of old coins and bits of marble. I threw down a piece +of silver on his little stand, seized a small tin basin in which he had +his choicest coins, emptied them on the ground, and saying, in my poor +Italian, "Lady--ill--water," I had filled the basin at the old stone +fountain near by, and was half way up the first flight of stairs again, +before he knew what had happened.</p> + +<p>When I reached the place where I had left the beautiful stranger she was +not there. Unutterable horror seized me. Had I, after all, left her too +near that crumbling edge? I groaned aloud and turned to run down. A feeble +voice stopped me--a whisper rather than a voice, for there was hardly +strength to speak,--</p> + +<p>"Who is there?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, thank God," I exclaimed, "you are not dead!" and I sprang to the next +of the cross corridors, from which the sound had come.</p> + +<p>She was there, sitting up, leaning against the wall. She looked almost +more terrified than relieved when she saw me. I bathed her face and hands +in the water, and told her how I had found her insensible, and had drawn +her away from the outer edge before I had gone for the water. She did not +speak for some moments, but looked at me earnestly and steadily, with +tears standing in her large blue eyes.</p> + +<p>Then she said, "I did not know that any one but myself ever came to the +Coliseum so early. I thought I should die here alone; and Robert was not +willing I should come."</p> + +<p>"I owe you my life," she added, bursting into hysterical crying.</p> + +<p>Then in a few moments she half laughed, as if at some droll thought, and +said, "But how could you drag me? You are not nearly so big as I am. The +angels must have helped you;" and holding up the poor crushed asphodels, +she went on: "As soon as I came to myself, I saw the asphodels in my hand, +and I said, 'Asphodel for burial;' and tried to throw them away, so that +if Robert came he would not find me dead with them in my hand, for only +yesterday he said to me, 'Please never pick an asphodel--I can't bear to +see you touch one.'"</p> + +<p>Slowly I soothed her and she recovered her color and strength. The owner +of the basin, followed by a half-dozen chattering vetturini, had climbed +up to us, but we had peremptorily sent them all away. It was evident that +she was not seriously hurt. The terror, rather than the fall, had caused +her fainting. It was probably a sudden dizziness which had come as she +drew back and turned after picking the flowers. Had she fallen in the act +of picking them she must have been dashed to the ground below. At the end +of an hour she was so nearly well, that she walked slowly down the long +stairs, leaning on my arm, and taking frequent rests by the way. I was +about to beckon to one of the vetturini, when she said, "Oh no! my own +carriage is near here, up by the gate of the Palace of the Cæsars. I +rambled on, without thinking at first of coming to the Coliseum: it will +do me good to walk back; every moment of the air makes me feel better."</p> + +<p>So we went slowly on, up the solemn hill, arm in arm like friends, sitting +down now and then on old fallen columns to rest, and looking back at the +silent, majestic ruins, which were brightened almost into a look of life +under the vivid sun. My companion spoke little; the reaction after her +fearful shock had set in; but every few moments her beautiful eyes would +fill with tears as she looked in my face and pressed my arm. I left her at +her apartment on the Via Felice; my own was a mile farther on, in the +Piazza del Popolo, and I would not let her drive so far.</p> + +<p>"It grieves me not to go with you to your door," she said, as she bade me +good-bye, "but I shall come and see you to-morrow and bring my husband."</p> + +<p>"No, you must not," I replied. "To-morrow you will be wise enough--or, if +you are not wise enough, you will be kind enough to me because I ask +it--to lie in bed all day, and I shall come very early in the morning to +see how you are."</p> + +<p>She turned suddenly on the carriage-steps, and, leaning both her hands on +my knees, exclaimed, in a voice full of emotion.</p> + +<p>"Will you let me kiss you? Not even my mother gave me what you have given. +For you have given me back life, when it was too infinitely precious to +lose. Surely you will not think me presuming?" and her cheek flushed a +little.</p> + +<p>"Presuming! my dear child, I loved you the first moment I saw you lying +there on the stones; and I am almost old enough to be your mother, too," I +replied, and I kissed her sweet face warmly.</p> + +<p>This was the beginning of my acquaintance and friendship with Dora +Maynard.</p> + +<p>At eleven o'clock the next morning I went to see her. I was shown into a +room, whose whole air was so unlike that of a Roman apartment, that I +could scarcely believe I had not been transported to English or American +soil. In spite of its elegance, the room was as home-like and cozy as if +it nestled in the Berkshire hills or stood on Worcestershire meadows. The +windows were heavily curtained, and the furniture covered with gay chintz +of a white ground, with moss-rose buds thickly scattered over it between +broad stripes of rose-pink. The same chintz was fluted all around the +cornice of the room, making the walls look less high and stately; the +doorways, also, were curtained with it. Great wreaths and nodding masses +of pampas grass were above the doors; a white heron and a rose-colored +spoonbill stood together on a large bracket in one corner, and a huge gray +owl was perched on what looked like a simple old apple-tree bough, over an +inlaid writing-table which stood at an odd slant near one of the windows. +Books were everywhere--in low swinging shelves, suspended by large green +cords with heavy tassels; on low bracket shelves, in unexpected places, +with deep green fringes or flutings of the chintz; in piles on Moorish +stools or old Venice chests. Every corner looked as if somebody made it a +special haunt and had just gone out. On a round mosaic table stood an +exqusite black-and-gilt Etruscan patera filled with white anemones; on +another table near by stood a silver one filled with the same flowers, +pink and yellow. Each was circled round the edge with fringing masses of +maiden-hair fern. Every lounge and chair had a low, broad foot-stool +before it, ruffled with the chintz; and in one corner of the room were a +square pink and white and green Moorish rug, with ten or a dozen +chintz-covered pillows, piled up in a sort of chair-shaped bed upon it, +and a fantastic ebony box standing near, the lid thrown back, and +battledoors and shuttlecocks, and many other gay-colored games, tossed in +confusion. The walls were literally full of exquisite pictures; no very +large or rare ones, all good for every-day living; some fine old +etchings, exquisite water-colors, a swarthy Campagna herds-boy with a +peacock feather and a scarlet ribbon in his black hat, and for a +companion-picture, the herds-boy of the mountains, fair, rosy, standing +out on a opaline snow-peak, with a glistening Edelweiss in his hand; +opposite these a large picture of Haag's, a camel in the desert, the Arab +wife and baby in a fluttering mass of basket and fringe and shawl and +scarf, on his back; the Arab father walking a few steps in advance, +playing on musical pipes, his tasseled robe blowing back in the wind; on +one side of this a Venice front, and on another a crag of Norway pines; +here and there, small leaves of photographs from original drawings by the +old masters, Leonardo, Raphael, Titian, and Luini; and everywhere, in all +possible and impossible places, flowers and vines. I never saw walls so +decorated. Yellow wall-flowers waved above the picture of the Norway +pines; great scarlet thistles branched out each side of the Venetian +palace; cool maiden-hair ferns seemed to be growing all around the glowing +crimson and yellow picture of the Arabs in the Desert. Afterward I learned +the secret of this beautiful effect; large, flat, wide-mouthed bottles, +filled with water, were hung on the backs of the picture frames, and in +these the vines and flowers were growing; only a worshipper of flowers +would have devised this simple method of at once enshrining them, and +adorning the pictures.</p> + +<p>In one of the windows stood a superbly-carved gilt table, oblong, and with +curiously-twisted legs which bent inward and met a small central shelf +half-way between the top and the floor, then spread out again into four +strange claw-like vases, which bore each two golden lilies standing +upright. On this stood the most singular piece of wood-carving I ever saw. +It was of very light wood, almost yellow in tint; it looked like rough +vine trellises with vines clambering over them; its base was surrounded by +a thick bed of purple anemones; the smaller shelf below was also filled +with purple anemones, and each of the golden lilies held all the purple +anemones it could--not a shade of any other color but the purple and +gold--and rising above them the odd vine trellises in the pale yellow +wood. As I stood looking at this in mute wonder and delight, but sorely +perplexed to make out the design of the carving, I heard a step behind me. +I turned and saw, not my new friend, as I had expected, but her husband. I +thought, in that first instant, I had never seen a manlier face and form, +and I think so to-day. Robert Maynard was not tall; he was not handsome; +but he had a lithe figure, square-shouldered, straight, strong, vitalized +to the last fibre with the swift currents of absolutely healthy blood, and +the still swifter currents of a passionate and pure manhood. His eyes were +blue, his hair and full beard of the bright-brown yellow which we call, +rightly or wrongly, Saxon. He came very quickly toward me with both hands +outstretched and began to speak. "My dear madam," he said, but his voice +broke, and with a sudden, uncontrollable impulse, he turned his back full +upon me for a second, and passed his right hand over his eyes. The next +instant he recovered himself and went on.</p> + +<p>"I do not believe you will wonder that I can't speak, and I do not believe +you will ever wonder that I do not thank you--I never shall," and he +raised both my hands to his lips.</p> + +<p>"Dora is in bed as you bade her to be," he continued. "She is well, but +very weak. She wants to see you immediately, and she has forbidden me to +come back to her room without you. I think, perhaps," he added +hesitatingly, "she is not quite calm enough to talk long. Forgive me for +saying it. I know you love her already."</p> + +<p>"Indeed I do," replied I, "as if I had known her all my life. I will not +stay long;" and I followed him through a small dining-room, also gay with +flowers and vines, to a little room which had one side almost wholly of +glass and opened on a <i>loggia</i> full of orange-trees and oleanders, +geraniums and roses. I will not describe Dora Maynard's bed-room. It was +the dainty room of a dainty woman, but spiritualized and individualized +and made wonderful, just as her sitting-room was, by a creative touch and +a magnetic presence such as few women possess. I believe that she could +not be for twenty-four hours in the barrenest and ugliest room possible, +without contriving to diffuse a certain enchantment through all its +emptiness.</p> + +<p>She looked far more beautiful this morning than she had looked the day +before. I never forgot the picture of her face as I saw it then, lying on +the white pillow and turned toward the door, with the eager expression +which her waiting for me had given it. Neither of us spoke for some +seconds, and when we did speak we took refuge in commonplaces. Our hearts +were too full--mine with a sudden and hardly explicable overflow of +affection toward this beautiful being whom I had saved from dying; hers +with a like affection for me, heightened a thousand fold by the intense +love of love and of living that filled her whole soul and made her +gratitude to me partake almost of the nature of adoration. I think it was +years before she could see me without recalling the whole scene so vividly +that tears would fill her eyes. Often she would suddenly seize both my +hands in hers, kiss them and say, "Oh! but for these dear, strong, brave +little hands, where should I be!" And whenever we parted for a length of +time she was overshadowed by presentiment. "I know it is superstitious and +silly," she would say, "but I cannot shake off the feeling that I am safer +in the same town with you. I believe if any harm were to threaten me you +would be near."</p> + +<p>But the story I am to tell now is not the story of Dora Maynard's life +after I knew her, nor of our friendship and love for each other, rare and +beautiful as they were. It is the story of her girlhood, and of the +strange wood-carving which stood on the gilded table in the bed of purple +anemones.</p> + +<p>One morning in April, as I climbed the long stone stairs which led to her +apartment, I met Anita, the flower-woman who carried flowers to her every +day. Anita looked troubled.</p> + +<p>"What is the matter, my Anita?" said I; "is the Signora ill?"</p> + +<p>"Ah no, thank the Blessed Virgin!" said Anita; "the dearest, most +beautiful of Signoras is well, but I am obliged to tell her to-day that +there are no more anemones. Biagio went yesterday to the farthest corner +of the Villa Doria, to a dark shady spot beyond the Dove-Cote, which the +strangers know not, hoping to find some; but the heavy rains had beaten +them all down--there is no longer one left. And the Signora had tears in +her eyes when I told her; and she did not care for all the other beautiful +flowers; she said none of them could go on the gold table; never yet has +the Signora put any flowers on the gold table except the purple anemones," +and real tears stood in old Anita's eyes.</p> + +<p>"Why, Anita," said I, "I am sure some other flowers would look very pretty +there. I do not believe the Signora will be unhappy about it."</p> + +<p>Anita shook her head and half smiled with a look of pitying compassion.</p> + +<p>"But, Signora, you do not know; that dearest and most beautiful of +Signoras has visions from the angels about her flowers. Holy Virgin! if +she would but come and hang flowers around the Bambino in our church! None +of the Holy Sisters can so weave them as she does; she makes Festa forever +in the house for the Signor; and I think, Signora," crossing herself and +looking sharply at me, "perhaps the gold table is the shrine of her +religion: does the Signora know?"</p> + +<p>I could not help laughing. "Oh no, Anita," I said; "we do not have shrines +in our religion."</p> + +<p>Anita's face clouded. "Iddio mio!" she said, "but the Virgin will keep the +dearest Signora Maynardi. Biagio and I have vowed to keep a candle always +burning for her in Ara Coeli! The dearest, most beautiful of Signoras;" +and Anita walked disconsolately on, down the stairs.</p> + +<p>I found Dora kneeling before the "gold table," arranging great masses of +maiden-hair fern around the wood carving and in the shelf below. As I saw +the rapt and ecstatic expression of her face, I understood why Anita had +believed the gold table to be a shrine.</p> + +<p>"They do not suit it like the anemones," said she, sadly; "and I can have +no more anemones this year."</p> + +<p>"So poor Anita told me just now on the stairs," replied I. "She was almost +crying, she was so sorry she could not get them for you. But I am sure, +dear, the ferns are beautiful on it. I think the pale green looks even +better than the purple with the gold and the pale yellow wood."</p> + +<p>"I like the purple best," said Dora; "besides, we always had purple at +home," and her eyes filled with tears. Then, turning suddenly to me, she +said, "Why have you never asked me what this is? I know you must have +wondered: it looks so strange--this poor little clumsy bit of American +pine, on my gilt table shrined with flowers!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I have wondered, I acknowledge, for I could not make out the +design," I replied; "but I thought it might have some story connected with +it, which you would tell me if you wished I should know. I did not think +it clumsy; I think it is fantastic, and has a certain sort of weird +life-likeness about it."</p> + +<p>"Do you really think it has any life-like look about it?" and Dora's face +flushed with pleasure. "I think so, but I supposed nobody else could see +anything in it. No one of my acquaintance has ever alluded to it," +continued she, half laughing, half crying, "but I see them trying to +scrutinize it slyly when they are not observed. As for poor old Anita, I +believe she thinks it is our Fetish. She walks round it on tiptoe with her +hands clasped on her apron."</p> + +<p>"But now," she continued, "I will show you the same design in something +else;" and she led the way through her own bedroom to Robert's, which was +beyond. On the threshold she paused, and kissing me, said: "If you can +stay with me to-day, I will tell you the whole story, dear; but I want you +to look at this chintz first." Then she walked to the window, and drawing +out one of the curtains to its full width, held it up for me to see. It +was a green and white chintz, evidently of cheap quality. At first I did +not distinguish any meaning in the pattern; presently I saw that the +figures were all of vines and vine-leaves, linked in a fantastic fashion +together, like those in the wood-carving on the gold table.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes," I said, "I see; it is exactly like the carving, only it looks +different, being on a flat surface."</p> + +<p>Dora did not speak; she was gazing absently at the chintz she held in her +hand. Her face looked as if her soul were miles and years away. Presently +I saw a tear roll down her cheek. I touched her hand. She started, and +smiling sweetly, said: "Oh! forgive me. Don't think I am crying for any +sorrow; it is for joy. I am so happy, and my life has been so wonderful. +Now would you really have patience to listen to a long story?" she said, +beseechingly; "a long story all about me--and--Robert? I have been +wanting to tell you ever since I knew you. I think you ought to know all +about us."</p> + +<p>For my answer, I sank into a large chair, drew her down into my lap, and +said: "Begin, you dearest child. Nothing could give me such pleasure. +Begin at the beginning."</p> + +<p>She slipped from my lap to a low footstool at my feet, and resting both +her arms on my knees in a graceful way she had, looked up into my face, +and began by a sentence which made me start.</p> + +<p>"I used to work in a factory." My start was so undisguised, so +uncontrollable, that Dora drew back and her cheeks turned red.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps I ought to have told you before."</p> + +<p>"Oh, my dear, beautiful, marvellous child!" I exclaimed; "you cannot so +misjudge me. I was startled only because you had always seemed to me so +much like one born to all possible luxury. I supposed you had been +nurtured on beauty."</p> + +<p>"So I have been," she replied, earnestly, smiling through tears; +"nevertheless, three years ago I was working in a factory in America."</p> + +<p>I did not interrupt her again; hour after hour passed by; not until +twilight was deepening into dusk did the story come to end. I shall try to +give it in Dora's own words--their simplicity adds so much to it; but I +cannot give the heightened effect with which they fell upon my ears as I +looked down into her sweet child-woman's face.</p> + +<p>"I do not remember much about mamma. It is strange, too, that I do not, +because I was thirteen when she died; but I always loved papa best, and +stayed all the time I could in his study. Mamma was very pretty; the +prettiest woman I ever saw; but I don't know how it was, all her +prettiness did not seem to make papa care about her. He was a +clergyman--an Episcopal clergyman--and his father and his father's father +had been too; so you see for three whole generations it had been all books +and study in the family; but mamma's father was a farmer, and mamma was +stronger than papa; she liked to live in the country and be out of doors, +which he hated. I think I know now just how it all was; but it used to +puzzle me till I grew up. When I was sixteen, my Aunt Abby, papa's sister, +told me that mamma was said to be the most beautiful girl in the whole +State, and that papa fell so in love with her when he was just out of +college, that he came very near dying because his father did not wish them +to be married. Poor papa! it was just so always with him; he had such a +poor feeble body that any trouble or worry made him ill. I can see now +that it was because he and all his family had been such scholars, and +lived in the house, and sat still all their lives; their bodies were not +good for anything: and I am thankful enough that my body is like mamma's; +but I don't know what good it would do me, either, if dear papa hadn't +taught me all his ways of seeing things and feeling things. Mamma never +seemed to care much about anything, except when Dick or Abby were sick, +and she always used to go to sleep in church while papa was saying the +most beautiful things; sometimes it used to make me almost hate her. I +hated everybody that didn't listen to him. But Aunt Abby said once that +very few people could understand him, and that was the reason we never +stayed long in one place. People got tired of hearing him preach. This +made me so angry I did not speak to Aunt Abby for two years, except when I +was obliged to. But I see now that she was right. As I read over papa's +sermons I see that they would seem very strange to common men and women. +He saw much more in every little thing than people generally do. I used to +tell him sometimes he 'saw double,' and he would sigh and say that the +world was blind, and did not see half; he never could take any minute by +itself; there was the past to cripple it and the future to shadow it. +Poor, poor papa! I really think I have learned in a very strange way to +understand his capacity for sadness. I understand it by my own capacity +for joy. I often smile to think how I used to accuse him of seeing double, +for it is the very thing which Robert says to me again and again when a +sight or a sound gives me such intense pleasure that I can hardly bear it. +And I see that while I have nearly the same sensitiveness to all +impressions from things or from people which he had, my body compels the +impressions to be joyous. This is what I owe mamma. If papa could have +been well and strong, he would have sung joy such as no poet has ever sung +since suns began to shine.</p> + +<p>"But most that he wrote was sad; and I am afraid most that he taught the +people was sad too, or, at any rate, not hopeful as it ought to be in this +beautiful, blessed world, which 'God so loved' and loves. So perhaps it +was better for people that papa never preached in any one parish more than +three or four years. Probably God took care to send next a man who would +make everybody take courage again. However, it was very hard for mamma, +and very hard for us; although for us there was excitement and fun in +getting into new houses and getting acquainted with new people; but the +worst thing was that we had very little money, and it used it up so to +move from place to place, and buy new things. I knew all about this before +I was ten years old as well as if I had been forty; and by the time I was +twelve, I was a perfect little miser of both clothes and money--I had such +a horror of the terrible days, which sometimes came, when we sorely wanted +both.</p> + +<p>"Early in the spring after I was thirteen--my birthday was in December--we +went to live in a little place called Maynard's Mills. It was a suburban +village near the largest manufacturing town in the State. The other two +homes which I could remember had been very small country villages, where +none of the people were rich, and only a few attended the Episcopal +church. In Maynard's Mills there were many rich people, and almost +everybody went to our church. The whole place was owned by Mr. Maynard, +Robert's father. He had gone out there to live near his mills, and the +place was so beautiful that family after family of the rich mill-owners +had moved out there. At first they used to go into town to church; but it +was a long drive, cold in winter and hot in summer, and so Mr. Maynard +built a beautiful chapel near his house and sent for papa to come and +preach in it. Mr. Maynard had been his classmate in college and loved him +very much, just because they were 'so different,' papa said, and I think +it must have been so, for Mr. Maynard is the merriest man I ever saw. He +laughs as soon as he sees you, whether there is anything to laugh at or +not, and he makes you feel just like laughing yourself, simply by asking +you how you do. I never saw papa so happy as he was the day Mr. Maynard's +letter came asking him to go there.</p> + +<p>"It was a very kind letter, and the salary, of which Mr. Maynard spoke +almost apologetically, saying that it would be increased in a few years as +the village grew, was more than twice as large as papa had ever received, +and there was a nice parsonage besides.</p> + +<p>"We moved in April. I always associate our moving with blue hepaticas, for +I carried a great basketful of them, which I had taken up roots and all, +in the woods, the morning we set out; and what should I find under papa's +study window but a great thicket of wild ferns and cornel bushes +growing--just the place for my hepaticas, and I set them out before I went +into the house. The house was very small, but it was so pretty that papa +and I were perfectly happy in it. Poor mamma did not like the closets and +the kitchen. The house we had left was a huge, old-fashioned house, with +four square rooms on a floor; one of these was the kitchen, and mamma +missed it very much. But she lived only a few days after we moved in. I +never knew of what disease she died. She was ill but a few hours and +suffered great pain. They said she had injured herself in some way in +lifting the furniture. It was all so sudden and so terrible, and we were +surrounded by such confusion and so many strange faces, that I do not +remember anything about it distinctly. I remember the funeral, and the +great masses of white and purple flowers all over the table on which the +coffin stood, and I remember how strangely papa's face looked.</p> + +<p>"And then Aunt Abby came to live with us, and we settled down into such a +new, different life, that it seemed to me as if it had been in some other +world that I had known mamma. My sister Abby was two years old, and my +darling brother Nat was ten, when mamma died. It is very hard to talk +about dear Nat, I love him so. He is so precious, and his sorrow is so +sacred, that I am hardly willing to let strangers pity him, ever so +tenderly. When he was a baby he sprang out of mamma's lap, one day, as she +was reaching up to take something from the mantel piece. He fell on the +andiron-head and injured his spine so that he could never walk. He is +twenty years old now; his head and chest and arms are about as large as +those of a boy of sixteen, but all the rest of his poor body is shrunken +and withered; he has never stood upright, and he cannot turn himself in +his chair or bed. But his head and face are beautiful. It is not only I +who think so. Artists have seen him sitting at the window, or being drawn +about in his little wagon, and have begged permission to paint his face, +for the face of a saint or of a hero, in their pictures. It is the face of +both saint and hero; and after all that must be always so, I think; for +how could a man be one without being the other? I know some very brave men +have been very bad men, but I do not call them heroes. Nat is the only +hero I ever knew; if I were a poet I would write a poem about him. It +should be called 'THE CROWNLESS KING.' Oh, how he <i>does</i> reign over +suffering, and loss, and humiliation, and what a sweet kingdom spreads out +around him wherever he is! He does everybody good, and everybody loves +him. Poor papa used to say sometimes, 'My son is a far better preacher +than I; see, I sit at his feet to learn;' and it was true. Even when he +was a little fellow Nat used to keep up papa's courage. Many a time, when +papa looked dark and sad, Nat would call to him, 'Dear papa, will you +carry me up and down a little while by the window? I want the sky.' Then, +while they were walking, Nat would say such sweet things about the beauty +of the sky, and the delight it gave him to see it, that the tears would +come into papa's eyes, and he would say, 'Who would think that we could +ever forget for a moment this sky which is above us?' and he would go away +to his study comforted.</p> + +<p>"As I said, when mamma died, Nat was ten and I was thirteen. From that +time I took all the care of him. Aunt Abby, was not strong, and she did +not love children. She was just, and she meant to be always kind to us; +but that sort of kindness is quite different from loving-kindness. Poor +Nat never could bear to have her do anything for him, and so it very soon +came about that I took all the care of him. It was not hard, for he was +never ill; he suffered constant pain but in spite of it he was always +cheerful, always said he felt well, and never had any of the small +ailments and diseases which healthy children are apt to have. 'I +shouldn't know what to do without the ache, Dot,' he said to me one day +when he was only twelve years old. 'I've got so used to it, I should miss +it as much as I should miss you said it helps me to be good. I don't think +I should dare have it go away.' A few years later he wrote some lovely +little verses called 'The Angel of Pain,' which I will show you. Our life +after mamma died was very happy and peaceful. It makes me grieve for her, +even now, to think how little she was missed. We had all loved her. She +was always pleasant and good, and took the best possible care of us and of +everything; but she was not one of those persons whose presence makes +itself necessary to people. It seems hardly right to say such a thing, but +I really think papa seemed more cheerful without her, after the first. I +think that while she lived he was always groping and reaching after +something in her which did not exist. The hourly sight of her reminded him +hourly of his ideal of what a wife might be, and he was forever hoping +that she might come a little nearer to it--enter a little more into his +world of thought and feeling. This is how it has looked to me since I have +been married, and can understand just how terrible it must be to have the +person whom you love best, disappoint you in any way.</p> + +<p>"Nat was in all my classes in school. Although he was three years younger +he was much cleverer than I, and had had nothing to do, poor dear, all his +life, but lie in his chair and read. I used to draw him to and from school +in a little wagon; the boys lifted it up and down the steps so carefully +it did not jar him; and papa had a special desk built for him, so high +that part of the wagon could roll under it, and the lid could rest just +wherever Nat needed it for writing or studying. When we went home, there +was always a sort of procession with us; a good many of the children had +to go in the same direction, but many went simply to walk by Nat's wagon +and talk with him. Whenever there was a picnic or a nutting frolic, we +always took him; the boys took turns in drawing him; nobody would hear a +word of his staying at home; he used to sit in his wagon and look on while +the rest played, and sometimes he would be left all alone for a while, but +his face was always the happiest one there. At school the boys used to +tell him everything, and leave things to his decision. Almost every day, +somebody would call out, at recess or intermission, 'Well, I'll leave it +to Nat'--or 'I'll tell Nat.' One day somebody shouted, 'Take it before the +king--let's call him King Nat.' But it almost made Nat cry. He exclaimed, +'Oh, boys, please don't ever say that again;' and they never did. He had a +great deal more influence over them than any teacher. He could make them +do anything. Sometimes the teachers themselves used to come to him +privately and tell him of things they did not like, which the boys were +getting into the way of doing, and ask him to try to stop them. If Nat had +not been a saint, as I said before, all this would have spoiled him; but +he never thought of its being any special power in him. He used to think +it was only because the boys were so kind-hearted that they could not bear +to refuse any request which a poor cripple made.</p> + +<p>"When I think how happy those days were and how fast the darkest days of +our lives were drawing near, it makes me shrink from happiness almost as +much as from grief. It seems only grief's forerunner. On the evening of my +sixteenth birthday, we were all having a very merry time in papa's study, +popping corn over the open fire. We had wheeled Nat near the fire, and +tied the corn-popper on a broom-handle, so that he could shake the popper +himself; and I never saw him laugh so heartily at anything. Papa laughed +too, quite loud, which was a thing that did not happen many times a year. +It was the last time we heard the full sound of dear papa's voice. Late +that night he was called out to see a poor man, one of the factory +operatives, who was dying. It was a terrible snow-storm, and papa had been +so heated over the fire and in playing with us that he took a severe cold. +The next morning he could not speak aloud. The doctor said it was an acute +bronchitis and would pass off; but it did not, and in a very few weeks it +was clear that he was dying of consumption. Probably the cold only +developed a disease which had been long there.</p> + +<p>"I can't tell you about the last months of papa's life. I think I shall +never be able to speak of them. We saw much worse days afterward, but none +that seemed to me so hard to bear; even when I thought Nat and I would +have to go to the almshouse it was not so hard. The love which most +children divide between father and mother I concentrated on my father. I +loved him with an adoration akin to that which a woman feels for her +husband, and with the utmost of filial love added. Nat loved him almost as +much. The most touching thing I ever saw was to see Nat from his wagon, +or wheeled chair, reaching out to take care of papa in the bed. Nobody +else could give him his medicine so well; nobody could prepare his meals +for him, after he was too weak to use a knife and fork, so well as Nat. +How he could do all this with only one hand--for he could not bend himself +in his chair enough to use the hand farthest from the bed--nobody could +understand; but he did, and the very last mouthful of wine papa swallowed +he took, the morning he died, from poor Nat's brave little hand, which did +not shake nor falter, though the tears were rolling down his cheeks.</p> + +<p>"Papa lived nearly a year; but the last nine months he was in bed, and he +never spoke a loud word after that birthday night when we had been so +happy in the study. He died in November, on a dreary stormy day. I never +shall forget it. He had seemed easier that morning, and insisted on our +all going out to breakfast together and leaving him alone, the doors being +open between the study and the dining-room. We had hardly seated ourselves +at the table when his bell rang. Aunt Abby reached him first. It could not +have been a minute, but he did not know her. For the first and only time +in my life I forgot Nat, and was out of the room when I heard him sob. +Dear Nat! not even then would he think of himself. I turned back. 'Oh, +don't stop to take me, Dot,' he said. 'Run!' But I could not; and when I +reached the door, pushing his chair before me, all was over. However, the +doctor said that, even if we had been there at the first, papa could not +have bid us good-by; that the death was from instantaneous suffocation, +and that he probably had no consciousness of it himself. Papa's life had +been insured for five thousand dollars and he had saved, during the three +years we had lived at Maynard's Mills, about one thousand more. This was +all the money we had in the world.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Maynard had been very kind throughout papa's illness. He had +persuaded the church to continue the salary; every day he had sent +flowers, and grapes, and wine, and game, and everything he could think of +that papa could eat; and, what was kindest of all, he had come almost +every day to talk with him and cheer him up. But he did not mean to let +his kindness stop here. The day after the funeral he came to see us, to +propose to adopt me. I forgot to say that Aunt Abby was to be married soon +and would take little Abby with her; so they were provided for, and the +only question was about Nat and me.</p> + +<p>"Fortunately, dear Nat was in the dining-room and did not see Mr. Maynard +when he came. I have told you what a merry man Mr. Maynard is, and how +kind he is, but he is also a very obstinate and high-tempered man. He had +never loved Nat; I do not know why; I think he was the only human being +who ever failed to love him. He pitied him, of course; but he was so +repelled by his deformity that he could not love him. As soon as Mr. +Maynard said, 'Now, my dear child, you must come to my house and make it +your home always,' I saw that he intended to separate me from Nat.</p> + +<p>"I replied, 'I cannot leave Nat, Mr. Maynard. I thank you very much; you +are very good; but it would break my heart to leave him, and I am sure +papa would never forgive me if I should do it.'</p> + +<p>"He made a gesture of impatience. He had foreseen this, and come prepared +for it; but he saw that I promised to prove even more impracticable than +he had feared.</p> + +<p>"'You have sacrificed your whole life already to that miserable +unfortunate boy,' he said, 'and I always told your father he ought not to +permit it.'</p> + +<p>"At this I grew angry, and I replied:--</p> + +<p>"'Mr. Maynard, Nat does more for us all, every hour of his life, than we +ever could do for him: dear papa used to say so too.'</p> + +<p>"No doubt papa had said this very thing to Mr. Maynard often, for tears +came into his eyes and he went on:--</p> + +<p>"'I know, I know--he is a wonderful boy, and we might all learn a lesson +of patience from him; but I can't have the whole of your life sacrificed +to him. I will provide for him amply; he shall have every comfort which +money can command.'</p> + +<p>"'But where?' said I.</p> + +<p>"'In an institution I know of, under the charge of a friend of mine.'</p> + +<p>"'A hospital!' exclaimed I; and the very thought of my poor Nat, who had +been the centre of a loving home-circle, of a merry school playground, +ever since he could remember--the very thought of his finding himself +alone among diseased people, and tended by hired attendants, so overcame +me that I burst into floods of tears.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Maynard, who hated the presence of tears and suffering, as mirthful +people always do, rose at once and said kindly, 'Poor child, you are not +strong enough to talk it over yet; but as your aunt must go away so soon, +I thought it better to have it all settled at once.'</p> + +<p>"'It is settled, Mr. Maynard,' said I, in a voice that half frightened me. +'I shall never leave Nat--never, so long as I live.'</p> + +<p>"'Then you'll do him the greatest unkindness you can--that's all,' replied +Mr. Maynard angrily, and walked out of the room. I locked myself up in my +own room and thought the whole matter over. How I could earn my own living +and Nat's, I did not know. We should have about four hundred dollars a +year. I had learned enough in my childhood of poverty to know that we need +not starve while we had that; but simply not starving is a great way off +from really living; and I felt convinced that it would be impossible for +me to keep up courage or hope unless I could contrive, in some way, to +earn money enough to surround our home with at least a semblance of the +old atmosphere. We must have books; we must have a flower sometimes; we +must have sun and air.</p> + +<p>"At last an inspiration came to me. Down stairs, in the saddened empty +study, sat little Miss Penstock, the village dressmaker, sewing on our +gloomy black dresses. She lived all alone in a very small house near Mr. +Maynard's mill. I remembered that I had heard her say how lonely she found +it living by herself since her married sister, who used to live with her, +had gone to the West. Since then, Miss Penstock had sometimes consented to +go for a few days at a time to sew in the houses of her favorite +employers, just to keep from forgetting how to speak,' the poor little +woman said. But she disliked very much to do this. She was a gentlewoman; +and though she accepted with simple dignity the necessity of earning her +bread, it was bitterly disagreeable to her to sit as a hired sewer in +other people's houses. She liked to come to our house better than to any +other. We also were poor. My Aunt Abby was a woman of great simplicity, +and a quiet, stately humility, like Miss Penstock's own; and they enjoyed +sitting side by side whole days, sewing in silence. Miss Penstock had +always spoken with a certain sort of tender reverence to Nat, and I +remembered that he liked to be in the room where she sewed. All these +thoughts passed through my mind in a moment. I sprang to my feet and +exclaimed, 'That is it--that is it!' and I ran hastily down to the study. +Miss Penstock was alone there. She looked up in surprise at my +breathlessness and my red eyes. I knelt down by her side and took the work +out of her hands.</p> + +<p>"'Dear Miss Penstock,' said I, 'would you rent part of your house?'</p> + +<p>"She looked up reflectively, took off her spectacles with her left hand, +and tapped her knees slowly with them, as she always did when puzzling +over a scanty pattern.</p> + +<p>"'I don't know, Dora, but I might; I've thought of it; it's awful lonely +for me as 'tis. But it's such a risk taking in strangers; is it any +friends of yours you're thinking of?'</p> + +<p>"'Nat and me,' said I, concisely. Miss Penstock's spectacles dropped from +her fingers, and she uttered an ejaculation I never heard from her lips on +any other occasion. 'Good Heavens!'</p> + +<p>"'Yes,' said I, beginning to cry, 'Nat and me! I've got to take care of +Nat, and if you would only let us live with you I think I could manage +beautifully.' Then I told her the whole story of Mr. Maynard's proposal. +While we were talking Aunt Abby came in. The problem was no new one to +her. Papa and she had talked it over many a time in the course of the past +sad year. It seemed that he had had to the last a strong hope that Mr. +Maynard would provide for us both. Poor papa! as he drew near the next +world, all the conventionalities and obligations of this seemed so small +to him, he did not shrink from the thought of dependence upon others as he +would have done in health.</p> + +<p>"'But I always told him,' said Aunt Abby, 'that Mr. Maynard wasn't going +to do anything for Nat beyond what money'd do. He'd give him a thousand a +year, or two, if need be, but he'd never set eyes on him if he could help +it.'</p> + +<p>"'Aunt Abby,' exclaimed I, 'please don't say another word about Mr. +Maynard's helping Nat. I'd die before Nat should touch a cent of his +money.'</p> + +<p>"'There is no use talking that way,' said Aunt Abby, whose tenderest +mercies were often cruelly worded. 'Mr. Maynard's a good, generous man, +and I'm sure he's been the saving of us all. But that's no reason he +should set up to take you away from Nat now; and I know well enough Nat +can't live without you; but I don't see how it's to be managed. And Aunt +Abby sighed. Then I told her my plans; they grew clearer and clearer to me +as I unfolded them; the two gentle-faced spinster women looked at me with +surprise. Miss Penstock wiped her eyes over and over.</p> + +<p>"'If I could only be sure I wasn't going against your best interests to +let you come,' said she.</p> + +<p>"'Oh, Miss Penstock,' exclaimed I, 'don't think so--don't dare to say no +for that reason; for I tell you, I shall go away to some other town with +Nat if you don't take us; there is no other house here that would do; +think how much better it would be for Nat to stay among friends.'</p> + +<p>"'It's lucky I am their guardian,' said Aunt Abby, with an unconscious +defiance in her tone. 'There can't anybody hinder their doing anything I +am willing to have them do. My brother wanted to have Mr. Maynard, too; +but I told him no; I'd either be whole guardian or none.'</p> + +<p>"'I think good Aunt Abby had had a dim foreboding that Mr. Maynard's +kindness might take a shape which it would be hard to submit to. Great as +her gratitude was, her family pride resented dictation, and resented also +the implied slight to poor Nat. As I look back now, I can see that, except +for this reaction of feeling, she never would have consented so easily to +my undertaking all I undertook, in going to housekeeping alone with that +helpless child, on four hundred dollars a year. Before night it was all +settled, and Miss Penstock went home two hours before her time, 'so +stirred up, somehow,' as she said, 'to think of those blessed children's +coming to live in my house, I couldn't see to thread a needle.' After tea +Mr. Maynard came again: Aunt Abby saw him alone. When she came up-stairs +she had been crying, but her lips were closed more rigidly than I ever saw +them. Aunt Abby could be as determined as Mr. Maynard. All she said to me +of the interview was, 'I don't know now as he'll really give in that he +can't have things as he wants to. For all his laughing and for all his +goodness, I don't believe he is any too comfortable to live with. I +shouldn't wonder if he never spoke to one of us again.'</p> + +<p>"But Mr. Maynard was too well-bred a man for any such pettiness as that. +His resentment showed itself merely in a greater courtesy than ever, +combined with a careful absence of all inquiries as to our plans. It hurt +me very much, for I knew how it would have hurt dear papa. But I knew, +too, that I was right and Mr. Maynard was wrong, and that comforted me.</p> + +<p>"Four weeks from the day papa was buried, the pretty parsonage was locked +up, cold, dark, empty. Aunt Abby had gone with little Abby to her new +home, and Nat and I were settled at Miss Penstock's. The night before we +moved, Mr. Maynard left a note at the door for me. It contained five +hundred dollars and these words:--</p> + +<p>"'Miss Dora will not refuse to accept this from one who hoped to be her +father.'</p> + +<p>"But I could not take it. I sent it back to him with a note like this:--</p> + +<p>"'DEAR MR. MAYNARD:--I shall never forget that you were willing to be my +father, and I shall always be grateful to you; but I cannot take money +from one who is displeased with me for doing what I think right. I promise +you, however, for papa's sake and for Nat's, that if I ever need help I +will ask it of you, and not of any one else.'</p> + +<hr width="80%" /> + +<p>"The next time I saw Mr. Maynard he put both his hands on my shoulders and +said: 'You are a brave girl; I wish I could forgive you; but remember your +promise.' And that was the last word Mr. Maynard spoke to me for three +years.</p> + +<p>"Our new home was so much pleasanter than we supposed it could be, that at +first, in spite of our grief, both Nat and I were almost gay. It was like +a sort of picnic, or playing at housekeeping. The rooms were sunny and +cozy. Rich people in splendid houses do not dream how pleasant poor +people's little rooms can be, if the sun shines in and there are a few +pretty things. We kept all the books which could ever be of use to Nat, +and a picture of the Sistine Madonna which Mr. Maynard had given us on the +last Christmas Day, and papa's and mamma's portraits. The books, and +these, made our little sitting-room look like home. We had only two rooms +on the first floor; one of these was a tiny one, but it held our little +cooking-stove and a cupboard, with our few dishes; the other we called +'sitting-room;' it had to be dear Nat's bedroom also, because he could not +be carried up and down stairs. But I made a chintz curtain, which shut off +his bed from sight, and really made the room look prettier, for I put it +across a corner and had a shelf put up above it, on which Nat's stuffed +owl sat. My room was over Nat's, and a cord went up from his bed to a +bell over mine, so that he could call me at any moment if he wanted +anything in the night. Then we had one more little chamber, in which we +kept the boxes of papa's sermons, and some trunks of old clothes, and +things which nobody wanted to buy at the auction, and papa's big chair and +writing-table. We would not sell those. I thought perhaps some day we +should have a house of our own--I could not imagine how; but if we did we +should be glad of that chair and table, and so Aunt Abby let us keep them, +though they were of handsome wood, beautifully carved, and would have +brought a good deal of money. For these four rooms we paid Miss Penstock +three dollars a month; the rent would have been a dollar a week, but she +said it was really worth a dollar a month to her to have people who would +not trouble her nor hurt the house; and as Aunt Abby thought so too, I +believed her.</p> + +<p>"My plan was to have Nat keep on at school, and to take in sewing myself, +or to work for Miss Penstock. For the first year all went so smoothly that +I was content. I used to draw Nat to and from school twice a day, and that +gave me air and exercise. Everybody was very kind in giving me sewing, and +I earned four and five dollars a week. We did not have to buy any clothes, +and so we laid up a little money. But the next year people did not give me +so much sewing; they had given it to me the first year because they were +sorry for us, but now they had forgotten. Very often I would sit idle a +whole week, with no work. Then I used to read and study, but I could not +enjoy anything, because I was so worried. I felt that trouble was coming. +Early in the fall dear Nat was taken ill--the first illness of his life. +It was a slow fever. He was ill for three months. I often wonder how I +lived through those months. When he recovered he seemed better than ever. +The doctor said he had passed a sort of crisis and would always be +stronger for it. The doctor was very kind. Several nights he sat up with +Nat and made me go to bed, and he would not let me pay him a cent, though +he came every day for weeks. When I urged him to let us pay the bill he +grew half angry, and said, 'Do you think I am going to take money from +your father's daughter?' and then I felt more willing to take it for +papa's sake. But the medicines had cost a great deal, and I had not earned +anything; and so, at the end of the second year, we had been obliged to +take quite a sum out of our little capital. I did not tell Nat, and I did +not go to Mr. Maynard. I went on from day to day, in a sort of stupor, +wondering what would happen next. I was seventeen years old, but I knew of +nothing I could do except to sew; I did not know enough to teach. All this +time I never once thought of the mills. I used to watch the men and women +going in and out, and envy them, thinking how sure they were of their +wages; and yet it never crossed my mind that I could do the same thing. I +am afraid it was unconscious pride which prevented my thinking of it.</p> + +<p>"But the day came. It was in the early spring. I had been to the +grave-yard to set out some fresh hepaticas on papa's grave. His grave and +mamma's were in an inclosure surrounded by a high, thick hedge of pines +and cedars close to the public street As I knelt down, hidden behind the +trees, I heard steps and voices. They paused opposite me. The persons were +evidently looking over the fence. Then I distinguished the voice of our +kind doctor.</p> + +<p>"'Poor Kent!' he said, 'how it would distress him to see his children now! +That Nat barely pulled through his fever; but he seems to have taken a new +turn since then and is stronger than ever. But I am afraid they are very +poor.'</p> + +<p>"To my astonishment, the voice that replied was Mr. Maynard's.</p> + +<p>"'Of course they are,' said he impatiently; 'but nobody will ever have a +chance to help them till the last cent's gone. That Dora would work her +fingers off in the mills rather than ask or receive help.'</p> + +<p>"'But good heavens! Maynard, you'd never stand by and see Tom Kent's +daughter in the mills?' exclaimed the doctor.</p> + +<p>"I could not hear the reply, for they were walking away. But the words 'in +the mills' rang in my ears. A new world seemed opening before me. I had no +particle of false pride; all I wanted was to earn money honestly. I could +not understand why I had never thought of this way. I knew that many of +the factory operatives, who were industrious and economical, supported +large families of children on their wages. 'It would be strange enough if +I could not support Nat and myself,' thought I, and I almost ran home, I +was so glad. I said nothing to Nat; I knew instinctively that it would +grieve him.</p> + +<p>"The next day after I left him at school I went to the largest mill and +saw the overseer. He was a coarse, disagreeable man; but he had known my +father and he treated me respectfully. He said they could not give me very +good wages at first; but if I learned readily, and was skillful in tending +the looms, I might in time make a very good living. The sums that he named +seemed large, tried by my humble standard. Even at the beginning I should +earn more than I had been able to for many months at my needle. After tea +I told Nat. He lay very still for some moments; the tears rolled down his +cheeks; then he reached up both hands and drew my face down to his, and +said, 'Dear sister, it would be selfish to make it any harder for you than +it must be at best. But oh, Dot, Dot! do you think you can dream what it +is for me to have to lie here and be such a burden on you?'</p> + +<p>"'Oh, Nat!' I said, 'if you don't want to break my heart, don't speak so. +I don't have to earn any more for two than I should have to alone; it does +not cost anything for you; and if it did, you darling, don't you know that +I could not live without you? you are all I have got in the world.' Nat +did not reply; but all that evening his face looked as I never saw it +before. Nat was fifteen; instinct was beginning to torture him with a +man's sense of his helplessness, and it was almost more than even his +childlike faith and trust could bear.</p> + +<p>"The next day I told Miss Penstock. She had been as kind to us as a mother +through this whole year and a half, and I really think we had taken the +place of children in her lonely old heart. But she never could forget that +we were her minister's children; she always called me Miss Dora, and does +to this day. She did not interrupt me while I told her my plan, but the +color mounted higher and higher in her face. As soon as I stopped +speaking, she exclaimed:--</p> + +<p>"'Dora Kent, are you mad--a girl with a face like yours to go into the +mills? you don't know what you're about.'</p> + +<p>"'Yes I do, dear Pennie,' I said (Nat had called her Pennie ever since his +sickness, when she had taken tender care of him night and day). 'I know +there are many rude, bad men there, but I do not believe they will trouble +me. At any rate I can but try. I must earn more money, Pennie; you know +that as well as I do.'</p> + +<p>"She did indeed know it; but it was very hard for her to give approbation +to this scheme. It was not until after a long argument that I induced her +to promise not to write to Aunt Abby till I had tried the experiment for +one month.</p> + +<p>"The next day I went to the mill. Everything proved much better than I had +feared. Some of the women in the room in which I was placed had belonged +to papa's Sunday-school, and they were all very kind to me, and told the +others who I was; so from the outset I felt myself among friends. In two +weeks I had grown used to the work; the noise of the looms did not +frighten or confuse me, and it did not tire me to stand so many hours. I +found that I should soon be able to do most of my work mechanically, and +think about what I pleased in the mean time. So I hoped to be able to +study at home and recite my lessons to myself in the mill. The only thing +that troubled me was that I could not take Nat to and from school, and he +had to be left alone sometimes. But I found a very pleasant and faithful +Irish boy, who was glad to earn a little money by drawing him back and +forth, often staying with him after school till I came home at six +o'clock. This boy was the son of the Irish gardener on the overseer's +place. The overseer was an Englishman; his name was Wilkins. He is the +only human being I ever disliked so that it was hard to speak to him. His +brother, too, the agent who had charge of all Mr. Maynard's business, was +almost as disagreeable as he. They both looked like bloated frogs; their +wide, shapeless mouths, flat noses, and prominent eyes, made me shudder +when I looked at them.</p> + +<p>"Little Patrick soon grew fond of Nat, as everybody did who came into +close contact with him; and he used often to stay at our house till late +at night, hearing Nat's stories, and watching him draw pictures on the +blackboard. One of the things I had kept was a great blackboard which papa +had made for him. It was mounted on a stout standard, so that it could be +swung close in front of his chair or wagon, and he would lie there and +draw for hours together. Some of the pictures he drew were so beautiful I +could not bear to have them rubbed out. It seemed almost like killing +things that were alive. Whenever I dared to spend a penny for anything not +absolutely needful, I always bought a sheet of drawing-paper or a crayon; +for Nat would rather have them than anything else in the world--even than +a book--unless the book had pictures.</p> + +<p>"One night, when I went home, I found him sitting up very straight in his +wagon, with his cheeks crimson with excitement. Patrick was with him, and +the table and the whole floor were covered with queer, long, jointed +paste-board sheets, with pieces of gay-colored calicoes, pasted on them. +Patrick looked as excited as Nat, and as soon as I opened the door he +exclaimed, 'Och, Miss Dora, see how he's plazed with um.' I was almost +frightened at Nat's face. 'Why Nat, dear,' said I, 'what are they? I don't +think they are very pretty;' and I picked up one of the queer things and +looked at it. 'The colors are bright and pretty, but I am sure almost all +the patterns are hideous.'</p> + +<p>"'Of course they are,' shouted Nat hysterically. 'That's just it. That's +what pleases me so,' and he burst out crying. I was more frightened still. +Trampling the calicoes under my feet, I ran and knelt by his chair, and +put my arms around him. 'Oh, Nat, Nat, what is the matter?' cried I. +'Patrick, what have you done to him?' Poor Patrick could not speak; he was +utterly bewildered; he began hastily picking up the prints and shuffling +them out of sight.</p> + +<p>"'Don't you touch one!' screamed Nat, lifting up his head again, with +tears rolling down his cheeks. 'Dot, Dot,' he went on, speaking louder and +louder, 'don't you see? those are patterns; Patrick says Mr. Wilkins buys +them. I can earn money too; I can draw a million times prettier ones than +those.'</p> + +<p>"Like lightning the thing flashed through my brain. Of course he could. He +drew better ones every day of his life, by dozens, on the old blackboard, +with crumbling bits of chalk. Again and again I had racked my brains to +devise some method by which he might be taught, as artists are taught, and +learn to put his beautiful conceptions into true shapes for the world to +see. But I knew that materials and instruction were both alike out of our +reach, and I had hoped earnestly that such longing had never entered his +heart. I sat down and covered my face with my hands.</p> + +<p>"'You see, sister,' said Nat in a calmer tone, sobered himself by my +excitement--'you see, don't you?'</p> + +<p>"'Yes, dear, I do see,' said I; 'you will earn much more money than I ever +can, and take care of me, after all.'</p> + +<p>"To our inexperience, it seemed as if a mine had opened at our feet. Poor +Patrick stood still, unhappy and bewildered, twisting one of the +pattern-books in his hand.</p> + +<p>"'An' is it these same that Misther Nat'll be afther tryin' to make?' said +he.</p> + +<p>"'Oh no, Patrick,' said Nat, laughing, 'only the pictures from which these +are to be made.'</p> + +<p>"Then we questioned Patrick more closely. All he knew was that Mr. +Wilkins' sister made many of the drawings; Patrick had seen them lying in +piles on Mr. Wilkins' desk; some of them colored, some of them merely in +ink. The pieces of paper were about the size of these patterns, some six +or eight inches square.</p> + +<p>"'Will I ask Miss Wilkins to come and show yees?' said Patrick.</p> + +<p>"'No, no,' said we both, hastily; 'you must not tell anybody. Of course +she would not want other people to be drawing them too.'</p> + +<p>"'Especially if she can't make anything better than these,' said Nat, +pityingly. Already his tone had so changed that I hardly recognized it. In +that moment the artist-soul of my darling brother had felt its first +breath of the sweetness of creative power.</p> + +<p>"Patrick promised not to speak of it to a human being; as he was going out +of the door he turned back, with a radiant face, and said: 'An 'twas +meself that only thought maybe the calikers'd amuse him for a minnit with +their quare colors,' and he almost somerseted off the door-steps, uttering +an Irish howl of delight.</p> + +<p>"'You've made our fortunes! there'll always be calicoes wanted, and I can +draw fifty patterns a day, and I'll give you half of the first pay I get +for them,' called the excited Nat; but Patrick was off.</p> + +<p>"We sat up till midnight. I was scarcely less overwrought than Nat. He +drew design after design and rejected them as not quite perfect.</p> + +<p>"'You know,' he said, 'I must send something so very good to begin with, +that they can't help seeing at first sight how good it is.'</p> + +<p>"'But not so good that you can't ever make another equal to it,' suggested +I out of my practical but inartistic brain.</p> + +<p>"'No danger of that, Dot,' said Nat, confidently. 'Dot, there isn't +anything in this world I can't make a picture of, if I can have paper +enough, and pencils and paint.'</p> + +<p>"At last he finished three designs which he was willing to send. They +were all for spring or summer dresses. One was a curious block pattern, +the blocks of irregular shapes, but all fitting into each other, and all +to be of the gayest colors. Here and there came a white block with one +tiny scarlet dot upon it; 'That's for a black-haired girl, Dot,' said Nat; +'you couldn't wear it.'</p> + +<p>"The second was a group of ferns tied by a little wreath of pansies; +nothing could be more beautiful. The third was a fantastic mixture of +pine-tassels and acorns. I thought it quite ugly, but Nat insisted on it +that it would be pretty for a summer muslin; and so it was the next year, +when it was worn by everybody, the little plumy pine-tassels of a bright +green (which didn't wash at all), and the acorns all tumbling about on +your lap, all sides up at once.</p> + +<p>"It was one o'clock before we went to bed, and we might as well have sat +up all night, for we did not sleep. The next morning I got up before light +and walked into town, to a shop where they sold paints. I had just time to +buy a box of water-colors and get back to the mill before the bell stopped +ringing. All the forenoon the little white parcel lay on the floor at my +feet. As often as I looked at it, I seemed to see Nat's pictures dancing +on the surface. I had given five dollars for the box; I trembled to think +what a sum that was for us to spend on an uncertainty; but I had small +doubt. At noon I ran home; I ate little dinner--Nat would not touch a +mouthful. 'You must see the pansies and ferns done before you go,' he +said.</p> + +<p>"And before my hour was up they were so nearly done that I danced around +Nat's chair with delight.</p> + +<p>"'I know Mr. Wilkins never saw anything so pretty in his life,' said Nat, +calmly.</p> + +<p>"The thought of Mr. Wilkins was a terrible damper to me. Nat had not seen +him: I had.</p> + +<p>"'Nat,' said I, slowly, 'Mr. Wilkins won't know that it is pretty. He is +not a man; he is a frog, and he looks as if he lied. I believe he will +cheat us.'</p> + +<p>"Nat looked shocked. 'Why Dora, I never in my life heard you speak so. You +shall not take them to him. I will have Patrick take me there.'</p> + +<p>"'No, no, dear,' I exclaimed, 'I would not have you see Mr. Wilkins for +the world. He is horrible. But I am not afraid of him.'</p> + +<p>"I meant that I would not for the world have him see Nat. He was coarse +and brutal enough to be insulting to a helpless cripple, and I knew it. +But Nat did not dream of my reason for insisting so strongly on going +myself, and he finally yielded.</p> + +<p>"I took the pictures to the overseer's office at noon. I knew that 'Agent +Wilkins,' as he was called to distinguish him from his brother, was always +there at that time. He looked up at me, as I drew near the desk, with an +expression which almost paralyzed me with disgust. But for Nat's sake I +kept on. I watched him closely as he looked at the pictures. I thought I +detected a start of surprise, but I could not be sure. Then he laid them +down, saying carelessly, 'I am no judge of these things; I will consult +some one who is, and let you know to-morrow noon if we can pay your +brother anything for the designs.'</p> + +<p>"'Of course you know that the market is flooded with this sort of thing, +Miss Kent,' he added, as I was walking away. I made no reply; I was +already revolving in my mind a plan for taking them to another mill in +town, whose overseer was a brother of one of papa's wardens. The next day +at noon I went to the office; my heart beat fast, but I tried to believe +that I did not hope. Both the brothers were there. The overseer spoke +first, but I felt that the agent watched me sharply.</p> + +<p>"'So your lame brother drew these designs, did he, Miss Dora?'</p> + +<p>"'My brother Nat drew them, sir; I have but one brother, said I, trying +hard to speak civilly.</p> + +<p>"'Well' said he, 'they are really very well done--quite remarkable, +considering that they are the work of a child who has had no instruction; +they would have to be rearranged and altered before we could use them, but +we would like to encourage him and to help you too,' he continued, +patronizingly, 'and so we shall buy them just as they are.'</p> + +<p>"'My brother Nat is not a child,' replied I, 'and we do not wished to be +helped. If the designs are not worth money, will you be so good as to give +them back to me?' and I stepped nearer the desk and stretched out my hand +toward the pictures which were lying there. But Agent Wilkins snatched +them up quickly, and casting an angry glance at his brother, exclaimed:--</p> + +<p>"'Oh, you quite mistake my brother, Miss Kent; the designs are worth money +and we are glad to buy them; but they are not worth so much as they would +be if done by an experienced hand. We will give you ten dollars for the +three,' and he held out the money to me. Involuntarily I exclaimed, 'I had +not dreamed that they would be worth so much.' Nat could earn then in four +hours' work as much as I could in a week; in that one moment the whole of +life seemed thrown open for us. All my distrust vanished. And when the +agent added, kindly, 'Be sure and bring us all the designs which your +brother makes. I think we shall want to buy as many as he will draw; he +certainly has rare talent,'--I could have fallen on the floor at his feet +to thank him, so grateful did I feel for this new source of income for us, +and still more for the inexpressible pleasure for my poor Nat.</p> + +<p>"From that day Nat was a changed boy. He would not go to school in the +afternoons, but spent the hours from two till five in drawing. I had a +cord arranged from our room to Miss Penstock's, so that he could call her +if at any moment he needed help, and she was only too glad to have him in +the house. When I reached home at six, I always found him lying back in +his chair with his work spread out before him, and such a look of content +and joy on his face, that more than once it made me cry instead of +speaking when I bent over to kiss him. 'Oh, Dot--oh, Dot!' he used to say +sometimes, 'it isn't all for the sake of the money, splendid as that is; +but I do feel as if I should yet do something much better than making +designs for calicoes. I feel it growing in me. Oh, if I could only be +taught; if there were only some one here who could tell me about the +things I don't understand!'</p> + +<p>"'But you shall be taught, dear,' I replied; 'we will lay up all the +money you earn. I can earn enough for us to live on, and then, with your +money, in a few years we can certainly contrive some way for you to +study.'</p> + +<p>"It seemed not too visionary a hope, for Nat's designs grew prettier and +prettier, and the agent bought all I carried him. One week I remember he +paid me thirty dollars; and as he handed it to me, seeing how pleased I +looked, he said,--</p> + +<p>"'Your brother is getting quite rich, is he not, Miss Kent?' Something +sinister in his smile struck me at that moment as it had not done for a +long time, and I resolved to go more seldom to the office.</p> + +<p>"We did not lay up so much as we hoped to; we neither of us had a trace of +the instinct of economy or saving. I could not help buying a geranium or +fuchsia to set in the windows; Nat could not help asking me to buy a book +or a picture sometimes, and his paints and pencils and brushes and paper +cost a good deal in the course of six months. Still we were very happy and +very comfortable, and the days flew by. Our little room was so cozy and +pretty, that Miss Penstock's customers used often to come in to see it; +and if they happened to come when Nat was there, they almost always sent +him something afterward; so, at the end of two years you never would have +known the bare little room. We had flowers in both windows, and as each +window had sun, the flowers prospered; and we had a great many pretty +pictures on the walls, and Nat's sketches pinned up in all sorts of odd +places. A big beam ran across the ceiling in the middle, and that was +hung full of charcoal sketches, with here and there a sheet just painted +in bars of bright color--no meaning to them, except to 'light up,' Nat +said. I did not understand him then, but I could see how differently all +the rest looked after the scarlet and yellow were put by their side. Some +of our pictures had lovely frames to them, which Nat had carved out of old +cigar-boxes that Patrick brought him. Sometimes he used to do nothing but +carve for a week, and he would say, 'Dot, I do not believe drawing is the +thing I want to do, after all. I want more; I hate to have everything +flat.' Then he would get discouraged and think all he had done was good +for nothing. 'I never can do anything except to draw till I go somewhere +to be taught,' he would say, and turn back to the old calico patterns with +fresh zeal.</p> + +<p>"One day a customer of Miss Penstock's brought Nat a book about grapes, +which had some pictures of the different methods of grape-culture in +different countries. One of these pictures pleased him very much. It +showed the grape-vines looped on low trees, in swinging festoons. He had +the book propped up open at that picture day after day, and kept drawing +it over and over on the blackboard and on paper till I was tired of the +sight of it. It did not seem to me remarkably pretty. But Nat said one +day, when I told him so,--</p> + +<p>"'It isn't the picture itself, but what I want to make from it. Don't you +see that the trees look a little like dancers whirling round, holding each +other by the hand--one-legged dancers?'</p> + +<p>"I could not see it. 'Well,' said Nat, 'look at this, and see if you can +see it any better;' and he drew out of his portfolio a sheet with a rough +charcoal sketch of six or seven low, gnarled, bare trees, with their +boughs inter-locked in such a fantastic manner that the trees seemed +absolutely reeling about in a crazy dance. I laughed as soon as I saw it. +'There!' said Nat triumphantly; 'now, if I can only get the vines to go +just as I want them to, in and out, you see that will dress up the +dancers.' He worked long over this design. The fancy seemed to have taken +possession of his brain. He gave names to the trees, but he called them +all men: 'It's a jolly crew of old kings,' he said; 'that's Sesostris at +the head, and there's Herod; that old fellow with the gouty stomach under +his left arm.' Nat was now so full of freaks and fun, that our little room +rang with laughter night after night. Patrick used to sit on the floor +sometimes, with his broad Irish mouth stiffened into a perpetual grin at +the sight of the mirth, which, though he could not comprehend it, he found +contagious.</p> + +<p>"'But what will you do with it, Nat?' said I. 'It will never do for a +calico pattern.'</p> + +<p>"'I don't know,' said he reflectively; 'I might make it smaller and hide +the faces, and not make the limbs of the trees look so much like legs, and +call it the "vine pattern," and I guess old Wilkins would think it was +graceful, and I dare say Miss Wilkins would wear it, if nobody else did.'</p> + +<p>"'Oh! Nat, Nat, how can you,' exclaimed I, 'when they have been so good to +pay us so much money?'</p> + +<p>"'I know it,' said Nat, 'it's too bad; I'm ashamed now. But doesn't this +look like the two Wilkins brothers? You said they looked like frogs?' he +ran on, holding up a most ludicrous picture of two tall, lank frogs +standing behind a counter, and stretching out four front legs like greedy +hands across the counter, with a motto coming out of the right-hand frog's +mouth: 'More designs, if you please, Mr. Kent--something light and +graceful for summer wear.'</p> + +<p>"These were the words of a note which Mr. Wilkins had sent to Nat a few +weeks before. I laughed till the tears ran down my cheeks, for really the +frogs did look like the brothers Wilkins. The picture haunted my mind for +weeks afterward, and seemed somehow to revive my old distrust of them.</p> + +<p>"A few days after this Nat had finished a set of designs 'for summer +wear,' as the order said, and among them he had put in the 'One-Legged +Dancers.'</p> + +<p>"'It'll do no harm to try it,' said he. 'I think it would be lovely +printed in bright-green on a white ground, and nobody but you and me would +ever see the kings' legs in it.'</p> + +<p>"It really was pretty; still I could not help seeing legs and heads and +King Herod's stomach in it; and, moreover, it was entirely too large a +figure for that year's fashions in calico or muslin. However, I said +nothing and carried it with the rest. When I went the next day, Mr. +Wilkins said, as he handed me the money,--</p> + +<p>"'Oh, by the way, Miss Kent, one of the drawings has been mislaid. I +suppose it is of no consequence; we could not use it; it was quite too +large a figure, and seemed less graceful than your brother's work usually +is; it was a picture of grape-vines.'</p> + +<p>"'Oh,' said I, 'I told Nat I didn't believe that would be good for +anything. No, it is not of the least consequence.'</p> + +<p>"When I repeated this to Nat, he did not seem surprised at their refusal +of the design; they had already refused several others in the course of +the year. But he seemed singularly disturbed at the loss of the drawing. +At last he urged me to go and ask if it had not been found. + +"'I may do something with it yet, Dot,' he said. 'I know it is a good +design for something, if not for calico, and I don't believe they have +lost it. It is very queer.'</p> + +<p>"But Mr. Wilkins assured me, with great civility and many expressions of +regret, that the design was lost: that they had made careful search for it +everywhere.</p> + +<p>"The thing would have passed out of my mind in a short time but for Nat's +pertinacious reference to it. Every few days he would say, 'It is very +queer, Dot, about the One-Legged Dancers. How could such a thing be lost? +They never lost a drawing before. I believe Miss Wilkins has got it, and +is going to paint a big picture from it herself!'</p> + +<p>"'Why, Nat!' I exclaimed, 'aren't you ashamed? that would be stealing.'</p> + +<p>"'I don't care, Dot,' he said again and again, 'I never shall believe that +paper was lost.'</p> + +<p>"I grew almost out of patience with him; I never knew him to be unjust to +any one, and it grieved me that he should be so to people who had been our +benefactors.</p> + +<p>"About four months later, one warm day in April, I walked over to the +town after my day's work was done, to buy a gown for myself, and a new box +of paints for Nat. I did not go to town more than two or three times a +year, and the shop-windows delighted me as much as if I had been only +eleven years old. As I walked slowly up and down, looking at everything, I +suddenly started back at the sight of a glossy green and white chintz, +which was displayed conspicuously in the central window of one of the +largest shops. There they were, just as Nat had drawn them on the missing +paper, 'The One-Legged Dancers!' Nat was right. It was a pretty pattern, a +very pretty pattern for a chintz; and there was--I laughed out in spite of +myself, as I stood in the crowd on the sidewalk--yes, there was the ugly +great knot in one of the trees which had made King Herod's stomach. But +what did it mean? No chintzes were made in any of Mr. Maynard's mills, +nor, so far as I knew, in any mill in that neighborhood. I was hot with +indignation. Plainly Nat's instinct had been a true one. The Wilkinses had +stolen the design and had sold it to some other manufacturers, not +dreaming that the theft could ever be discovered by two such helpless +children as Nat and I.</p> + +<p>"I went into the shop and asked the price of the chintz in the window.</p> + +<p>"'Oh, the grape-vine pattern? that is a new pattern, just out this spring; +it is one of the most popular patterns we ever had. A lovely thing, miss,' +said the clerk, as he lifted down another piece of it.</p> + +<p>"'I will take one yard,' said I with a choking voice. I was afraid I +should cry in the shop. 'Do you know where this chintz is made?' I added.</p> + +<p>"The clerk glanced at the price-ticket and read me the name. It was made +by a firm I had never heard of, in another State. No wonder the Wilkinses +thought themselves safe.</p> + +<p>"When I showed Nat the chintz he seemed much less excited than I expected. +He was not so very much surprised; and, to my great astonishment, he was +not at first sure that it would be best to let the Wilkinses know that we +had discovered their cheating. But I was firm; I would have no more to do +with them. My impulse was to go to Mr. Maynard. Although during these +three years he had never come to see us, I felt sure that, in the bottom +of his heart, there still was a strong affection for us; and, above all, +he was a just man. He would never keep in his employ for one day any +person capable of such wrong as the Wilkinses had done us.</p> + +<p>"'But,' persisted Nat, 'you do not know that either of the Mr. Wilkinses +had anything to do with it. They may both have honestly supposed it was +lost. It's much more likely that their sister stole it.'</p> + +<p>"I had not thought of this before. Poor Miss Wilkins! Nat's artistic soul +had been so outraged by some of her flagrant calicoes that he believed her +capable of any crime.</p> + +<p>"At last I consented to go first to the Wilkinses themselves, and I +promised to speak very calmly and gently in the beginning, and betray no +suspicion of them. I carried the chintz. When I entered the office, the +overseer was talking in one corner with a gentleman whose back was turned +to me. The agent sat by the counter.</p> + +<p>"'Mr. Wilkins,' said I, 'do you remember the grape-vine pattern my brother +drew last winter--the one which you refused?'</p> + +<p>"The instant I spoke, I saw that he did remember. I saw that he was +guilty, and I saw it all with such certainty that it enabled me to be very +calm.</p> + +<p>"'Let me see,' said he, trying to pretend to be racking his memory; 'the +grape-vine pattern? It seems to me that I do recall something about a +design with that name. Did you say we refused it?'</p> + +<p>"'Yes, you refused it, but you did not return the drawing. You said it had +been lost,' I replied.</p> + +<p>"'Ah, yes, yes--now I recollect,' he said, recovering himself somewhat; +'we made great search for the drawing; I remember all about it now;' and +he paused as if waiting civilly to know what more there could possibly be +to be said on that point. But I watched him closely and saw that he was +agitated. I looked him steadily in the eye and did not speak, while I +slowly opened my little bundle and unrolled the piece of chintz.</p> + +<p>"'Can you possibly explain this mystery, then, sir, that here is my +brother's design printed on this chintz?' said I, in a clear, distinct +tone, holding out the yard of chintz at its full length. As I said the +words 'my brother's design,' the gentleman who had been talking with the +overseer turned quickly round, and I saw that it was Mr. Maynard's +youngest son Robert, who a year before had come home from Germany, and had +recently been taken into the firm as partner. He stepped a little nearer +me, and was evidently listening to my words.</p> + +<p>"'Come into this room, Mr. Maynard, if you please, and we will finish +discussing the matter we were speaking of,' said Overseer Wilkins, turning +pale, and speaking very hurriedly, and trying to draw Mr. Maynard into the +inner office-room.</p> + +<p>"'And--if you will call some other time, Miss Kent,' said Agent Wilkins, +turning away from me and walking toward Mr. Maynard, in his anxiety to +prevent my being seen or heard, 'I will try to attend to this matter; but +just now I have not another moment to spare,' and he began at once to talk +in a loud and voluble manner.</p> + +<p>"I do not know how I had strength and courage to do what I did then; I do +not know where the voice came from with which I spoke then; Robert has +always said that I looked like a young lioness, and that my voice sounded +like the voice of one crying 'fire.' I stepped swiftly up to him, and +before the astounded Wilkins could speak a word, I had held up the chintz +and exclaimed, 'But Mr. Maynard will have time to spare, and I thank God +he is here. Mr. Maynard, this design is one of my brother's drawing; he +has made most of the calico designs printed in your father's mills for a +year and a half: I brought this one to the agent; he said it was not good +for anything, but he stole the paper and sold it, and here it is!' and +then suddenly my strength all disappeared, great terror seized me, and I +burst into tears. Both the agent and the overseer began to speak at once.</p> + +<p>"'Be silent,' thundered Robert, in the most commanding tone I ever heard +out of human lips. 'Be silent, both of you!' Then he took the chintz away +from me, and taking both my hands in his, led me to a chair, saying, in a +voice as sweet and gentle as the other was terrible, 'Pray be calm, my +dear young lady--this matter shall be looked into. Sit down and do not try +to speak for a few minutes.'</p> + +<p>"Then he walked over to the brothers; even through my tears I could see +how terrified they looked; they seemed struck dumb with fright; he spoke +to them now in the most courteous manner, but the courtesy was almost +worse than the anger had been before.</p> + +<p>"'I shall have to ask you for the use of the office for a short time, +gentlemen. This is an affair I prefer to investigate immediately, and I +would like to see this young lady alone.' They both began to speak again, +but he interrupted them.</p> + +<p>"'I will send for you presently; not a word more now, if you please;' and +in spite of themselves they were obliged to walk out of the room. As they +turned to shut the door their faces frightened me.</p> + +<p>"'Oh!' I exclaimed; 'oh, Mr. Maynard, they will kill Nat I must go home at +once,' and I rose trembling in every nerve. He made me sit down again, and +brought me a glass of wine, and said, 'Do not be afraid, my dear child, +they will not dare harm your brother. Drink this, and tell me your whole +story.'</p> + +<p>"Then I told him all. He interrupted me only once, to ask me about the +prices paid us for two or three especial patterns which he happened to +recollect. When I stopped, he jumped up from his chair and walked up and +down in front of me, ejaculating, 'By Jove! this is infernal--I never +heard of such a contemptible bit of rascality in my life. I have told my +father ever since I came home that these men had bad faces, and I have +looked carefully for traces of cheating in their accounts. But they were +too cowardly to try it on a large scale.'</p> + +<p>"He then told me that the originality and beauty of the designs which the +Wilkinses had furnished the firm of late had attracted general attention; +that they had said the best ones were the work of a sister in England, the +others of the sister living with them. When he told me the prices which +had been paid for them, I could not help groaning aloud and burying my +face in my hands. 'Oh, my poor Nat!' I exclaimed, 'you might have had +everything you wanted for that.'</p> + +<p>"'But he shall have it still, Miss Kent,' said Robert--'I shall give you a +check for the whole amount before you leave this room, and I do assure you +that your brother has a fortune in his talent for drawing. Probably this +work is only the beginning of what he will do.'</p> + +<p>"As Robert opened the office-door for me to pass out, I saw the two Mr. +Wilkinses standing together at the gate through which I must go. Robert +answered my look of alarm by saying, 'I shall walk home with you, Miss +Kent. They shall not annoy you.'</p> + +<p>"As we came near, they both lifted their hats with obsequious, angry bows. +Robert did not look at them, but said in a low tone, as we passed, 'Go to +the office and wait there till I return.'</p> + +<p>"When he bade me good-by at my door, he said, 'I shall go now to find my +father, and if he is at home the brothers Wilkins will be dismissed from +our employ in less than one hour,' I looked after him as long as I could +see him. Then I went into our little sitting-room, sank into a chair, and +sat motionless, turning the check over and over in my hand, and wondering +if I really were awake and alive, or if all were a dream. In a few moments +Nat came home. As Patrick lifted the wagon up over the door-steps, and Nat +caught sight of my face, he called out, 'Oh, sister, what is the +matter--are you ill?' I ran to him and put the check into his hands, but +it was some minutes before I could speak. The wonderful fortune did not +overwhelm Nat as it had me. He was much stronger than I. Every stroke of +his pencil during the last year had developed and perfected his soul. He +was fast coming to have that consciousness of power which belongs to the +true artist, and makes a life self-centred.</p> + +<p>"'I have felt that all this would come, dear,' he said, 'and more than +this too,' he added dreamily, 'we shall go on; this is only the outer gate +of our lives,'</p> + +<p>"He prophesied more truly than he knew when he said that--my dear blessed +artist-souled martyr!</p> + +<p>"I need not dwell on the details of the next half-year. A few words can +tell them; and then, again, worlds of words could not tell them.</p> + +<p>"Three months from the day I carried the piece of chintz into the +overseer's office, Robert and I were married in the beautiful chapel where +papa used to preach. All the mills were shut, and the little chapel was +crowded with the workmen and workwomen. When we came out they were all +drawn up in lines on the green, and Robert and Mr. Maynard both made them +little speeches. Nat and Miss Penstock and Patrick were in Mr. Maynard's +carriage, and Robert and I stood on the ground by the carriage-door. After +the people had gone, Mr. Maynard came up to me and put both his hands on +my shoulders, just as he had done three years before, and said, 'You were +a brave girl, but you had to take me for your father, after all.'</p> + +<p>"Nat's wedding-present to me was a wood-carving of the 'One-Legged +Dancers'--the one which stands on the little gilt table. I shall never be +separated from it.</p> + +<p>"When I first found out how very rich Robert was, I was afraid; it seemed +to me almost wrong to have so much money. But I hope we shall not grow +selfish. And I cannot but be grateful for it, when I see what it has done +for my darling brother. He is living now in a beautiful apartment in New +York. Patrick is with him, his devoted servant, and Miss Penstock has gone +to keep house for them. Nat is studying and working hard; the best artists +in the city are his friends, and his pictures are already known and +sought. When Robert first proposed this arrangement, Nat said, 'Oh no, no! +I cannot accept such a weight of obligation from any man, not even from a +brother.'</p> + +<p>"Robert rose and knelt down by Nat's chair, and even then he was so far +above him he had to bend over.</p> + +<p>"'Nat,' said he, in a low tone, 'I never knelt to any human being before: +I didn't kneel to Dora when I asked her to give herself to me, for I was +sure I could so give myself to her as to make her happy; but it is to +you, after all, that I owe it that she is mine; I never can forget it for +an hour, and I never can repay you--no, not in my whole life-time, nor +with all my fortune.'</p> + +<p>"Then he told him that the sum which it would need to support him and Miss +Penstock and Patrick in this way was so small, in comparison with our +whole income, that it was not worth mentioning. 'And at any rate,' he +said, 'it is useless for you to remonstrate, Nat, for I have already made +fifty thousand dollars' worth of stock so entirely yours, that you cannot +escape from it. The papers are all in my father's hands, and the income +will be paid to you, or left subject to your order, quarterly. If you do +not spend it, nobody else will;' and then Robert bent down lower, and +lifting Nat's thin hands tenderly in his, pressed them both against his +check, in the way I often did. It was one of the few caresses Nat loved. I +stood the other side of the chair, and I stooped down and kissed him, and +said:--</p> + +<p>"'And, Nat, I cannot be quite happy in any other way.' + +"So Nat yielded.</p> + +<p>"It was hard to come away and leave him. For some time I clung to the hope +that he might come with us; but the physicians all said it would be +madness for him to run the risk of a sea-voyage. However, I know that for +him, the next best thing to seeing Europe himself is to see it through my +eyes. I write to him every week, and I shall carry home to him such +art-treasures as he has never dreamed of possessing.</p> + +<p>"Next year we shall go home, and then he will come back to Maynard's +Mills and live with us. Robert is having a large studio built for him on +the north side of the house, with a bed-room and little sitting-room +opening out of it. Miss Penstock, too, will always live with us; we shall +call her 'housekeeper,' to keep her contented, and Patrick is to stay as +Nat's attendant. Poor fellow, he is not quite full-witted, we think; but +he loves Nat so devotedly that he makes a far better servant than a +cleverer boy would with a shade less affection.</p> + +<p>"And now you have heard the story of my life, dear friend," said Dora, as +she rose from the seat and lighted the rose-colored tapers in two low +swinging Etruscan candlesticks just above our heads--"all that I can tell +you," she added slowly. "You will understand that I cannot speak about the +happiest part of it. But you have seen Robert. The only thing that +troubles me is that I have no sorrow. It seems dangerous. Dear Nat, +although he has all he ever hoped for, need not fear being too happy, +because he has the ever-present pain, to make him earnest and keep him +ready for more pain. I said so to him the day before I came away, and he +gave me those verses I told you of, called 'The Angel of Pain,'"</p> + +<p>Then she repeated them to me:--</p> + +<blockquote><h4> The Angel of Pain.</h4> + +<p> Angel of Pain, I think thy face<br /> +Will be, in all the heavenly place,<br /> +The sweetest face that I shall see,<br /> +The swiftest face to smile on me.<br /> +All other angels faint and tire;<br /> +Joy wearies, and forsakes desire;<br /> +Hope falters, face to face with Fate,<br /> +And dies because it cannot wait;<br /> +And Love cuts short each loving day,<br /> +Because fond hearts cannot obey<br /> +That subtlest law which measures bliss<br /> +By what it is content to miss.<br /> +But thou, O loving, faithful Pain--<br /> +Hated, reproached, rejected, slain--<br /> +Dost only closer cling and bless<br /> +In sweeter, stronger steadfastness.<br /> +Dear, patient angel, to thine own<br /> +Thou comest, and art never known<br /> +Till late, in some lone twilight place<br /> +The light of thy transfigured face<br /> +Sudden shines out, and, speechless, they<br /> +Know they have walked with Christ all day.</p></blockquote> + +<p>When she had done we sat for some time silent. Then I rose, and kissing +her, still silent, went out into the unlighted room where the gilt table +stood. A beam of moonlight fell, broad and white, across its top, and +flickered on the vine-leaves and the ferns. In the dim weird light their +shapes were more fantastic than ever.</p> + +<p>The door into the outer hall stood open. As I went toward it, I saw old +Anita toiling slowly up the stairs, with a flat basket on her head. Her +wrinkled face was all aglow with delight. As soon as she reached the +threshold she set the basket down, and exclaiming, "Oh look, look, +Signora!" lifted off the cover. It was full of fresh and beautiful +anemones of all colors. She moved a few on top and showed me that those +beneath were chiefly purple ones.</p> + +<p>"Iddio mio! will not the dearest of Signoras be pleased now!" she said. +"The saints wish that she shall have all she desires; did not my Biagio's +brother come in from Albano this morning? and as I was in the Piazza +Navona, buying oranges, I heard him calling from a long way off, 'Ho +Anita, my Anita, here are anemones for your beautiful Signora with the +bright hair.'</p> + +<p>"They grow around an old tomb a mile away from his vineyard, and he set +out from his home long before light to get them for me; for he once saw +the Signora and he had heard me say that she never could have enough of +anemones. Iddio mio! but my heart is glad of them. Ah, the dearest of +Signoras!" and, with a tender touch, Anita laid the cool vine-leaves +lightly back upon the anemones and hurried on in search of Dora.</p> +</div> + + +<div class="chapter" id="ch05"> +<h2>How One Woman Kept Her Husband.</h2> + + + +<p>Why my sister married John Gray, I never could understand. I was +twenty-two and she was eighteen when the marriage took place. They had +known each other just one year. He had been passionately in love with her +from the first day of their meeting. She had come more slowly to loving +him: but love him she did, with a love of such depth and fervor as are +rarely seen. He was her equal in nothing except position and wealth. He +had a singular mixture of faults of opposite temperaments. He had the +reticent, dreamy, procrastinating inertia of the bilious melancholic man, +side by side with the impressionable sensuousness, the sensitiveness and +sentimentalism of the most sanguine-nervous type. There is great charm in +such a combination, especially to persons of a keen, alert nature. My +sister was earnest, wise, resolute. John Gray was nonchalant, shrewd, +vacillating. My sister was exact, methodical, ready. John Gray was +careless, spasmodic, dilatory. My sister had affection. He had tenderness. +She was religious of soul; he had a sort of transcendental perceptivity, +so to speak, which kept him more alive to the comforts of religion than +to its obligations. My sister would have gone to the stake rather than +tell a lie. He would tell a lie unhesitatingly, rather than give anybody +pain. My sister lived earnestly, fully, actively, in each moment of the +present. It never seemed quite clear whether he were thinking of to-day, +yesterday, or to-morrow. She was upright because she could not help it. He +was upright,--when he was upright,--because of custom, taste, and the +fitness of things. What fatal discrepancies! what hopeless lack of real +moral strength, enduring purpose, or principle in such a nature as John +Gray's! When I said these things to my sister, she answered always, with a +quiet smile, "I love him." She neither admitted nor denied my accusations. +The strongest expression she ever used, the one which came nearest to +being an indignant repelling of what I had said, was one day, when I +exclaimed:--</p> + +<p>"Ellen, I would die before I'd risk my happiness in the keeping of such a +man."</p> + +<p>"My happiness is already in his keeping," said she in a steady voice, "and +I believe his is in mine. He is to be my husband and not yours, dear; you +do not know him as I do. You do not understand him."</p> + +<p>But it is not to give an analysis of her character or of his, nor to give +a narrative of their family history, that I write this tale. It is only +one episode of their life that I shall try to reproduce here, and I do it +because I believe that its lesson is of priceless worth to women.</p> + +<p>Ellen had been married fourteen years, and was the mother of five +children, when my story begins. The years had gone in the main peacefully +and pleasantly. The children, three girls and two boys, were fair and +strong. Their life had been a very quiet one, for our village was far +removed from excitements of all kinds. It was one of the suburban villages +of ----, and most of the families living there were the families of +merchants or lawyers doing business in the town, going in early in the +morning, and returning late at night. There is usually in such communities +a strange lack of social intercourse; whether it be that the daily +departure and return of the head of the family keeps up a perpetual +succession of small crises of interest to the exclusion of others, or that +the night finds all the fathers and brothers too tired to enjoy anything +but slippers and cigars, I know not; but certain it is that all such +suburban villages are unspeakably dull and lifeless. There is barely +feeling enough of good neighborhood to keep up the ordinary interchange of +the commonest civilities.</p> + +<p>Except for long visits to the city in the winter, and long journeys in the +summer, I myself should have found life insupportably tedious. But Ellen +was absolutely content. Her days were unvaryingly alike, a simple routine +of motherly duties and housekeeping cares. Her evenings were equally +unvaried, being usually spent in sewing or reading, while her husband, in +seven evenings out of ten, dozed, either on the sofa, or on one of the +children's little beds in the nursery. His exquisite tenderness to the +children, and his quiet delight in simply being where they were, were the +brightest points in John Gray's character and life.</p> + +<p>Such monotony was not good for either of them. He grew more and more +dreamy and inert. She insensibly but continually narrowed and hardened, +and, without dreaming of such a thing, really came to be less and less a +part of her husband's inner life. Faithful, busy, absorbed herself in the +cares of each day, she never observed that he was living more and more in +his children and his reveries, and withdrawing more and more from her. She +did not need constant play and interchange of sentiment as he did. +Affectionate, loyal, devoted as she was, there was a side of husband's +nature which she did not see nor satisfy, perhaps, never could. But +neither of them knew it.</p> + +<p>At this time Mr. Gray was offered a position of importance in the city, +and it became necessary for them to move there to live. How I rejoiced in +the change. How bitterly I regretted it before two years had passed.</p> + +<p>Their city home was a beautiful one, and their connections and +associations were such as to surround them at once with the most desirable +companionships. At first it was hard for Ellen to readjust her system of +living and to accustom herself to the demands of even a moderately social +life. But she was by nature very fond of all such pleasures, and her house +soon became one of the pleasantest centres, in a quiet way, of the +comparatively quiet city. John Gray expanded and brightened in the new +atmosphere; he had always been a man of influence among men. All his +friends,--even his acquaintances,--loved him, and asked his advice. It was +a strange thing that a man so inert and procrastinating in his own +affairs, should be so shrewd and practical and influential in the affairs +of others, or in public affairs. This, however, was no stranger than many +other puzzling incongruities in John Gray's character. Since his college +days he had never mingled at all in general society until this winter, +after their removal to town; and it was with delight that I watched his +enjoyment of people, and their evident liking and admiration for him. His +manners were singularly simple and direct; his face, which was not wholly +pleasing in repose, was superbly handsome when animated in conversation; +its inscrutable reticence which baffled the keenest observation when he +was silent, all disappeared and melted in the glow of cordial +good-fellowship which lighted every feature when he talked. I grew very +proud of my brother as I watched him in his new sphere and surroundings; +and I also enjoyed most keenly seeing Ellen in a wider and more +appreciative circle. I spent a large part of the first winter in their +house, and shared all their social pleasures, and looked forward to ever +increasing delight, as my nieces should grow old enough to enter into +society.</p> + +<p>Early in the spring I went to the West and passed the entire summer with +relatives; I heard from my sister every week; her letters were always +cheerful and natural, and I returned to her in the autumn, full of +anticipations of another gay and pleasant winter.</p> + +<p>They met me in New York, and I remembered afterwards, though in the +excitement of the moment I gave it no second thought, that when John +Gray's eyes first met mine, there was in them a singular and indefinable +expression, which roused in me an instant sense of distrust and +antagonism. He had never thoroughly liked me. He had always had an +undercurrent of fear of me. He knew I thought him weak: he felt that I had +never put full confidence in him. That I really and truly loved him was +small offset for this. Would it not be so to all of us?</p> + +<p>This part of my story is best told in few words. I had not been at home +one week before I found that rumor had been for some months coupling John +Gray's name with the name of Mrs. Emma Long, a widow who had but just +returned to----, after twelve years of married life in Cuba. John had +known her in her girlhood, but there had never been any intimacy or even +friendship between them. My sister, however, had known her well, had +corresponded with her during all her life at the South, and had invited +her to her house immediately upon her return to----. Emma Long was a +singularly fascinating woman. Plain and sharp and self-asserting at +twenty-two, she had become at thirty-five magnetic and winning, full of +tact, and almost beautiful. We see such surprising developments +continually: it seems as if nature did her best to give every woman one +period of triumph and conquest; perhaps only they know its full sweetness +to whom it comes late. In early youth it is accepted unthinkingly, as is +the sunshine,--enjoyed without deliberation, and only weighed at its +fullness when it is over. But a woman who begins at thirty to feel for the +first time what it is to have power over men, must be more or less than +woman not to find the knowledge and the consciousness dangerously sweet.</p> + +<p>I never knew--I do not know to-day, whether Emma Long could be justly +called a coquette. That she keenly enjoyed the admiration of men, there +was no doubt. Whether she ever were conscious of even a possible harm to +them from their relation to her, there was always doubt, even in the minds +of her bitterest enemies. I myself have never doubted that in the affair +between her and John Gray she was the one who suffered most; she was the +one who had a true, deep sentiment, and not only never meant a wrong, but +would have shrunk, for his sake, if not for her own, from the dangers +which she did not foresee, but which were inevitable in their intimacy. I +think that her whole life afterward proved this. I think that even my +sister believed it.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Long had spent six weeks in my sister's house, and had then +established herself in a very beautiful furnished house on the same +street. Almost every day Mrs. Long's carriage was at my sister's door, to +take my sister or the children to drive. Almost every evening Mrs. Long +came with the easy familiarity of an habituated guest in the house, to sit +in my sister's parlor, or sent with the easy familiarity of an old friend +for my sister and her husband to come to her, or to go with her to the +theatre or to the opera.</p> + +<p>What could be more natural?--what could be more delightful, had the +relation been one which centred around my sister instead of around my +sister's husband? What could be done, what offense could be taken, what +obstacle interposed, so long as the relation appeared to be one which +included the whole family? Yet no human being could see John Gray five +minutes in Emma Long's presence without observing that his eyes, his +words, his consciousness were hers. And no one could observe her in his +presence without seeing that she was kindled, stimulated, as she was in no +other companionship.</p> + +<p>All this the city had been seeing and gossiping over for four months. All +this, with weary detail, was poured into my ears by kind friends.</p> + +<p>My sister said no word. For the first time in my life there was a barrier +between us I dared not pass. Her every allusion to Mrs. Long was in the +kindest and most unembarrassed manner. She fell heartily and graciously +into every plan which brought them together: she not only did this, she +also fully reciprocated all entertainments and invitations; it was as +often by Ellen's arrangement as by Mrs. Long's that an evening or a day +was spent by the two families together. Her manner to Mrs. Long was +absolutely unaltered. Her manner to John was absolutely unaltered. When +during an entire evening he sat almost motionless and often quite +speechless, listening to Mrs. Long's conversation with others, Ellen's +face never changed. She could not have seemed more unconscious if she had +been blind. There were many bonds of sympathy between John Gray and Emma +Long, which had never existed between him and his wife. They were both +passionately fond of art, and had studied it. Ellen's taste was +undeveloped, and her instinctive likings those of a child. But she +listened with apparent satisfaction and pleasure to long hours of +conversation, about statues, pictures, principles of art, of which she was +as unable to speak as one of her own babies would have been. Mrs. Long +was also a woman who understood affairs; and one of her great charms to +men of mind was the clear, logical, and yet picturesque and piquant way in +which she talked of men and events. Ellen listened and laughed as heartily +as any member of the circle at her repartee, her brilliant +characterization, her off-hand description.</p> + +<p>To John Gray all this was a new revelation. He had never known this sort +of woman. That a woman could be clever as men are clever, and also be +graceful, adorned, and tender with womanliness, he had not supposed.</p> + +<p>Ah, poor Emma Long! not all my loyalty to my sister ever quite stifled in +my heart the question whether there was not in Mrs. Long's nature +something which John Gray really needed--something which Ellen, +affectionate, wise, upright, womanly woman as she was, could never give to +any man.</p> + +<p>The winter wore on. Idle and malicious tongues grew busier and busier. +Nothing except the constant presence of my sister wherever her husband and +Mrs. Long were seen together, prevented the scandal from taking the most +offensive shape. But Ellen was so wise, so watchful, that not even the +most malignant gossip-monger, could point to anything like a clandestine +intercourse between the two.</p> + +<p>In fact, they met so constantly either in Mrs. Long's house or my +sister's, that there was small opportunity for them to meet elsewhere. I +alone knew that on many occasions when Mrs. Long was spending the evening +at our house, Ellen availed herself of one excuse and another to leave +them alone for a great part of the time. But she did this so naturally, +that is, with such perfect art, that not until long afterward did I know +that it had been intentional. This was one great reason of my silence +during all these months. In her apparent ignorance and unsuspiciousness of +the whole thing, she seemed so gay, so happy, so sweet and loving, how +could I give her a pain? And if she did not see it now, she might never +see it. It could never surely become any more apparent. No man could give, +so far as simple manner was concerned, more unmistakable proof of being +absorbed in passionate love for a woman, than John Gray gave in Emma +Long's presence. I began to do Ellen injustice in my thoughts. I said, +"After all, she has not much heart; no woman who loved a man passionately +could look on unmoved and see him so absorbed in another."</p> + +<p>How little I knew! Towards spring Ellen suddenly began to look ill. She +lost color and strength, and a slight cough which she had had all winter +became very severe. Her husband was alarmed. We all were distressed. Our +old family physician, Dr. Willis, changed color when he felt Ellen's +pulse, and said, involuntarily,--</p> + +<p>"My dear child, how long have you had such fever as this?"</p> + +<p>Ellen changed color too, under his steady look, and replied,--</p> + +<p>"I think, doctor, I have had a little fever for some weeks. I have not +felt really well since the autumn, and I have been meaning for some time +to have a long consultation with you. But we will not have it now," she +added playfully, "I have a great deal to tell you which these good people +are not to hear. We will talk it over some other time," and she looked at +him so meaningly that he understood the subject must be dropped.</p> + +<p>That night she told me that she wished me to propose to John to go over +with me and spend the evening at Mrs. Long's; that she had sent for Dr. +Willis, and she wished to have a long talk with him without John's knowing +it.</p> + +<p>"Dear," said I hastily, "I will not go to Mrs. Long's with John. I hate +Mrs. Long."</p> + +<p>"Why, Sally, what do you mean! I never heard you so unjust. Emma is one of +the very sweetest women I ever saw in my life. How can you say such a +thing! Everybody loves and admires her. Don't go if you feel so. I never +dreamed that you disliked her. But I thought John would be less likely to +suspect me of any desire to have him away, if you proposed going there; +and I must have him out of the house. I cannot talk with the doctor if he +is under the roof." She said these last words with an excited emphasis so +unlike her usual manner, that it frightened me. But I thought only of her +physical state; I feared that she suspected the existence of some terrible +disease.</p> + +<p>I went with John to Mrs. Long's almost immediately after tea. He accepted +the proposal with unconcealed delight; and I wondered if Ellen observed +the very nonchalant way in which he replied when she said she did not feel +well enough to go. He already liked better to see Mrs. Long without his +wife's presence, cordial and unembarrassed as her manner always was. His +secret consciousness was always disturbed by it.</p> + +<p>When we reached Mrs. Long's house, we learned that she had gone out to +dinner. John's face became black with the sudden disappointment, and quite +forgetting himself, he exclaimed: "Why, what does that mean? She did not +tell me she was going."</p> + +<p>The servant stared, but made no reply. I was confused and indignant; but +John went on: "We will come in and wait. I am sure it is some very +informal dinner, and Mrs. Long will soon be at home."</p> + +<p>I made no remonstrance, knowing that it might annoy and disturb Ellen to +have us return. John threw himself into a chair in front of the fire, and +looked moodily into the coals, making no attempt at conversation. I took +up a book. Very soon John rose, sauntered abstractedly about the room, +took up Mrs. Long's work-basket, and examined every article in it, and at +last sat down before her little writing-desk, which stood open. Presently +I saw that he was writing. More than an hour passed. I pretended to read; +but I watched my brother-in-law's face. I could not mistake its language. +Suddenly there came a low cry of delight from the door, "Why, John!"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Long had entered the house by a side door, and having met no servant +before reaching the drawing-room, was unprepared for finding any one +there. From the door she could see John, but could not see me, except in +the long mirror, to which she did not raise her eyes, but in which I saw +her swift movement, her outstretched hands, her look of unspeakable +gladness. In less than a second, however, she had seen me, and with no +perceptible change of manner had come rapidly towards me, holding out her +left hand familiarly to him, as she passed him. Emma Long was not a +hypocrite at heart, but she had an almost superhuman power of acting. It +was all lost upon me, however, on that occasion. I observed the quick +motion with which John thrust into a compartment of the desk, the sheet on +which he had been writing; I observed the clasp of their hands as she +glided by him; I observed her face; I observed his; and I knew as I had +never fully known before how intensely they loved each other.</p> + +<p>My resolution was taken. Cost what it might, come what might, I would +speak fully and frankly to my sister the next day. I would not longer +stand by and see this thing go on. At that moment I hated both John Gray +and Emma Long. No possible pain to Ellen seemed to me to weigh for a +moment against my impulse to part them.</p> + +<p>I could not talk. I availed myself of the freedom warranted by the +intimacy between the families, and continued to seem absorbed in my book. +But I lost no word, no look, which passed between the two who sat opposite +me. I never saw Emma Long look so nearly beautiful as she did that night. +She wore a black velvet dress, with fine white lace ruffles at the throat +and wrists. Her hair was fair, and her complexion of that soft pale tint, +with a slight undertone of brown in it, which is at once fair and warm, +and which can kindle in moments of excitement into a brilliance far +outshining any brunette skin. She talked rapidly with much gesture. She +was giving John an account of the stupidity of the people with whom she +had been dining. Her imitative faculty amounted almost to genius. No +smallest peculiarity of manner or speech escaped her, and she could become +a dozen different persons in a minute. John laughed as he listened, but +not so heartily as he was wont to laugh at her humorous sayings. He had +been too deeply stirred in the long interval of solitude before she +returned. His cheeks were flushed and his voice unsteady. She soon felt +the effect of his manner, and her gayety died away; before long they were +sitting in silence, each looking at the fire. I knew I ought to make the +proposition to go home, but I seemed under a spell; I was conscious of a +morbid desire to watch and wait. At length Mrs. Long rose, saying,--</p> + +<p>"If it will not disturb Sally's reading, I will play for you a lovely +little thing I learned yesterday."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no," said I. "But we must go as soon as I finish this chapter."</p> + +<p>She passed into the music-room and looked back for John to follow her; but +he threw himself at full length on the sofa, and said,--</p> + +<p>"No, I will listen here."</p> + +<p>My quickened instinct saw that he dared not go; also that he had laid his +cheek in an abandonment of ecstasy on the arm of the sofa on which her +hand had been resting. Even in that moment I had a sharp pang of pity for +him, and the same old misgiving of question, whether my good and sweet and +almost faultless Ellen could be loved just in the same way in which Emma +Long would be!</p> + +<p>As soon as she had finished the nocturne, a sad, low sweet strain, she +came back to the parlor. Not even for the pleasure of giving John the +delight of the music he loved would she stay where she could not see his +face.</p> + +<p>But I had already put down my book, and was ready to go. Our good-nights +were short and more formal than usual. All three were conscious of an +undefined constraint in the air. Mrs. Long glanced up uneasily in John's +face as we left the room. Her eyes were unutterably tender and childlike +when a look of grieved perplexity shadowed them. Again my heart ached for +her and for him. This was no idle caprice, no mere entanglement of senses +between two unemployed and unprincipled hearts. It was a subtle harmony, +organic, spiritual, intellectual, between two susceptible and intense +natures. The bond was as natural and inevitable as any other fact of +nature. And in this very fact lay the terrible danger.</p> + +<p>We walked home in silence. A few steps from our house we met Dr. Willis +walking very rapidly. He did not recognize us at first. When he did, he +half stopped as if about to speak, then suddenly changed his mind, and +merely bowing, passed on. A bright light was burning in Ellen's room.</p> + +<p>"Why, Ellen has not gone to bed!" exclaimed John.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps some one called," said I, guiltily.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I dare say," replied he; "perhaps the doctor has been there. But it +is half-past twelve," added he, pulling out his watch as we entered the +hall. "He could not have stayed until this time."</p> + +<p>I went to my own room immediately. In a few moments I heard John come up, +say a few words to Ellen, and then go down-stairs, calling back, as he +left her room,--</p> + +<p>"Don't keep awake for me, wifie, I have a huge batch of letters to answer. +I shall not get through before three o'clock."</p> + +<p>I crept noiselessly to Ellen's room. It was dark. She had extinguished the +gas as soon as she had heard us enter the house! I knew by the first sound +of her voice that she had been weeping violently and long. I said,--</p> + +<p>"Ellen, I must come in and have a talk with you."</p> + +<p>"Not to-night, dear. To-morrow I will talk over everything. All is +settled. Good-night. Don't urge me to-night, Sally. I can't bear any +more."</p> + +<p>It is strange--it is marvellous what power there is in words to mean more +than words. I knew as soon as Ellen had said, "Not to-night, dear," that +she divined all I wanted to say, that she knew all I knew, and that the +final moment, the crisis, had come. Whatever she might have to tell me in +the morning, I should not be surprised. I did not sleep. All night I +tossed wearily, trying to conjecture what Ellen would do, trying to +imagine what I should do in her place.</p> + +<p>At breakfast Ellen seemed better than she had seemed for weeks. Her eyes +were bright and her cheeks pink; but there was an ineffable, almost solemn +tenderness in her manner to John, which was pathetic. Again the suspicion +crossed my mind that she knew that she must die. He too was disturbed by +it; he looked at her constantly with a lingering gaze as if trying to read +her face; and when he bade us good-by to go to the office, he kissed her +over and over as I had not seen him kiss her for months. The tears came +into her eyes, and she threw both arms around his neck for a second,--a +very rare thing for her to do in the presence of others.</p> + +<p>"Why, wifie," he said, "you musn't make it too hard for a fellow to get +off!--Doesn't she look well this morning, Sally?" turning to me. "I was +thinking last night that I must take her to the mountains as soon as it +was warm enough. But such cheeks as these don't need it." And he took her +face in his two hands with a caress full of tenderness, and sprang down +the steps.</p> + +<p>Just at this moment Mrs. Long's carriage came driving swiftly around the +corner, and the driver stopped suddenly at sight of John.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mr. Gray, Mr. Gray!" called Emma, "I was just coming to take Ellen +and the children for a turn, and we can leave you at the office on our +way."</p> + +<p>"Thank you," said John, "but there are several persons I must see before +going to the office, and it would detain you too long. I am already much +too late," and without a second look he hurried on.</p> + +<p>I saw a slight color rise in Mrs. Long's cheek, but no observer less +jealous than I would have detected it; and there was not a shade less +warmth than usual in her manner to Ellen.</p> + +<p>Ellen told her that she could not go herself, but she would be very glad +to have some of the children go; and then she stood for some moments, +leaning on the carriage-door and talking most animatedly. I looked from +one woman to the other. Ellen at that moment was more beautiful than Mrs. +Long. The strong, serene, upright look which was her most distinguishing +and characteristic expression, actually shone on her face. I wished that +John Gray had stopped to see the two faces side by side. Emma Long might +be the woman to stir and thrill and entrance the soul; to give stimulus to +the intellectual nature; to rouse passionate emotion; but Ellen was the +woman on whose steadfastness he could rest,--in the light of whose sweet +integrity and transparent truthfulness he was a far safer, and would be a +far stronger man than with any other woman in the world.</p> + +<p>As the carriage drove away with all three of the little girls laughing and +shouting and clinging around Mrs. Long, a strange pang seized me. I looked +at Ellen. She stood watching them with a smile which had something +heavenly in it. Turning suddenly to me, she said: "Sally, if I were dying, +it would make me very happy to know that Emma Long would be the mother of +my children."</p> + +<p>I was about to reply with a passionate ejaculation, but she interrupted +me.</p> + +<p>"Hush, dear, hush. I am not going to die,--I have no fear of any such +thing. Come to my room now, and I will tell you all."</p> + +<p>She locked the door, stood for a moment looking at me very earnestly, then +folded me in her arms and kissed me many times; then she made me sit in a +large arm-chair, and drawing up a low foot-stool, sat down at my feet, +rested both arms on my lap, and began to speak. I shall try to tell in her +own words what she said.</p> + +<p>"Sally, I want to tell you in the beginning how I thank you for your +silence. All winter I have known that you were seeing all I saw, feeling +all I felt, and keeping silent for my sake. I never can tell you how much +I thank you; it was the one thing which supported me. It was an +unspeakable comfort to know that you sympathized with me at every point; +but to have had the sympathy expressed even by a look would have made it +impossible for me to bear up. As long as I live, darling, I shall be +grateful to you. And, moreover, it makes it possible for me to trust you +unreservedly now. I had always done you injustice, Sally. I did not think +you had so much self-control."</p> + +<p>Here she hesitated an instant. It was not easy for her to mention John's +name; but it was only for a second that she hesitated. With an impetuous +eagerness unlike herself, she went on.</p> + +<p>"Sally, you must not blame John. He has struggled as constantly and nobly +as a man ever struggled. Neither must you blame Emma. They have neither of +them done wrong. I have watched them both hour by hour. I know my +husband's nature so thoroughly that I know his very thoughts almost as +soon as he knows them himself. I know his emotions before he knows them +himself. I saw the first moment in which his eyes rested on Emma's face as +they used to rest on mine. From that day to this I have known every phase, +every step, every change of his feeling towards her; and I tell you, +Sally, that I pity John from the bottom of my heart. I understand it all +far better than you can, far better than he does. He loves her at once far +more and far less than you believe, and he loves me far more than you +believe! You will say, in the absolute idealization of your inexperienced +heart, that this is impossible. I know that it is not, and I wish I could +make you believe it, for without believing it you cannot be just to John. +He loves me to-day, in spite of all this, with a sort of clinging +tenderness born of this very struggle. He would far rather love me with +all his nature if he could, but just now he cannot. I see very clearly +where Emma gives him what he needs, and has never had in me. I have +learned many things from Emma Long this winter. I can never be like her. +But I need not have been so unlike her as I was. She has armed me with +weapons when she least suspected it. But she is not after all, on the +whole, so nearly what John needs as I am. If I really believed that he +would be a better man, or even a happier one with her as his wife, I +should have but one desire, and that would be to die. But I think that it +is not so. I believe that it is in my power to do for him, and to be to +him, what she never could. I do not wonder that you look pityingly and +incredulously. You will see. But in order to do this, I must leave him."</p> + +<p>I sprang to my feet. "Leave him! Are you mad?"</p> + +<p>"No, dear, not at all; very sane and very determined. I have been for six +months coming to this resolve. I began to think of it in a very few hours +after I first saw him look at Emma as if he loved her. I have thought of +it day and night since, and I know I am right. If I stay, I shall lose his +love. If I go, I shall keep it, regain it, compel it." She spoke here +more hurriedly. "I have borne now all I can bear without betraying my +pain to him. I am jealous of Emma. It almost kills me to see him look at +her, speak to her."</p> + +<p>"My poor, poor darling!" I exclaimed; "and I have been thinking you did +not feel it!"</p> + +<p>She smiled sadly, and tossed back the sleeve of her wrapper so as to show +her arm to the shoulder. I started. It was almost emaciated. I had again +and again in the course of the winter asked her why she did not wear her +usual style of evening dress, and she had replied that it was on account +of her cough.</p> + +<p>"It is well that my face does not show loss of flesh as quickly as the +rest of my body does," she said quietly. "I have lost thirty-five pounds +of flesh in four months, and nobody observed it! Yes, dear," she went on, +"I have felt it. More than that, I have felt it increasingly every hour, +and I can bear no more. Up to this time I have never by look or tone shown +to John that I knew it. He wonders every hour what it means that I do not. +I have never by so much as the slightest act watched him. I have seen +notes in Emma's handwriting lying on his desk, and I have left the house +lest I might be tempted to read them! I know that he has as yet done no +clandestine thing, but at any moment I should have led them both into it +by showing one symptom of jealousy. And I should have roused in his heart +a feeling of irritation and impatience with me, which would have done in +one hour more to intensify his love for her, and to change its nature from +a pure, involuntary sentiment into an acknowledged and guilty one, than +years and years of free intercourse could do. But I have reached the +limit of my physical endurance. My nerves are giving away. I am really +very ill, but nothing is out of order in my body aside from the effects of +this anguish. A month more of this would make me a hopelessly broken-down +woman. A month's absence from the sight of it will almost make me well."</p> + +<p>I could not refrain from interrupting her.</p> + +<p>"Ellen, you are mad! you are mad! You mean to go away and leave him to see +her constantly alone, unrestrained by your presence? It has almost killed +you to see it. How can you bear imagining it, knowing it?"</p> + +<p>"Better than I can bear seeing it, far better. Because I have still +undiminished confidence in the real lastingness of the bond between John +and me. Emma Long would have been no doubt a good, a very good wife for +him. But I am the mother of his children, and just so surely as right is +right, and wrong is wrong, he will return to me and to them. All wrong +things are like diseases, self-limited. It is wrong for a man to love any +woman better than he loves his wife; I don't deny that, dear," she said, +half smiling through her tears at my indignant face; "but a man may seem +to do it when he is really very far from it. He may really do it for days, +for months--for years, perhaps; but if he be a true man, and his wife a +true wife, he will return. John is a true husband and a still truer +father: that I am the mother of his five children, he can never forget. If +I had had no children, it would be different. If I had ever been for one +moment an unloving wife, it would be different; but I am his; I believe +that he is mine; and that I shall live to remind you of all these things, +Sally, after time has proved them true."</p> + +<p>I was almost dumb with surprise. I was astounded. To me it seemed that her +plan was simply suicidal. I told her in the strongest words I could use of +the scene of the night before.</p> + +<p>"I could tell you of still more trying scenes than that, Sally. I know far +more than you. But if I knew ten times as much, I should still believe +that my plan is the only one. Of course I may fail. It is all in God's +hands. We none of us know how much discipline we need. But I know one +thing: if I do not regain John in this way, I cannot in any. If I stay I +shall annoy, vex, disturb, torture him! Once the barriers of my silence +and concealment are broken down, I shall do just what all other jealous +women have done since the world began. There are no torments on earth like +those which a jealous woman inflicts, except those which she bears! I will +die sooner than inflict them on John. Even if the result proves me +mistaken, I shall never regret my course, for I know that the worst is +certain if I remain. But I have absolute faith,"--and her face was +transfigured with it as she spoke,--"John is mine. If I could stay by his +side through it all and preserve the same relation with him which I have +all winter, all would sooner or later be well. I wish I were strong +enough. My heart is, but my body is not, and I must go."</p> + +<p>When she told me the details of her plan, I was more astounded than ever. +She had taken Dr. Willis into her full confidence. (He had been to us +father and physician both ever since our father's death.) He entirely +approved of her course. He was to say--which indeed he could do +conscientiously--that her health imperatively required an entire change of +climate, and that he had advised her to spend at least one year abroad. It +had always been one of John's and Ellen's air-castles to take all the +children to England and to Germany for some years of study. She proposed +to take the youngest four, leaving the eldest girl, who was her father's +especial pet and companion, to stay with him. A maiden aunt of ours was to +come and keep the house, and I was to stay with the family. This was the +hardest of all.</p> + +<p>"Ellen, I cannot!" I exclaimed. "Do not--oh, do not trust me. I shall +never have strength. I shall betray all some day and ruin all your hopes."</p> + +<p>"You cannot, you dare not, Sally, when I tell you that my life's whole +happiness lies in your silence. John is unobservant and also unsuspicious. +He has never had an intimate relation with you. You will have no +difficulty. But you must be here,--because, dear, there is another +reason," and here her voice grew very unsteady, and tears ran down her +cheeks.</p> + +<p>"In spite of all my faith, I do not disguise from myself the possibility +of the worst. I cannot believe my husband would ever do a dishonorable +thing. I do not believe that Emma Long would. And yet, when I remember +what ruin, has overtaken many men and women whom we believed upright, I +dare not be wholly sure. And I must know that some one is here who would +see and understand if a time were approaching at which it would be +needful for me to make one last effort with and for my husband face to +face with him. Unless that comes, I do not wish you to allude to the +subject in your letters. I think I know just how all things will go. I +believe that in one year, or less, all will be well. But if the worst is +to come, you with your instincts will foresee it, and I must be told. I +should return then at once. I should have power, even at the last moment, +I believe, to save John from disgrace. But I should lose his love +irrecoverably; it is to save that that I go."</p> + +<p>I could say but few words. I was lifted up and borne out of myself, as it +were, by my sister's exaltation. She seemed more like some angel-wife than +like a mortal woman. Before I left her room at noon, I believed almost as +fully as she did in the wisdom and the success of her plan.</p> + +<p>There was no time to be lost. Every day between the announcement of her +purpose and the carrying of it out, would be a fearful strain on Ellen's +nerves. Dr. Willis had a long talk with John in his office while Ellen was +talking with me. John came home to dinner looking like a man who had +received a mortal blow. Dr. Willis had purposely given him to understand +that Ellen's life was in great danger. So it was, but not from the cough! +At first John's vehement purpose was to go with them. But she was prepared +for this. His business and official relations were such that it was next +to impossible for him to do it, and it would at best involve a great +pecuniary sacrifice. She overruled and remonstrated, and was so firm in +her objections to every suggestion of his of accompanying or following +her, that finally, in spite of all his anxiety, John seemed almost piqued +at her preference for going alone. In every conversation on the subject I +saw more and more clearly that Ellen was right. He did love her--love her +warmly, devotedly.</p> + +<p>Two weeks from the day of my conversation with her they sailed for +Liverpool. The summer was to be spent in England, and the winter in Nice +or Mentone.</p> + +<p>Alice, the eldest daughter, a loving, sunshiny girl of twelve, was +installed in her mother's room. This was Ellen's especial wish. She knew +that in this way John would be drawn to the room constantly. All her own +little belongings were given to Alice.</p> + +<p>"Only think, Auntie," said she, "mamma has given me, all for my own, her +lovely toilette set, and all the Bohemian glass on the bureau, and her +ivory brushes! She says when she comes home she shall refurnish her room +and papa's too!"</p> + +<p>Oh, my wise Ellen. Could Emma Long have done more subtly!</p> + +<p>Early on the first evening after John returned from New York, having seen +them off, I missed him. I said bitterly to myself, "At Mrs. Long's, I +suppose," and went up-stairs to find Alice. As I drew near her room I +heard his voice, reading aloud. I went in. He and Alice were lying +together on a broad chintz-covered lounge, as I had so often seen him and +Ellen.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Auntie, come here," said Alice, "hear mamma's letter to me! She gave +it to papa in New York. She says it is like the sealed orders they give to +captains sometimes, not to be opened till they are out at sea. It is all +about how I am to fill her place to papa. And there are ever so many +little notes inside, more orders, which even papa himself is not to see! +only I suppose he'll recognize the things when I do them!"</p> + +<p>At that moment, as I watched John Gray's face, with Alice's nestled close, +and his arms clasped tight around her, while they read Ellen's letter, a +great load rolled off my heart. I went through many dark days afterward, +but I never could quite despair when I remembered the fatherhood and the +husbandhood which were in his eyes and his voice that night</p> + +<p>The story of the next twelve months could be told in few words, so far as +its external incidents are concerned. It could not be told in a thousand +volumes, if I attempted to reproduce the subtle undercurrents of John +Gray's life and mine. Each of us was living a double life; he more or less +unconsciously; I with such sharpened senses, such overwrought emotions, +that I only wonder that my health did not give way. I endured vicariously +all the suspense and torment of the deepest jealousy, with a sense of more +than vicarious responsibility added, which was almost more than human +nature could bear. Ellen little knew how heavy would be the burden she +laid upon me. Her most express and explicit direction was that the +familiar intimacy between our family and Mrs. Long's was to be preserved +unaltered. This it would have been impossible for me to do if Mrs. Long +had not herself recognized the necessity of it, for her own full enjoyment +of John's society. But it was a hard thing; my aunt, the ostensible head +of our house, was a quiet woman who had nothing whatever to do with +society, and who felt in the outset a great shrinking from the brilliant +Mrs. Long. I had never been on intimate terms with her, so that John and +Alice were really the only members of the household who could keep up +precisely the old relation. And so it gradually came about that to most of +our meetings under each other's roofs, strangers were asked to fill up the +vacant places, and in spite of all Emma Long's efforts and mine, there was +a change in the atmosphere of our intercourse. But there was intimacy +enough to produce the effect for which Ellen was most anxious, i.e., to +extend the shelter of our recognition to the friendship between John and +Emma, and to remove from them both all temptation to anything clandestine +or secret. They still saw each other almost daily; they still shared most +of each other's interests and pleasures; they still showed most +undisguised delight in each other's presence. Again and again I went with +them to the opera, to the theatre, and sat through the long hours, +watching, with a pain which seemed to me hardly less than Ellen's would +have been, their constant sympathy with each other in every point of +enjoyment, their constant forgetfulness of every one else.</p> + +<p>But there was, all this time, another side to John Gray's life, which I +saw, and Emma Long did not see. By every steamer came packages of the most +marvelous letters from Ellen: letters to us all; but for John, a diary of +every hour of her life. Each night she spent two hours in writing out the +record of the day. I have never seen letters which so reproduced the +atmosphere of the day, the scene, the heart. They were brilliant and +effective to a degree that utterly astonished me; but they were also +ineffably tender and loving, and so natural in their every word, that it +was like seeing Ellen face to face to read them. At first John did not +show them even to me; but soon he began to say, "These are too rare to be +kept to myself; I must just read you this account;" or, "Here is a page I +must read," until it at last became his habit to read them aloud in the +evenings to the family, and even to more intimate friends who chanced to +be with us. He grew proud beyond expression of Ellen's talent for writing; +and well he might. No one who listened to them but exclaimed, "There never +were such letters before!" I think there never were. And I alone knew the +secret of them.</p> + +<p>But these long, brilliant letters were not all. In every mail came also +packages for Alice--secret, mysterious things which nobody could see, but +which proved to be sometimes small notes, to be given to papa at +unexpected times and places; sometimes little fancy articles, as a +pen-wiper, or a cigar-case, half worked by Ellen, to be finished by Alice, +and given to papa on some especial day, the significance of which "only +mamma knows;" sometimes a pressed flower, which was to be put by papa's +plate at breakfast, or put in papa's button-hole as he went out in the +morning. I was more and more lost in astonishment at the subtle and +boundless art of love which could so contrive to reach across an ocean, +and surround a man's daily life with its expression. There were also in +every package, letters to John from all the children: even the baby's +little hand was guided to write by every mail, "Dear papa, I love you +just as much as all the rest do!" or, "Dear papa, I want you to toss me +up!" More than once I saw tears roll down John's face in spite of him, as +he slowly deciphered these illegible little scrawls. The older children's +notes were vivid and loving like their mother's. It was evident that they +were having a season of royal delight in their journey, but also evident +that their thoughts and their longings were constantly reverting to papa. +How much Ellen really indited of these apparently spontaneous letters I do +not know; but no doubt their tone was in part created by her. They showed, +even more than did her own letters, that papa was still the centre of the +family life. No sight was seen without the wish--"Oh, if papa were here!" +and even little Mary, aged five, was making a collection of pressed leaves +for papa, from all the places they visited. Louise had already great +talent for drawing, and in almost every letter came two or three childish +but spirited little pictures, all labelled "Drawn for papa!" "The true +picture of our courier in a rage, for papa to see." "The washerwoman's +dog, for papa," etc., etc. Again and again I sat by, almost trembling with +delight, and saw John spend an entire evening in looking over these little +missives and reading Ellen's letters. Then again I sat alone and anxious +through an entire evening, when I knew he was with Emma Long. But even +after such an evening, he never failed to sit down and write pages in his +journal-letter to Ellen--a practice which he began of his own accord, +after receiving the first journal-letter from her.</p> + +<p>"Ha! little Alice," he said, "we'll keep a journal too, for mamma, won't +we! She shall not out-do us that way." And so, between Alice's letters and +his, the whole record of our family life went every week to Ellen; and I +do not believe, so utterly unaware was John Gray of any pain in his wife's +heart about Emma Long, I do not believe that he ever in a single instance +omitted to mention when he had been with her, where, and how long.</p> + +<p>Emma Long wrote too, and Ellen wrote to her occasional affectionate notes; +but referring her always to John's diary-letters for the details of +interest. I used to study Mrs. Long's face while these letters were read +to her. John's animated delight, his enthusiastic pride, must, it seemed +to me, have been bitter to her. But I never saw even a shade of such a +feeling in her face. There was nothing base or petty in Emma Long's +nature, and, strange as it may seem, she did love Ellen. Only once did I +ever see a trace of pique or resentment in her manner to John, and then I +could not wonder at it. A large package had come from Ellen, just after +tea one night, and we were all gathered in the library, reading our +letters and looking at the photographs--(she always sent unmounted +photographs of the place from which she wrote, and, if possible, of the +house in which they were living, and the children often wrote above the +windows, "<i>Papa's</i> and mamma's room," etc, etc.)--hour after hour passed. +The hall clock had just struck ten, when the door-bell rang violently. +"Good heavens!" exclaimed John, springing up, "that must be Mrs. Long; I +totally forgot that I had promised to go with her to Mrs. Willis's party. +I said I would be there at nine; tell her I am up-stairs dressing," and he +was gone before the servant had had time to open the door. Mrs. Long came +in, with a flushed face and anxious look. "Is Mr. Gray ill?" she said. "He +promised to call for me at nine, to go to Mrs. Willis's, and I have been +afraid he might be ill."</p> + +<p>Before I could reply, the unconscious Alice exclaimed,--</p> + +<p>"Oh, no; papa isn't ill; he is so sorry, but he forgot all about the party +till he heard you ring the bell. We were so busy over mamma's letters."</p> + +<p>"John will be down in a moment," added I. "He ran up-stairs to dress as +soon as you rang."</p> + +<p>For one second Emma Long's face was sad to see. Such astonishment, such +pain, were in it, my heart ached for her. Then a look of angry resentment +succeeded the pain, and merely saying, "I am very sorry; but I really +cannot wait for him. It is now almost too late to go," she had left the +room and closed the outer door before I could think of any words to say.</p> + +<p>I ran up to John's room, and told him through the closed door. He made no +reply for a moment, and then said,--</p> + +<p>"No wonder she is vexed. It was unpardonable rudeness. Tell Robert to run +at once for a carriage for me."</p> + +<p>In a very few moments he came down dressed for the party, but with no +shadow of disturbance on his face. He was still thinking of the letters. +He took up his own, and putting it into an inside breast-pocket, said, as +he kissed Alice, "Papa will take mamma's letter to the party, if he can't +take mamma!"</p> + +<p>I shed grateful tears that night before I went to sleep. How I longed to +write to Ellen of the incident; but I had resolved not once to disregard +her request that the whole subject be a sealed one. And I trusted that +Alice would remember to tell it. Well I might! At breakfast Alice said,--</p> + +<p>"Oh, papa, I told mamma that you carried her to the party in your +breast-pocket; that is, you carried her letter!"</p> + +<p>I fancied that John's cheek flushed a little as he said,--</p> + +<p>"You might tell mamma that papa carries her everywhere in his +breast-pocket, little girlie, and mamma would understand."</p> + +<p>I think from that day I never feared for Ellen's future. I fancied, too, +that from that day there was a new light in John Gray's eyes. Perhaps it +might have been only the new light in my own; but I think when a man knows +that he has once, for one hour, forgotten a promise to meet a woman whose +presence has been dangerously dear to him, he must be aware of his dawning +freedom.</p> + +<p>The winter was nearly over. Ellen had said nothing to us about returning.</p> + +<p>"Dr. Willis tells me that, from what Ellen writes to him of her health, he +thinks it would be safer for her to remain abroad another year," said John +to me one morning at breakfast.</p> + +<p>"Oh, she never will stay another year!" exclaimed I.</p> + +<p>"Not unless I go out to stay with her," said John, very quietly.</p> + +<p>"Oh, John, could you?" and, "Oh, papa, will you take me?" exclaimed Alice +and I in one breath.</p> + +<p>"Yes," and "yes," said John, laughing, "and Sally too, if she will go."</p> + +<p>He then proceeded to tell me that he had been all winter contemplating +this; that he believed they would never again have so good an opportunity +to travel in Europe, and that Dr. Willis's hesitancy about Ellen's health +had decided the question. He had been planning and deliberating as +silently and unsuspectedly as Ellen had done the year before. Never once +had it crossed my mind that he desired it, or that it could be. But I +found that he had for the last half of the year been arranging his affairs +with a view to it, and had entered into new business connections which +would make it not only easy, but profitable, for him to remain abroad two +years. He urged me to go with them, but I refused. I felt that the father +and the mother and the children ought to be absolutely alone in this +blessed reunion, and I have never regretted my decision, although the old +world is yet an unknown world to me.</p> + +<p>John Gray was a reticent and undemonstrative man, in spite of all the +tenderness and passionateness in his nature. But when he bade me good-by +on the deck of the steamer, as he kissed me he whispered:--</p> + +<p>"Sally, I shall hold my very breath till I see Ellen. I never knew how I +loved her before." And the tears stood in his eyes.</p> + +<p>I never saw Emma Long after she knew that John was to go abroad to join +Ellen. I found myself suddenly without courage to look in her face. The +hurry of my preparations for Alice was ample excuse for my not going to +her house, and she did not come to ours. I knew that John spent several +evenings with her, and came home late, with a sad and serious face, and +that was all. A week before he sailed she joined a large and gay party for +San Francisco and the Yosemite. In all the newspaper accounts of the +excursion, Mrs. Long was spoken of as the brilliant centre of all +festivities. I understood well that this was the first reaction of her +proud and sensitive nature under an irremediable pain. She never returned +to ----, but established herself in a Southern city, where she lived in +great retirement for a year, doing good to all poor and suffering people, +and spending the larger part of her fortune in charity. Early in the +second year there was an epidemic of yellow fever: Mrs. Long refused to +leave the city, and went as fearlessly as the physicians to visit and +nurse the worst cases. But after the epidemic had passed by, she herself +was taken ill, and died suddenly in a hospital ward, surrounded by the +very patients whom she had nursed back to health. Nothing I could say in +my own words would give so vivid an idea of the meeting between John Gray +and his wife, as the first letter which I received from little Alice:--</p> + +<p>"DARLING AUNTIE,--</p> + +<p>"It is too bad you did not come too. The voyage was horrid. Papa was so +much sicker than I, that I had to take care of him all the time; but my +head ached so that I kept seeing black spots if I stooped over to kiss +papa; but papa said, I was just like another mamma.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Auntie, only think, there was a mistake about the letters, and mamma +never got the letter to tell her that we were coming; and she was out on +the balcony of the hotel when we got out of the carriage, and first she +saw me; and the lady who was with her said she turned first red and then +so white the lady thought she was sick; and then the next minute she saw +papa, and she just fell right down among all the people, and looked as if +she was dead; and the very first thing poor papa and I saw, when we got +up-stairs, was mamma being carried by two men, and papa and I both thought +she was dead; and papa fell right down on his knees, and made the men put +mamma down on the floor, and everybody talked out loud, and papa never +spoke a word, but just looked at mamma, and nobody knew who papa was till +I spoke, and I said,--</p> + +<p>"'That's my mamma, and papa and I have just come all the way from +America,"--and then a gentleman told me to kiss mamma, and I did; and then +she opened her eyes; and just as soon as she saw papa, she got a great +deal whiter and her head fell back again, and I was so sure she was dying, +that I began to cry out loud, and I do think there were more than a +hundred people all round us; but Louise says there were only ten or +twelve; and then the same gentleman that told me to kiss mamma took hold +of papa, and made him go away; and they carried mamma into a room, and +laid her on a bed, and said we must all go out; but I wouldn't: I got +right under the bed, and they didn't see me; and it seemed to me a +thousand years before anybody spoke; and at last I heard mamma's voice, +just as weak as a baby's--but you know nobody could mistake mamma's voice; +and said she, 'Where is John--I saw John;' and then the gentleman +said,--oh, I forgot to tell you he was a doctor,--he said,--</p> + +<p>"'My dear madam, calm yourself'--and then I cried right out again, and +crept out between his legs and almost knocked him down; and said I, 'Don't +you try to calm my mamma; it is papa--and me too, mamma!' and then mamma +burst out crying; and then the old gentleman ran out, and I guess papa was +at the door, for he came right in; and then he put his arms round mamma, +and they didn't speak for so long, I thought I should die; and all the +people were listening, and going up and down in the halls outside, and I +felt so frightened and ashamed, for fear people would think mamma wasn't +glad to see us. But papa says that is always the way when people are more +glad than they can bear; and the surprise, too, was too much for anybody. +But I said at the tea-table that I hoped I should never be so glad myself +as long as I lived; and then the old gentleman,--he's a very nice old +gentleman, and a great friend of mamma's, and wears gold spectacles,--he +said, 'My dear little girl, I hope you <i>may</i> be some day just as glad,' +and then he looked at papa and mamma and smiled,--and mamma almost cried +again! Oh, altogether it was a horrid time; the worst I ever had; and so +different from what papa and I thought it would be.</p> + +<p>"But it's all over now, and we're all so happy, we laugh so all the time, +that papa says it is disgraceful; that we shall have to go off and hide +ourselves somewhere where people can't see us.</p> + +<p>"But Auntie, you don't know how perfectly splendid mamma is. She is the +prettiest lady in the hotel, Louise says. She is ever so much fatter than +she used to be. And the baby has grown so I did not know her, and her +curls are more than half a yard long. Louise and Mary have got their hair +cut short like boys, but their gowns are splendid; they say it was such a +pity you had any made for me at home. But oh, dear Auntie, don't think I +shall not always like the gowns you made for me. Charlie isn't here; he's +at some horrid school a great way off; I forget the name of the place. But +we are all going there to live for the summer. Mamma said we should keep +house in an 'apartment,' and I was perfectly horrified, and I said, +'Mamma, in one room?' and then Louise and Mary laughed till I was quite +angry; but mamma says that here an 'apartment' means a set of a good many +rooms, quite enough to live in. I don't believe you can have patience to +read this long letter; but I haven't told you half; no, not one half of +half. Good-by, you darling aunty. ALICE.</p> + +<p>"P.S.--I wish you could just see mamma. It isn't only me that thinks she +is so pretty; papa thinks so too. He just sits and looks, and looks at +her, till mamma doesn't quite like it, and asks him to look at baby a +little!"</p> + +<p>Ellen's first letter was short. Her heart was too full. She said at the +end,--</p> + +<p>"I suppose you will both laugh and cry over Alice's letter. At first I +thought of suppressing it. But it gives you such a graphic picture of the +whole scene that I shall let it go. It is well that I had the excuse of +the surprise for my behavior, but I myself doubt very much if I should +have done any better, had I been prepared for their coming.</p> + +<p>"God bless and thank you, dear Sally, for this last year, as I cannot.</p> + +<p>"ELLEN."</p> + +<p>These events happened many years ago. My sister and I are now old women. +Her life has been from that time to this, one of the sunniest and most +unclouded I ever knew.</p> + +<p>John Gray is a hale old man; white-haired and bent, but clear-eyed and +vigorous. All the good and lovable and pure in his nature have gone on +steadily increasing: his love for his wife is still so full of sentiment +and romance that the world remarks it.</p> + +<p>His grandchildren will read these pages, no doubt, but they will never +dream that it could have been their sweet and placid and beloved old +grandmother who, through such sore straits in her youth, kept her husband!</p> +</div> + + +<div class="chapter" id="ch06"> +<h2>Esther Wynn's Love-Letters.</h2> + + + +<p>My uncle, Joseph Norton, lived in a very old house. It was one of those +many mansions in which that father of all sleepers, George Washington, +once slept for two nights. This, however, was before the house came into +the possession of our family, and we seldom mentioned the fact.</p> + +<p>The rooms were all square, and high; many of the walls were of wood +throughout, panelled from the floor to the ceiling, and with curious china +tiles set in around the fire-places. In the room in which I always slept +when I visited there, these wooden walls were of pale green; the tiles +were of blue and white, and afforded me endless study and perplexity, +being painted with a series of half-allegorical, half-historical, +half-Scriptural representations which might well have puzzled an older +head than mine. The parlors were white, with gold ornaments; the library +was of oak, with mahogany wainscoting, and so were the two great central +halls, upper and lower. The balustrade of the staircase was of apple-tree +wood, more beautiful than all the rest, having fine red veins on its dark +polished surface. These halls were lined with portraits of dead Nortons, +men and women, who looked as much at home as if the grand old house had +always borne their name. And well they might, for none of the owners who +had gone before had been of as gentle blood as they; and now they would +probably never be taken down from the walls, for my uncle had bought the +house, and my uncle's son would inherit it; and it had never yet been +known that a Norton of our branch of Nortons had lived wastefully or come +to want.</p> + +<p>My uncle had married very late in life: he was now a gray-haired man, with +little children around his knee. It was said once in my presence, by some +one who did not know I listened, that his heart had been broken when he +was little more than a boy, by the faithlessness of a woman older than +himself, and that he would never have married if he had not seen that +another heart would be broken if he did not. Be that as it may, his +bearing towards his wife was always of the most chivalrous and courteous +devotion, so courteous as perhaps to confirm this interpretation of his +marriage.</p> + +<p>My aunt was an uninteresting woman, of whom, if she were not in sight, one +never thought; but she had great strength of affection and much good sense +in affairs. Her children loved her; her husband enjoyed the admirably +ordered system of her management, and her house was a delightful one to +visit. Although she did not contribute to the flavor of living, she never +hindered or thwarted those who could. There was freedom in her presence, +from the very fact that you forgot her, and that she did not in the least +object to being forgotten. Such people are of great use in the world; and +make much comfort.</p> + +<p>At the time when the strange incidents which I am about to tell occurred, +my aunt had been married twelve years, and had four children; three girls, +Sarah, Hilda, and Agnes, and a baby boy, who had as yet no name. Sarah was +called "Princess," and her real name was never heard. She was the oldest, +and was my uncle's inseparable companion. She was a child of uncommon +thoughtfulness and tenderness. The other two were simply healthy, happy +little creatures, who gave no promise of being any more individual than +their serene, quiet mother.</p> + +<p>I was spending the winter in the family, and going to school, and between +my uncle and me there had grown up an intimate and confidential friendship +such as is rare between a man of sixty and a girl of fifteen. I understood +him far better than his wife did; and his affection for me was so great +and so caressing that he used often to say, laughingly, "Nell, my girl, +you'll never have another lover like me!"</p> + +<p>We were sitting at breakfast one morning when Princess came in, holding a +small letter in her hand.</p> + +<p>"Look, papa mia!" she said; "see this queer old letter I found on the +cellar stairs. It looks a hundred years old."</p> + +<p>My uncle glanced up, carelessly at first, but as soon as he saw the paper +he stretched out his hand for it, and looked eager. It did indeed seem as +if it were a hundred years old; yellow, crumpled, torn. It had been folded +in the clumsy old way which was customary before the invention of +envelopes; the part of the page containing the address had been torn out. +He read a few words, and the color mounted in his cheek.</p> + +<p>"Where did you say you found it, Princess?" he said.</p> + +<p>"On the cellar stairs, papa; I went down to find Fido, and he was playing +with it."</p> + +<p>"What is it, Joseph?" said Aunt Sarah, in tones a shade more eager than +their wont.</p> + +<p>"I do not know, my dear," replied my uncle; "it is very old," and he went +on reading with a more and more sobered face.</p> + +<p>"Robert," said he, turning to the waiter, "do you know where this paper +could have come from? Have any old papers been carried down from the +garret, to light the fire in the furnace?" + +"No, sir," said Robert, "not that I know, sir."</p> + +<p>"There are whole barrels of old papers under the eaves in the garret," +said Aunt Sarah; "I have always meant to have them burned up; I dare say +this came out of one of them, in some way;" and she resumed her habitual +expression of nonchalance.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps so," said Uncle Jo, folding up the paper and putting it in his +pocket. "I will look, after breakfast."</p> + +<p>She glanced up, again surprised, and said, "Why? is it of any importance?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, no," said he hastily, with a shade of embarrassment in his voice, +"it is only an old letter, but I thought there might be more from the same +person."</p> + +<p>"Who was it?" said Aunt Sarah, languidly.</p> + +<p>"I don't know; only the first name is signed," said he evasively; and the +placid lady asked no more. The children were busy with Fido, and breakfast +went on, but I watched my uncle's face. I had never seen it look just as +it looked then. What could that old yellow letter have been? My magnetic +sympathy with my uncle told me that he was deeply moved.</p> + +<p>At dinner-time my uncle was late, and Aunt Sarah said, with a little less +than her usual dignity, "I never did see such a man as Mr. Norton, when he +takes a notion in his head. He's been all the morning rummaging in clouds +of dust in the garret, to find more of those old letters."</p> + +<p>"Who wrote it, Auntie?" said I.</p> + +<p>"Heaven knows," said she; "some woman or other, fifty years ago. He says +her name was Esther."</p> + +<p>"Did you read it?" I asked tremblingly. Already I felt a shrinking sense +of regard for the unknown Esther.</p> + +<p>Aunt Sarah looked at me with almost amused surprise. "Read it, child? no, +indeed! What do I care what that poor soul wrote half a century ago. But +your uncle's half out of his head about her, and he's had all the servants +up questioning them back and forth till they are nearly as mad as he is. +Cook says she has found several of them on the cellar stairs in the last +few weeks; but she saw they were so old she threw them into the fire, and +never once looked at them; and when she said that, your uncle just +groaned. I never did see such a man as he is when he gets a notion in his +head,"--she repeated, hopelessly.</p> + +<p>My uncle came in flushed and tired. Nothing was said about the letters +till, just as dinner was over, he said suddenly:--</p> + +<p>"Robert, if you find any more of these old papers anywhere, bring them to +me at once. And give orders to all the servants that no piece of old +paper with writing on it is to be destroyed without my seeing it."</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir," said Robert, without changing a muscle of his face, but I saw +that he too was of Mrs. Norton's opinion as to his master's oddity when he +once got a notion in his head.</p> + +<p>"Who was the lady, papa?" said little Agnes. "Did you know her?"</p> + +<p>"My dear, the letter is as old as papa is himself," said he. "I think the +lady died when papa was a little baby."</p> + +<p>"Then what makes you care so much, papa?" persisted Agnes.</p> + +<p>"I can't tell you, little one," said he, kissing her, and tossing her up +in the air; but he looked at me.</p> + +<p>In the early twilight that afternoon I found my uncle lying with closed +eyes on the lounge in the library. He was very tired by his long +forenoon's work in the garret. I sat down on the floor and stroked his +dear old white hair.</p> + +<p>"Pet," he said, without opening his eyes, "that letter had the whole soul +of a woman in it."</p> + +<p>"I thought so, dear," said I, "by your face."</p> + +<p>After a long interval he said: "I could not find a word more of her +writing; I might have known I should not;" and again, after a still longer +silence, "Would you like to read it, Nell?"</p> + +<p>"I am not sure, Uncle Jo," I said. "It seems hardly right. I think she +would not so much mind your having it, because you are a man; but another +woman! no, uncle dear, I think the letter belongs to you."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you true woman-hearted darling," he said, kissing me; "but some day +I think I shall want you to read it with me. She would not mind your +reading it, if she knew you as I do."</p> + +<p>Just then Aunt Sarah came into the room, and we said no more.</p> + +<p>Several days passed by, and the mysterious letter was forgotten by +everybody except my uncle and me.</p> + +<p>One bitterly cold night we were sitting around a blazing coal fire in the +library. It was very late. Aunt Sarah was asleep in her chair; my uncle +was reading. Suddenly the door opened and Robert came in, bringing a +letter on his little silver tray: it was past eleven o'clock; the evening +mail had been brought in long before.</p> + +<p>"Why, what is that, Robert?" said Uncle Jo, starting up a little alarmed.</p> + +<p>"One of them old letters, sir," replied Robert; "I just got it on the +cellar stairs, sir."</p> + +<p>My uncle took the letter hastily. Robert still stood as if he had more to +say; and his honest, blank face looked stupefied with perplexity.</p> + +<p>"If you please, sir," he began, "it's the queerest thing ever I saw. That +letter's been put on them stairs, sir, within the last five minutes."</p> + +<p>"Why, Robert, what do you mean?" said my uncle, thoroughly excited.</p> + +<p>"Oh dear," groaned Aunt Sarah, creeping out of her nap and chair, "if you +are going into another catechism about those old letters, I am going to +bed;" and she left the room, not staying long enough to understand that +this was a new mystery, and not a vain rediscussing of the old one.</p> + +<p>It seemed that Robert had been down cellar to see that the furnace fire +was in order for the night. As soon as he reached the top of the stairs, +in coming up, he remembered that he had not turned the outside damper +properly, and went back to do it.</p> + +<p>"I wasn't gone three minutes, sir, and when I came back there lay the +letter, right side up, square in the middle of the stairs; and I'd take my +Bible oath, sir, as 'twan't there when I went down."</p> + +<p>"Who was in the hall when you went down, Robert?" said my uncle sternly.</p> + +<p>"Nobody, sir. Every servant in the house had gone to bed, except Jane" (my +aunt's maid), "and she was going up the stairs over my head, sir, when I +first went down into the cellar. I know she was, sir, for she called +through the stairs to me, and she says, 'Master'll hear you, Robert.' You +see, sir, Jane and me didn't know as it was so late, and we was frightened +when we heard the clock strike half-past eleven."</p> + +<p>"That will do, Robert," said Uncle Jo. "You can go," and Robert +disappeared, relieved but puzzled. There seemed no possible explanation of +the appearance of the letter there and then, except that hands had placed +it there during the brief interval of Robert's being in the cellar. There +were no human hands in the house which could have done it. Was a restless +ghost wandering there, bent on betraying poor Esther's secrets to +strangers? What did it, what could it mean?</p> + +<p>"Will you read this one with me, Nell?" said my uncle, turning it over +reverently and opening it.</p> + +<p>"No," I said, "but I will watch you read it;" and I sat down on the floor +at his feet.</p> + +<p>The letter was very short; he read it twice without speaking; and then +said, in an unsteady voice: "This is an earlier letter than the other, I +think. This is a joyous one; poor Esther! I believe I know her whole +story. But the mystery is inexplicable! I would take down these walls if I +thought I could get at the secret."</p> + +<p>Long past midnight we sat and talked it all over; and racked our brains in +vain to invent any theory to account for the appearance of the letters on +that cellar stairway. My uncle's tender interest in the poor dead Esther +was fast being overshadowed by the perplexing mystery.</p> + +<p>A few days after this, Mary the cook found another of the letters when she +first went down-stairs in the morning, and Robert placed it by my uncle's +plate, with the rest of his mail. It was the strangest one of all, for +there was not a word of writing in it that could be read. It was a foreign +letter; some lines of the faded old postmarks were still visible on the +back. The first page looked as if it had been written over with some sort +of sympathetic ink; but not a word could be deciphered. Folded in a small +piece of the thinnest of paper was a mouldy and crumbling flower, of a +dull-brown color; on the paper was written,--"Pomegranate blossom, from +Jaffa," and a few lines of poetry, of which we could make out only here +and there a word.</p> + +<p>Even Aunt Sarah was thoroughly aroused and excited now. Robert had been in +the cellar very late on the previous night, and was sure that at that time +no papers were on the stairs.</p> + +<p>"I never go down them stairs, sir," said Robert, "without looking--and +listening too," he added under his breath, with a furtive look back at the +cook, who was standing in the second doorway of the butler's pantry. The +truth was, Robert had been afraid of the cellar ever since the finding of +the second letter: and all the servants shared his uneasiness. + +Between eleven at night and seven the next morning, this mute ghostly waif +from Palestine, with the half-century old dust of a pomegranate flower in +its keeping, had come up that dark stairway. It appeared now that the +letters were always found on the fourth stair from the top. This fact had +not before been elicited, but there seemed little doubt about it. Even +little Princess said,--</p> + +<p>"Yes, papa, I am sure that the one I found was on that stair; for I now +remember Fido came up with only just one or two bounds to the top, as soon +as he saw me."</p> + +<p>We were very sober. The little children chattered on; it meant nothing to +them, this breath from such a far past. But to hearts old enough to +comprehend, there was something infinitely sad and suggestive in it. I +already felt, though I had not read one word of her writing, that I loved +the woman called Esther; as for my uncle, his very face was becoming +changed by the thought of her, and the mystery about the appearance of the +letters. He began to be annoyed also; for the servants were growing +suspicious, and unwilling to go into the cellar. Mary the cook declared +that on the morning when she found this last letter, something white +brushed by her at the foot of the stairs; and Robert said that he had for +a long time heard strange sounds from that staircase late at night.</p> + +<p>Just after this, my aunt went away for a visit; and several days passed +without any further discoveries on the stairs. My uncle and I spent long +hours in talking over the mystery, and he urged me to read, or to let him +read to me, the two letters he had.</p> + +<p>"Pet," he said, "I will tell you something. One reason they move me so is, +that they are strangely like words written by a woman whom I knew thirty +years ago. I did not believe two such women had been on the earth."</p> + +<p>I kissed his hand when he said this; yet a strange unwillingness to read +Esther's letters withheld me. I felt that he had right, and I had not.</p> + +<p>But the end of the mystery was near. It was revealed, as it ought to have +been, to my uncle himself.</p> + +<p>One night I was wakened out of my first sleep by a very cautious tap at my +door, and my uncle's voice, saying,--</p> + +<p>"Nell--Nell, are you awake?"</p> + +<p>I sprang to the door instantly.</p> + +<p>"O uncle, are you ill?" (My aunt had not yet returned.)</p> + +<p>"No, pet. But I want you down-stairs. Dress yourself and come down into +the library."</p> + +<p>My hands trembled with excitement as I dressed. Yet I was not afraid: I +knew it was in some way connected with "Esther," though my uncle had not +mentioned her name.</p> + +<p>I found him sitting before the library table, which was literally covered +with old letters, such as we had before seen.</p> + +<p>"O uncle!" I gasped as soon as I saw them.</p> + +<p>"Yes, dear! I have got them all. There was no ghost!"</p> + +<p>Then he told me in few words what had happened. It seemed that he had gone +down himself into the cellar, partly to satisfy himself that all was right +with the furnace, partly with a vague hope of finding another of the +letters. He had found nothing, had examined the furnace, locked the door +at the head of the cellar stairs, and gone up to his bed-room. While he +was undressing, a strange impulse seized him to go back once more, and see +whether it might not happen to him as it had to Robert, to find a letter +on returning after a few moments' interval.</p> + +<p>He threw on his wrapper, took a candle, and went down. The first thing he +saw, on opening the door, which he had himself locked only five minutes +before, was a letter lying on the same fourth stair!</p> + +<p>"I confess, Nell," said he, "for a minute I felt as frightened as black +Bob. But I sat down on the upper step, and resolved not to go away till I +had discovered how that letter came there, if I stayed till day-light!"</p> + +<p>Nearly an hour passed, he said; the cold wind from the cellar blew up and +swayed the candle-flame to and fro. All sorts of strange sounds seemed to +grow louder and louder, and still he sat, gazing helplessly in a sort of +despair at that motionless letter, which he had not lifted from the stair. +At last, purely by accident, he looked up to the staircase overhead--the +front stairs, down which he had just come from his room. He jumped to his +feet! There, up among the dark cobwebbed shadows, he thought he saw +something white. He held up the candle. It was, yes, it was a tiny corner +of white paper wedged into a crack; by standing on the beam at the side he +could just reach it. He touched it,--pulled it;--it came out +slowly,--another of Esther's letters. They were hid in the upper +staircase! The boards had been worn and jarred a little away from each +other, and the letters were gradually shaken through the opening; some +heavier or quicker step than usual giving always the final impetus to a +letter which had been for days slowly working down towards the fated +outlet.</p> + +<p>Stealthily as any burglar he had crept about his own house, had taken up +the whole of the front staircase carpet, and had with trouble pried off +one board of the stair in which the letters were hid. There had been a +spring, he found, but it was rusted and would not yield. He had carefully +replaced the carpet, carried the letters into the library, and come for +me; it was now half-past one o'clock at night.</p> + +<p>Dear, blessed Uncle Jo! I am an old woman now. Good men and strong men +have given me love, and have shown me of their love for others; but never +did I feel myself so in the living presence of incarnate love as I did +that night, sitting with my white-haired uncle, face to face with the +faded records of the love of Esther Wynn.</p> + +<p>It was only from one note that we discovered her last name. This was +written in the early days of her acquaintance with her lover, and while +she was apparently little more than a child. It was evident that at first +the relation was more like one of pupil and master. For some time the +letters all commenced scrupulously "my dear friend," or "my most beloved +friend." It was not until years had passed that the master became the +lover; we fancied, Uncle Jo and I, as we went reverently over the +beautiful pages, that Esther had grown and developed more and more, until +she was the teacher, the helper, the inspirer. We felt sure, though we +could not tell how, that she was the stronger of the two; that she moved +and lived habitually on a higher plane; that she yearned often to lift the +man she loved to the freer heights on which her soul led its glorified +existence.</p> + +<p>It was strange how little we gathered which could give a clew to her +actual history or to his. The letters almost never gave the name of the +place, only the day and year, many of them only the day. There was dearth +of allusions to persons; it was as if these two had lived in a separate +world of their own. When persons were mentioned at all, it was only by +initials. It was plain that some cruel, inexorable bar separated her from +the man she loved; a bar never spoken of--whose nature we could only +guess,--but one which her strong and pure nature felt itself free to +triumph over in spirit, however submissive the external life might seem.</p> + +<p>Their relation had lasted for many years; so many, that that fact alone +seemed a holy seal and testimony to the purity and immortality of the bond +which united them. Esther must have been a middle-aged woman when, as the +saddened letters revealed, her health failed and she was ordered by the +physicians to go to Europe. The first letter which my uncle had read, the +one which Princess found, was the letter in which she bade farewell to +her lover. There was no record after that; only two letters which had come +from abroad; one was the one that I have mentioned, which contained the +pomegranate blossom from Jaffa, and a little poem which, after long hours +of labor, Uncle Jo and I succeeded in deciphering. The other had two +flowers in it--an Edelweiss which looked as white and pure and immortal as +if it had come from Alpine snows only the day before; and a little crimson +flower of the amaranth species, which was wrapped by itself, and marked +"From Bethlehem of Judea." The only other words in this letter were, "I am +better, darling, but I cannot write yet."</p> + +<p>It was evident that there had been the deepest intellectual sympathy +between them. Closely and fervently and passionately as their hearts must +have loved, the letters were never, from first to last, simply lovers' +letters. Keen interchange of comment and analysis, full revelation of +strongly marked individual life, constant mutual stimulus to mental growth +there must have been between these two. We were inclined to think, from +the exquisitely phrased sentences and rare fancies in the letters, and +from the graceful movement of some of the little poems, that Esther must +have had ambition as a writer. Then, again, she seemed so wholly, simply, +passionately, a woman, to love and be loved, that all thought of anything +else in her nature or her life seemed incongruous.</p> + +<p>"Oh," groaned Uncle Jo, after reading one of the most glowing letters, +"oh, was there really ever in any other man's arms but mine a woman who +could say such things as these between kisses? O Nell, Nell, thank God +that you haven't the dower of such a double fire in your veins as Esther +had!"</p> + +<p>All night we sat reading, and reading, and reading. When the great clock +in the hall struck six, we started like guilty persons.</p> + +<p>"Oh, my childie," said Uncle Jo, "how wrong this has been in me! Poor +little pale face, go to bed now, and remember, I forbid you to go to +school to-day; and I forbid your getting up until noon. I promise you I +will not look at another letter. I will lock them all up till to-morrow +evening, and then we will finish them."</p> + +<p>I obeyed him silently. I was too exhausted to speak; but I was also too +excited to sleep. Until noon I lay wide awake on the bed, in my darkened +room, living over Esther Wynn's life, marvelling at the inexplicable +revelation of it which had been put into our hands, and wondering, until +the uncertainty seemed almost anguish, what was that end which we could +never know. Did she die in the Holy Land? or did she come home well and +strong? and did her lover die some day, leaving his secret treasure of +letters behind him, and poor stricken Esther to go to her grave in fear +lest unfriendly hands might have gained possession of her heart's records? +He was a married man we felt sure. Had the wife whom he did not love paced +up and down and up and down for years over these dumb witnesses to that of +which she had never dreamed? The man himself, when he came to die, did he +writhe, thinking of those silent, eloquent, precious letters which he must +leave to time and chance to destroy or protect? Did men carry him, dead, +down the very stairs on which he had so often knelt unseen and wafted +kisses towards the hidden Esther?</p> + +<p>All these conjectures and questions, and thousands more, hurried in wild +confusion through my brain. In vain I closed my eyes, in vain I pressed my +hands on my eyelids; countless faces, dark, light, beautiful, plain, +happy, sad, threatening, imploring, seemed dancing in the air around my +bed, and saying, "Esther, Esther!"</p> + +<p>We knew she was fair; for there was in one of the letters a tiny curl of +pale brown hair; but we believed from many expressions of hers that she +had no beauty. Oh, if I could but have known how she looked! + +At last I fell asleep, and slept heavily until after dark. This refreshed +my overwrought nerves, and when at nine o'clock in the evening I joined my +uncle in the library, I was calmer than he.</p> + +<p>We said very few words. I sat on his knee, with one arm around his neck, +and hand in hand we reverently lifted the frail, trembling sheets.</p> + +<p>We learned nothing new; in fact, almost any one of the letters was a +rounded revelation of Esther's nature, and of the great love she bore--and +there was little more to learn. There were more than a hundred of the +letters, and they embraced a period of fifteen years. We arranged them in +piles, each year by itself; for some years there were only two or three; +we wondered whether during those years they had lived near each other, and +so had not written, or whether the letters had been destroyed. When the +last letter was laid where it belonged, we looked at each other in +silence, and we both sighed.</p> + +<p>Uncle Jo spoke first.</p> + +<p>"Childie, what shall we do with them?" + +"I do not know, uncle," I said. "I should feel very guilty if we did not +make sure that no one else read them. I should feel very guilty myself, +except that I have read them with you. They seem to me to belong to you, +somehow."</p> + +<p>Uncle Jo kissed me, and we were silent again. Then he said, "There is but +one way to make sure that no human being will ever read them--that is, to +burn them; but it is as hard for me to do it as if they had been written +to me."</p> + +<p>"Could you not put them back in the stair, and nail it up firmly?" said I.</p> + +<p>It was a stormy night. The wind was blowing hard, and sleet and snow +driving against the windows. At this instant a terrible gust rattled the +icy branches of the syringa-bushes against the window, with a noise like +the click of musketry, and above the howling of the wind there came a +strange sound which sounded like a voice crying, "Burn, burn!"</p> + +<p>Uncle Jo and I both heard it, and both sprang to our feet, white with a +nervous terror. In a second he recovered himself, and said, laughing, "Pet +we are both a good deal shaken by this business. But I do think it will be +safer to burn the letters. Poor, poor Esther. I hope she is safe with her +lover now."</p> + +<p>"Oh, do you doubt it?" said I; "I do not."</p> + +<p>"No," said he, "I do not, either. Thank God!"</p> + +<p>"Uncle Jo," said I, "do you think Esther would mind if I copied a few of +these letters, and two or three of the poems? I so want to have them that +it seems to me I cannot give them up; I love her so, I think she would be +willing."</p> + +<p>The storm suddenly died away, and the peaceful silence around us was +almost as startling as the fierce gust had been before. I took it as an +omen that Esther did not refuse my wish, and I selected the four letters +which I most desired to keep. I took also the pomegranate blossom, and the +Edelweiss, and the crimson Amaranth from Bethlehem.</p> + +<p>"I think Esther would rather that these should not be burned," I said.</p> + +<p>"Yes; I think so too," replied Uncle Jo.</p> + +<p>Then we laid the rest upon the fire. The generous hickory logs seemed to +open their arms to them. In a few seconds great panting streams of fire +leaped up and rushed out of our sight, bearing with them all that was +perishable of Esther Wynn's letters. Just as the crackling shadowy shapes +were falling apart and turning black, my uncle sprang to an Indian cabinet +which stood near, and seizing a little box of incense-powder which had +been brought from China by his brother, he shook a few grains of it into +the fire. A pale, fragrant film rose slowly in coiling wreaths and clouds +and hid the last moments of the burning of the letters. When the incense +smoke cleared away, nothing could be seen on the hearth but the bright +hickory coals in their bed of white ashes.</p> + +<p>"I shall make every effort," said Uncle Jo, "to find out who lived in this +house during those years. I presume I can, by old records somewhere."</p> + +<p>"Oh, uncle," I said, "don't. I think they would rather we did not know any +more."</p> + +<p>"You sweet woman child!" he exclaimed. "You are right. Your instinct is +truer than mine. I am only a man, after all! I will never try to learn who +it was that Esther loved."</p> + +<p>"I am very glad," he added, "that this happened when your Aunt Sarah was +away. It would have been a great weariness and annoyance to her to have +read these letters."</p> + +<p>Dear, courteous Uncle Jo! I respected his chivalrous little artifice of +speech, and tried to look as if I believed he would have carried the +letters to his wife if she had been there.</p> + +<p>"And I think, dear," he hesitatingly proceeded, "we would better not speak +of this. It will be one sacred little secret that you and your old uncle +will keep. As no more letters will be found on the stairs, the whole thing +will be soon forgotten."</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, uncle," replied I; "of course it would be terrible to tell. It +isn't our secret, you know; it is dear Esther Wynn's."</p> + +<p>I do not know why it was that I locked up those four letters of Esther +Wynn's and did not look at them for many months. I felt very guilty in +keeping them; but a power I could not resist seemed to paralyze my very +hand when I thought of opening the box in which they were. At last, long +after I had left Uncle Jo's house, I took them out one day, and in the +quiet and warmth of a summer noon I copied them slowly, carefully, word +for word. Then I hid the originals in my bosom, and walked alone, without +telling any one whither I was going, to a wild spot I knew several miles +away, where a little mountain stream came foaming and dashing down +through a narrow gorge to empty itself into our broad and placid river. I +sat down on a mossy granite boulder, and slowly tore the letters into +minutest fragments. One by one I tossed the white and tiny shreds into the +swift water, and watched them as far as I could see them. The brook lifted +them and tossed them over and over, lodged them in mossy crevices, or on +tree roots, then swept them all up and whirled them away in dark depths of +the current from which they would never more come to the surface. It was a +place which Esther would have loved, and I wondered, as I sat there hour +after hour, whether it were really improbable, that she knew just then +what I was doing for her. I wondered, also, as I often before had +wondered, if it might not have been by Esther's will that the sacred hoard +of letters, which had lain undiscovered for so many years, should fall at +last into the hands of my tender and chivalrous Uncle Jo. It was certainly +a strange thing that on the stormy night which I have described, when we +were discussing what should be done with the letters, both Uncle Jo and I +at the same instant should have fancied we heard the words "Burn, burn!"</p> + +<p>The following letter is the earliest one which I copied. It is the one +which Robert found so late at night and brought to us in the library:--</p> + +<p>"FRIDAY EVENING.</p> + +<p>"SWEETEST:--It is very light in my room to-night. The full moon and the +thought of you! I see to write, but you would forbid me--you who would +see only the moonlight, and not the other. Oh, my darling! my darling!</p> + +<p>"I have been all day in fields and on edges of woods. I have never seen +just such a day: a June sun, and a September wind; clover and butter-cups +under foot, and a sparkling October sky overhead. I think the earth +enjoyed it as a sort of masquerading frolic. The breeze was so strong that +it took the butterflies half off their air-legs, and they fairly reeled +about in the sun. As for me, I sat here and there, on hillocks and stones, +among ferns, and white cornels, and honey-bees, and bobolinks. I was the +only still thing in the fields. I waited so long in each spot, that it was +like being transplanted when I moved myself to the north or the south. And +I discovered a few things in each country in which I lived. For one thing, +I observed that the little busy bee is not busy all the while; that he +does a great amount of aimless, idle snuffing and tasting of all sorts of +things besides flowers; especially he indulges in a running accompaniment +of gymnastics among the grass-stalks, which cannot possibly have anything +to do with honey. I watched one fellow to-day through a series of positive +trapeze movements from top to bottom and bottom to top of a grass-tangle. +When he got through he shook himself, and smoothed off his legs exactly as +the circus-men do. Then he took a long pull at a clover well.</p> + +<p>"Ah, the clover! Dearest! you should have seen how it swung to-day. The +stupidest person in the world could not have helped thinking that it kept +time to invisible band-playing, and was trying to catch hold of the +buttercups. I lay down at full length and looked off through the stems, +and then I saw for the first time how close they were, and that they +constantly swayed and touched, and sometimes locked fast together for a +second. Stately as a minuet it looked, but joyous and loving as the +wildest waltz I ever danced in your arms, my darling. Oh, how dare we +presume to be so sure that the flowers are not glad as we are glad! On +such a day as to-day I never doubt it; and I picked one as reverently and +hesitatingly as I would ask the Queen of the Fairies home to tea if I met +her in a wood.</p> + +<p>"Laughing, are you, darling? Yes, I know it. Poor soul! You cannot help +being a man, I suppose. Nor would I have you help it, my great, strong, +glorious one! How I adore the things which you do, which I could not do. +Oh, my sweet master! Never fear that I do you less reverence than I +should. All the same, I lie back on my ferny hillock, and look you in the +eye, and ask you what you think would become of you if you had no little +one of my kind to bring you honey! And when I say this--you--ah, my +darling, now there are tears in my eyes, and the moonlight grows dim. I +cannot bear the thinking what you would do when I said those words! +Good-night! Perhaps in my sleep I will say them again, and you will be +there to answer. In the morning I shall write out for you to-day's clover +song.</p> + +<p>"YOUR OWN."</p> + +<p>The clover song was not in the letter. We found it afterward on a small +piece of paper, so worn and broken in the folds that we knew it must have +been carried for months in a pocket-book.</p> + +<blockquote><h4> A Song of Clover.</h4> + +<p> I wonder what the Clover thinks?--<br /> +Intimate friend of Bob-o-links,<br /> +Lover of Daisies slim and white,<br /> +Waltzer with Butter-cups at night;<br /> +Keeper of Inn for travelling Bees,<br /> +Serving to them wine dregs and lees,<br /> +Left by the Royal Humming-birds,<br /> +Who sip and pay with fine-spun words;<br /> +Fellow with all the lowliest,<br /> +Peer of the gayest and the best;<br /> +Comrade of winds, beloved of sun,<br /> +Kissed by the Dew-drops, one by one;<br /> +Prophet of Good Luck mystery<br /> +By sign of four which few may see;<br /> +Symbol of Nature's magic zone,<br /> +One out of three, and three in one;<br /> +Emblem of comfort in the speech<br /> +Which poor men's babies early reach;<br /> +Sweet by the roadsides, sweet by sills,<br /> +Sweet in the meadows, sweet on hills,<br /> +Sweet in its white, sweet in its red,<br /> +Oh, half its sweet cannot be said;<br /> +Sweet in its every living breath,<br /> +Sweetest, perhaps, at last, in death!<br /> +Oh, who knows what the Clover thinks?<br /> +No one! unless the Bob-o-links!</p></blockquote> + +<p>The lines which were written on the paper inclosing the pomegranate flower +from Jaffa we deciphered with great trouble. The last verse we were not +quite sure about, for there had been erasures. But I think we were right +finally.</p> + +<blockquote><p>Pomegranate blossom! Heart of fire!<br /> + I dare to be thy death,<br /> +To slay thee while the summer sun<br /> + Is quickening thy breath;<br /> +To rob the autumn of thy wine;--<br /> + Next year of all ripe seeds of thine,<br /> +That thou mayest bear one kiss of mine<br /> + To my dear love before my death.</p> + +<p>For, Heart of fire, I too am robbed<br /> + Like thee! Like thee, I die,<br /> +While yet my summer sun of love<br /> + Is near, and warm, and high;<br /> +The autumn will run red with wine;<br /> +The autumn fruits will swing and shine;<br /> +But in that little grave of mine<br /> + I shall not see them where I lie.</p> + +<p>Pomegranate blossom! Heart of fire!<br /> + This kiss, so slow, so sweet,<br /> +Thou bearest hence, can never lose<br /> + Even in death its heat.<br /> +Redder than autumns can run with wine,<br /> +Warmer than summer suns can shine,<br /> +Forever that dear love of mine<br /> + Shall find thy sacred hidden sweet!</p></blockquote> + +<p>The next letter which I copied was one written five years after the first; +it is not so much a letter as an allegory, and so beautiful, so weird, +that we wondered Esther did not set it to tune as a poem.</p> + +<p>"SUNDAY MORNING.</p> + +<p>"MY DARLING:--Even this blazing September sun looks dull to me this +morning. I have come from such a riotous dream. All last night I walked in +a realm of such golden splendor, that I think even in our fullest noon I +shall only see enough light to grope by for days and days.</p> + +<p>"I do not know how to tell you my dream. I think I must put it in shape +of a story of two people; but you will know, darling, that in my dream it +was you and I. And I honestly did dream it, love, every word just as I +shall write it for you; only there are no words which so glow and light +and blaze as did the chambers through which we walked. I had been reading +about the wonderful gold mines of which every one is talking now, and this +led to my dream.</p> + +<p>"You can laugh if you like, sweet master mine, but I think it is all true, +and I call it</p> + +<p>"The Mine of Gold.</p> + +<p>"There is but one true mine of gold; and of it no man knows, and no woman, +save those who go into it. Neither can they who go tell whether they sink +into the earth's heart or are caught up into the chambers of the air, or +led to the outer pavilions of the sea. Suddenly they perceive that all +around, above, below them is gold: rocks of gold higher than they can see; +caves whose depths are bright with gold; lakes of gold which is molten and +leaps like fire, but in which flowers can be dipped and not wither; sands +of gold, soft and pleasant to touch; innumerable shapes of all things +beautiful, which wave and change, but only from gold to gold; air which +shines and shimmers like refiner's gold; warmth which is like the glow of +the red gold of Ophir; and everywhere golden silence!</p> + +<p>"Hand in hand walk the two to whom it is given to enter here: of the gold, +they may carry away only so much as can be hid in their bosoms; grains +which are spilled, or are left on their garments, turn to ashes; only to +each other may they speak of these mysteries; but all men perceive that +they have riches, and that their faces shine as the faces of angels.</p> + +<p>"Suddenly it comes to pass that one day a golden path leads them farther +than they have ever gone before, and into a vast chamber, too vast to be +measured. Its walls, although they are of gold, are also like crystal. +This is a mystery. Only three sides are walled. The fourth side is the +opening of a gallery which stretches away and away, golden like a broad +sunbeam: from out the distance comes the sound of rushing waters; however +far they walk in that gallery, still the golden sunbeam stretches before +them; still the sound of the waters is no nearer: and so would the sunbeam +and the sound of the waters be forever, for they are Eternity.</p> + +<p>"But there is a fourth mystery. On the walls of crystal gold, on all +sides, shine faces; not dead faces, not pictured faces; living +faces--warm, smiling, reflected faces.</p> + +<p>"Then it is revealed to the two who walk hand in hand that these are the +faces of all who have ever entered in, as they, between the walls of +crystal gold; flashing faces of the sons of God looking into eyes of +earthly women;--these were the first: and after them, all in their +generations until to-day, the sons of men with the women they have loved. +The men's faces smile; but the faces of the women have in them a joy +greater than a smile.</p> + +<p>"Presently the two who walk hand in hand see their own faces added to the +others, with the same smile, the same joy; and it is revealed to them that +these faces are immortal. Through all eternity they will shine on the +walls of crystal gold; and those who have once looked on them can never +more see in each other change or loss of beauty.</p> + +<p>"If as they walk there, in the broad sunbeam, an angel meets them, bearing +the tokens of a golden bowl that is broken and a silver cord that is +unloosed, they follow him without grief or fear, thinking on that chamber +of crystal gold!</p> + +<p>"Good-by, darling!</p> + +<p>"ESTHER."</p> + +<p>The third letter was written three years after this one. Sadness was +beginning to cloud the free, joyous outpourings of Esther's heart. +Probably this sadness was one of the first symptoms of the failure of her +health. It was from this letter chiefly--although there were expressions +in others which deepened the impression--that we inferred that her lover +had tried to stimulate in her an intellectual ambition.</p> + +<p>"WEDNESDAY EVENING.</p> + +<p>"DEAR ONE:--Your last letter gave me great pain. It breaks my heart to see +you looking so earnestly and expectantly into my future. Beloved, that I +have grown and developed so much in the last seven years is no proof that +I can still keep on growing. If you understood, darling, you would see +that it is just the other way. I have grown year by year, hour by hour, +because hour by hour I have loved you more. That is all! I have felt the +growth. I know it, as clearly as you do. But I know the secret of it as +you do not; and I know the limit of it, as you cannot. I cannot love you +more, precious one! Neither would I if I could! One heart-beat more in a +minute, and I should die! But all that you have so much loved and cared +for, dear, calling it intellectual growth and expansion in me, has been +only the clearing, refining, and stimulating of every faculty, every +sense, by my love for you. When I have said or written a word which has +pleased you thus, if there were any special fitness or eloquence in the +word, it was only because I sought after what would best carry my thought +to you, darling; what would be best frame, best setting, to keep the +flowers or the sky which I had to see alone,--to keep them till you could +see them too! Oh, dear one, do understand that there is nothing of me +except my heart and my love! While they were wonderingly, tremblingly, +rapturously growing within me, under the sweet warmth of your love, no +wonder I changed day by day. But, precious one, it is ended. The whole +solemn, steadfast womanhood within me recognizes it. Beloved master, in +one sense you can teach me no more! I am content. I desire nothing. One +moment of full consciousness of you, of life, of your love, is more than +all centuries of learning, all eternities of inspiration. I would rather +at this moment, dear, lay my cheek on your hand, and sit in my old place +by your knee, and feel myself the woman you have made me, than know all +that God knows, and make a universe!</p> + +<p>"Beloved, do not say such things to me any more; and whenever you feel +such ambition and hope stirring in your heart, read over this little +verse, and be sure that your child knew what she said when she wrote +it:--</p> + +<blockquote><h4> "The End of Harvest.</h4> + +<p> "O Love, who walkest slow among my sheaves,<br /> + Smiling at tint and shape, thy smile of peace,<br /> + But whispering of the next sweet year's increase,--<br /> + O tender Love, thy loving hope but grieves<br /> + My heart! I rue my harvest, if it leaves<br /> + Thee vainly waiting after harvests cease,<br /> + Like one who has been mocked by title lease<br /> + To barren fields.</p> + +<p> Dear one, my word deceives<br /> +Thee never. Hearts one summer have. Their grain<br /> +'Is sown not that which shall be!'</p> + +<p> Can new pain<br /> +Teach me of pain? Or any ecstasy<br /> +Be new, that I should speak its name again?<br /> +My darling, all there was or is of me<br /> +Is harvested for thine Eternity!</p> + +<p>ESTHER."</p></blockquote> + +<p>The fourth letter was the one which Princess had found, the first which my +uncle had read--Esther's farewell to her lover before going abroad. No +wonder that it so moved him!</p> + +<p>"SUNDAY NIGHT.</p> + +<p>"MY DARLING:--I implore you not to come. Have I not loved you enough, all +these years long, for you to trust me, and believe that it is only because +I love you so much that I cannot, cannot see you now? Dear, did I ever +before ask you to forego your wish for mine? Did I ever before withhold +anything from you, my darling? Ah, love, you know--oh, how well you know, +that always, in every blissful moment we have spent together, my bliss +has been shadowed by a little, interrupted by a little, because my soul +was forever restlessly asking, seeking, longing, for one more joy, +delight, rapture, to give to you!</p> + +<p>"Now listen, darling. You say it is almost a year since we met; true, but +if it were yesterday, would you remember it any more clearly? Why, my +precious one, I can see over again at this moment each little movement +which you made, each look your face wore; I can hear every word; I can +feel every kiss; very solemn kisses they were too, love, as if we had +known.</p> + +<p>"You say we may never meet again. True. But if that is to be so, all the +more I choose to leave with you the memory of the face you saw then, +rather than of the one you would see to-day. Be compassionate, darling, +and spare me the pain of seeing your pain at sight of my poor changed +face. I hope it is not vanity, love, which makes me feel this so strongly. +Being so clearly and calmly conscious as I am that very possibly my +earthly days are near their end, it does not seem as if mere vanity could +linger in my soul. And you know you have always said, dearest, that I had +none. I know I have always wondered unspeakably that you could find +pleasure in my face, except occasionally, when I have felt, as it were, a +great sudden glow and throb of love quicken and heat it under your gaze; +then, as I have looked up in your eyes, I have sometimes had a flash of +consciousness of a transfiguration in the very flesh of my face, just as I +have a sense of rapturous strength sometimes in the very flesh and bone of +my right hand, when I strike on the piano some of Beethoven's chords. But +I know that, except in the light of your presence, I have no beauty. I +had not so much to lose by illness as other women. But, dear one, that +little is gone. I can read in the pitying looks of all my friends how +altered I am. Even if I did not see it with my own eyes, I should read it +in theirs. And I cannot--oh, I cannot read it in yours!</p> + +<p>"If I knew any spell which could make you forget all except some one rare +moment in which you said in your heart, 'she never looked so lovely +before!' oh, how firmly I would bind you by it! All the weary indifferent, +or unhappy looks, love, I would blot out from your memory, and have the +thought of me raise but one picture in your mind. I would have it as if I +had died, and left of my face no record on earth except one wonderful +picture by some great master, who had caught the whole beauty of the one +rarest moment of my life. Darling, if you look back, you will find that +moment; for it must have been in your arms; and let Love be the master who +will paint the immortal picture!</p> + +<p>"As for this thin, pale, listless body, which just now answers to the name +of me, there is nothing in or about it which you know. Presently it will +be carried like a half-lifeless thing on board a ship; the winds will blow +roughly on it and it will not care. If God wills, darling, I will come +back to you well and strong. If I cannot come well and strong, I hope +never to come at all.</p> + +<p>"Don't call me cruel. You would feel the same. I also should combat the +resolve in you, as you do in me. But in my heart I should understand. I +should sympathize, and I should yield.</p> + +<p>"God bless you, darling. I believe He will, for the infinite goodness of +your life. I thank Him daily that He has given it to me to bless you a +little. If I had seen you to say farewell, my beloved, I should not have +kissed you many times, as has been our wont. That is for hours of joy. I +should have kissed you three times--only three times--on your beautiful, +strong, gentle lips, and each kiss would have been a separate sacrament, +with a bond of its own. I send them to you here, love, and this is what +they mean!</p> + +<blockquote><h4> "Three Kisses of Farewell.</h4> + +<p>"Three, only three my darling,<br /> + Separate, solemn, slow;<br /> +Not like the swift and joyous ones<br /> + We used to know<br /> +When we kissed because we loved each other<br /> + Simply to taste love's sweet,<br /> +And lavished our kisses as the summer<br /> + Lavishes heat,--<br /> +But as they kiss whose hearts are wrung,<br /> + When hope and fear are spent,<br /> +And nothing is left to give, except<br /> + A sacrament!</p> + +<p>"First of the three, my darling,<br /> + Is sacred unto pain;<br /> +We have hurt each other often;<br /> + We shall again,<br /> +When we pine because we miss each other,<br /> + And do not understand<br /> +How the written words are so much colder<br /> + Than eye and hand.<br /> +I kiss thee, dear, for all such pain<br /> + Which we may give or take;<br /> +Buried, forgiven, before it comes<br /> + For our love's sake!</p> + +<p>"The second kiss, my darling,<br /> + Is full of joy's sweet thrill;<br /> +We have blessed each other always;<br /> + We always will.<br /> +We shall reach until we feel each other,<br /> + Past all of time and space;<br /> +We shall listen till we hear each other<br /> + In every place;<br /> +The earth is full of messengers,<br /> + Which love sends to and fro;<br /> +I kiss thee, darling, for all joy<br /> + Which we shall know!</p> + +<p>"The last kiss, oh, my darling,<br /> + My love--I cannot see<br /> +Through my tears, as I remember<br /> + What it may be.<br /> +We may die and never see each other,<br /> + Die with no time to give<br /> +Any sign that our hearts are faithful<br /> + To die, as live.<br /> +Token of what they will not see<br /> + Who see our parting breath,<br /> +This one last kiss, my darling, seals<br /> + The seal of death!"</p></blockquote> + +<p>It was on my sixteenth birthday that I copied these letters and poems of +Esther Wynn's. I kept them, with a few other very precious things, in a +curious little inlaid box, which came from Venice, and was so old that in +many places its sides were worm-eaten. It was one of my choicest +treasures, and I was never separated from it.</p> + +<p>When I was twenty years old I had been for two years a happy wife, for one +year a glad mother, and had for some time remembered Esther only in the +vague, passing way in which happy souls recall old shadows of the griefs +of other hearts. As my boy entered on a second summer he began to droop a +little, and the physician recommended that we should take him to the +sea-side; so it came to pass that on the morning of my twentieth birthday +I was sitting, with my baby in my arms, on a rocky sea-shore, at one of +the well-known summer resorts of the New Hampshire coast. Near me sat a +woman whose face had interested me strangely ever since my arrival. She +seemed an invalid; but there was an atmosphere of overflowing vitality +about her, in spite of her feebleness, which made her very presence +stimulating and cheering to every one. I had longed to speak with her, but +as yet had not done so. While I sat watching her face and my baby's, and +the face of the sea, she was joined by her husband, who had just come from +a walk in the fields, and had brought her a large bouquet of red clover +and feathery grasses. She took it eagerly with great delight, and +exclaimed:--</p> + +<blockquote><p> "I wonder what the Clover thinks?<br /> + Intimate friend of Bob-o-links!"</p></blockquote> + +<p>I could not control the sudden start with which I heard these words. Who +was this that knew Esther Wynn's verses by heart? I could hardly refrain +from speaking to her at once, and betraying all. But I reflected instantly +that I must be very cautious; it would be almost impossible to find out +what I longed to know without revealing how my own acquaintance with the +verses had come about. Days passed before I ventured to allude to the +subject; but one evening, as we were walking together, she stooped and +picked a clover-blossom, and said,--</p> + +<p>"I really think I love red clover better than any wild flower we have."</p> + +<p>"I thought so," said I, "when I saw you take that big bunch your husband +brought you the other morning. That was before I knew you: I felt almost +rude, I watched you so, in spite of myself."</p> + +<p>"But I had watched you quite as much," said she, smiling; "I thought then +of giving you a part of the clover. Edward always brings me huge bouquets +of it every day; he knows so well how I love it."</p> + +<p>"I heard you quote a little couplet of verse about it then," said I, +looking away from her, that she might not see my face: "I was so near you +I could not help hearing what you said."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes," said she,</p> + +<blockquote><p> "I wonder what the Clover thinks?<br /> + Intimate friend of Bob-o-links'--</p></blockquote> + +<p>"I do not know but that old clover-song is the real reason I love clover +so. My mother taught it to me when I was a little child. It is all very +quaint and sweet. Would you like to hear it?"</p> + +<p>I felt myself color scarlet, but I replied,--</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, pray repeat it."</p> + +<p>When she had repeated the verses she went on speaking, to my great relief, +saving me from the necessity of saying anything.</p> + +<p>"That was written a great many years ago, by an aunt of my mother's. My +mother has a little manuscript book bound in red morocco, very faded and +worn, which my grandmother kept on her bureau till she died, last year; +and it has in it this little clover-song and several others, with Aunt +Esther's diary while she was abroad. She died abroad; died in Jerusalem, +and was buried there. There was something mysteriously sad in her life, I +think: grandmother always sighed when she spoke of her, and used to read +in the little red book every day. She was only her half-sister, but she +said she loved her better than she did any sister of her own. Once I asked +grandmamma to tell me about her, but she said, 'There is nothing to tell, +child. She was never married: she died the autumn before your mother was +born, and your mother looked very much like her when she was young. She is +like her, too, in many ways,' and that was all grandmamma would ever say. +But we always called her Aunt Esther, and know all her verses by heart, +and the diary was fascinating. It seems strange to read such vivid written +records of people you never saw; don't you think so?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, it must, very," said I.</p> + +<p>She went on: "I always had a very special love for this old Aunt Esther, +which I could hardly account for. I am to have the little red book when my +mother dies; and"--she hesitated a moment--"and I named my first baby for +her, Esther Wynn. The baby only lived to be a few weeks old, and I often +think, as I look at her little grave-stone, of the other one, so many +thousand miles away, alone in a strange land, bearing the same name."</p> + +<p>On my way home I stopped for a few days' visit at Uncle Jo's. Late one +night, sitting in my old place at his feet in the library, I told him this +sequel to the romance of the letters.</p> + +<p>"Oh, childie, how could you help showing that you knew about her?" said +he. "You must have betrayed it."</p> + +<p>"No, I am sure I did not," I said. "I never spoke about it after that day, +and she was too absorbed herself in the reminiscences to observe my +excitement."</p> + +<p>"What was your friend's name?" said Uncle Jo.</p> + +<p>I told him. He sprang from his chair, and walked rapidly away to the end +of the library; presently he came back, and standing before me, said,--</p> + +<p>"Nell! Nell! your friend's mother is the woman of whom I once spoke to +you! I might have known that the subtle kinship I felt between Esther Wynn +and her was no chance resemblance. I never heard of the name 'Wynn,' +however. But you said she was only a half-sister; that accounts for it. I +might have known! I might have known!" he exclaimed, more to himself than +to me, and buried his face in his hands I stole away quietly and left him; +but I heard him saying under his breath, "Her aunt! I might have known!"</p> +</div> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Saxe Holm's Stories, by Helen Hunt Jackson + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SAXE HOLM'S STORIES *** + +***** This file should be named 10926-h.htm or 10926-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/9/2/10926/ + +Produced by Distributed Proofreaders + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Saxe Holm's Stories + +Author: Helen Hunt Jackson + +Release Date: February 3, 2004 [EBook #10926] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SAXE HOLM'S STORIES *** + + + + +Produced by Distributed Proofreaders + + + + +SAXE HOLM'S STORIES + +[by Helen Hunt Jackson] + + +1873 + + +Content. + +Draxy Miller's Dowry +The Elder's Wife +Whose Wife Was She? +The One-Legged Dancers +How One Woman Kept Her Husband +Esther Wynn's Love-Letters + + + + +Draxy Miller's Dowry. + + + +Part I. + + +When Draxy Miller's father was a boy, he read a novel in which the heroine +was a Polish girl, named Darachsa. The name stamped itself indelibly upon +his imagination; and when, at the age of thirty-five, he took his +first-born daughter in his arms, his first words were--"I want her called +Darachsa." + +"What!" exclaimed the doctor, turning sharply round, and looking out above +his spectacles; "what heathen kind of a name is that?" + +"Oh, Reuben!" groaned a feeble voice from the baby's mother; and the nurse +muttered audibly, as she left the room, "There ain't never no luck comes +of them outlandish names." + +The whole village was in a state of excitement before night. Poor Reuben +Miller had never before been the object of half so much interest. His +slowly dwindling fortunes, the mysterious succession of his ill-lucks, had +not much stirred the hearts of the people. He was a retice'nt man; he +loved books, and had hungered for them all his life; his townsmen +unconsciously resented what they pretended to despise; and so it had +slowly come about that in the village where his father had lived and died, +and where he himself had grown up, and seemed likely to live and die, +Reuben Miller was a lonely man, and came and went almost as a stranger +might come and go. His wife was simply a shadow and echo of himself; one +of those clinging, tender, unselfish, will-less women, who make pleasant, +and affectionate, and sunny wives enough for rich, prosperous, +unsentimental husbands, but who are millstones about the necks of +sensitive, impressionable, unsuccessful men. If Jane Miller had been a +strong, determined woman, Reuben would not have been a failure. The only +thing he had needed in life had been persistent purpose and courage. The +right sort of wife would have given him both. But when he was discouraged, +baffled, Jane clasped her hands, sat down, and looked into his face with +streaming eyes. If he smiled, she smiled; but that was just when it was of +least consequence that she should smile. So the twelve years of their +married life had gone on slowly, very slowly, but still surely, from bad +to worse; nothing prospered in Reuben's hands. The farm which he had +inherited from his father was large, but not profitable. He tried too long +to work the whole of it, and then he sold the parts which he ought to have +kept. He sunk a great portion of his little capital in a flour-mill, which +promised to be a great success, paid well for a couple of years, and then +burnt down, uninsured. He took a contract for building one section of a +canal, which was to pass through part of his land; sub-contractors cheated +him, and he, in his honesty, almost ruined himself to right their wrong. +Then he opened a little store; here, also, he failed. He was too honest, +too sympathizing, too inert. His day-book was a curiosity; he had a vein +of humor which no amount of misfortune could quench; and he used to enter +under the head of "given" all the purchases which he knew were not likely +to be paid for. It was at sight of this book, one day, that Jane Miller, +for the first and only time in her life, lost her temper with Reuben. + +"Well, I must say, Reuben Miller, if I die for it," said she, "I haven't +had so much as a pound of white sugar nor a single lemon in my house for +two years, and I do think it's a burnin' shame for you to go on sellin' +'em to them shiftless Greens, that'll never pay you a cent, and you know +it!" + +Reuben was sitting on the counter smoking his pipe and reading an old +tattered copy of Dryden's translation of Virgil. He lifted his clear blue +eyes in astonishment, put down his pipe, and, slowly swinging his long +legs over the counter, caught Jane by the waist, put both his arms round +her, and said,-- + +"Why, mother, what's come over you! You know poor little Eph's dyin' of +that white swellin'. You wouldn't have me refuse his mother anything we've +got, would you?" + +Jane Miller walked back to the house with tears in her eyes, but her +homely sallow face was transfigured by love as she went about her work, +thinking to herself,-- + +"There never was such a man's Reuben, anyhow. I guess he'll get interest +one o' these days for all he's lent the Lord, first and last, without +anybody's knowin' it." + +But the Lord has His own system of reckoning compound interest, and His +ways of paying are not our ways. He gave no visible sign of recognition of +indebtedness to Reuben. Things went harder and harder with the Millers, +until they had come to such a pass that when Reuben Miller went after the +doctor, in the early dawn of the day on which little Draxy was born, he +clasped his hands in sorrow and humiliation before he knocked at the +doctor's door; and his only words were hard words for a man of +sensitiveness and pride to speak:-- + +"Doctor Cobb, will you come over to my wife? I don't dare to be sure I can +ever pay you; but if there's anything in the store "-- + +"Pshaw, pshaw, Reuben, don't speak of that; you'll be all right in a few +years," said the kind old doctor, who had known Reuben from his boyhood, +and understood him far better than any one else did. + +And so little Draxy was born. + +"It's a mercy it's a girl at last," said the village gossips. "Mis' +Miller's had a hard time with them four great boys, and Mr. Miller so +behindhand allers." + +"And who but Reuben Miller'd ever think of givin' a Christian child such a +name!" they added. + +But what the name was nobody rightly made out; nor even whether it had +been actually given to the baby, or had only been talked of; and between +curiosity and antagonism, the villagers were so drawn to Reuben Miller's +store, that it began to look quite like a run of custom. + +"If I hold out a spell on namin' her," said Reuben, as in the twilight of +the third day he sat by his wife's bedside; "if I hold out a spell on +namin' her, I shall get all the folks in the district into the store, and +sell out clean," and he laughed quizzically, and stroked the little +mottled face which lay on the pillow. "There's Squire Williams and Mis' +Conkey both been in this afternoon; and Mis' Conkey took ten pounds of +that old Hyson tea you thought I'd never sell; and Squire Williams, he +took the last of those new-fangled churns, and says he, 'I expect you'll +want to drive trade a little brisker, Reuben, now there's a little girl to +be provided for; and, by the way, what are you going to call her?' + +"'Oh, it's quite too soon to settle, that,' said I, as if I hadn't a name +in my head yet. And then Mis' Conkey spoke up and said: 'Well, I did hear +you were going to name her after a heathen goddess that nobody over heard +of, and I do hope you will consider her feelings when she grows up.' + +"'I hope I always shall, Mis' Conkey,' said I; and she didn't know what to +say next. So she picked up her bundle of tea, and they stepped off +together quite dignified. + +"But I think we'll call her Darachsa, in spite of 'em all, Jane," added +Reuben with a hesitating half laugh. + +"Oh, Reuben!" Jane said again. It was the strongest remonstrance on which +she ever ventured. She did not like the name; but she adored Reuben. So +when the baby was three months old, she was carried into the meeting-house +in a faded blue cashmere cloak, and baptized in the name of the Father, +and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, "Darachsa Lawton Miller." + +Jane Miller's babies always thrived. The passive acquiescence of her +nature was a blessing to them. The currents of their blood were never +rendered unhealthful by overwrought nerves or disturbed temper in their +mother. Their infancy was as placid and quiet as if they had been kittens. +Not until they were old enough to understand words, and to comprehend +deprivations, did they suffer because of their poverty. Then a serious +look began to settle upon their faces; they learned to watch their father +and mother wistfully, and to wonder what was wrong; their childhood was +very short. + +Before Draxy was ten years old she had become her father's inseparable +companion, confidant, and helper. He wondered, sometimes almost in terror, +what it meant, that he could say to this little child what he could not +say to her mother; that he often detected himself in a desire to ask of +this babe advice or suggestion which he never dreamed of asking from his +wife. + +But Draxy was wise. She had the sagacity which comes from great tenderness +and loyalty, combined with a passionate nature. In such a woman's soul +there is sometimes an almost supernatural instinct. She will detect danger +and devise safety with a rapidity and ingenuity which are incredible. But +to such a nature will also come the subtlest and deepest despairs of which +the human heart is capable. The same instinct which foresees and devises +for the loved ones will also recognize their most hidden traits, their +utmost possibilities, their inevitable limitations, with a completeness +and infallibility akin to that of God Himself. Jane Miller, all her life +long, believed in the possibility of Reuben's success; charged his +failures to outside occasions, and hoped always in a better day to come. +Draxy, early in her childhood, instinctively felt, what she was far too +young consciously to know, that her father would never be a happier man; +that "things" would always go against him. She had a deeper reverence for +the uprightness and sweet simplicity of his nature than her mother ever +could have had. She comprehended, Jane believed; Draxy felt, Jane saw. +Without ever having heard of such a thing as fate, little Draxy recognized +that her father was fighting with it, and that fate was the stronger! Her +little arms clasped closer and closer round his neck, and her serene blue +eyes, so like his, and yet so wondrously unlike, by reason of their latent +fire and strength, looked this unseen enemy steadfastly in the face, day +by day. + +She was a wonderful child. Her physical health was perfect. The first ten +years of her life were spent either out of doors, or in her father's lap. +He would not allow her to attend the district school; all she knew she +learned from him. Reuben Miller had never looked into an English grammar +or a history, but he knew Shakespeare by heart, and much of Homer; a few +odd volumes of Walter Scott's novels, some old voyages, a big family +Bible, and a copy of Byron, were the only other books in his house. As +Draxy grew older, Reuben now and then borrowed from the minister books +which he thought would do her good; but the child and he both loved Homer +and the Bible so much better than any later books, that they soon drifted +back to them. It was a little sad, except that it was so beautiful, to +see the isolated life these two led in the family. The boys were good, +sturdy, noisy boys. They went to school in the winter and worked on the +farm in the summer, like all farmers' boys. Reuben, the oldest, was +eighteen when Draxy was ten; he was hired, by a sort of indenture, for +three years, on a neighboring farm, and came home only on alternate +Sundays. Jamie, and Sam, and Lawton were at home; young as they were, they +did men's service in many ways. Jamie had a rare gift for breaking horses, +and for several years the only ready money which the little farm had +yielded was the price of the colts which Jamie raised and trained so +admirably that they sold well. The other two boys were strong and willing, +but they had none of their father's spirituality, or their mother's +gentleness. Thus, in spite of Reuben Miller's deep love for his children, +he was never at ease in his boys' presence; and, as they grew older, +nothing but the influence of their mother's respect for their father +prevented their having an impatient contempt for his unlikeness to the +busy, active, thrifty farmers of the neighborhood. + +It was a strange picture that the little kitchen presented on a winter +evening. Reuben sat always on the left hand of the big fire-place, with a +book on his knees. Draxy was curled up on an old-fashioned cherry-wood +stand close to his chair, but so high that she rested her little dimpled +chin on his head. A tallow candle stood on a high bracket, made from a +fungus which Reuben had found in the woods. When the candle flared and +dripped, Draxy sprang up on the stand, and, poised on one foot, reached +over her father's head to snuff it. She looked like a dainty fairy +half-floating in the air, but nobody knew it. Jane sat in a high-backed +wooden rocking-chair, which had a flag bottom and a ruffled calico +cushion, and could only rock a very few inches back and forth, owing to +the loss of half of one of the rockers. For the first part of the evening, +Jane always knitted; but by eight o'clock the hands relaxed, the needles +dropped, the tired head fell back against the chair, and she was fast +asleep. + +The boys were by themselves in the farther corner of the room, playing +checkers or doing sums, or reading the village newspaper. Reuben and Draxy +were as alone as if the house had been empty. Sometimes he read to her in +a whisper; sometimes he pointed slowly along the lines in silence, and the +wise little eyes from above followed intently. All questions and +explanations were saved till the next morning, when Draxy, still curled up +like a kitten, would sit mounted on the top of the buckwheat barrel in the +store, while her father lay stretched on the counter, smoking. They never +talked to each other, except when no one could hear; that is, they never +spoke in words; there was mysterious and incessant communication between +them whenever they were together, as there is between all true lovers. + +At nine o'clock Reuben always shut the book, and said, "Kiss me, little +daughter." Draxy kissed him, and said, "Good-night, father dear," and that +was all. The other children called him "pa," as was the universal custom +in the village. But Draxy even in her babyhood had never once used the +word. Until she was seven or eight years old she called him "Farver;" +after that, always "father dear." Then Reuben would wake Jane up, sighing +usually, "Poor mother, how tired she is!" Sometimes Jane said when she +kissed Draxy, at the door of her little room, "Why don't you kiss your pa +for good-night?" + +"I kissed father before you waked up, ma," was always Draxy's quiet +answer. + +And so the years went on. There was much discomfort, much deprivation in +Reuben Miller's house. Food was not scarce; the farm yielded enough, such +as it was, very coarse and without variety; but money was hard to get; the +store seemed to be absolutely unremunerative, though customers were not +wanting; and the store and the farm were all that Reuben Miller had in the +world. But in spite of the poor food; in spite of the lack of most which +money buys; in spite of the loyal, tender, passionate despair of her +devotion to her father, Draxy grew fairer and fairer, stronger and +stronger. At fourteen her physique was that of superb womanhood. She had +inherited her body wholly from her father. For generations back, the +Millers had been marked for their fine frames. The men were all over six +feet tall, and magnificently made; and the women were much above the +average size and strength. On Draxy's fourteenth birthday she weighed one +hundred and fifty pounds, and measured five feet six inches in height. Her +coloring was that of an English girl, and her bright brown hair fell below +her waist in thick masses. To see the face of a simple-hearted child, +eager but serene, determined but lovingly gentle, surrounded and glorified +by such splendid physical womanhood, was a rare sight. Reuben Miller's +eyes filled with tears often as he secretly watched his daughter, and said +to himself, "Oh, what is to be her fate! what man is worthy of the wife +she will be?" But the village people saw only a healthy, handsome girl, +"overgrown," they thought, and "as queer as her father before her," they +said, for Draxy, very early in life, had withdrawn herself somewhat from +the companionship of the young people of the town. + +As for Jane, she loved and reverenced Draxy, very much as she did Reuben, +with touching devotion, but without any real comprehension of her nature. +If she sometimes felt a pang in seeing how much more Reuben talked with +Draxy than with her, how much more he sought to be with Draxy than with +her, she stifled it, and, reproaching herself for disloyalty to each, set +herself to work for them harder than before. + +In Draxy's sixteenth year the final blow of misfortune fell upon Reuben +Miller's head. + +A brother of Jane's, for whom, in an hour of foolish generosity, Reuben +had indorsed a note of a considerable amount, failed. Reuben's farm was +already heavily mortgaged. There was nothing to be done but to sell it. +Purchasers were not plenty nor eager; everybody knew that the farm must be +sold for whatever it would bring, and each man who thought of buying hoped +to profit somewhat, in a legitimate and Christian way, by Reuben's +extremity. + +Reuben's courage would have utterly forsaken him now, except for Draxy's +calmness. Jane was utterly unnerved; wept silently from morning till +night, and implored Reuben to see her brother's creditors, and beg them +to release him from his obligation. But Draxy, usually so gentle, grew +almost stern when such suggestions were made. + +"You don't understand, ma," she said, with flushing cheeks. "It is a +promise. Father must pay it. He cannot ask to have it given back to him." + +But with all Draxy's inflexibility of resolve, she could not help being +disheartened. She could not see how they were to live; the three rooms +over the store could easily be fitted up into an endurable dwelling-place; +but what was to supply the food which the farm had hitherto given them? +There was literally no way open for a man or a woman to earn money in that +little farming village. Each family took care of itself and hired no +service, except in the short season of haying. Draxy was an excellent +seamstress, but she knew very well that the price of all the sewing hired +in the village in a year would not keep them from starving. The Store must +be given up, because her father would have no money with which to buy +goods. In fact, for a long time, most of his purchases had been made by +exchanging the spare produce of his farm at large stores in the +neighboring towns. Still Draxy never wavered, and because she did not +waver Reuben did not die. The farm was sold at auction, with the stock, +the utensils, and all of the house-furniture which was not needed to make +the store chambers habitable. The buyer boasted in the village that he had +not given more than two thirds of the real value of the place. After +Reuben's debts were all paid, there remained just one thousand dollars to +be put into the bank. + +"Why, father! That is a fortune," said Draxy, when he told her. "I did +not suppose we should have anything, and it is glorious not to owe any man +a cent." + +It was early in April when the Millers moved into the "store chambers." +The buyer of their farm was a hard-hearted, penurious man, a deacon of the +church in which Draxy had been baptized. He had never been known to give a +penny to any charity excepting Foreign Missions. His wife and children had +never received at his hands the smallest gift. But even his heart was +touched by Draxy's cheerful acquiescence in the hard change, and her +pathetic attempts to make the new home pleasant. The next morning after +Deacon White took possession, he called out over the fence to poor Reuben, +who stood listlessly on the store steps, trying not to look across at the +house which had been his. + +"I say, Miller, that gal o' your'n is what I call the right sort o' woman, +up an' down. I hain't said much to her, but I've noticed that she set a +heap by this garding; an' I expect she'll miss the flowers more'n +anything; now my womenfolks they won't have anythin' to do with such +truck; an' if she's a mind to take care on't jest's she used ter, I'm +willin'; I guess we shall be the gainers on't." + +"Thank you, Deacon White; Draxy'll be very glad," was all Reuben could +reply. Something in his tone touched the man's flinty heart still more; +and before he half knew what he was going to say, he had added,-- + +"An' there's the vegetable part on't, too, Miller. I never was no hand to +putter with garden sass. If you'll jest keep that up and go halves, fair +and reg'lar, you're welcome." + +This was tangible help. Reuben's face lighted up. + +"I thank you with all my heart," he replied. "That'll be a great help to +me; and I reckon you'll like our vegetables, too," he said, half smiling, +for he knew very well that nothing but potatoes and turnips had been seen +on Deacon White's table for years. + +Then Reuben went to find Draxy; when he told her, the color came into her +face, and she shut both her hands with a quick, nervous motion, which was +habitual to her under excitement. + +"Oh, father, we can almost live off the garden," said she. "I told you we +should not starve." + +But still new sorrows, and still greater changes, were in store for the +poor, disheartened family. In June a malignant fever broke out in the +village, and in one short month Reuben and Jane had laid their two +youngest boys in the grave-yard. There was a dogged look, which was not +all sorrow, on Reuben's face as he watched the sexton fill up the last +grave. Sam and Jamie, at any rate, would not know any more of the +discouragement and hardship of life. + +Jane, too, mourned her boys not as mothers mourn whose sons have a +birthright of gladness. Jane was very tired of the world. + +Draxy was saddened by the strange, solemn presence of death. But her +brothers had not been her companions. She began suddenly to feel a sense +of new and greater relationship to them, now that she thought of them as +angels; she was half terrified and bewildered at the feeling that now, for +the first time, they were near to her. + +On the evening after Sam's funeral, as Reuben was sitting on the store +steps, with his head buried in his hands, a neighbor drove up and threw +him a letter. + +"It's been lyin' in the office a week or more, Merrill said, and he +reckoned I'd better bring it up to you," he called out, as he drove on. + +"It might lie there forever, for all my goin' after it," thought Reuben to +himself, as he picked it up from the dust; "it's no good news, I'll be +bound." + +But it was good news. The letter was from Jane's oldest sister, who had +married only a few years before, and gone to live in a sea-port town on +the New England coast. Her husband was an old captain, who had retired +from his seafaring life with just money enough to live on, in a very +humble way, in an old house which had belonged to his grandfather. He had +lost two wives; his children were all married or dead, and in his +loneliness and old age he had taken for his third wife the gentle, quiet +elder sister who had brought up Jane Miller. She was a gray-haired, +wrinkled spinster woman when she went into Captain Melville's house; but +their life was by no means without romance. Husband and home cannot come +to any womanly heart too late for sentiment and happiness to put forth +pale flowers. + +Emma Melville wrote offering the Millers a home; their last misfortune had +but just come to her knowledge, for Jane had been for months too much out +of heart to write to her relatives. Emma wrote:-- + +"We are very poor, too; we haven't anything but the house, and a little +money each year to buy what we need to eat and wear, the plainest sort. +But the house is large; Captain Melville and me never so much as set foot +up-stairs. If you can manage to live on the upper floor, you're more than +welcome, we both say; and we hope you won't let any pride stand in the way +of your coming. It will do us good to have more folks in the house, and it +ain't as if it cost us anything, for we shouldn't never be willing, +neither me nor Captain Melville, to rent the rooms to strangers, not while +we've got enough to live on without." + +There was silence for some minutes between Reuben and Jane and Draxy after +this letter had been read. Jane looked steadily away from Reuben. There +was deep down in the patient woman's heart, a latent pride which was +grievously touched. Reuben turned to Draxy; her lips were parted; her +cheeks were flushed; her eyes glowed. "Oh, father, the sea!" she +exclaimed. This was her first thought; but in a second more she added, +"How kind, how good of Aunt Emma's husband!" + +"Would you like to go, my daughter?" said Reuben, earnestly. + +"Why, I thought of course we should go!" exclaimed Draxy, turning with a +bewildered look to her mother, who was still silent. "What else is the +letter sent for? It means that we must go." + +Her beautiful simplicity was utterly removed from any false sense of +obligation. She accepted help as naturally from a human hand as from the +sunshine; she would give it herself, so far as she had power, just as +naturally and just as unconsciously. + +There was very little discussion about the plan. Draxy's instinct overbore +all her father's misgiving, and all her mother's unwillingness. + +"Oh, how can you feel so, Ma," she exclaimed more than once. "If I had a +sister I could not. I love Aunt Emma already next to you and father; and +you don't know how much we can do for her after we get there, either. I +can earn money there, I know I can; all we need." + +Mrs. Melville had written that there were many strangers in the town in +the summer, and that she presumed Draxy could soon find all the work she +wished as seamstress; also that there were many chances of work for a man +who was accustomed to gardening, as, of course, Reuben must be. + +Draxy's sanguine cheerfulness was infectious; even Jane began to look +forward with interest to the new home; and Reuben smiled when Draxy sang. +Lawton and Reuben were to be left behind; that was the only regret; but it +was merely anticipating by a very little the separation which was +inevitable, as the boys had both become engaged to daughters of the +farmers for whom they had been working, and would very soon take their +positions as sons-in-law on these farms. + +The store was sold, the furniture packed, and Reuben Miller, with his wife +and child, set his face eastward to begin life anew. The change from the +rich wheat fields and glorious forests of Western New York, to the bare +stony stretches of the Atlantic sea-board, is a severe one. No adult heart +can make it without a struggle. When Reuben looked out of the car windows +upon the low gray barrens through which he was nearing his journey end, +his soul sank within him. It was sunset; the sea glistened like glass, and +was as red as the sky. Draxy could not speak for delight; tears stood in +her eyes, and she took hold of her father's hand. But Reuben and Jane saw +only the desolate rocks, and treeless, shrubless, almost--it seemed to +them--grassless fields, and an unutterable sense of gloom came over them. +It was a hot and stifling day; a long drought had parched and shriveled +every living thing; and the white August dust lay everywhere. + +Captain Melville lived in the older part of the town near the water. The +houses were all wooden, weather-beaten, and gray, and had great patches of +yellow lichen on their walls and roofs; thin rims of starved-looking grass +edged the streets, and stray blades stood up here and there among the old +sunken cobble-stones which made the pavements. + +The streets seemed deserted; the silence and the sombre color, and the +strange low plashing of the water against the wharves, oppressed even +Draxy's enthusiastic heart. Her face fell, and she exclaimed +involuntarily, "Oh, what a lonesome place!" Checking herself, she added, +"but it's only the twilight makes it look so, I expect." + +They had some difficulty in finding the house. The lanes and streets +seemed inextricably tangled; the little party was shy of asking direction, +and they were all disappointed and grieved, more than they owned to +themselves, that they had not been met at the station. At last they found +the house. Timidly Draxy lifted the great brass knocker. It looked to her +like splendor, and made her afraid. It fell more heavily than she supposed +it would, and the clang sounded to her over-wrought nerves as if it filled +the whole street. No one came. They looked at the windows. The curtains +were all down. There was no sign of life about the place. Tears came into +Jane's eyes. She was worn out with the fatigue of the journey. + +"Oh dear, oh dear," she said, "I wish we hadn't come." + +"Pshaw, mother," said Reuben, with a voice cheerier than his heart, "very +likely they never got our last letter, and don't know we were to be here +to-day," and he knocked again. + +Instantly a window opened in the opposite house, and a jolly voice said, +"My gracious," and in the twinkling of an eye the jolly owner of the jolly +voice had opened her front door and run bareheaded across the street, and +was shaking hands with Reuben and Jane and Draxy, all three at once, and +talking so fast that they could hardly understand her. + +"My gracious I my gracious! Won't Mrs. Melville be beat! Of course you're +her folks she was expecting from the West, ain't you? I mistrusted it +somehow as soon as I heard the big knock. Now I'll jest let you in the +back door. Oh my, Mis' Melville'll never get over this; to think of her +be'n' away, an' she's been lookin' and looking and worryin' for two weeks, +because she didn't hear from you; and only last night Captain Melville he +said he'd write to-day if they didn't hear.'" + +"We wrote," said Draxy, in her sweet, low voice, "we wrote to Aunt Emma +that we'd come to-day." + +"Now did you!" said the jolly voice. "Well, that's jest the way. You see +your letter's gone somewhere else, and now Mis' Melville she's gone +to"--the rest of the sentence was lost, for the breathless little woman was +running round the house to the back door. + +In a second more the upper half of the big old-fashioned door had swung +open, to Draxy's great delight, who exclaimed, "Oh, father, we read about +such doors as this in that Knickerbocker book, don't you remember?" + +But good Mrs. Carr was drawing them into the house, giving them neighborly +welcome, all the while running on in such voluble ejaculatory talk that +the quiet, saddened, recluse-like people were overwhelmed with +embarrassment, and hardly knew which way to turn. Presently she saw their +confusion and interrupted herself with-- + +"Well, well, you're jest all tired out with your journey, an' a cup o' +tea's the thing you want, an' none o' my talk; but you see Mis' Melville +'n me's so intimate that I feel's if I'd known you always, 'n I'm real +glad to see you here, real glad; 'n I'll bring the tea right over; the +kettle was a boilin' when I run out, 'n I'll send Jim right down town for +Captain Melville; he's sure to be to the library. Oh, but won't Mis' +Melville be beat," she continued, half way down the steps; and from the +middle of the street she called back, "'an she ain't coming home till +to-morrow night." + +Reuben and Jane and Draxy sat down with as bewildered a feeling as, if +they had been transported to another world. The house was utterly unlike +anything they had ever seen; high ceilings, wainscoted walls, wooden +cornices and beams, and wooden mantels with heads carved on the corners. +It seemed to them at first appallingly grand. Presently they observed the +bare wooden floors, the flag-bottomed chairs, and faded chintz cushions, +the row of old tin utensils, and plain, cheap crockery in the glass-doored +cupboard, and felt more at home. + +"You know Aunt Emma said they were poor, too," said Draxy, answering her +own unspoken thought as well as her father's and mother's. + +Reuben pushed his hair off his warm forehead and sighed. + +"I suppose we might go up-stairs, mother," he said; "that's to be our +house, as I understand it" + +Draxy bounded at the words. With flying steps she ascended the stairs and +opened the first door. She stood still on the threshold, unable to move +from astonishment. It was still light enough to see the room. Draxy began +to speak, but broke down utterly, and bursting out crying, threw herself +into the arms of her father who had just reached the top of the stairs. + +"Oh, father, it's all fixed for a sitting-room! Father dear, I told you!" + +This was something they had not dreamed of. They had understood the offer +to be merely of rooms in which they could live rent-free. In fact, that +had been Captain Melville's first intention. But his generous sailor's +heart revolted from the thought of stripping the rooms of furniture for +which he had no use. So Emma had rearranged the plain old-fashioned +things, and adding a few more which could be spared as well as not, had +fitted up a sitting-room and two bed-rooms with all that was needed for +comfort. Reuben and Jane and Draxy were all crying when Mrs. Carr came +back with her pitcher of smoking tea. Reuben tried to explain to her why +they were crying, but she interrupted him with,-- + +"Well, now, I understand it jest's if 'twas to me it'd all happened; an' I +think it's lucky after all that Mis' Melville wasn't here, for she's +dreadful easy upset if people take on. But now you drink your tea, and get +all settled down's quick's you can, for Captain Melville 'll be here any +minute now I expect, an' he don't like tantrums." + +This frightened Draxy, and made a gloomy look come on Reuben's face. But +the fright and the gloom disappeared in one minute and forever when the +door burst open, and a red-faced, white-haired old man, utterly out of +breath, bounced into the room, and seizing Reuben by the hand gasped out, +puffing between the words like a steam-engine:-- + +"Wreck me, if this isn't a hard way to make port. Why, man, we've been +looking for some hail from you for two weeks, till we began to think you'd +given us the go-by altogether. Welcome to Melville Harbor, I say, +welcome!" and he had shaken Reuben's hand, and kissed Jane and turned to +Draxy all in a breath. At the first full sight of Draxy's face he started +and felt dumb. He had never seen so beautiful a woman. He pulled out a red +silk handkerchief and wiped his face nervously as she said, "Kiss me too, +uncle," but her warm lips were on his cheek before he had time to analyze +his own feelings. Then Reuben began to say something, about gratitude, and +the old sailor swore his favorite oath again: "Now, may I be wrecked if I +have a word o' that. We're glad enough to get you all here; and as for the +few things in the rooms, they're of no account anyhow." + +"Few things! Oh, uncle," said Draxy, with a trembling voice, and before he +knew what she was about to do she had snatched his fat, weather-beaten old +hand and kissed it. No woman had ever kissed John Melville's hand before. +From that moment he looked upon Draxy as a princess who had let him once +kiss hers! + +Captain Melville and Reuben were friends before bed-time. Reuben's gentle +simplicity and unworldliness, and patient demeanor, roused in the rough +sailor a sympathy like that he had always felt for women. And to Reuben +the hearty good cheer, and brisk, bluff sailor ways were infinitely +winning and stimulating. + +The next day Mrs. Melville came home. In a short time the little household +had adjusted itself, and settled down into its routine of living. When, in +a few days, the great car-load of the Millers' furniture arrived, Capt. +Melville insisted upon its all going to the auction-rooms excepting the +kitchen furniture, and a few things for which Jane had especial +attachment. It brought two hundred dollars, which, in addition to the +price of the farm, and the store and its stock, gave Reuben just nineteen +hundred dollars to put in the Savings Bank. + +"And I am to be counted at least two thousand more, father dear, so you +are not such a very poor man after all," said Draxy, laughing and dancing +around him. + +Now Draxy Miller's real life began. In after years she used to say, "I +was born first in my native town; second, in the Atlantic Ocean!" The +effect of the strong sea air upon her was something indescribable; joy +seemed to radiate from her whole being. She smiled whenever she saw the +sea. She walked on the beach; she sat on the rocks; she learned to swim in +one lesson, and swam so far out that her uncle dared not follow, and +called to her in imploring terror to return. Her beauty grew more and more +radiant every day. This the sea gave to her body. But there was a far +subtler new life than the physical, a far finer new birth than the birth +of beauty,--which came to Draxy here. This, books gave to her soul. Only a +few years before, a free library had been founded in this town, by a rich +and benevolent man. Every week hundreds of volumes circulated among the +families where books were prized, and could not be owned. When Draxy's +uncle first took her into this library, and explained to her its purpose +and regulations, she stood motionless for a few moments, looking at +him--and at the books: then, with tears in her eyes, and saying, "Don't +follow me, uncle dear; don't mind me, I can't bear it," she ran swiftly +into the street, and never stopped until she had reached home and found +her father. An hour later she entered the library again, leading her +father by the hand. She had told him the story on the way. Reuben's thin +cheeks were flushed. It was almost more than he too could bear. Silently +the father and daughter walked up and down the room, looking into the +alcoves. Then they sat down together, and studied the catalogue. Then +they rose and went out, hand in hand as they had entered, speaking no +word, taking no book. For one day the consciousness of this wealth filled +their hearts beyond the possibility of one added desire. After that, Draxy +and her father were to be seen every night seated at the long table in the +reading-room. They read always together, Draxy's arm being over the back +of her father's chair. Many a man and many a woman stopped and looked long +at the picture. But neither Draxy nor her father knew it. + +At the end of two years, Draxy Miller had culture. She was ignorant still, +of course; she was an uneducated girl; she wept sometimes over her own +deficiencies; but her mind was stored with information of all sorts; she +had added Wordsworth to her Shakespeare; she had journeyed over the world +with every traveller whose works she could find; and she had tasted of +Plato and Epictetus. Reuben's unfailing simplicity and purity of taste +saved her from the mischiefs of many of the modern books. She had hardly +read a single novel; but her love of true poetry was a passion. + +In the mean time she had become the favorite seamstress of the town. Her +face, and voice, and smile would alone have won way for her; but in +addition to those, she was a most dexterous workwoman. If there had only +been twice as many days in a year, she would have been--glad. Her own +earnings in addition to her father's, and to their little income from the +money in the bank, made them comfortable; but with Draxy's expanded +intellectual life had come new desires: she longed to be taught. + +One day she said to her father, "Father dear, what was the name of that +canal contractor who borrowed money of you and never paid it?" + +Reuben looked astonished, but told her. + +"Is he alive yet?" + +"Oh, yes," said Reuben, "and he's rich now. There was a man here only last +week who said he'd built him a grand house this year." + +Draxy shut her hands nervously. "Father, I shall go and get that money." + +"You, child! Why it's two days' journey; and he'd never pay you a cent. I +tried times enough," replied Reuben. + +"But I think perhaps he would be more likely to pay it to a woman; he +would be ashamed," said Draxy, "especially if he is rich now, and I tell +him how much we need it." + +"No, no, child; I shouldn't hear to your going; no more would mother; and +it would be money wasted besides," said Reuben, with sternness unusual for +him. + +Draxy was silent. The next morning she went to the railway station and +ascertained exactly how much the journey would cost. She was disheartened +at the amount. It would be difficult for her to save so much out of a +whole year's earnings. That day Draxy's face was sad. She was sewing at +the house of one of her warmest friends. All her employers were her +friends, but this one was a woman of rare intelligence and culture, who +had loved Draxy ever since the day she had found her reading a little +volume of Wordsworth, one of the Free Library books, while she was eating +her dinner in the sewing-room. + +Draxy looked her gratitude, but said nothing. Not the least of her +charms, to the well-bred people who employed her, was her exquisite +reticence, her gentle and unconscious withdrawal into herself, in spite of +all familiarity with which she might be treated. + +A few days later Mrs. White sent a note to Draxy with the thirty dollars +inclosed, and this note to Mr. Miller:-- + +"MR. MILLER--DEAR SIR:-- + +"This money has been contributed, by Draxy's friends. You do not know how +much we all prize and esteem your daughter and wish to help her. I hope +you will be willing that she should use this money for the journey on +which her heart is so set. I really advise you as a friend to let her make +the effort to recover that money; I think she will get it. + +"Truly, your friend, + +"A. WHITE." + +This note brought tears of pride to Reuben's eyes. Draxy watched him +closely, and said:-- + +"Father dear, I should like to go to-morrow." + +Her preparations had already been made. She knew beforehand that her cause +was won; that her father's sense of justice would not let him interfere +with her use of the gift for the purpose for which it was made. + +It was on a clear cold morning in January that Draxy set out. It was the +second journey of her life, and she was alone for the first time; but she +felt no more fear than if she had been a sparrow winging its way through a +new field. The morning twilight was just fading away; both the east and +the west were clear and glorious; the east was red, and the west pale +blue; high in the west stood the full moon, golden yellow; below it a long +narrow bar of faint rose-color; below that, another bar of fainter purple; +then the low brown line of a long island; then an arm of the sea; the +water was gray and still; the ice rims stretched far out from the coast, +and swayed up and down at the edges, as the waves pulsed in and out. +Flocks of gulls were wheeling, soaring in the air, or lighting and +floating among the ice fragments, as cold and snowy as they. Draxy leaned +her head against the side of the car and looked out on the marvelous +beauty of the scene with eyes as filled with calm delight as if she had +all her life journeyed for pleasure, and had had nothing to do but feed +and develop her artistic sense. + +A company of travelling actors sat near her; a dozen tawdry women and +coarse men, whose loud voices and vulgar jests made Draxy shudder. She did +not know what they could be; she had never seen such behavior; the men +took out cards and began to play; the women leaned over, looked on, and +clapped the men on their shoulders. Draxy grew afraid, and the expression +of distress on her face attracted the conductor's notice. He touched her +on the shoulder. + +"I'll take you into the next car, Miss, if you don't like to be near these +people. They're only actors; there's no harm in them, but they're a rough +set." + +"Actors," said Draxy, as the kind conductor lifted her from one platform +to another. "I never thought they were like that. Do they play +Shakespeare?" + +"I don't know, I'm sure," said the conductor, puzzled enough: "but I dare +say they do." + +"Then I'm glad I never went to the theatre," thought Draxy, as she +settled herself in her new seat. For a few moments she could not banish +her disturbed and unhappy feeling. She could not stop fancying some of the +grand words which she most loved in Shakespeare, repeated by those +repulsive voices. + +But soon she turned her eyes to the kindling sky, and forgot all else. The +moon was slowly turning from gold to silver; then it would turn from +silver to white cloud, then to film, then vanish away. Draxy knew that day +and the sun would conquer. "Oh, if I only understood it," sighed Draxy. +Then she fell to thinking about the first chapter in Genesis; and while +she looked upon that paling moon, she dreamed of other moons which no +human eyes ever saw. Draxy was a poet; but as yet she had never dared to +show even to her father the little verses she had not been able to help +writing. "Oh, how dare I do this; how dare I?" she said to herself, as +alone in her little room, she wrote line after line. "But if nobody ever +knows, it can do no harm. It is strange I love it, though, when I am so +ashamed." + +This morning Draxy had that mysterious feeling as if all things were new, +which so often comes to poetic souls. It is at once the beauty and the +burden, the exhaustion and the redemption of their lives. No wonder that +even common men can sometimes see the transfiguration which often comes to +him before whose eyes death and resurrection are always following each +other, instant, perpetual, glorious. Draxy took out her little diary. +Folded very small, and hid in the pocket of it, was a short poem that she +had written the year before on a Tiarella plant which had blossomed in +her window. Mrs. White had brought it to her with some ferns and mosses +from the mountains; and all winter long it had flowered as if in summer. +Draxy wondered why this golden moon reminded her of the Tiarella. She did +not know the subtle underlying bonds in nature. These were the Tiarella +verses:-- + + My little Tiarella, + If thou art my own, + Tell me how thus in winter + Thy shining flowers have blown. + Art thou a fairy smuggler, + Defying law? + Didst take of last year's summer + More than summer saw? + Or hast thou stolen frost-flakes + Secretly at night? + Thy stamens tipped with silver, + Thy petals spotless white, + Are so like those which cover + My window-pane; + Wilt thou, like them, turn back at noon + To drops again? + + Oh, little Tiarella, + Thy silence speaks; + No more my foolish question + Thy secret seeks. + The sunshine on my window + Lies all the day. + How shouldst thou know that summer + Has passed away? + The frost-flake's icy silver + Is dew at noon for thee. + O winter sun! O winter frost, + Make summer dews for me! + +After reading these over several times, Draxy took out her pencil, and +very shyly screening herself from all observation, wrote on the other side +of the paper these lines: + + The Morning Moon. + + The gold moon turns to white; + The white moon fades to cloud; + It looks so like the gold moon's shroud, + It makes me think about the dead, + And hear the words I have heard read, + By graves for burial rite. + + I wonder now how many moons + In just such white have died; + I wonder how the stars divide + Among themselves their share of light; + And if there were great years of night + Before the earth saw noons. + + I wonder why each moon, each sun, + Which ever has been or shall be, + In this day's sun and moon I see; + I think perhaps all of the old + Is hidden in each new day's hold; + So the first day is not yet done! + + And then I think--our dust is spent + Before the balances are swung; + Shall we be loneliest among + God's living creatures? Shall we dare + To speak in this eternal air + The only discontent? + +Then she shut the book resolutely, and sat up straight with a little +laugh, saying to herself, "This is a pretty beginning for a business +journey!" + +Far better than you knew, sweet Draxy! The great successes of life are +never made by the men and women who have no poetic comprehension in their +souls. + +Draxy's first night was spent at the house of a brother of Captain +Melville's, to whom her uncle had given her a letter. All went smoothly, +and her courage rose. The next day at noon she was to change cars in one +of the great railroad centres; as she drew near the city she began to feel +uneasy. But her directions were explicit, and she stepped bravely out into +the dismal, dark, underground station, bought her ticket, and walked up +and down on the platform with her little valise in her hand, waiting for +the train. + +In a few moments it thundered in, enveloped in a blinding, stifling smoke. +The crowd of passengers poured out. "Twenty minutes for refreshments," was +shouted at each car, and in a moment more there was a clearing up of the +smoke, and a lull in the trampling of the crowd. Draxy touched the +conductor on the arm. + +"Is this the train I am to take, sir?" she said showing him her ticket. + +He glanced carelessly at it. "No, no," said he; "this is the express; +don't stop there. You must wait till the afternoon accommodation." + +"But what time will that train get there?" said Draxy, turning pale. + +"About ten o'clock, if it's on time," said the conductor, walking away. He +had not yet glanced at Draxy, but at her "Oh, what shall I do!" he turned +back; Draxy's face held him spellbound, as it had held many a man before. +He stepped near her, and taking the ticket from her hand, turned it over +and over irresolutely. "I wish I could stop there, Miss," he said. "Is it +any one who is sick?"--for Draxy's evident distress suggested but one +explanation. + +"Oh no," replied Draxy, trying in vain to make her voice steady. "But I am +all alone, and I know no one there, and I am afraid--it is so late at +night. My friends thought I should get there before dark." + +"What are you going for, if you don't know anybody?" said the conductor, +in a tone less sympathizing and respectful. He was a man more used to +thinking ill than well of people. + +Draxy colored. But her voice became very steady. + +"I am Reuben Miller's daughter, sir, and I am going there to get some +money which a bad man owed my father. We need the money, and there was no +one else to go for it." + +The conductor had never heard of Una, but the tone of the sentence, "I am +Reuben Miller's daughter," smote upon his heart, and made him as reverent +to the young girl as if she had been a saint. + +"I beg your pardon, Miss," he said involuntarily. + +Draxy looked at him with a bewildered expression, but made no reply. She +was too childlike to know that for the rough manner which had hurt her he +ought to ask such pardon. + +The conductor proceeded, still fingering the ticket:-- + +"I don't see how I can stop there. It's a great risk for me to take. If +there was only one of the Directors on board now." Draxy looked still more +puzzled. "No," he said, giving her back the ticket: "I can't do it no +how;" and he walked away. + +Draxy stood still in despair. In a few minutes he came back. He could not +account for its seeming to him such an utter impossibility to leave that +girl to go on her journey at night. + +"What shall you do?" said he. + +"I think my father would prefer that I should find some proper place to +spend the night here, and go on in the morning," replied Draxy; "do you +not think that would be better, sir?" she added, with an appealing, +confiding tone which made the conductor feel more like her knight than +ever. + +"Yes, I think so, and I will give you my card to take to the hotel where I +stay," said he, and he plunged into the crowd again. + +Draxy turned to a brakeman who had drawn near. + +"Has the conductor the right to stop the train if he chooses?" said she. + +"Why yes, Miss, he's right enough, if that's all. Of course he's got to +have power to stop the train any minute. But stoppin' jest to let off a +passenger, that's different." + +Draxy closed her lips a little more firmly, and became less pale. When the +conductor came back and gave her his card, with the name of the hotel on +it, she thanked him, took the card, but did not stir. He looked at her +earnestly, said "Good day, Miss," lifted his hat, and disappeared. Draxy +smiled. It yet wanted ten minutes of the time for the train to go. She +stood still, patiently biding her last chance. The first bell rang--the +steam was up--the crowd of passengers poured in; at the last minute but +one came the conductor. As he caught sight of Draxy's erect, dignified +figure, he started; before he could speak, Draxy said, "I waited, sir, for +I thought at the last minute a director might come, or you might change +your mind." + +The conductor laughed out, and seizing Draxy's valise, exclaimed, "By +George, I will stop the train for you, Miss Miller! Hang me if I don't; +jump in!" and in one minute more Draxy was whirling out of the dark +station into the broad sunlight, which dazzled her. + +When the conductor first--came through the car he saw that Draxy had been +crying. "Do her good," he thought to himself; "it always does do women +good; but I'll be bound she wouldn't ha' cried if I'd left her." + +Half an hour later he found her sound asleep, with her head slipping +uneasily about on the back of the seat. Half ashamed of himself, he +brought a heavy coat and put it under her head for a pillow. Seeing a +supercilious and disagreeable smile on the face of a fashionable young man +in the seat before Draxy, he said sharply: "She's come a long journey, and +was put under my care." + +"I guess that's true enough to pass muster," he chuckled to himself as he +walked away. "If ever I'd ha' believed a woman could make me stop this +train for her! An', by George, without askin' me to either!" + +Draxy slept on for hours. The winter twilight came earlier than usual, for +the sky was overcast. When she waked, the lamps were lighted, and the +conductor was bending over her, saying: "We're most there, Miss, and I +thought you'd better get steadied on your feet a little before you get +off, for I don't calculate to make a full stop." + +Draxy laughed like a little child, and put up both hands to her head as if +to make sure where she was. Then she followed the conductor to the door +and stood looking out into the dim light. + +The sharp signal for "down brakes," made experienced passengers spring to +their feet. Windows opened; heads were thrust out. What had happened to +this express train? The unaccustomed sound startled the village also. It +was an aristocratic little place, settled by wealthy men whose business +was in a neighboring city. At many a dinner-table surprised voices said: +"Why, what on earth is the down express stopping here for? Something must +have broken." + +"Some director or other to be put off," said others; "they have it all +their own way on the road." + +In the mean time Draxy Miller was walking slowly up the first street she +saw, wondering what she should do next. The conductor had almost lifted +her off the train; had shaken her hand, said "God bless you, Miss," and +the train was gone, before she could be sure he heard her thank him. "Oh, +why did I not thank him more before we stopped," thought Draxy. + +"I hope she'll get her money," thought the conductor. "I'd like to see the +man that wouldn't give her what she asked for." + +So the benediction and protection of good wishes, from strangers as well +as from friends, floated on the very air through which Draxy walked, all +unconscious of the invisible blessings. + +She walked a long way before she met any one of whom she liked to ask +direction. At last she saw an elderly man standing under a lamp-post, +reading a letter. Draxy studied his face, and then stopped quietly by his +side without speaking. He looked up. + +"I thought as soon as you had finished your letter, sir, I would ask you +to tell me where Stephen Potter lives." + +It was marvelous what an ineffable charm there was in the subtle mixture +of courtesy and simplicity in Draxy's manner. + +"I am going directly by his house myself, and will show you," replied the +old gentleman. "Pray let me take your bag, Miss." + +"Was it for you," he added, suddenly recollecting the strange stopping of +the express train, "was it for you the express train stopped just now?" + +"Yes, sir," said Draxy. "The conductor very kindly put me off." + +The old gentleman's curiosity was strongly roused, but he forbore asking +any further questions until he left Draxy on the steps of the house, when +he said: "are they expecting you?" + +"Oh no, sir," said Draxy quietly. "I do not know them." + +"Most extraordinary thing," muttered the old gentleman as he walked on. He +was a lawyer, and could not escape from the professional habit of looking +upon all uncommon incidents as clews. + +Draxy Miller's heart beat faster than usual as she was shown into Stephen +Potter's library. She had said to the servant simply, "Tell Mr. Potter +that Miss Miller would like to see him alone." + +The grandeur of the house, the richness of the furniture, would have +embarrassed her, except that it made her stern as she thought of her +father's poverty. "How little a sum it must be to this man," she thought. + +The name roused no associations in Stephen Potter; for years the thought +of Reuben Miller had not crossed his mind, and as he looked in the face of +the tall, beautiful girl who rose as he entered the room, he was utterly +confounded to hear her say,-- + +"I am Reuben Miller's daughter. I have come to see if you will pay me the +money you owe him. We are very poor, and need it more than you probably +can conceive." + +Stephen Potter was a bad man, but not a hard-hearted bad man. He had been +dishonest always; but it was the dishonesty of a weak and unscrupulous +nature, not without generosity. At that moment a sharp pang seized him. He +remembered the simple, upright, kindly face of Reuben Miller. He saw the +same look of simple uprightness, kindled by strength, in the beautiful +face of Reuben Miller's daughter. He did not know what to say. Draxy +waited in perfect composure and silence. It seemed to him hours before he +spoke. Then he said, in a miserable, shuffling way,-- + +"I suppose you think me a rich man." + +"I think you must be very rich," said Draxy, gently. + +Then, moved by some strange impulse in the presence of this pure, +unworldly girl, Stephen Potter suddenly spoke out, for the first time +since his boyhood, with absolute sincerity. + +"Miss Miller, you are your father over again. I reverenced your father. I +have wronged many men without caring, but it troubled me to wrong him. I +would give you that money to-night, if I had it, or could raise it. I am +not a rich man. I have not a dollar in the world. This house is not mine. +It may be sold over my head any day. I am deep in trouble, but not so deep +as I deserve to be," and he buried his face in his hands. + +Draxy believed him. And it was true. At that moment Stephen Potter was +really a ruined man, and many others were involved in the ruin which was +impending. + +Draxy rose, saying gravely, "I am very sorry for you, Mr. Potter. We +heard that you were rich, or I should not have come. We are very poor, but +we are not unhappy, as you are." + +"Stay, Miss Miller, sit down; I have a thing which might be of value to +your father;" and Mr. Potter opened his safe and took out a bundle of old +yellow papers. "Here is the title to a lot of land in the northern part of +New Hampshire. I took it on a debt years ago, and never thought it was +worth anything. Very likely it has run out, or the town has taken +possession of the land for the taxes. But I did think the other day, that +if worst came to worst, I might take my wife up there and try to farm it. +But I'd rather your father should have it if it's good for anything. I +took it for three thousand dollars, and it ought to be worth something. I +will have the legal transfer made in the morning, and give it to you +before you leave." + +This was not very intelligible to Draxy. The thin and tattered old paper +looked singularly worthless to her. But rising again, she said simply as +before, "I am very sorry for you, Mr. Potter; and I thank you for trying +to pay us! Will you let some one go and show me to the hotel where I ought +to sleep?" + +Stephen Potter was embarrassed. It cut him to the heart to send this +daughter of Reuben Miller's out of his house to pass the night. But he +feared Mrs. Potter very much. He hesitated only a moment. + +"No, Miss Miller. You must sleep here. I will have you shown to your room +at once. I do not ask you to see my wife. It would not be pleasant for you +to do so." And he rang the bell. When the servant came, he said,-- + +"William, have a fire kindled in the blue room at once; as soon as it is +done, come and let me know." + +Then he sat down near Draxy and asked many questions about her family, all +of which she answered with childlike candor. She felt a strange sympathy +for this miserable, stricken, wicked man. When she bade him good-night, +she said again, "I am very sorry for you, Mr. Potter. My father would be +glad if he could help you in any way." + +Stephen Potter went into the parlor where his wife sat, reading a novel. +She was a very silly, frivolous woman, and she cared nothing for her +husband, but when she saw his face she exclaimed, in terror, "What was it, +Stephen?" + +"Only Reuben Miller's daughter, come two days' journey after some money I +owe her father and cannot pay," said Stephen, bitterly. + +"Miller? Miller?" said Mrs. Potter, "one of those old canal debts?" + +"Yes," said Stephen. + +"Well, of course all those are outlawed long ago," said she. "I don't see +why you need worry about that; she can't touch you." + +Stephen looked scornfully at her. She had a worse heart than he. At that +moment Draxy's face and voice, "I am very sorry for you, Mr. Potter," +stood out in the very air before him. + +"I suppose not," said he, moodily; "I wish she could! But I shall give her +a deed of a piece of New Hampshire land which they may get some good of. +God knows I hope she may," and he left the room, turning back, however, to +add, "She is to sleep here to-night. I could not have her go to the hotel. +But you need take no trouble about her." + +"I should think not, Stephen Potter," exclaimed Mrs. Potter, sitting bolt +upright in her angry astonishment; "I never heard of such impudence as her +expecting"-- + +"She expected nothing. I obliged her to stay," interrupted Stephen, and +was gone. + +Mrs. Potter's first impulse was to go and order the girl out of her house. +But she thought better of it. She was often afraid of her husband at this +time; she dimly suspected that he was on the verge of ruin. So she sank +back into her chair, buried herself in her novel, and soon forgot the +interruption. + +Draxy's breakfast and dinner were carried to her room, and every +provision made for her comfort. Stephen Potter's servants obeyed him +always. No friend of the family could have been more scrupulously served +than was Draxy Miller. The man-servant carried her bag to the station, +touched his hat to her as she stepped on board the train, and returned to +the house to say in the kitchen: "Well, I don't care what she come for; +she was a real lady, fust to last, an' that's more than Mr. Potter's got +for a wife, I tell you." + +When Stephen Potter went into his library after bidding Draxy good-by, he +found on the table a small envelope addressed to him. It held this note:-- + +"MR. POTTER:--I would not take the paper [the word 'money' had been +scratched out and the word 'paper' substituted] for myself; but I think I +ought to for my father, because it was a true debt, and he is an old man +now, and not strong. + +"I am very sorry for you, Mr. Potter, and I hope you will become happy +again. DRAXY MILLER." + +Draxy had intended to write, "I hope you will be 'good' again," but her +heart failed her. "Perhaps he will understand that 'happy' means good," +she said, and so wrote the gentler phrase. Stephen Potter did understand; +and the feeble outreachings which, during the few miserable years more of +his life, he made towards uprightness, were partly the fruit of Draxy +Miller's words. + +Draxy's journey home was uneventful. She was sad and weary. The first +person she saw on entering the house was her father. He divined in an +instant that she had been unsuccessful. "Never mind, little daughter," he +said, gleefully, "I am not disappointed; I knew you would not get it, but +I thought the journey 'd be a good thing for you, may be." + +"But I have got something, father dear," said Draxy; "only I'm afraid it +is not worth much." + +"'Taint likely to be if Steve Potter gave it," said Reuben, as Draxy +handed him the paper. He laughed scornfully as soon as he looked at it. +"'Taint worth the paper it's writ on," said he, "and he knew it; if he +hain't looked the land up all these years, of course 'twas sold at vendue +long ago." + +Draxy turned hastily away. Up to this moment she had clung to a little +hope. + +When the family were all gathered together in the evening, and Draxy had +told the story of her adventures, Reuben and Captain Melville examined the +deed together. It was apparently a good clear title; it was of three +hundred acres of land. Reuben groaned, "Oh, how I should like to see land +by the acre once more." Draxy's face turned scarlet, and she locked and +unlocked her hands, but said nothing. "But it's no use thinking about it," +he went on; "this paper isn't worth a straw. Most likely there's more than +one man well under way on the land by this time." + +They looked the place up on an atlas. It was in the extreme northeast +corner of New Hampshire. A large part of the county was still marked +"ungranted," and the township in which this land lay was bounded on the +north by this uninhabited district. The name of the town was Clairvend. + +"What could it have been named for?" said Draxy. "How pleasantly it +sounds." + +"Most likely some Frenchman," said Captain Melville. "They always give +names that 're kind o' musical." + +"We might as well burn the deed up. It's nothing but a torment to think of +it a lyin' round with it's three hundred acres of land," said Reuben in an +impulsive tone, very rare for him, and prolonging the "three hundred" +with a scornful emphasis; and he sprang up to throw the paper into the +fire. + +"No, no, man," said Captain Melville; "don't be so hasty. No need of +burning things up in such a roomy house's this! Something may come of that +deed yet. Give it to Draxy; I'm sure she's earned it, if there's anything +to it. Put it away for your dowry, dear," and he snatched the paper from +Reuben's hands and tossed it into Draxy's lap. He did not believe what he +said, and the attempt at a joke brought but a faint smile to any face. The +paper fell on the floor, and Draxy let it lie there till she thought her +father was looking another way, when she picked it up and put it in her +pocket. + +For several days there were unusual silence and depression in the +household. They had really set far more hope than they knew on this +venture. It was not easy to take up the old routine and forget the air +castle. Draxy's friend, Mrs. White, was almost as disappointed as Draxy +herself. She had not thought of the chance of Mr. Potter's being really +unable to pay. She told her husband, who was a lawyer, the story of the +deed, and he said at once: "Of course it isn't worth a straw. If Potter +didn't pay the taxes, somebody else did, and the land's been sold long +ago." + +Mrs. White tried to comfort herself by engaging Draxy for one month's +steady sewing, and presenting her with a set of George Eliot's novels. And +Draxy tried steadily and bravely to forget her journey, and the name of +Clairvend. + +About this time she wrote a hymn, and showed it to her father. It was the +first thing of the kind she had ever let him see, and his surprise and +delight showed her that here was one way more in which she could brighten +his life. She had not thought, in her extreme humility, that by hiding her +verses she was depriving him of pleasure. After this she showed him all +she wrote, but the secret was kept religiously between them. + + Draxy's Hymn. + + I cannot think but God must know + About the thing I long for so; + I know He is so good, so kind, + I cannot think but He will find + Some way to help, some way to show + Me to the thing I long for so. + + I stretch my hand--it lies so near: + It looks so sweet, it looks so dear. + "Dear Lord," I pray, "Oh, let me know + If it is wrong to want it so?" + He only smiles--He does not speak: + My heart grows weaker and more weak, + With looking at the thing so dear, + Which lies so far, and yet so near. + + Now, Lord, I leave at thy loved feet + This thing which looks so near, so sweet; + I will not seek, I will not long-- + almost fear I have been wrong. + I'll go, and work the harder, Lord, + And wait till by some loud, clear word + Thou callest me to thy loved feet, + To take this thing so dear, so sweet. + + + +Part II. + + +As the spring drew near, a new anxiety began to press upon Draxy. Reuben +drooped. The sea-shore had never suited him. He pined at heart for the +inland air, the green fields, the fragrant woods. This yearning always was +strongest in the spring, when he saw the earth waking up around him; but +now the yearning became more than yearning. It was the home-sickness of +which men have died. Reuben said little, but Draxy divined all. She had +known it from the first, but had tried to hope that he could conquer it. + +Draxy spent many wakeful hours at night now. The deed of the New Hampshire +land lay in her upper bureau drawer, wrapped in an old handkerchief. She +read it over, and over, and over. She looked again and again at the faded +pink township on the old atlas. "Who knows," thought she, "but that land +was overlooked and forgotten? It is so near the 'ungranted lands,' which +must be wilderness, I suppose!" Slowly a dim purpose struggled in Draxy's +brain. It would do no harm to find out. But how? No more journeys must be +taken on uncertainties. At last, late one night, the inspiration came. +Who shall say that it is not an unseen power which sometimes suggests to +sorely tried human hearts the one possible escape? Draxy was in bed. She +rose, lighted her candle, and wrote two letters. Then she went back to bed +and slept peacefully. In the morning when she kissed her father good-by, +she looked wistfully in his face. She had never kept any secret from him +before, except the secret of her verses. "But he must not be disappointed +again," said Draxy; "and there is no real hope." + +She dropped her letter into the post-office and went to her work. + +The letter was addressed-- + +"To the Postmaster of Clairvend, + +"New Hampshire." + +It was a very short letter. + +"DEAR SIR:--I wish to ask some help from a minister in your town. If there +is more than one minister, will you please give my letter to the kindest +one. Yours truly, + +"DRAXY MILLER." + +The letter inclosed was addressed-- + +"To the Minister of Clairvend." + +This letter also was short. + +"DEAR SIR:--I have asked the Postmaster to give this letter to the kindest +minister in the town. + +"I am Reuben Miller's daughter. My father is very poor. He has not known +how to do as other men do to be rich. He is very good, sir. I think you +can hardly have known any one so good. Mr. Stephen Potter, a man who owed +him money, has given us a deed of land in your town. My father thinks the +deed is not good for anything. But I thought perhaps it might be; and I +would try to find out. My father is very sick, but I think he would get +well if he could come and live on a farm. I have written this letter in +the night, as soon as I thought about you; I mean as soon as I thought +that there must be a minister in Clairvend, and he would be willing to +help me. + +"I have not told my father, because I do not want him to be disappointed +again as he was about the deed. + +"I have copied for you the part of the deed which tells where the land is; +and I put in a stamp to pay for your letter to me, and if you will find +out for us if we can get this land, I shall be grateful to you all my +life. DRAXY MILLER." + +Inclosed was a slip of paper on which Draxy had copied with great care the +description of the boundaries of the land conveyed by the deed. It was all +that was necessary. The wisest lawyer, the shrewdest diplomatist in the +land never put forth a subtler weapon than this simple girl's simple +letter. + +It was on the morning of the 3d of April that Draxy dropped her letter in +the office. Three days later it was taken out of the mail-bag in the +post-office of Clairvend. The post-office was in the one store of the +village. Ten or a dozen men were lounging about curiosity about the odd +name was soon swallowed up in curiosity as to the contents of the letter. +The men of Clairvend had not been so stirred and roused by anything since +the fall election. Luckily for Draxy's poor little letter, there was but +one minister in the village, and the only strife which rose was as to who +should carry him the letter. Finally, two of the most persistent set out +with it, both declaring that they had business on that road, and had meant +all along to go in and see the Elder on their way home. + +Elder Kinney lived in a small cottage high up on a hill, a mile from the +post-office, and on a road very little travelled. As the men toiled up +this hill, they saw a tall figure coming rapidly towards them. + +"By thunder! there's the Elder now! That's too bad," said little Eben +Hill, the greatest gossip in the town. + +The Elder was walking at his most rapid rate; and Elder Kinney's most +rapid rate was said to be one with which horses did not easily keep up. +"No, thank you, friend, I haven't time to ride to-day," he often replied +to a parishioner who, jogging along with an old farm-horse, offered to +give him a lift on the road. + +"Elder! Elder! here's a letter we was a bringin' up to you!" called out +both of the men at once as he passed them like a flash, saying hurriedly +"Good evening! good evening!" and was many steps down the hill beyond them +before he could stop. + +"Oh, thank you!" he said, taking it hastily and dropping it into his +pocket. "Mrs. Williams is dying, they say; I cannot stop a minute," and +he was out of sight while the baffled parishioners stood confounded at +their ill-luck. + +"Now jest as like's not we shan't never know what was in that letter," +said. Eben Hill, disconsolately. "Ef we'd ha'gone in and set down while he +read it, we sh'd ha' had some chance." + +"But then he mightn't ha' read it while we was there," replied Joseph +Bailey resignedly; an' I expect It ain't none o' our business anyhow, one +way or t'other." + +"It's the queerest thing's ever happened in this town," persisted Eben; +"what's a girl--that is, if 'tis a girl--got to do writin' to a minister +she don't know? I don't believe it's any good she's after." + +"Wal, ef she is, she's come to the right place; and there's no knowin' but +that the Lord's guided her, Eben; for ef ever there was a man sent on this +airth to do the Lord's odd jobs o' looking arter folks, it's Elder +Kinney," said Joseph. + +"That's so," answered Eben in a dismal tone, "that's so; but he's dreadful +close-mouthed when he's a mind to be. You can't deny that!" + +"Wal, I dunno's I want ter deny it," said Joseph, who was beginning, in +Eben's company, to grow ashamed of curiosity; "I dunno's it's anything +agin him," and so the men parted. + +It was late at night when Elder Kinney went home from the bedside of the +dying woman. He had forgotten all about the letter. When he undressed, it +fell from his pocket, and lay on the floor. It was the first thing he saw +in the morning. "I declare!" said the Elder, and reaching out a long arm +from the bed, he picked it up. + +The bright winter sun was streaming in on the Elder's face as he read +Draxy's letter. He let it fall on the scarlet and white counterpane, and +lay thinking. The letter touched him unspeakably. Elder Kinney was no +common man; he had a sensitive organization and a magnetic power, which, +if he had had the advantages of education and position, would have made +him a distinguished preacher. As a man, he was tender, chivalrous, and +impulsive; and even the rough, cold, undemonstrative people among whom his +life had been spent had, without suspecting it, almost a romantic +affection for him. He had buried his young wife and her first-born +still-born child together in this little village twelve years before, and +had ever since lived in the same house from which they had been carried to +the grave-yard. "If you ever want any other man to preach to you," he said +to the people, "you've only to say so to the Conference. I don't want to +preach one sermon too many to you. But I shall live and die in this house; +I can't ever go away. I can get a good livin' at farmin'--good as +preachin', any day!" + +The sentence, "I am Reuben Miller's daughter," went to his heart as it +had gone to every man's heart who had heard it before from Draxy's +unconscious lips. But it sunk deeper in his heart than in any other. + +"If baby had lived she would have loved me like this perhaps," thought the +Elder, as he read the pathetic words over and over. Then he studied the +paragraph copied from the deed. Suddenly a thought flashed into his mind. +He knew something about this land. It must be--yes, it must be on a part +of this land that the sugar-camp lay from which he had been sent for, five +years before, to see a Frenchman who was lying very ill in the little log +sugar-house. The Elder racked his brains. Slowly it all came back to him. +He remembered that at the time some ill-will had been shown in the town +toward this Frenchman; that doubts had been expressed about his right to +the land; and that no one would go out into the clearing to help take care +of him. Occasionally, since that time, the Elder had seen the man hanging +about the town. He had an evil look; this was all the Elder could +remember. + +At breakfast he said to old Nancy, his housekeeper: "Nancy, did you ever +know anything about that Frenchman who had a sugar-camp out back of the +swamp road? I went to see him when he had the fever a few years ago." + +Nancy was an Indian woman with a little white blood in her veins. She +never forgot an injury. This Frenchman had once jeered at her from the +steps of the village store, and the village men had laughed. + +"Know anythin' about him? Yes, sir. He's a son o' Satan, an' I reckon he +stays to hum the great part o' the year, for he's never seen round here +except jest sugarin' time." + +The Elder laughed in spite of himself. Nancy's tongue was a member of +which he strongly disapproved; but his efforts to enforce charity and +propriety of speech upon her were sometimes rendered null and void by his +lack of control of his features. Nancy loved her master, but she had no +reverence in her composition, and nothing gave her such delight as to make +him laugh out against his will. She went on to say that the Frenchman came +every spring, bringing with him a gang of men, some twelve or more, "all +sons o' the same father, sir; you'd know 'em's far's you see 'em." They +took a large stock of provisions, went out into the maple clearing, and +lived there during the whole sugar season in rough log huts. "They do say +he's jest carried off a good thousand dollar's worth o' sugar this very +week," said Nancy. + +The Elder brought his hand down hard on the table and said "Whew!" This +was Elder Kinney's one ejaculation. Nancy seldom heard it, and she knew it +meant tremendous excitement. She grew eager, and lingered, hoping for +further questions; but the Elder wanted his next information from a more +accurate and trustworthy source than old Nancy. Immediately after +breakfast he set out for the village; soon he slackened his pace, and +began to reflect. It was necessary to act cautiously; he felt +instinctively sure that the Frenchman had not purchased the land. His +occupation of it had evidently been acquiesced in by the town for many +years; but the Elder was too well aware of the slack and unbusinesslike +way in which much of the town business was managed, to attach much weight +to this fact. He was perplexed--a rare thing for Elder Kinney. He stopped +and sat down on the top of a stone wall to think. In a few minutes he saw +the steaming heads of a pair of oxen coming up the hill. Slowly the cart +came in sight: it was loaded with sugar-buckets; and there, walking by +its side, was--yes! it was--the very Frenchman himself. + +Elder Kinney was too much astonished even to say "Whew!" + +"This begins to look like the Lord's own business," was the first +impulsive thought of his devout heart. "There's plainly something to be +done. That little Draxy's father shall get some o' the next year's sugar +out o' that camp, or my name isn't Seth Kinney;" and the Elder sprang from +the wall and walked briskly towards the Frenchman. As he drew near him, +and saw the forbidding look on the fellow's face, he suddenly abandoned +his first intention, which was to speak to him, and, merely bowing, passed +on down the hill. + +"He's a villain, if I know the look of one," said honest Elder. "I'll +think a little longer. I wonder where he stores his buckets. Now, there's +a chance," and Elder Kinney turned about and followed the plodding cart up +the hill again. It was a long pull and a tedious one; and for Elder Kinney +to keep behind oxen was a torture like being in a straight waistcoat. One +mile, two miles, three miles! the Elder half repented of his undertaking; +but like all wise and magnetic natures, he had great faith in his first +impulses, and he kept on. + +At last the cart turned into a lane on the right-hand side of the road. + +"Why, he's goin' to old Ike's," exclaimed the Elder. "Well, I can get at +all old Ike knows, and it's pretty apt to be all there is worth knowin'," +and Elder Kinney began, in his satisfaction, to whistle + + "Life is the time to serve the Lord," + +in notes as clear and loud as a bob-o'-link's. + +He walked on rapidly, and was very near overtaking the Frenchman, when a +new thought struck him. "Now, if he's uneasy about himself,--and if he +knows he ain't honest, of course he's uneasy,--he'll may be think I'm on +his track, and be off to his 'hum,' as Nancy calls it," and the Elder +chuckled at the memory, "an' I shouldn't have any chance of ketchin' him +here for another year." The Elder stood still again. Presently he jumped a +fence, and walking off to the left, climbed a hill, from the top of which +he could see old Ike's house. Here, in the edge of a spruce grove, he +walked back and forth, watching the proceedings below. "Seems little too +much like bein' a spy," thought the good man, "but I never felt a clearer +call in a thing in my life than I do in this little girl's letter," and he +fell to singing + + "Rise, my soul, and stretch thy wings," + +till the crows in the wood were frightened by the strange sound, and came +flying out and flapping their great wings above his head. + +The Frenchman drove into old Ike's yard. Ike came out of the house and +helped him unload the buckets, and carry them into an old corn-house which +stood behind the barn: As soon as the Frenchman had turned his oxen's head +down the lane, the Elder set out for the house, across the fields. Old Ike +was standing in the barn-door. When he saw the tall figure striding +through the pasture, he ran to let down the bars, and hurried up to the +Elder and grasped both his hands. Not in all Elder Kinney's parish was +there a single heart which beat so warmly for him as did the heart of this +poor lonely old man, who had lived by himself in this solitary valley ever +since the Elder came to Clairvend. + +"Oh, Elder, Elder," said he, "it does me reel good to see your face. Be ye +well, sir?" looking closely at him. + +"Yes, Ike, thank you, I'm always well," replied the Elder absently. He was +too absorbed in his errand to have precisely his usual manner, and it was +the slight change which Ike's affectionate instinct felt. But Ike saved +him all perplexity as to introducing the object of his visit by saying at +once, picking up one of the sugar-buckets which had rolled off to one +side, "I'm jest pilin' up Ganew's sugar-buckets for him. He pays me well +for storin' 'em, but I kind o' hate to have anythin' to do with him. Don't +you remember him, sir--him that was so awful bad with the fever down'n the +clearin' five years ago this month? You was down to see him, I know." + +"Yes, yes, I remember," said the Elder, with a manner so nonchalant that +he was frightened at his own diplomacy. "He was a bad fellow, I thought," + +Ike went on: "Wall, that's everybody's feelin' about him: and there ain't +no great thing to show for 't nuther. But they did say a while back that +he hadn't no reel right to the land. He turned up all of a sudden, and +paid up all there was owin' on the taxes, an' he's paid 'em regular ever +sence. But he hain't never showed how the notes come to be signed by some +other name. Yes, sir, the hull lot--it's nigh on ter three hundred acres, +such's 'tis; a good part on't 's swamp though, that ain't wuth a +copper--the hull lot went to a man down in York State, when the Iron +Company bust up here, and for two or three year the chap he jest sent up +his note for the taxes, and they've a drefful shiftless way o' lettin' +things go in this ere town, 's you know, sir; there wan't nobody that +knowed what a sugar orchard was a lyin' in there, or there'd been plenty +to grab for it; but I don't s'pose there's three men in the town'd ever +been over back o' Birch Hill till this Ganew he come and cut a road in, +and had his sugar-camp agoin' one spring, afore anybody knew what he was +arter. But he's paid all up reg'lar, and well he may, sez everybody, for +he can't get his sugar off, sly's he is, w'thout folks gettin' some kind +o' notion about it, an' they say's he's cleared thousands an' thousands o' +dollars. I expect they ain't overshot the mark nuther, for he's got six +hundred new buckets this spring, and Bill Sims, he's been in with 'em the +last two years, 'n he says there ain't no sugar orchard to compare, except +Squire White's over in Mill Creek, and he's often taken in three thousand +pounds off his'n." + +Ike sighed as he paused, breathless. "It's jest my luck, allers knockin' +about 'n them woods 's I am, not to have struck trail on that air orchard. +I could ha' bought it's well's not in the fust on't, if it had been put up +to vendue, 's't oughter ben, an' nobody knowin' what 'twas wuth." + +Elder Kinney was almost overcome by this unhoped-for corroboration of his +instincts; clearing up of his difficulties. His voice sounded hoarse in +his own ears as he replied:-- + +"Well, Ike, the longest lane has a turnin'. It's my belief that God +doesn't often let dishonest people prosper very long. We shall see what +becomes of Ganew. Where does he live? I'd like to see him." + +"Well, he don't live nowhere, 's near's anybody can find out. He's in the +camp with the gang about six weeks, sometimes eight; they say's it's a +kind of settlement down there, an' then he's off again till sugarin' comes +round; but he's dreadful sharp and partikler about the taxes, I tell you, +and he's given a good deal too, fust and last, to the town. Folks say he +wants to make 'em satisfied to let him alone. He's coming up here again +to-morrow with two more loads of buckets, sir: if 'twouldn't be too much +trouble for you to come here agin so soon," added poor Ike, grasping at +the chance of seeing the Elder again. + +"Well, I think perhaps I'll come," replied the Elder, ashamed again of the +readiness with which he found himself taking to tortuous methods, "if I'm +not too busy. What time will he be here?" + +"About this same time," said Ike. "He don't waste no time, mornin' nor +evenin'." + +The Elder went away soon, leaving poor Ike half unhappy. + +"He's got somethin' on his mind, thet's plain enough," thought the loving +old soul. "I wonder now ef it's a woman; I've allus thought the Elder +war'nt no sort of man to live alone all his days." + +"Dear, good little Draxy," thought the Elder, as he walked down the road. +"How shall I ever tell the child of this good luck, and how shall I manage +it all for the best for her?" + +Draxy's interests were in good hands. Before night Elder Kinney had +ascertained that there had never been any sale of this land since it was +sold to "the New York chap," and that Ganew's occupation of it was +illegal. After tea the Elder sat down and wrote two letters. + +The first one was to Draxy, and ran as follows:-- + +"MY DEAR CHILD:-- + +"I received your letter last night, and by the Lord's help I have found +out all about your father's land today. But I shall write to your father +about it, for you could not understand. + +"I wish the Lord had seen fit to give me just such a daughter as you are. + +"Your friend, + +"SETH KINNEY." + +The letter to Reuben was very long, giving in substance the facts which +have been told above, and concluding thus:-- + +"I feel a great call from the Lord to do all I can in this business, and I +hope you won't take it amiss if I make bold to decide what's best to be +done without consulting you. This fellow's got to be dealt with pretty +sharp, and I, being on the ground, can look after him better than you can. +But I'll guarantee that you'll have possession of that land before many +weeks." He then asked Reuben to have an exact copy of the deed made out +and forwarded to him; also any other papers which might throw light on the +transfer of the property, sixteen years back. "Not that I calculate +there'll be any trouble," he added; "we don't deal much in lawyer's tricks +up here, but it's just as well to be provided." + +The Elder went to the post-office before breakfast to post this letter. +The address did not escape the eyes of the postmaster. Before noon Eben +Hill knew that the Elder had written right off by the first mail to a +"Miss Draxy Miller." + +Meantime the Elder was sitting in the doorway of old Ike's barn waiting +for the Frenchman; ten o'clock came, eleven, twelve--he did not appear. + +The Elder's uneasiness grew great, but he talked on and on till poor Ike +was beside himself with delight. At last the distant creak of the wheels +was heard. "There he is," exclaimed Ike. "I'm thinking, sir, that it's a +kind o' providential dispensation thet's hendered him all this time; it's +done me such a sight o' good to hear you talk." + +The Elder smiled tenderly on poor old Ike. + +"Everything is a dispensation, Ike, accordin' to my way o' thinkin';" and +again he thought involuntarily of "little Draxy." + +Ganew assented with a half-surly civility to Elder Kinney's proposition to +ride down with him. + +"I've got a matter of business to talk over with you, Mr. Ganew,"--said +the Elder, "and I came up here on purpose to find you." + +The man turned his stolid black eyes full on the Elder, but made no reply. +It was indeed an evil face. The Elder was conscious that impulses which +he feared were unchristian were rising rapidly in his breast. He had +wished a few times before in his life that he was not a minister. He +wished it now. He would have liked to open his conversation with Ganew +after the manner of the world's people when they deal with thieves. And +again he thought involuntarily of "little Draxy," and her touching "we are +very poor." + +But when he spoke, he spoke gently and slowly. + +"I have some news for you which will be very disagreeable, Mr. Ganew." +Here the Frenchman started, with such a terrified, guilty, malignant look +on his face, that the Elder said to himself: "Good God, I believe the man +knows he's in danger of his life. Stealin's the least of his crimes, I'll +venture." + +He proceeded still more gently. "The owners of the land which you've been +using as your own in this town, have written to inquire about it, and have +put the business in my hands." + +Ganew was silent for a moment. Then trying to speak in an indignant tone, +he said,-- + +"Using as my own! I don't know what you mean, Mr. Parson. I have paid my +taxes all regular, and I've got the title-deeds of the land, every acre of +it. I can't help whoever's been writing to you about it; it's all my +land." + +But his face twitched with nervous excitement, and the fright and anger in +his serpent-like black eyes were ugly to see. + +"No, Mr. Ganew, it is not," said the Elder; "and you know it. Now you jest +listen to me; I know the whole truth about the matter, an' all the time +you spend fightin' off the truth'll be wasted, besides addin' lyin' to +havin' been a thief. The owners of the land'll be here, I expect before +long; but they've put it all in my hands, an' I can let you off if I +choose." + +"Let me off! What the devil do you mean?" said Ganew. + +"Why, you don't suppose there's goin' to be nothin' said about all the +thousands o' dollars' wuth of sugar you've carried off here, do"-- + +The next thing Elder Kinney knew he was struggling up to his feet in the +middle of the road; he was nearly blinded by blood trickling from a cut on +his forehead, and only saw dimly that Ganew was aiming another blow at him +with his heavy-handled ox-goad. + +But the Frenchman had reckoned without his host. Elder Kinney, even half +stunned, was more than a match for him. In a very few minutes Ganew was +lying in the bottom of his own ox-cart, with his hands securely tied +behind him with a bit of his own rope and the Elder was sitting calmly +down on a big boulder, wiping his forehead and recovering his breath; it +had been an ugly tussle, and the Elder was out of practice. + +Presently he rose, walked up to the cart, and leaning both his arms on the +wheel, looked down on his enemy. + +The Frenchman's murderous little black eyes rolled wildly, but he did not +struggle. He had felt in the first instant that he was but an infant in +the Elder's hands. + +"Ye poor, miserable, cowardly French,--sinner ye," said the Elder, +struggling for an epithet not unbecoming his cloth. "Did you think you was +goin' to get me out o' yer way's easy's that, 's I dare say ye have better +folks than me, before now!" + +Ganew muttered something in a tongue the Elder did not understand, but the +sound of it kindled his wrath anew. + +"Well, call on your Master, if that's what you're doin', 's much's you +like. He don't generally look out for anybody much who's so big a fool's +you must be, to think you was goin' to leave the minister o' this parish +dead in a ditch within stone's throw o' houses and nobody find you out," +and the Elder sat down again on the boulder. He felt very dizzy and faint; +and the blood still trickled steadily from his forehead. Ganew's face at +this moment was horrible. Rage at his own folly, hate of the Elder, and +terror which was uncontrollable, all contended on his livid features. + +At last he spoke. He begged abjectly to be set free. He offered to leave +the town at once and never return if the Elder would only let him go. + +"What an' give up all your land ye've got such a fine clear title to?" +said the Elder, sarcastically. "No; we'll give ye a title there won't be +no disputin' about to a good berth in Mill Creek jail for a spell!" + +At this the terror mastered every other emotion in the Frenchman's face. +What secret reason he had for it all, no one could know but himself; what +iniquitous schemes already waiting him in other places, what complications +of dangers attendant on his identification and detention. He begged, he +besought, in words so wildly imploring, so full of utter unconditional +surrender, that there could be no question as to their sincerity. The +Elder began, in spite of himself, to pity the wretch; he began also to ask +whether after all it would not be the part of policy to let him go. After +some minutes he said, "I can't say I put much confidence in ye yet, Mr. +Ganew; but I'm inclined to think it's the Lord's way o' smoothin' things +for some o' his children, to let you kind o' slink off," and somehow Elder +Kinney fancied he heard little Draxy say, "Oh, sir, let the poor man go." +There was something marvelous in his under-current of consciousness of +"little Draxy." + +He rose to his feet, picked up the heavy ox-goad, struck the near ox +sharply on the side, and walking on a little ahead of the team, said: +"I'll just take ye down a piece, Mr. Ganew, till we're in sight of Jim +Blair's, before I undo ye. I reckon the presence o' a few folks'll +strengthen your good resolutions." "An' I mistrust I ain't quite equal to +another handlin,'" thought the Elder to himself, as he noted how the sunny +road seemed to go up and down under his feet. He was really far more hurt +than he knew. + +When they were in sight of the house, he stopped the oxen, and leaning +again on the wheel, and looking down on Ganew, had one more talk with him, +at the end of which he began cautiously to untie the rope. He held the +ox-goad, however, firmly grasped in his right hand, and it was not without +a little tremor that he loosed the last knots. "Suppose the desperate +critter sh'd have a knife," thought the Elder. + +He need not have feared. A more crestfallen, subdued, wretched being than +Paul Ganew, as he crawled out of that cart, was never seen. He had his own +secret terror, and it had conquered him. "It's more'n me he's afraid of," +said the Elder to himself. "This is the Lord's doin', I reckon. Now, Mr. +Ganew, if you'll jest walk to the heads o' them oxen I'll thank ye," said +he: "an' 's I feel some tired, I'll jump into the cart; an' I'll save ye +carryin' the ox-goad," he added, as he climbed slowly in, still holding +the murderous weapon in his hand. Nothing could extinguish Seth Kinney's +sense of humor. + +"If we meet any folks," he proceeded, "we've only to say that I've had a +bad hurt, and that you're very kindly takin' me home." + +Ganew walked on like a man in a dream. He was nearly paralyzed with +terror. They met no human being, and very few words passed between them. +When the cart stopped at the Elder's door, Ganew stood still without +turning his head. The Elder went up to him and said, with real kindness of +tone, + +"Mr. Ganew, I expect you can't believe it, but I don't bear ye the least +ill-will." + +A faint flicker of something like grateful surprise passed over the hard +face, but no words came. + +"I hope the Lord'll bring ye to himself yet," persisted the good man, +"and forgive me for havin' had anything but pity for ye from the first +on't. Ye won't forget to send me a writing for Bill Sims that the rest of +the buckets in the camp belong to me?" + +Ganew nodded sullenly and went on, and the Elder walked slowly into the +house. + +After dark, a package was left at the Elder's door. It contained the +order on Bill Sims, and a letter. Some of the information in the letter +proved useful in clearing up the mystery of Ganew's having known of this +tract of land. He had been in Potter's employ, it seemed, and had had +access to his papers. What else the letter told no one ever knew; but the +Elder's face always had a horror-stricken look when the Frenchman's name +was mentioned, and when people sometimes wondered if he would ever be seen +again in Clairvend, the emphasis of the Elder's "Never! ye may rely on +that! Never!" had something solemn in it. + +In less than forty-eight hours the whole village knew the story. "The +sooner they know the whole on't the better, and the sooner they'll be +through talkin'," said the Elder, and nobody could have accused him of +being "close-mouthed" now. He even showed "the little gal's letter," as +the townspeople called it, to anybody who asked to see it. It hurt him to +do this, more than he could see reason for, but he felt a strong desire to +have the village heart all ready to welcome "little Draxy" and her father +when they should come. And the village heart was ready! Hardly a man, +woman, or child but knew her name and rejoiced in her good fortune. "Don't +yer remember my tellin' yer that night," said Josiah Bailey to Eben Hill, +"that she'd come to the right place for help when she come to Elder +Kinney?" + +When Draxy took Elder Kinney's letter out of the post-office, her hands +trembled. She walked rapidly away, and opened the letter as soon as she +reached a quiet street. The Elder had not made it so clear as he thought +he had, in his letter to the "child," which way matters had gone. Draxy +feared. Presently she thought, "He says 'your father's land.' That must +mean that we shall have it." But still she had sad misgivings. She almost +decided to read the inclosed letter which was unsealed; she could not have +her father disappointed again; but her keen sense of honor restrained her. + +Reuben had grown really feeble. There were many days now when he could not +work, but sat listlessly on a ledge of rocks near the house, and watched +the restless waves with a sense of misery as restless as they. When Draxy +reached home this night and found that her father was not in the house, +she ran over to the "Black Ledge." There she found him. She sat down by +his side, not knowing how to begin. Presently he said: "I wish I loved +this water, daughter,--it is very beautiful to look at; but I'm thinkin' +it's somethin' like human beings; they may be ever so handsome to look on, +but if you don't love 'em you don't, and that's the end on't, an' it don't +do ye no sort o' good to be where they are." + +"The woods and fields used to do you good, father," said Draxy. + +Reuben was astonished. Draxy was not wont to allude to the lost and +irrecoverable joys. But he only sighed. + +"Read this letter, father dear," said Draxy, hurriedly pushing it into his +hand; "I wrote up to a good old minister to find out, and here's his +answer." + +Reuben looked bewildered. Draxy's words did not make themselves clear. +But the first words of Elder Kinney's letter did. The paper fell from his +hands. + +"Oh, daughter! daughter! it can't be true! It can't!" and Reuben Miller +covered his eyes and cried. Draxy did not cry. One of the finest traits in +her nature was her instantaneous calmness of exterior under sudden and +intense excitement. + +"Yes; father, it is true. It must be. I have believed it from the first! +Oh do, do read the letter," said Draxy, and she forced the letter into his +hands again. + +"No, no, daughter. Read it to me. I can't see the words," replied Reuben, +still weeping. He was utterly unmanned. Then Draxy read the letter aloud +slowly, distinctly, calmly. Her voice did not tremble. She accepted it +all, absolutely, unconditionally, as she had accepted everything which had +ever happened to her. In Draxy's soul the past never confused the present; +her life went on from moment to moment, from step to step as naturally, as +clearly, as irrevocably as plants grow and flower, without hinderance, +without delay. This it was which had kept her serene, strong: this is true +health of nature. + +After a time Reuben grew calmer; Draxy's presence always helped him. They +sat on the rocks until twilight fell, and the great red lamp in the +light-house was lighted. + +"Father, dear," said Draxy, "I think there are light-houses all along our +lives, and God knows when it is time to light the lamps." + +Reuben clasped Draxy's hand tighter, and turned his eyes upon her with a +look whose love was almost reverent. + +Lights shone until morning from the windows of Captain Melville's house. +The little family had sat together until long after midnight, discussing +this new and wonderful turn in their affairs. Jane and Reuben were +bewildered and hardly happy yet; Draxy was alert, enthusiastic, ready as +usual; poor Captain Melville and his wife were in sore straits between +their joy in the Millers' good fortune, and their pain at the prospect of +the breaking up of the family. Their life together had been so beautiful, +so harmonious. + +"Oh, Draxy," said the Captain, "how shall we ever live without you?" + +"Oh! but you will come up there, uncle." said Draxy; "and we shall keep +you after we once get you." + +Captain Melville shook his head. He could never leave the sea. But full +well he knew that the very salt of it would have lost its best savor to +him when this sweet, fair girl had gone out from his house. + +The "good-nights" were sadly and solemnly said. "Oh!" thought Draxy, "does +joy always bring pain in this world?" and she fell asleep with tears on +her cheeks. + +Reuben sat up until near dawn, writing to Elder Kinney. He felt strangely +strong. He was half cured already by the upland air of the fields he had +never seen. The next morning Draxy said, "Do you not think, father, I +ought to write a note too, to thank the kind minister, or will you tell +him how grateful I am?" + +"Put a postscript to my letter, daughter. That will be better," said +Reuben. + +So Draxy wrote at the bottom of the last page:-- + +"DEAR MR. KINNEY:--I do not know any words to thank you in; and I think +you will like it better if I do not try. My father seems almost well +already. I am sure it was the Lord that helped you to find out about our +land. I hope we can come very soon. + +"Your grateful friend, + +"DRAXY MILLER." + +When the Elder read this second note of Draxy's, he said aloud, "God bless +her! she's one o' His chosen ones, that child is," and he fell to +wondering how she looked. He found himself picturing her as slight and +fair, with blue eyes, and hair of a pale yellow. "I don't believe she's +more than fourteen at most;" thought he, "she speaks so simple, jest like +a child; an' yet, she goes right to the pint, 's straight's any woman; +though I don't know, come to think on't, 's ever I knew a woman that could +go straight to a pint," reflected the Elder, whose patience was often +sorely tried by the wandering and garrulous female tongues in his parish. +The picture of "Little Draxy" grew strangely distinct in his mind; and his +heart yearned towards her with a yearning akin to that which years before +he had felt over the little silent form of the daughter whose eyes had +never looked into his. + +There was no trouble with the town in regard to the land. If there had +been any doubts, Elder Kinney's vigorous championship of the new claimant +would have put them down. But the sympathy of the entire community was +enlisted on Reuben's side. The whole story from first to last appealed to +every man's heart; and there was not a father in town that did not rest +his hand more lovingly on his little girl's head at night, when he sat in +his door-way talking over "them Millers," and telling about Draxy's +"writin' to th' Elder." + +Before the first of May all was settled. Elder Kinney had urged Mr. Miller +to come at once to his house, and make it a home until he could look about +and decide where he would establish himself. + +"I am a lonely man," he wrote; "I buried my wife and only child many years +ago, and have lived here ever since, with only an old Indian woman to take +care of me. I don't want to press you against your will; and there's a +house in the village that you can hire; but it will go against me sorely +not to have you in my house at the first. I want to see you, and to see +your little daughter; I can't help feeling as if the Lord had laid out for +us to be friends more than common." + +Reuben hesitated. The shyness of his nature made him shrink from other +men's houses. But Draxy inclined strongly to the Elder's proposition. "Oh, +think father, how lonely he must be. Suppose you hadn't mother nor me, +father dear!" and Draxy kissed her father's cheek; "and think how glad you +have been that you came to live with uncle," she added. + +Reuben looked lovingly at Captain Melville, but said nothing. + +"I'll tell ye what I think, Reuben;" said the Captain. "It's my belief +that you'n that parson'll take to each other. His letters sound like your +talk. Somehow, I've got an uncommon respect for that man, considerin' he's +a parson: it's my advice to ye, to take up with his offer." + +"And it seems no more than polite, father," persisted Draxy: "after he +has done so much for us. We need not say how long we will stay in his +house, you know." + +"Supposin' you go up first, Draxy," said Reuben, hesitatingly, "an' see +how 'tis. I always did hate Injuns." + +"Oh!" said Draxy; she had hardly observed the mention of that feature in +the Elder's household, and she laughed outright. Her ideas of the +ancestral savage were too vague to be very alarming. "If she has lived all +these years with this good old minister, she must be civilized and kind," +said Draxy. "I'm not afraid of her." + +"But I think it would be a great deal better for me to go first," she +continued, more and more impressed with the new idea. "Then I can be sure +beforehand about everything, and get things all in order for you; and +there'll be Mr. Kinney to take care of me; I feel as if he was a kind of +father to everybody." And Draxy in her turn began to wonder about the +Elder's appearance as he had wondered about hers. Her mental picture was +quite as unlike the truth as was his. She fancied him not unlike her +father, but much older, with a gentle face, and floating white hair. Dim +purposes of how she might make his lonely old age more cheerful, floated +before her mind. "It must be awful," thought she, "to live years and years +all alone with an Indian." + +When Elder Kinney read Reuben's letter, saying that they would send their +daughter up first to decide what would be best for them to do, he brought +his hand down hard on the table and said "Whew!" again. + +"Well, I do declare," thought he to himself, "I'm afraid they're dreadful +shiftless folks, to send that girl way up here, all alone by herself; and +how's such a child's that goin' to decide anything, I should like to +know?" + +He read again the letter Reuben had written. "My daughter is very young, +but we lean upon her as if she was older. She has helped us bear all our +misfortunes, and we have more confidence in her opinions than in our own +about everything." The Elder was displeased. + +"Lean on her;' I should think you did! Poor little girl! Well, I can look +out for her; that's one comfort." And the Elder wrote a short note to the +effect that he would meet their "child" at the railway station, which was +six miles from their town; that he would do all he could to help her; and +that he hoped soon to see Mr. and Mrs. Miller under his roof. + +The words of the note were most friendly, but there was an indefinable +difference between it and all the others, which Draxy felt without knowing +that she felt it, and her last words to her father as she bade him good-by +from the car window were: "I don't feel so sure as I did about our staying +with Mr. Kinney, father. You leave it all to me, do you, dear, even if I +decide to buy a house?" + +"Yes, daughter," said Reuben, heartily; "all! Nothing but good's ever come +yet of your way o' doin' things." + +"An' I don't in the least hanker after that Injun," he called out as the +cars began to move. Draxy laughed merrily. Reuben was a new man already. +They were very gay together, and felt wonderfully little fear for people +to whom life had been thus far so hard. + +There was not a misgiving in Draxy's heart as she set out again on a two +days' journey to an unknown place. "Oh how different from the day when I +started before," she thought as she looked out on the water sparkling +under the bright May sun. She spent the first night, as before, at the +house of Captain Melville's brother, and set out at eight the following +morning, to ride for ten hours steadily northward. The day was like a day +of June. The spring was opening early; already fruit-trees were white and +pink; banks were green, and birds were noisy. + +By noon mountains came in sight. Draxy was spellbound. "They are grander +than the sea," thought she, "and I never dreamed it; and they are loving, +too. I should like to rest my cheek on them." + +As she drew nearer and nearer, and saw some tops still white with snow, +her heart beat faster, and with a sudden pang almost of +conscience-stricken remorse, she exclaimed, "Oh, I shall never, never once +miss the sea!" + +Elder Kinney had borrowed Eben Hill's horse and wagon to drive over for +Draxy. He was at the station half an hour before the train was due. It had +been years since the steady currents of his life had been so disturbed and +hurried as they were by this little girl. + +"Looks like rain, Elder; I 'spect she'll have to go over with me arter +all," said George Thayer, the handsomest, best-natured stage-driver in the +whole State of New Hampshire. The Elder glanced anxiously at the sky. + +"No, I guess not, George," he replied. "'Twon't be anything more'n a +shower, an' I've got an umbrella and a buffalo-robe. I can keep her dry." + +Everybody at the station knew Draxy's story, and knew that the Elder had +come to meet her. When the train stopped, all eyes eagerly scanned the +passengers who stepped out on the platform. Two men, a boy, and three +women, one after the other; it was but a moment, and the train was off +again. + +"She hain't come," exclaimed voice after voice. The Elder said nothing; he +had stood a little apart from the crowd, watching for his ideal Draxy; as +soon as he saw that she was not there, he had fallen into a perplexed +reverie as to the possible causes of her detention. He was sorely anxious +about the child. "Jest's like's not, she never changed cars down at the +Junction," thought he, "an' 's half way to Montreal by this time," and +the Elder felt hot with resentment against Reuben Miller. + +Meantime, beautiful, dignified, and unconscious, Draxy stood on the +platform, quietly looking at face after face, seeking for the white hair +and gentle eyes of her trusted friend, the old minister. + +George Thayer, with the quick instinct of a stage-driver, was the first to +see that she was a stranger. + +"Where d'ye wish to go, ma'am?" said he, stepping towards her. + +"Thank you," said Draxy, "I expected some one to meet me," and she looked +uneasy; but reassured by the pleasant face, she went on: "the minister +from Clairvend village was to meet me here." + +George Thayer said, two hours afterward, in recounting his share of the +adventure, "I tell ye, boys, when she said that ye might ha' knocked me +down with a feather. I hain't never heard no other woman's voice that's +got jest the sound to't hern has; an' what with that, an' thinkin' how +beat the Elder'd be, an' wonderin' who in thunder she was anyhow, I don't +believe I opened my dum lips for a full minute; but she kind o' smiled, +and sez she, 'Do you know Mr. Kinney?' and that brought me to, and jest +then the Elder he come along, and so I introduced 'em." + +It was not exactly an introduction, however. The Elder, entirely absorbed +in conjecture as to poor little Draxy's probable whereabouts, stumbled on +the platform steps and nearly fell at her very feet, and was recalled to +himself only to be plunged into still greater confusion by George Thayer's +loud "Hallo! here he is. Here's Elder Kinney. Here's a lady askin' for +you, Elder!" + +Even yet it did not dawn upon Elder Kinney who this could be; his little +golden-haired girl was too vividly stamped on his brain; he looked gravely +into the face of this tall and fine-looking young woman and said kindly, +"Did you wish to see me, ma'am?" + +Draxy smiled. She began to understand. "I am afraid you did not expect to +see me so tall, sir," she said. "I am Reuben Miller's daughter,--Draxy," +she added, smiling again, but beginning in her turn to look confused. +Could this erect, vigorous man, with a half-stern look on his dark-bearded +face, be the right Mr. Kinney? her minister? It was a moment which neither +Elder Kinney nor Draxy ever forgot. The unsentimental but kindly George +gave the best description of it which could be given. + +"I vow, boys, I jest wish ye could ha' seen our Elder; an' yet, I dunno's +I do wish so, nuther. He stood a twistin' his hat, jest like any o' us, +an' he kind o' stammered, an' I don't believe neither on 'em knew a word +he said; an' her cheeks kep' gittin' redder'n redder, an' she looked's ef +she was ready to cry, and yet she couldn't keep from larfin, no how. Ye +see she thought he was an old man and he thought she was a little gal, an' +somehow't first they didn't either of 'em feel like nobody; but when I +passed 'em in the road, jest out to Four Corners, they was talkin' as easy +and nateral as could be; an' the Elder he looked some like himself, and +she--wall, boys, you jest wait till you see her; that's all I've got to +say. Ef she ain't a picter!" + +The drive to the village seemed long, however, to both Draxy and the +Elder. Their previous conceptions of each other had been too firmly rooted +to be thus overthrown without a great jar. The Elder felt Draxy's +simplicity and child-like truthfulness more and more with each word she +spoke; but her quiet dignity of manner was something to which he was +unused; to his inexperience she seemed almost a fine lady, in spite of her +sweet and guileless speech. Draxy, on the other hand, was a little +repelled by the Elder's whole appearance. He was a rougher man than she +had known; his pronunciation grated on her ear; and he looked so strong +and dark she felt a sort of fear of him. But the next morning, when Draxy +came down in her neat calico gown and white apron, the Elder's face +brightened. + +"Good morning, my child," he said. "You look as fresh as a pink." The +tears came into Draxy's eyes at the word "child," said as her father said +it. + +"I don't look so old then, this morning, do I, sir?" she asked in a +pleading tone which made the Elder laugh. He was more himself this +morning. All was well. Draxy sat down to breakfast with a lighter heart. + +When Draxy was sitting she looked very young. Her face was as childlike as +it was beautiful: and her attitudes were all singularly unconscious and +free. It was when she rose that her womanhood revealed itself to the +perpetual surprise of every one. As breakfast went on the Elder gradually +regained his old feeling about her; his nature was as simple, as +spontaneous as hers; he called her "child" again several times in the +course of the meal. But when at the end of it Draxy rose, tall, erect, +almost majestic in her fullness of stature, he felt again singularly +removed from her. + +"'Ud puzzle any man to say whether she's a child or a woman," said the +Elder to himself. But his face shone with pleasure as he walked by her +side out into the little front yard. Draxy was speechless with delight. In +the golden east stretched a long range of mountains, purple to the top; +down in the valley, a mile below the Elder's house, lay the village; a +little shining river ran side by side with its main street. To the north +were high hills, some dark green and wooded, some of brown pasture land. + +"Oh, sir," said Draxy, "is there any other spot in your mountain land so +beautiful as this?" + +"No, not one," said the Elder, "not one;" and he, too, looked out silently +on the scene. + +Presently Draxy exclaimed, with a sigh, "Oh, it makes me feel like crying +to think of my father's seeing this!" + +"Shall I tell you now about my father, sir?" she continued; "you ought to +know all about us, you have been so good." + +Then sitting on the low step of the door, while the Elder sat in an +arm-chair in the porch, Draxy told the story of her father's life, and, +unconsciously, of her own. More than once the Elder wiped his eyes; more +than once he rose and walked up and down before the door, gazing with +undefined but intense emotion at this woman telling her pathetic story +with the simple-hearted humility of a child. Draxy looked younger than +ever curled up in the doorway, with her hands lying idle on her white +apron. The Elder was on the point of stroking her hair. Suddenly she rose, +and said, "But I am taking too much of your time, sir; will you take me +now to see the house you spoke of, which we could hire?" She was again the +majestic young woman. The Elder was again thrown back, and puzzled. + +He tried to persuade her to give up all idea of hiring the house: to make +his house their home for the present. But she replied steadfastly, "I must +look at the house, sir, before I decide." They walked down into the +village together. Draxy was utterly unconscious of observation, but the +Elder knew only too well that every eye of Clairvend was at some +window-pane studying his companion's face and figure. All whom they met +stared so undisguisedly that, fearing Draxy would be annoyed, he said,-- + +"You mustn't mind the folks staring so at you. You see they've been +talkin' the matter all over about the land, an' your comin', for a month, +an' it's no more than natural they should want to know how you look;" and +he, too, looked admiringly at Draxy's face. + +"Oh," said Draxy (it was a new idea to her mind), "I never thought of +that." + +"I hope they are all glad we are coming, sir," added she, a moment after. + +"Oh yes, yes; they're glad enough. 'Taint often anything happens up here, +you know, and they've all thought everything of you since your first +letter came." + +Draxy colored. She had not dreamed of taking a whole village into her +confidence. But she was glad of the friendliness; and she met every +inquisitive gaze after this with an open, responsive look of such beaming +good-will that she made friends of all whom she saw. One or two stopped +and spoke; most were afraid to do so, unconsciously repelled, as the Elder +had been at first, by something in Draxy's dress and bearing which to +their extreme inexperience suggested the fine lady. Nothing could have +been plainer than Draxy's cheap gray gown; but her dress always had +character: the tiniest knot of ribbon at her throat assumed the look of a +decoration; and many a lady for whom she worked had envied her the +expression of her simple clothes. + +The house would not answer. Draxy shook her head as soon as she saw it, +and when the Elder told her that in the spring freshets the river washed +into the lower story, she turned instantly away, and said, "Let us go +home, sir; I must think of something else." + +At dinner Draxy was preoccupied, and anxious. The expression of perplexity +made her look older, but no less beautiful. Elder Kinney gazed at her +more steadily than he knew; and he did not call her "child" again. + +After dinner he took her over the house, explaining to her, at every turn, +how useless most of the rooms were to him. In truth, the house was +admirably adapted for two families, with the exception that there was but +one kitchen. "But that could be built on in a very few days, and would +cost very little," said the Elder eagerly. Already all the energies of his +strong nature were kindled by the resolve to keep Draxy under his roof. + +"I suppose it might be so built that it could be easily moved off and +added to our own house when we build for ourselves," said Draxy, +reflectively. + +"Oh, yes," said the Elder, "no sort o' trouble about that," and he glowed +with delight. He felt sure that his cause was gained. + +But he found Draxy very inflexible. There was but one arrangement of which +she would think for a moment. It was, that the Elder should let to them +one half of his house, and that the two families should be entirely +distinct. Until the new kitchen and out-buildings were finished, if the +Elder would consent to take them as boarders, they would live with him; +"otherwise, sir, I must find some one in the village who will take us," +said Draxy in a quiet tone, which Elder Kinney knew instinctively was not +to be argued with. It was a novel experience for the Elder in more ways +than one. He was used to having his parishioners, especially the women, +yield implicitly to his advice. This gentle-voiced girl, who said to him, +"Don't you think, sir?" in an appealing tone which made his blood quicken, +but who afterward, when she disagreed with him, stood her ground +immovably even against entreaties, was a phenomenon in his life. He began +to stand in awe of her. When some one said to him on the third day after +Draxy's arrival: "Well, Elder, I don't know what she'd ha' done without +you," he replied emphatically, "Done without me! You'll find out that all +Reuben Miller's daughter wants of anybody is jest to let her know exactly +how things lay. She ain't beholden to anybody for opinions. She's as +trustin' as a baby, while you're tellin' her facts, but I'd like to see +anybody make her change her mind about what's best to be done; and I +reckon she's generally right; what's more, she's one of the Lord's +favorites, an' He ain't above guidin' in small things no mor'n in great." + +No wonder Elder Kinney was astonished. In forty-eight hours Draxy had +rented one half of his house, made a contract with a carpenter for the +building of a kitchen and out-buildings on the north side of it, engaged +board at the Elder's table for her parents and herself for a month, and +hired Bill Sims to be her father's head man for one year. All the while +she seemed as modestly grateful to the Elder as if he had done it all for +her. On the afternoon of the second day she said to him:-- + +"Now, sir, what is the nearest place for me to buy our furniture?" + +"Why, ain't you goin' to use mine--at least's far's it goes?" said the +poor Elder. "I thought that was in the bargain." + +Draxy looked disturbed. "Oh, how careless of me," she said; "I am afraid +nothing was said about it. But we cannot do that; my father would dislike +it; and as we must have furniture for our new house, we might as well have +it now. I have seven hundred dollars with me, sir; father thought I might +decide to buy a house, and have to pay something down." + +"Please don't be angry with me," she added pleadingly, for the Elder +looked vexed. "You know if I am sure my father would prefer a thing, I +must do it." + +The Elder was disarmed. + +"Well, if you are set on buyin' furniture," he said, "I shouldn't wonder +if you'd have a chance to buy all you'd want cheap down at Squire +Williams's sale in Mill Creek. His wife died the night your first letter +came, an' I heard somebody say he was goin' to sell all out; an' they've +always been well-to-do, the Williamses, an' I reckon you'd fancy some o' +their things better'n anything you'd get at the stores." + +Already the Elder began to divine Draxy's tastes; to feel that she had +finer needs than the women he had known. In less than an hour he was at +the door with Eben Hill's horse and wagon to take Draxy to Squire +Williams's house. + +"Jest more o' the same Providence that follows that girl," thought he when +he saw Draxy's eyes fairly dilate with pleasure as he led her into the +old-fashioned parlor, where the furniture was piled and crowded ready for +the auction. + +"Oh, will they not cost too much for me, dear Mr. Kinney?" whispered +Draxy. + +"No, I guess not," he said, "there ain't much biddin' at these sort of +sales up here," and he mentally resolved that nothing Draxy wanted should +cost too much for her. + +The sale was to be the next day. Draxy made a careful list of the things +she would like to buy. The Elder was to come over and bid them off for +her. + +"Now you just go over 'em again," said the Elder, "and mark off what you'd +like to have if they didn't cost anything, because sometimes things go +for's good 's nothing, if nobody happens to want 'em." So Draxy made a +second list, and laughing a little girlish laugh as she handed the papers +to the Elder, pointed to the words "must haves" at the head of the first +list, and "would-like-to-haves" at the head of the second. The Elder put +them both in his breast-pocket, and he and Draxy drove home. + +The next night two great loads of Squire Williams's furniture were carried +into Elder Kinney's house. As article after article was taken in, Draxy +clapped her hands and almost screamed with delight; all her +"would-like-to-haves" were there. "Oh, the clock, the clock! Have I really +got that, too!" she exclaimed, and she turned to the Elder, half crying, +and said, "How shall I ever thank you, sir?" + +The Elder was uncomfortable. He was in a dilemma. He had not been able to +resist buying the clock for Draxy. He dared not tell her what he had paid +for it. "She'd never let me give her a cent's worth, I know that well +enough. It would be just like her to make me take it back," thought he. +Luckily Draxy was too absorbed in her new riches, all the next day, to ask +for her accounts, and by the next night the Elder had deliberately +resolved to make false returns on his papers as to the price of several +articles. "I'll tell her all about it one o' these days when she knows me +better," he comforted himself by thinking; "I never did think Ananias was +an out an' out liar. It couldn't be denied that all he did say was true!" +and the Elder resolutely and successfully tried to banish the subject from +his mind by thinking about Draxy. + +The furniture was, much of it, valuable old mahogany, dark in color and +quaint in shape. Draxy could hardly contain herself with delight, as she +saw the expression it gave to the rooms; it had cost so little that she +ventured to spend a small sum for muslin curtains, new papers, bright +chintz, and shelves here and there. When all was done, she herself was +astonished at the result. The little home was truly lovely. "Oh, sir, my +father has never had a pretty home like this in all his life," said she to +the Elder, who stood in the doorway of the sitting-room looking with +half-pained wonder at the transformation. He felt, rather than saw, how +lovely the rooms looked; he could not help being glad to see Draxy so +glad; but he felt farther removed from her by this power of hers to create +what he could but dimly comprehend. Already he unconsciously weighed all +things in new balances; already he began to have a strange sense of +humility in the presence of this woman. + +Ten days from the day that Draxy arrived in Clairvend she drove over with +the Elder to meet her father and mother at the station. She had arranged +that the Elder should carry her father back in the wagon; she and her +mother would go in the stage. She counted much on the long, pleasant drive +through the woods as an opening to the acquaintance between her father and +the Elder. She had been too busy to write any but the briefest letters +home, and had said very little about him. To her last note she had added a +post-script,-- + +"I am sure you will like Mr. Kinney, father. He is very kind and very +good. But he is not old as we thought." + +To the Elder she said, as they drove over, "I think you will love my +father, sir, and I know you will do him good. But he will not say much at +first; you will have to talk," and Draxy smiled. The Elder and she +understood each other very well. + +"I don't think there's much danger o' my not lovin' him," replied the +Elder; "by all you tell he must be uncommon lovable." Draxy turned on him +such a beaming smile that he could not help adding, "an' I should think +his bein' your father was enough." + +Draxy looked seriously in his face, and said "Oh, Mr. Kinney, I'm not +anything by the side of father." + +The Elder's eyes twinkled. + +It was a silent though joyful group which gathered around the Elder's +tea-table that night. + +Reuben and Jane were tired, bewildered, but their eyes rested on Draxy +with perpetual smiles. Draxy also smiled more than she spoke. The Elder +felt himself half out of place and wished to go away, but Draxy looked +grieved at his proposal to do so, and he stayed. But nobody could eat, and +old Nancy, who had spent her utmost resources on the supper, was cruelly +disappointed. She bustled in and out on various pretenses, but at last +could keep silence no longer. "Seems to me ye've dreadful slim appetites +for folks that's been travellin' all day. Perhaps ye don't like yer +victuals," she said, glancing sharply at Reuben. + +"Oh yes, madame, yes," said poor Reuben, nervously, "everything is very +nice; much nicer than I am used to." + +Draxy laughed aloud. "My father never eats when he is tired, Nancy. You'll +see how he'll eat to-morrow." + +After Nancy had left the room, Reuben wiped his forehead, and Draxy +laughed again in spite of herself. Old Nancy had been so kind and willing +in helping her, she had grown fond of her, and had quite forgotten her +father's dread. When Reuben bade Draxy good-night, he said under his +breath, "I like your Elder very much, daughter; but I don't know how I'm +ever goin' to stand livin' with that Injun." + +"My Elder," said Draxy to herself as she went up-stairs, "he's everybody's +Elder--and the Lord's most of all I think," and she went to sleep thinking +of the solemn words which she had heard him speak on the last Sunday. + +It was strange how soon the life of the new household adjusted itself; how +full the days were, and how swift. The summer was close upon them; +Reuben's old farmer instincts and habits revived in full force. Bill Sims +proved a most efficient helper; he had been Draxy's sworn knight, from the +moment of her first interview with him. There would be work on Reuben's +farm for many hands, but Reuben was in no haste. The sugar camp assured +him of an income which was wealth to their simple needs; and he wished to +act advisedly and cautiously in undertaking new enterprises. All the land +was wild land--much of it deep swamps. The maple orchard was the only part +immediately profitable. The village people came at once to see them. +Everybody was touched by Jane's worn face and gentle ways; her silence did +not repel them; everybody liked Draxy too, and admired her, but many were +a little afraid of her. The village men had said that she was "the +smartest woman that had ever set foot in Clairvend village," and human +nature is human nature. It would take a great deal of Draxy's kindly +good-will to make her sister women forgive her for being cleverer than +they. Draxy and Reuben were inseparable. They drove; they walked; even +into the swamps courageous Draxy penetrated with her father and Bill Sims, +as they went about surveying the land; and it was Draxy's keen instinct +which in many cases suggested where improvements could be made. + +In the mean time Elder Kinney's existence had become transformed. He dared +not to admit himself how much it meant, this new delight in simply being +alive, for back of his delight lurked a desperate fear; he dared not move. +Day after day he spent more and more time in the company of Draxy and her +father. Reuben and he were fast becoming close friends. Reuben's gentle, +trustful nature found repose in the Elder's firm, sturdy downrightness, +much as it had in Captain Melville's; and the Elder would have loved +Reuben if he had not been Draxy's father. But to Draxy he seemed to draw +no nearer. She was the same frank, affectionate, merry, puzzling +woman-child that she had been at first; yet as he saw more and more how +much she knew of books which he did not know, of people, and of affairs of +which he had never heard--how fluently, graciously, and even wisely she +could talk, he felt himself cut off from her. Her sweet, low tones and +distinct articulation tortured him while they fascinated him; they seemed +to set her so apart. In fact, each separate charm she had, produced in the +poor Elder's humble heart a mixture of delight and pain which could not be +analyzed and could not long be borne. + +He exaggerated all his own defects of manner, and speech, and education; +he felt uncomfortable in Draxy's presence, in spite of all the +affectionate reverence with which she treated him; he said to himself +fifty times a day, "It's only my bein' a minister that makes her think +anythin' o' me." The Elder was fast growing wretched. + +But Draxy was happy. She was still in some ways more child than woman. Her +peculiar training had left her imagination singularly free from fancies +concerning love and marriage. The Elder was a central interest in her +life; she would have said instantly and cordially that she loved him +dearly. She saw him many times every day; she knew all his outgoings and +incomings; she knew the first step of his foot on the threshold; she felt +that he belonged to them, and they to him. Yet as a woman thinks of the +man whose wife she longs to be, Draxy had never once thought of Elder +Kinney. + +But when the new kitchen was finished, and the Millers entered on their +separate housekeeping, a change came. As Reuben and Jane and Draxy sat +down for the first time alone together at their tea-table, Reuben said +cheerily:-- + +"Now this seems like old times. This is nice." + +"Yes," replied Jane. Draxy did not speak. Reuben looked at her. She +colored suddenly, deeply, and said with desperate honesty,-- + +"Yes, father; but I can't help thinking how lonely Mr. Kinney must be." + +"Well, I declare," said Reuben, conscience-stricken; "I suppose he must +be; I hate to think on't. But we'll have him in here's often's he'll +come." + +Just the other side of the narrow entry sat the Elder, leaning both his +elbows on the table, and looking over at the vacant place where the night +before, and for thirty nights before, Draxy had sat. It was more than he +could bear. He sprang up, and leaving his supper untasted, walked out of +the house. + +Draxy heard him go. Draxy had passed in that moment into a new world. She +divined all. + +"He hasn't eaten any supper," thought she; and she listened intently to +hear him come in again. The clock struck ten, he had not returned! Draxy +went to bed, but she could not sleep. The little house was still; the warm +white moonlight lay like summer snow all over it; Draxy looked out of her +window; the Elder was slowly coming up the hill; Draxy knelt down like a +little child and said, "God bless him," and crept back to bed. When she +heard him shut his bedroom door she went to sleep. + +The next day Draxy's eyes did not look as they had looked the day before. +When Elder Kinney first saw her, she was coming down stairs. He was +standing at the foot of the staircase and waited to say "Good morning." +As he looked up at her, he started back and exclaimed: "Why, Draxy, what's +the matter?" + +"Nothing is the matter, sir," said Draxy, as she stepped from the last +stair, and standing close in front of him, lifted the new, sweet, softened +eyes up to his. Draxy was as simple and sincere in this as in all other +emotions and acts of her life. She had no coquetry in her nature. She had +no distinct thought either of a new relation between herself and the +Elder. She simply felt a new oneness with him; and she could not have +understood the suggestion of concealment. If Elder Kinney had been a man +of the world, he would have folded Draxy to his heart that instant. If he +had been even a shade less humble and self-disrustful, he would have done +it, as it was. But he never dreamed that he might. He folded his empty +arms very tight over his faithful, aching, foolish heart, and tried to say +calmly and naturally, "Are you sure? Seems to me you don't look quite +well." + +But after that morning he never felt wholly without hope. He could not +tell precisely why. Draxy did not seek him, did not avoid him. She was +perhaps a little less merry; said fewer words; but she looked glad, and +more than glad. "I think it's the eyes," he said to himself again and +again, as he tried to analyze the new look on Draxy's face which gave him +hope. These were sweet days. There are subtle joys for lovers who dwell +side by side in one house, together and yet apart. The very air is loaded +with significance to them--the door, the window, the stairway. Always +there is hope of meeting; always there is consciousness of presence; +everywhere a mysterious sense that the loved one has passed by. More than +once Seth Kinney knelt and laid his cheek on the stairs which Draxy's feet +had just ascended! Often sweet, guileless Draxy thought, as she went up +and down, "Ah, the dear feet that go over these stairs." One day the +Elder, as he passed by the wall of the room where he knew Draxy was +sitting, brushed his great hand and arm against it so heavily that she +started, thinking he had stumbled. But as the firm step went on, without +pausing, she smiled, she hardly knew why. The next time he did it she laid +down her work, locked and unlocked her hands, and looking toward the door, +whispered under her breath, "Dear hands!" Finally this became almost a +habit of his; he did not at first think Draxy would hear it; but he felt, +as he afterwards told her, "like a great affectionate dog going by her +door, and that was all he could do. He would have liked to lie down on the +rug." + +These were very sweet days; spite of his misgivings, Elder Kinney was +happy; and Draxy, in spite of her unconsciousness, seemed to herself to be +living in a blissful dream. But a sweeter day came. + +One Saturday evening Reuben said to Draxy,-- + +"Daughter, I've done somethin' I'm afraid'll trouble you. I've told th' +Elder about your verses, an' showed him the hymn you wrote when you was +tryin' to give it all up about the land." + +"Oh, father, how could you," gasped Draxy; and she looked as if she would +cry. + +Reuben could not tell just how it happened. It seemed to have come out +before he knew it, and after it had, he could not help showing the hymn. + +Draxy was very seriously disturbed; but she tried to conceal it from her +father, and the subject was dropped. + +The next morning Elder Kinney preached--it seemed to his people--as he +never preached before. His subject was self-renunciation, and he spoke as +one who saw the waving palms of the martyrs and heard their shouts of joy. +There were few dry eyes in the little meeting-house. Tears rolled down +Draxy's face. But she looked up suddenly, on hearing Elder Kinney say, in +an unsteady voice,-- + +"My bretherin, I'm goin' to read to you now a hymn which comes nigher to +expressin' my idea of the kind of resignation God likes than any hymn +that's ever been written or printed in any hymn-book;" and then he +began:-- + +"I cannot think but God must know," etc. + +Draxy's first feeling was one of resentment; but it was a very short-lived +one. The earnest tone, the solemn stillness of the wondering people, the +peaceful summer air floating in at the open windows,--all lifted her out +of herself, and made her glad to hear her own hymn read by the man she +loved, for the worship of God. But her surprise was still greater when the +choir began to sing the lines to a quaint old Methodist tune. They had +been provided with written copies of the hymn, and had practiced it so +faithfully that they sang it well. Draxy broke down and sobbed for a few +moments, so that Elder Kinney was on the point of forgetting everything, +and springing to her side. He had not supposed that anything in the world +could so overthrow Draxy's composure. He did not know how much less +strong her nerves were now than they had been two months before. + +After church, Draxy walked home alone very rapidly. She did not wish to +see any one. She was glad that her father and mother had not been there. +She could not understand the tumult of her feelings. + +At twilight, she stole out of the back door of the house, and walked down +to a little brook which ran near by. As she stood leaning against a young +maple tree she heard steps, and without looking up, knew that the Elder +was coming. She did not move nor speak. He waited some minutes in silence. +Then he said "Oh, Draxy! I never once thought o' painin' you! I thought +you'd like it. Hymns are made to be sung, dear; and that one o' yours is +so beautiful!" He spoke as gently as her father might, and in a voice she +hardly knew. Draxy made no reply. The Elder had never seen her like this. +Her lips quivered, and he saw tears in her eyes. + +"Oh, Draxy, do look up at me--just once! You don't know how hard it is for +a man to think he's hurt anybody--like you!" stammered the poor Elder, +ending his sentence quite differently from what he had intended. + +Draxy smiled through her tears, and looking up, said: "But I am not hurt, +Mr. Kinney; I don't know what I am crying for, sir;" and her eyes fell +again. + +The Elder looked down upon her in silence. Moments passed. "Oh, if I could +make her look up at me again!" he thought. His unspoken wish stirred her +veins; slowly she lifted her eyes; they were calm now, and unutterably +loving. They were more than the Elder could bear." + +"Oh, Draxy, Draxy!" exclaimed he, stretching out both his arms towards +her. + + "My heart grows weaker and more weak + With looking on the thing so dear + Which lies so far, and yet so near!" + +Slowly, very slowly, like a little child learning to walk, with her eyes +full of tears, but her mouth smiling, Draxy moved towards the Elder. He +did not stir, partly because he could not, but partly because he would not +lose one instant of the deliciousness of seeing her, feeling her come. + +When they went back to the house, Reuben was sitting in the porch. The +Elder took his hand and said: + +"Mr. Miller, I meant to have asked you first; but God didn't give me +time." + +Reuben smiled. + +"You've's good's asked me a good while back, Elder; an' I take it you +haint ever had much doubt what my answer'd be." Then, as Draxy knelt down +by his chair and laid her head on his shoulder, he added more solemnly,-- + +"But I'd jest like once to say to ye, Elder, that if ever I get to heaven, +I wouldn't ask anythin' more o' the Lord than to let me see Draxy 'n' you +a comin' in together, an' lookin' as you looked jest now when ye come in't +that gate!" + + + + +The Elder's Wife. + +Sequel to "Draxy Miller's Dowry." + + + +Part I. + + +Draxy and the Elder were married in the little village church, on the +first Sunday in September. + +"O Draxy! let it be on a communion Sunday," the Elder had said, with an +expression on his face which Draxy could not quite fathom; "I can't tell +you what it 'ud be to me to promise myself over again to the blessed +Saviour, the same hour I promise to you, darling, I'm so afraid of loving +Him less. I don't see how I can remember anything about heaven, after I've +got you, Draxy," and tears stood in the Elder's eyes. + +Draxy looked at him wonderingly and with a little pain in her face. To her +serene nature, heaven and earth, this life and all the others which may +follow it, had so long seemed one--love and happiness and duty had become +so blended in one sweet atmosphere of living in daily nearness to God, +that she could not comprehend the Elder's words. + +"Why, Mr. Kinney, it's all Christ," she said, slowly and hesitatingly, +slipping her hand into his, and looking up at him so lovingly that his +face flushed, and he threw his arms around her, and only felt a thousand +times more that heaven had come to mean but one thing to him. + +"Darling," he whispered, "would you feel so if I were to die and leave you +alone?" + +"Yes, I think so," said Draxy, still more slowly, and turning very pale. +"You never can really leave me, and no human being can be really alone; it +would still be all Christ, and it would be living His life and God's +still;" but tears rolled down her cheeks, and she began to sob. + +"Oh, forgive me, Draxy," exclaimed the Elder, wrung to the heart by the +sight of her grief. "I'm nothing but a great brute to say that to you just +now; but, Draxy, you don't know much about a man's heart yet; you're such +a saint yourself, you can't understand how it makes a man feel as if this +earth was enough, and he didn't want any heaven, when he loves a woman as +I love you," and the Elder threw himself on the ground at Draxy's feet, +and laid his face down reverently on the hem of her gown. There were fiery +depths in this man's nature of which he had never dreamed, until this +fair, sweet, strong womanhood crossed his path. His love of Draxy kindled +and transformed his whole consciousness of himself and of life; it was no +wonder that he felt terrors; that he asked himself many times a day what +had become of the simple-minded, earnest, contented worker he used to be. +He was full of vague and restless yearnings; he longed to do, to be, to +become, he knew not what, but something that should be more of kin to this +beautiful nature he worshipped--something that should give her great +joy--something in which she could feel great pride. + +"It ain't right, I know it ain't right, to feel so about any mortal," he +would say to himself; "that's the way I used to feel about Jesus. I wanted +to do all for Him, and now I want to do all for Draxy," and the great, +tender, perplexed heart was sorely afraid of its new bliss. + +They were sitting in the maple grove behind the house. In the tree under +which they sat was a yellow-hammer's nest. The two birds had been +fluttering back and forth in the branches for some time. Suddenly they +both spread their wings and flew swiftly away in opposite directions. +Draxy looked up, smiling through her tears, and, pointing to the fast +fading specks in the distant air, said,-- + +"It would be like that. They are both sent on errands. They won't see each +other again till the errands are done." + +The Elder looked into her illumined face, and, sighing, said: "I can't +help prayin' that the Lord'll have errands for us that we can do together +as long's we live, Draxy." + +"Yes, dear," said Draxy, "I pray for that too," and then they were silent +for some minutes. Draxy spoke first. "But Mr. Kinney, I never heard of +anybody's being married on Sunday--did you?" + +"No," said the Elder, "I never did, but I've always thought it was the +only day a man ought to be married on; I mean the most beautiful, the +sweetest day." + +"Yes," replied Draxy, a solemn and tender light spreading over her whole +face, "it certainly is. I wonder why nobody has ever thought so before. +But perhaps many people have," she added with a merrier smile; "we don't +know everybody." + +Presently she looked up anxiously and said: + +"But do you think the people would like it? Wouldn't they think it very +strange?" + +The Elder hesitated. He, too, had thought of this. + +"Well, I tell you, Draxy, it's just this way: I've tried more than once to +get some of them to come and be married on a Sunday in church, and they +wouldn't, just because they never heard of it before; and I'd like to have +them see that I was in true earnest about it. And they like you so well, +Draxy, and you know they do all love me a great deal more'n I deserve, and +I can't help believing it will do them good all their lives by making them +think more how solemn a thing a marriage ought to be, if they take it as I +think they will; and I do think I know them well enough to be pretty +sure." + +So it was settled that the marriage should take place after the morning +sermon, immediately before the communion service. When Reuben was told of +this, his face expressed such absolute amazement that Draxy laughed +outright, in spite of the deep solemnity of her feeling in regard to it. + +"Why, father," she said, "you couldn't look more surprised if I had told +you I was not to be married at all." + +"But Draxy, Draxy," Reuben gasped, "who ever heard of such a thing? What +will folks say?" + +"I don't know that anybody ever heard of such a thing, father dear," +answered Draxy, "but I am not afraid of what the people will say. They +love Mr. Kinney, and he has always told them that Sunday was the day to be +married on. I shouldn't wonder if every young man and young woman in the +parish looked on it in a new and much holier light after this. I know I +began to as soon as the Elder talked about it, and it wouldn't seem right +to me now to be married on any other day," and Draxy stooped and kissed +her father's forehead very tenderly. There was a tenderness in Draxy's +manner now towards every one which can hardly be described in words. It +had a mixture of humility and of gracious bestowal in it, of entreaty and +of benediction, which were ineffably beautiful and winning. It is ever so +when a woman, who is as strong as she is sweet, comes into the fullness of +her womanhood's estate of love. Her joy overflows on all; currents of +infinite compassion set towards those who must miss that by which she is +thrilled; her incredulity of her own bliss is forever questioning humbly; +she feels herself forever in presence of her lover, at once rich and free +and a queen, and poor and chained and a vassal. So her largess is +perpetual, involuntary, unconscious, and her appeal is tender, wistful, +beseeching. In Draxy's large nature,--her pure, steadfast, loving soul, +quickened and exalted by the swift currents of an exquisitely attuned and +absolutely healthful body,--this new life of love and passion wrought a +change which was vivid and palpable to the commonest eyes. Men and women +upon whom she smiled, in passing, felt themselves lifted and drawn, they +knew not how. A sentiment of love, which had almost reverence in it, grew +up towards her in the hearts of the people. A certain touch of sadness, of +misgiving, mingled with it. + +"I'm afraid she ain't long for this world; she's got such a look o' heaven +in her face," was said more than once, in grieving tones, when the Elder's +approaching marriage was talked of. But old Ike was farther sighted, in +his simplicity, than the rest. "'Tain't that," he said, "that woman's got +in her face. It's the kind o' heaven that God sends down to stay'n this +world, to help make us fit for the next. Shouldn't wonder ef she outlived +th' Elder a long day," and Ike wiped his old eyes slyly with the back of +his hand. + +The day of the marriage was one of those shining September days which only +mountain regions know. The sky was cloudless and of a transcendent blue. +The air was soft as the air of June. Draxy's young friends had decorated +the church with evergreens and clematis vines; and on each side of the +communion-table were tall sheaves of purple asters and golden-rod. Two +children were to be baptized at noon, and on a little table, at the right +of the pulpit, stood the small silver baptismal font, wreathed with white +asters and the pale feathery green of the clematis seed. + +When Draxy walked up the aisle leaning on her father's arm, wearing the +same white dress she had worn on Sundays all summer, it cannot be denied +that there were sighs of disappointment in some of the pews. The people +had hoped for something more. Draxy had kept her own counsel on this point +closely, replying to all inquiries as to what she would wear, "White, of +course," but replying in such a tone that no one had quite dared to ask +more, and there had even been those in the parish who "reckoned" that she +wouldn't "be satisfied with anythin' less than white satin." Her head was +bare, her beautiful brown hair wound tightly round and round in the same +massive knot as usual. Her only ornaments were the creamy white blossoms +of the low cornel; one cluster in the braids of her hair, and one on her +bosom. As she entered the pew and sat down by the side of her mother, +slanting sunbeams from the southern windows fell upon her head, lighting +up the bright hair till it looked like a saintly halo. Elder Kinney sat in +the pulpit, with his best loved friend, Elder Williams, who was to preach +that day and perform the marriage ceremony. When Draxy and her father +entered the door, Elder Kinney rose and remained standing until they +reached their pew. As Draxy sat down and the golden sunbeams flickered +around her, the Elder sank back into his seat and covered his eyes with +his hand. He did not change his posture until the prayers and the hymns +and the sermon were over, and Elder Williams said in a low voice,-- + +"The ceremony of marriage will now be performed." Then he rose, his +countenance glowing like that of one who had come from some Mount of +Transfiguration. With a dignity and grace of bearing such as royal +ambassadors might envy, he walked slowly down to Reuben Miller's pew, and, +with his head reverently bent, received Draxy from her father's hands. + +Passionate love and close contact with Draxy's exquisite nature were +developing, in this comparatively untrained man, a peculiar courteousness +and grace, which added a subtle charm to the simplicity of his manners. As +he walked up the aisle with Draxy clinging to his arm, his tall figure +looked majestic in its strength, but his face was still bent forward, +turned toward her with a look of reverence, of love unspeakable. + +The whole congregation rose, moved by one impulse, and the silence was +almost too solemn. When the short and simple ceremony was over, the Elder +led Draxy to his own pew and sat down by her side. + +After the little children had been baptized, the usual announcement of the +Lord's Supper was made, and the usual invitation given. Absolute silence +followed it, broken only by the steps of the singers leaving their seats +in the gallery to take places below. Not a person moved to leave the body +of the house. Elder Williams glanced at Elder Kinney in perplexity, and +waited for some moments longer. The silence still remained unbroken; there +was not a man, woman, or child there but felt conscious of a tender and +awed impulse to remain and look on at this ceremony, so newly significant +and solemn to their beloved Elder. Tears came into many eyes as he took +the cup of wine from Deacon Plummer's trembling hands and passed it to +Draxy, and many hearts which had never before longed for the right to +partake of the sacred emblems longed for it then. + +After the services, were ended, just as Elder Williams was about to +pronounce the benediction, Elder Kinney rose from his seat, and walking +rapidly to the communion table said,-- + +"My dear friends, I know you don't look for any words from me to-day; but +there are some of you I never before saw at this blessed feast of our +Lord, and I must say one word to you from Him." Then pausing, he looked +round upon them all, and, with an unutterable yearning in the gesture, +stretched out both his arms and said: "O my people, my people! like as a +hen gathereth her chickens under her wing, He would have gathered you long +ago, but ye would not." Then, still holding out his arms towards them, he +pronounced the benediction. + +Silently and solemnly the little congregation dispersed. A few lingered, +and looked longingly at Draxy, as if they would go back and speak to her. +But she stood with her eyes fixed on the Elder's face, utterly unconscious +of the presence of any other human being. Even her father dared not break +the spell of holy beatitude which rested on her countenance. + +"No, no, ma," he said to Jane, who proposed that they should go back to +the pew and walk home with her. "This ain't like any other wedding that +was ever seen on this earth, unless, maybe, that one in Cana. And I don't +believe the Lord was any nearer to that bridegroom than He is to this +one." + +So Jane and Reuben walked home from church alone, for the first time since +they came to Clairvend, and Draxy and her husband followed slowly behind. +The village people who watched them were bewildered by their manner, and +interpreted it variously according to their own temperaments. + +"You'd ha' thought now they'd been married years an' years to look at +'em," said Eben Hill; "they didn't speak a word, nor look at each other +any more 'n old Deacon Plummer 'n his wife, who was joggin' along jest +afore 'em." + +Old Ike--poor, ignorant, loving old Ike, whose tender instinct was like +the wistful sagacity of a faithful dog--read their faces better. He had +hurried out of church and hid himself in the edge of a little pine grove +which the Elder and Draxy must pass. + +"I'd jest like to see 'em a little longer," he said to himself half +apologetically. As they walked silently by, old Ike's face saddened, and +at last became convulsed with grief. Creeping out from beneath the pines, +he slowly followed them up the hill, muttering to himself, in the fashion +which had grown upon him in his solitary life:-- + +"O Lord! O Lord! No such looks as them is long for this earth. O Lord! +which is it ye're goin' to take? I reckon it's the Elder. I reckon 'tis. +That woman's goin' to have her heart broke. O Lord! O Lordy me! I can't +bear the sight on't!" and he leaped a fence and struck off across the +fields towards his house. He did not shut his eyes that night, but tossed +and groaned aloud. Towards morning he formed a resolution which calmed him +somewhat. + +"Ef I kin only be right close to 'em till it comes, p'raps I can be of a +little use. Leastways it 'ud be some comfort to try," he said. + +As the Elder and Draxy were sitting at breakfast the next day, they caught +sight of the old man's bent figure walking up and down outside the gate, +and stopping now and then irresolutely, as if he would come in, but dared +not. + +"Why, there's old Ike," exclaimed the Elder, "What on earth can he want +at this time of day!" + +Draxy looked up with a very tender smile, and said: "I shouldn't wonder if +he wanted just to see how happy you look, Mr. Kinney. Nobody in this world +loves you so well as old Ike does." + +"Oh, Draxy!" said the Elder, reproachfully. + +"No, dear, not even I. Old Ike never dreams of receiving any love in +return. I have seen his eyes follow you with just such a look as dogs' +eyes have. I wish we could do something for him." + +"We will, dear, we will go and see him often. I own it smites me to the +soul sometimes to think how humble he is, and so glad to see me when I +haven't been near him for six months, maybe." + +At this moment Hannah put her head into the door and said, in no pleasant +voice:-- + +"Here's that Ike Sanborn wantin' to speak to ye sir, but I telled him"-- + +"Let him come right in here, Hannah," said Draxy. "Mr. Kinney and I will +be very glad to see him this morning." Hannah's face relaxed in spite of +herself, in answer to Draxy's smile, but she could not forgive Ike for +what seemed to her a most unwarrantable intrusion, and she was grimmer +than ever when she returned to him, saying,-- + +"They'll see ye; but I must say, I sh'd ha' thought ye'd know better'n to +be comin' round here this mornin' of all mornin's. Ain't they to have a +minute's peace to theirselves?" + +Ike looked up appealingly at the hard Indian face. + +"I wa'n't goin' to keep 'em a minute," he said: "I won't go in now. I'll +come agin, ef you say so, Hannah." + +"No, no--go in, now ye're here; ye've interrupted 'em, and ye may's well +take the good on't now," replied the vengeful Hannah, pushing Ike along +towards the sitting-room door. + +"Ef there's anythin' I do hate, it's shiftless white folks," grumbled +Hannah as she went back to her work. If poor Ike had known the angry +contempt for him which filled Hannah's heart, he would have felt still +less courage for the proposition he had come to make. As it was, he stood +in the doorway the very picture of irresolution and embarrassment. + +"Come in, come in, Ike," said the Elder; "you're the first one of the +parish to pay your respects to Mrs. Kinney." Draxy rose from her seat +smiling, and went towards him and said: "And Mrs. Kinney is very glad to +see you, Ike." + +This was too much for the loving old heart. He dropped his hat on the +floor, and began to speak so rapidly and incoherently that both Draxy and +the Elder were almost frightened. + +"O Elder! O Miss Kinney!--I've been a thinkin' that p'raps you'd let me +come an' live with you, an' do all yer chores. I'd bring my two cows, an' +my keepin' wouldn't be very much; an'--oh, sir, ef ye'll only let me, I'll +bless ye all the days o' my life," and Ike began to cry. + +So did Draxy, for that matter, and the Elder was not very far from it. +Draxy spoke first. + +"Why, Ike, do you really want so much to live with us?" + +Ike's first answer was a look. Then he said, very simply,-- + +"I've laid awake all night, ma'am, tryin' to get bold enough to come and +ask ye." + +Draxy looked at her husband, and said in a low voice, "You know what I +told you just now, Mr. Kinney?" + +The Elder saw that Draxy was on Ike's side. + +"Well, well, Ike," he said, "you shall certainly come and try it. Perhaps +you won't like it as well as you think. But don't say anything about it to +any one else till you hear from us. You shall come very soon." + +Ike turned to go, but lingered, and finally stammered: "I hope, sir, ye +don't take it that I'm askin' a charity; I make bold to believe I could be +worth to ye's much's my keepin'; I'm considerable handy 'bout a good many +things, an' I can do a day's mowin' yet with any man in the parish, I +don't care who he is. It's only because--because"--Ike's voice broke, and +it was very nearly with a sob that he added, "because I love ye, sir," and +he hurried away. Draxy sprang after him. + +"I know that very well, Ike, and so does Mr. Kinney, and you will be a +great help to us. You are making us the most valuable wedding present +we've had yet, Ike," and Draxy held out her hand. + +Ike looked at the hand, but he did not touch it. + +"Maybe God'll let me thank ye yet, ma'am," he said, and was gone. + +As he went through the kitchen a sudden misgiving seized him of terror of +Hannah. + +"Supposin' she sh'd take into her head to be agin me," thought he. "They +say the Elder himself's 'fraid on her. I don't s'pose she'd dare to try to +pizen me outright, an' anyhow there's allers eggs an' potatoes. But I'll +bring her round fust or last;" and, made wary by love, Ike began on the +spot to conciliate her, by offering to bring a pail of water from the +well. + +This small attention went farther than he could have dreamed. When Draxy +first told Hannah that Ike was to come and live with them, she said +judiciously,-- + +"It will make your work much easier in many ways, Hannah." + +Hannah answered:-- + +"Yes, missus. He'll bring all the water I spose, an that alone's wuth any +man's keep--not that I've ever found any fault with the well's bein' so +far off. It's 's good water's there is in the world, but it's powerful +heavy." + +The arrival of the two cows crowned Hannah's liking of the plan. If she +had a passion in life it was for cream and for butter-making, and it had +been a sore trial to her in her life as the Elder's housekeeper, that she +must use stinted measures of milk, bought from neighbors. So when poor Ike +came in, trembling and nervous, to his first night's lodging under the +Elder's roof, he found in the kitchen, to his utter surprise, instead of a +frowning and dangerous enemy, a warm ally, as friendly in manner and mien +as Indian blood would permit. + +Thus the little household settled down for the winter: Draxy and the Elder +happy, serene, exalted more than they knew, by their perfect love for each +other, and their childlike love of God, blending in one earnest purpose +of work for souls; Hannah and Ike anything but serene, and yet happy after +their own odd fashions, and held together much more closely than they knew +by the common bond of their devotion to the Elder and his wife. + +In the other side of the house were also two very thankful and contented +hearts. Reuben and Jane were old people now: Reuben's hair was snowy +white, and Jane was sadly bent; but the comfort and peace which had come +so late into their lives had still come early enough to make the sunset a +bright one. It was a sight to do all hearts good to see the two sitting +together on the piazza of the house, in the warm afternoons, and gazing in +delight at the eastern mountain ranges turning rose-pink, and then fading +through shades of purple to dark gray. + +"It's a good deal like our life, ma," Reuben said sometimes; "our sun's +pretty low--most down, I reckon; it's all rosy-light, just these days; but +we shall have to lie down in the shadow presently; but it's all beautiful, +beautiful." + +Jane did not understand him. She never did. But she loved the sound of his +voice best when he said the things which were too subtle for her. + +The two households lived separately as before. The Elder had proposed +their making one family, and Reuben had wistfully seconded it. But Draxy +had firmly said "No." + +"I shall be able to do more for you, father dear, if we do not. It will +not seem so at first, but I know I am right," she said, and it was a rare +wisdom in her sweet soul which led to the decision. At first it was very +hard for Reuben to bear, but as the months went on he saw that it was +best. + +Draxy's loving, thoughtful care of them never relaxed. The excellent woman +whom she had secured for their servant went for her orders quite as often +to Draxy as to Jane; very few meals were set out for them to which Draxy's +hand had not given the last final touch. She flitted back and forth +between the two homes, equally of both the guardian angel; but the line of +division and separation was just as distinctly drawn as if they had been +under different roofs a mile apart. Two or three times in the week they +dined and took tea together, but the habit never was formed of doing this +on a special day. When Reuben said, "Couldn't ye arrange it so's always to +eat your Sunday dinner with us, Draxy?" she replied: + +"Sometimes Sunday dinner; sometimes Thursday; sometimes Saturday, father +dear. If we make it a fixed day, we shall not like it half so well; any of +us. We'll come often enough, you may be sure." And of this, too, Reuben +soon saw the wisdom. + +"O Draxy, Draxy, my little girl!" he said one day, when, just after +breakfast, she ran in, exclaiming,-- + +"Father dear, we're coming to take dinner with you and ma to-day. It's a +surprise party, and the chickens have come first; they're in the kitchen +now!" + +"O Draxy, Draxy," he exclaimed, "it's a great deal nicer not to know it +beforehand. How could you be so wise, child?" + +Draxy put her arms round his neck and did not speak for a moment. Then she +said, "I don't think it is wisdom, dear. Real true love knows by instinct, +just as the bee does, which shaped cell will hold most honey. I'm only a +honey-maker for my darlings." + +Jane looked mystified, but Reuben's face quivered with pleasure. + +"That you are, you blessed child," he said, and as, hearing the Elder's +step in the hall, she flew out of the room, Reuben covered his eyes with +his hand. + +Happy years leave slender records; but for suffering and sin there would +not be history. The winter came, and the spring came, and the summer and +the autumn, and no face in the quiet little parsonage looked a shade older +for the year that had gone; no incident had taken place which could make a +salient point in a story, and not one of the peaceful hearts could believe +that a twelvemonth had flown. Elder Kinney's pathetic fears lest he might +love his Saviour less by reason of his new happiness, had melted like +frost in early sunlight, in the sweet presence of Draxy's child-like +religion. + +"O Draxy!" he said again and again, "seems to me I never half loved all +these souls we are working for, before I had you. I don't see how I could +have been so afraid about it before we were married." + +"Do I really help you, Mr. Kinney?" Draxy would reply, with a lingering +emphasis on the "really," which made her husband draw her closer to him +and forget to speak: "It seems very strange to me that I can. I feel so +ignorant about souls. It frightens me to answer the smallest question the +people ask me. I never do, in any way except to tell them if I have ever +felt so myself, and how God seemed to help me out." + +Blessed Draxy! that was the secret of her influence from first to last: +the magnetic sympathy of a pure and upright soul, to whose rare strength +had been added still rarer simplicity and lovingness. Old and young, men +as well as women, came to her with unhesitating confidence. Before her +marriage, they had all felt a little reserve with her, partly because she +was of finer grain than they, partly because she had, deep down in her +soul, a genuine shyness which showed itself only in quiet reticence. But +now that she was the Elder's wife, they felt that she was in a measure +theirs. There is a very sweet side, as well as an inconvenient and +irritating one, to the old-fashioned rural notion that the parish has +almost as much right to the minister's wife as to the minister. Draxy saw +only the sweet side. With all the loyalty and directness which had made +her, as a little girl, champion and counselor and comfort to her father, +she now set her hand to the work of helping her husband do good to the +people whom he called his children. + +"If they are yours, they must be mine, too, Mr. Kinney," she would say, +with a smile half arch, half solemn. "I hope I shan't undo on week-days +what you do on Sundays." + +"What I do on Sundays is more'n half your work too, Draxy," the Elder +would make reply; and it was very true. Draxy's quicker brain and finer +sense, and in some ways superior culture, were fast moulding the Elder's +habits of thought and speech to an extent of which she never dreamed. +Reuben's income was now far in advance of their simple wants, and +newspapers, magazines, and new books continually found their way to the +parsonage. Draxy had only to mention anything she desired to see, and +Reuben forthwith ordered it. So that it insensibly came to pass that the +daily life of the little household was really an intellectual one, and +Elder Kinney's original and vigorous mind expanded fast in the congenial +atmosphere. Yet he lost none of his old quaintness and simplicity of +phrase, none of his fervor. The people listened to his sermons with +wondering interest, and were not slow to ascribe some of the credit of the +new unction to Draxy. + +"Th' Elder's getting more'n more like Mis' Kinney every day o' his life," +they said: "there's some o' her sayin's in every sermon he writes. + +"And no wonder," would be added by some more enthusiastic worshipper of +Draxy's. "I guess he's got sense enough to know that she's got more real +book-learnin' in her head than he has, twice over. I shouldn't wonder if +she got to writin' some of his sermons for him out'n out, before long." + +Dear Draxy's reverent wifehood would have been grieved and dismayed if she +had known that her efforts to second her husband's appeals to his people +were sometimes so eloquent as to make the Elder's words forgotten. But she +never dreamed of such a thing; she was too simple hearted and humble. + +In the early days of the second winter came the Angel of the Annunciation, +bearing a white lily to Draxy. Her joy and gratitude were unspeakable, and +the exquisite purity and elevation of her nature shone out transcendent in +the new experience. + +"Now I begin to feel surer that God really trusts me," she said, "since he +is going to let me have a child of my own." + +"O my dear friends!" she exclaimed more than once to mothers, "I never +dreamed how happy you were. I thought I knew, but I did not." + +Draxy's spontaneous and unreserved joy of motherhood, while yet her babe +was unborn, was a novel and startling thing to the women among whom she +lived. The false notions on this point, grown out of ignorant and base +thoughts, are too wide-spread, too firm-rooted, to be overthrown in an +hour or a day, even by the presence of angelic truth incarnate. Some of +Draxy's best friends were annoyed and disquieted by her frankness and +unreserve of delight. But as the weeks went on, the true instinct of +complete motherhood thrilled for the first time in many a mother's heart, +under Draxy's glowing words, and women talked tearfully one with another, +in secret, with lowered voices, about the new revelation which had come to +them through her. + +"I've come to see it all quite different, since I've talked with Mis' +Kinney," said one young married woman, holding her baby close to her +breast, and looking down with remorseful tenderness on its placid little +face. "I shan't never feel that I've quite made it up to Benjy, never, for +the thoughts I had about him before he was born. I don't see why nobody +ever told us before, that we was just as much mothers to 'em from the very +first as we ever could be," and tears dropped on Benjy's face; "an' I jest +hope the Lord'll send me's many more's we can manage to feed'n clothe, 'n +I'll see if lovin' 'em right along from the beginnin', with all my heart, +'ll make 'em beautiful an' happy an' strong an' well, 's Mis' Kinney sez. +I b'lieve it's much's ef 'twas in the Bible, after all she told me, and +read me out of a Physiology, an' it stands to natur', which's more'n the +old way o' talkin did." + +This new, strong current of the divinest of truths, stirred the very veins +of the village. Mothers were more loving and fathers more tender, and +maidens were sweeter and graver--all for the coming of this one little +babe into the bosom of full and inspired motherhood. + +On the morning when Draxy's son was born, a stranger passing through the +village would have supposed that some great news of war or of politics had +arrived. Little knots of people stood at gates, on corners, all talking +earnestly; others were walking rapidly to and fro in the street. +Excitement filled the air. + +Never was heir to royal house more welcomed than was the first-born son of +this simple-minded, great-hearted woman, by the lowly people among whom +she dwelt. + +Old Ike's joy was more than he could manage. He had sat on the floor all +night long, with his head buried in his hands. + +The instinct of grief to come, which not even all these long peaceful +months had been able to wholly allay in his faithful heart, had sprung +into full life at the first symptom of danger to Draxy. + +"P'raps it's this way, arter all, the Lord's goin' to do it. O Lord! O +Lord! It'll kill Mr. Kinney, it'll kill him," he kept repeating over and +over, as he rocked to and fro. Hannah eyed him savagely. Her Indian blood +hated groans and tears, and her affection for her master was angered at +the very thought of his being afflicted. + +"I wish it had pleased yer Lord to give ye the sense of a man, Mr. +Sanborn," she said, "while He was a makin' on ye. If ye'd go to bed, now, +instead o' snivelin' round here, you might be good for somethin' in the +mornin', when there'll be plenty to do. Anyhow, I'm not goin' to be +pestered by the sight on ye any longer," and Hannah banged the +kitchen-door violently after her. + +When poor Ike timidly peered into the sitting-room, whither she had +betaken herself, he found her, too, sitting on the floor, in an attitude +not unlike the one she had so scorned in him. But he was too meek to taunt +her. He only said,-- + +"I'm goin' now, Hannah, so ye needn't stay out o' the kitchen for me," and +he climbed slowly up the stairs which led to his room. + +As the rosy day dawned in the east, Draxy's infant son drew his first +mortal breath. His first quivering cry, faint almost as a whisper, yet +sharp and piteous, reached old Ike's ears instantly. He fell on his knees +and remained some minutes motionless, then he rose and went slowly +down-stairs. Hannah met him at the door, her dark face flushed with +emotion which she vainly tried to conceal by sharp words. + +"Hope ye've rested well, Mr. Sanborn. Another time, mebbe ye'll have more +sense. As fine a boy's ye ever see, and Mis' Kinney she's a smilin' into +its face, as nobody's never seen her smile yet, I tell you." + +Ike was gone,--out into the fields, over fences, over brooks, into woods, +trampling down dewy ferns, glistening mosses, scarlet cornels, thickets of +goldenrod and asters,--he knew not where, muttering to himself all the +while, and tossing his arms into the air. At last he returned to the house +saying to himself, "P'raps th' Elder 'll like to have me go down into the +village an' let folks know." + +Elder Kinney was standing bareheaded on the door-steps. His face looked +like the face of a man who had come off a battle-field where victory had +been almost as terrible as defeat. As soon as he saw old Ike running +across the field towards him, he divined all. + +"Loving old heart!" he thought, "Draxy was right," and he held out both +his hands to the old man as he had never done before, and spoke a few +affectionate words, which made tears run down the wrinkled cheeks. Then he +sent him on the errand he knew he craved. + +"You'd better give the news first to Eben Hill, Ike," he called after him. +"It'll be of more use to him than to anybody in the parish." + +It was just two years from Draxy's wedding day, when she stood again in +the aisle of the little village church, dressed in pure white, with the +southern sunlight resting on her beautiful hair. Her husband stood by her +side, holding their infant son in his arms. The child had clear, calm blue +eyes like Draxy's, and an expression of serenity and radiant joy on his +tiny face, which made the people wonder. + +"Reuben Miller Kinney" was his name; and though the parish had hoped that +the child would be named for his father, when they looked at Reuben +Miller's sweet, patient, noble face, and saw its intense happiness as the +words were spoken, they felt that it was better so. + +Again swift months rolled on, and peace and joy brooded over the +parsonage. Draxy's life with her child was something too beautiful to be +told in words; her wifehood was lovely, was intense; but her motherhood +was greater. Day and night her love for her boy protected and guided him, +like pillar of cloud, like pillar of fire. She knew no weariness, no +feebleness; she grew constantly stronger and more beautiful, and the child +grew stronger and more beautiful, with a likeness to her and a oneness +with her which were marvelous. He was a loving and affectionate boy to +all; his father, his grandparents, old Ike, and swarthy Hannah,--all alike +sunned themselves in the delight of his beautiful childhood. But wherever +he was--however amused and delighted--even in his father's arms--his eyes +sought his mother's eyes, and the mute interchange between them was subtle +and constant as between lovers. There was but one drawback on Draxy's +felicity now. She was afraid of her love for her boy. + +"O Seth!" she said,--after little Reuben's birth she for the first time +called her husband by this name; before that, although she lavished on him +all words of endearment, she had never found courage to call him Seth,--"O +Seth!" she said, "I feel now as you did about me before we were married. I +can't make myself think about anything but Reuby. O darling! you don't +think God would take him away from you to punish me, do you?" The Elder +could not comfort her when she was in this frame of mind; in fact, he +himself was sometimes afraid, seeing her utter absorption in the child. +Yet it never for one instant warped her firmness or judiciousness of +control. Draxy could not have comprehended that type of love which can +lose sight for one instant of the best good of the loved one. Her control, +however, was the control of a wise and affectionate companion, never that +of the authoritative parent. Little Reuben never heard the words, "You +must not do thus and so." It was always, "You cannot, because it is not +safe, best, or proper," or, "because if you do, such and such things will +happen." + +"Draxy," said Reuben to her one day, "you never tell Reuby to do anything +without giving him a reason for it. He's the best boy that ever lived, I +do believe, but 'tain't just my idea of obedience for all that." + +Draxy smiled. "I never said a word to him about obeying me in his life; I +never shall. I can't explain it, father dear, but you must let me do my +way. I shall tell him all I know about doing right, and he will decide for +himself more and more. I am not afraid." + +She need not have been. Before Reuby was seven years old his gentle +manliness of behavior was the marvel of the village. "It beats all how +Mis' Kinney's brought that boy o' hern up," was said in the sewing-circle +one day. "She told me herself that she's never so much's said a sharp word +to him; and as for whipping she thinks it's a deadly sin." + +"So do I," spoke up young Mrs. Plummet, the mother of Benjy. "I never did +believe in that; I don't believe in it, even for hosses; it only gets 'em +to go a few rods, and then they're lazier'n ever. My father's broke more +colts than any man in this county, an' he'd never let 'em be struck a +blow. He said one blow spiled 'em, and I guess ye've got more to work on +in a boy than ye have in a colt." + +These discussions often ran high and waxed warm. But Draxy's adherents +were a large majority; and she had so patiently and fully gone over these +disputed grounds with them that they were well fortified with the +arguments and facts which supported her positions. Indeed, it was fast +coming to pass that she was the central force of the life of the village. +"Let me make the songs of the community, and I care not who makes its +laws," was well said. It was song which Draxy supplied to these people's +lives. Not often in verse, in sound, in any shape that could be measured, +but in spirit. She vivified their every sense of beauty, moral and +physical. She opened their eyes to joy; she revealed to them the +sacredness and delight of common things; she made their hearts sing. + +But she was to do more yet for these men and women. Slowly, noiselessly, +in the procession of these beautiful and peaceful days, was drawing near a +day which should anoint Draxy with a new baptism,--set her apart to a +holier work. + +It came, as the great consecrations of life are apt to come, suddenly, +without warning. While we are patiently and faithfully keeping sheep in +the wilderness, the messenger is journeying towards us with the vial of +sacred oil, to make us kings. + +It was on a September morning. Draxy sat at the eastward bay-window of +her sitting-room, reading to Reuby. The child seemed strangely restless, +and slipped from her lap again and again, running to the window to look +out. At last Draxy said, "What is it, Reuby? Don't you want to hear mamma +read any longer?" + +"Where is papa?" replied Reuby. "I want to go and find papa." + +"Papa has gone way down to the Lower Mills, darling; he won't come home +till dinner," said Draxy, looking perplexedly at Reuby's face. She had +never known him to ask for his father in this way before. Still his +restlessness continued, and finally, clasping his mother's hand, he said +earnestly,-- + +"Come and find papa." + +"We can't find him, dear," she replied; "it is too far for Reuby to walk, +but we will go out on the same road papa has gone, and wait for papa to +come;" so saying, she led the child out of the house, and rambled slowly +along the road on which the Elder would return. In a few moments she saw +moving in the distance a large black object she could not define. As it +came nearer she saw that it was several men, walking slowly and apparently +bearing something heavy between them. + +Little Reuby pulled her hand and began to run faster. "Come and find +papa," he said again, in a tone which struck terror to Draxy's heart. At +that instant the men halted. She hurried on. Presently she saw one man +leave the rest and run rapidly towards her. It was old Ike. The rest still +remained motionless and gathered closer around what they were carrying. + +"O Reuby!" groaned Draxy. "Come quicker; find papa," he replied, +impatiently; but old Ike had reached them, and wringing his hands, burst +into tears. "O my Lord!--O Mis' Kinney, yer must go back; they can't bring +him along, an' you 'n' the boy standin' here. O my Lord! O Mis' Kinney, +come right back!" And Ike took hold of her shoulder and of her gown and +almost turned her around. + +"Is Mr. Kinney hurt?" said Draxy in a strange voice, high pitched and +metallic. "I shall not go back. Tell the men to hurry. How dare they lose +time so?" and Draxy tried to run towards them. Old Ike held her by main +force. Sobs choked his voice, but he stammered out: "O Mis' Kinney, ef ye +love Mr. Kinney, go back. He'd tell ye so himself. He won't know ye; the +men won't never move a step till they see you 'n' Reuby goin' first." + +Draxy turned instantly and walked toward the house so swiftly that little +Reuby could not keep up with her. He followed her crying aloud, but she +did not heed him. She flew rather than ran into the house, into the +Elder's study, and dragged a lounge to the very threshold of the door. +There she stood, whiter than any marble, and as still, awaiting the slow, +toiling steps of the overburdened men. Little Reuben stumbled on the steps +and she did not help him. As he came close, clutching her dress in his +pain and terror, she said in a low whisper, "Reuby, it will trouble papa +if he sees us cry. Mamma isn't going to cry." The child stopped instantly +and stood by her side, as calm as she for a moment, then bursting out +again into screams, said: "O mamma, I can't help crying, I can't; but +I'll run away. Don't tell papa I cried." And he ran up-stairs. Draxy did +not see which way he went. Her eyes were fixed on the doorway which Ike +had that moment reached; the men bearing the Elder's body were just behind +him. + +"O Mis' Kinney! can't yer go away jest while we lay him down?" gasped +Ike. "Seem's ef 'twouldn't be so hard." + +Draxy looked past him, as not hearing a word. + +"Bring him in here and lay him on this lounge," she said, in tones so +clear and calm they sent both courage and anguish into every heart. + +Panting, and with grief-stricken faces, the men staggered in and laid the +tall, majestic figure down. As they lifted the head tenderly and propped +it by pillows, Draxy saw the pale, dead face with the sunken eyes and set +lips, and gave one low cry. Then she clasped both hands tight over her +heart and looked up as if she would pierce the very skies whither her +husband had gone. + +"We sent for the doctor right off; he'll be here's soon's he can get +here." + +"He never spoke a word arter we lifted him up. He couldn't ha' suffered +any, Mis' Kinney." + +"P'raps, Mis' Kinney, it'd be a good plan to ondo his clothes afore the +doctor gits here," came in confused and trembling tones from one after +another of the men who stood almost paralyzed in presence of Draxy's +terrible silence. + +"O Mis' Kinney, jest speak a word, can't ye? O Lord! O Lord! she'll die if +she don't. Where's Reuby? I'll fetch him," exclaimed Ike, and left the +room; the men followed him irresolutely, looking back at Draxy, who still +stood motionless, gazing down into the Elder's face. + +"Do not look for Reuby--he has hid," came in a slow, measured whisper from +her lips. "And leave me alone." "Yes, I know. You need not be afraid. I +understand that Mr. Kinney is dead," she added, as the men hesitated and +looked bewilderedly in her face. "I will stay alone with him till the +doctor comes," and Draxy gently closed the door and locked it. In a short +time the little hall and door-yard were crowded with sobbing men and +women. There was little to be told, but that little was told over and +over. The Elder had walked down to the village store with old Ike, and had +just given him some parcels to carry home, saying, "Tell Mrs. +Kinney,"--when a runaway horse had come dashing furiously down the street, +drawing a wagon in which clung, rather than sat, a woman holding a baby in +her arms. The Elder had sprung into the middle of the road, and caught the +horse by the bridle as he swerved a little to one side; but the horse was +too strong and too much frightened to be held by any man's strength. +Rearing high, he had freed his head, and plunging forward had knocked the +Elder down in such a way that both wagon-wheels had run over his neck, +breaking it instantly. + +"He never talked so much like an angel from heaven's he did this mornin'," +sobbed Ike, who looked already decrepit and broken from this sudden blow. +"He was a tellin' me about suthin' new that's jest been discovered in the +sun; I couldn't rightly make it out; but says he, 'Ike, how glorious +'twill be when we can jest fly from one sun to another, all through this +universe o' God's, an' not be a tryin' in these poor little airthly ways +to understand 'bout things.'" + +That Draxy should be all this time alone with her husband's body seemed +dreadful to these sympathizing, simple-hearted people. No sound came from +the room, though the windows were all wide open. + +"O Mr. Miller! don't ye think some on us had better try to git in to her," +said the women; "she don't make no noise." + +"No." replied Reuben, feebly. He, too, was prostrated like Ike by the +fearful blow, and looked years older within the hour. "No: Draxy knows +what's best for her. She's spoke to me once through the door. She hasn't +fainted." + +"When the doctor came, Reuben called to Draxy,-- + +"Daughter, the doctor's come." + +The door opened instantly, but closed as soon as the doctor had entered. +In a few moments it opened again, and the doctor handed a slip of paper to +Reuben. He unfolded it and read it aloud:-- + +"Father dear, please thank all the people for me, and ask them to go home +now. There is nothing they can do. Tell them it grieves me to hear them +cry, and Mr. Kinney would not wish it." + +Slowly and reluctantly the people went, and a silence sadder than the sobs +and grieving voices settled down on the house. Reuben sat on the stairs, +his head leaning against the study-door. Presently he heard a light step +coming down. It was young Mrs. Plummer, the mother of Benjy. She +whispered, "I've found Reuby. He's asleep on the garret floor. He'd +thrown himself down on some old carpet, way out in the darkest corner, +under the eaves. I've covered him up, an' I'm goin' to sit by him till he +wakes up. The longer he sleeps the better. You tell her where he is." + +Reuben nodded; his dulled senses hardly heard the words. When the +study-door next opened, Draxy herself came out, walking with a slow, +measured step which transformed her whole bearing. Her face was perfectly +calm, but colorless as white stone. At sight of her father her lips +quivered, and she stretched out both hands to him; but she only said, +"Where is Reuby?" And as soon as she heard she went quickly up the stairs, +adding, "Do not follow me, father dear; you cannot help me." + +Mrs. Plummer sat in the dark garret, leaning her head against the dusty +rafters, as near as she could get to poor little Reuby. Her eyes were +shut, and tears stood on her cheeks. Suddenly she was startled by Draxy's +low voice, saying,-- + +"Thank you very much, Mrs. Plummer; it was very kind in you to stay here +and not wake him up. I will sit by him now." + +Mrs. Plummer poured forth incoherent words of sympathy and sorrow, but +Draxy hardly seemed to hear her. She stood quietly, making no reply, +waiting for her to go. + +"O Mis' Kinney, Mis' Kinney, do cry a little, can't ye?" exclaimed the +warm-hearted woman; "it scares us to death to see ye this way." + +Draxy smiled. "No, my dear friend. I cannot cry now. I suppose I shall +sometimes, because I am very selfish, and I shall be so lonely; but just +now I am only thinking how happy he is in these first hours in heaven." +The tears stood in her eyes, but her look was as of one who gazed +rapturously inside the pearly gates. Mrs. Plummer stole softly away, +overawed and afraid. As she went out of the house, she said to Reuben: +"Mis' Kinney ain't no mortal woman. She hain't shed a tear yet, and she +jest looks as glorified as the Elder can this minute in sight o' God's +very throne itself. O Mr. Miller, I'm afraid she'll break down. This kind +o' grief is what kills folks." + +"No," said Reuben, "you don't know Draxy. She won't break down. She'll +take care on us all jest the same, but ye won't never see again the same +face you used to see. Oh, I can't be reconciled, I can't!" And Reuben +groaned aloud. + +The next morning, when Draxy came out of the study, her hair was white as +snow. As her father first caught sight of her, he stared wildly for a +moment as at some stranger; then crying out, "O Draxy! O my little girl!" +he tottered and would have fallen if she had not caught him and led him to +a chair. + +"O father dear," she exclaimed, "don't feel so! I wouldn't call him back +this minute if I could," and she smiled piteously. + +"O Draxy--'tain't that," gasped Reuben. "O daughter! you're dyin' and +never lettin' us know it. Your hair's as white's mine." Draxy gave a +startled glance at the mirror, and said, in a much more natural tone than +she had hitherto spoken in: "I don't think that's strange. It's happened +before to people in great trouble. I've read of it: you'll get used to it +very soon, father dear. I'm glad of it; I'll be all in white now," she +added in a lower tone, speaking dreamily, as if to herself,--"they walk in +white; they walk in white." + +Then Reuben noticed that she was dressed in white. He touched her gown, +and looked inquiringly. "Yes, father dear," she said, "always." + +On the day of the funeral, when Draxy entered the church leading little +Reuby by the hand, a visible shudder ran through the congregation. The +news had run like wildfire through the parish, on the morning after the +Elder's death, that Mrs. Kinney's hair had all turned gray in the night. +But nobody was in the least prepared for the effect. It was not gray--it +was silver-white; and as it retained all the silken gloss which had made +it so beautiful the shining of it was marvelous. It kindled her beauty +into something superhuman. The color had left her cheeks also, but in its +place was a clear soft tint which had no pallor in it. She was dressed in +pure white, so also was little Reuby; but for this the parish were +prepared. Very well they knew Draxy's deep-rooted belief that to associate +gloom with the memory of the dead was disloyal alike to them and to +Christ; and so warmly had she imbued most of the people with her +sentiment, that the dismal black garb of so-called mourning was rarely +seen in the village. + +Bareheaded, Draxy and her little son walked from the church to the grave; +their faces the calmest, their steps the steadiest there. Reuben and Jane +walked behind them, bent over and sobbing, and half the congregation were +weeping uncontrollably; but the widowed woman and the fatherless boy +walked with uplifted glances, as if they saw angel-forms in the air by +their side. + +"Tain't nateral; 'tain't noways nateral; thet woman hain't got any nateral +feelin' in her," said Eben Hill, leaning against a grave-stone, and idly +chewing a spray of golden-rod. George Thayer turned upon him like a +blazing sword. + +"Hev ye got any nateral feelin' yourself, Eben Hill, to say that, standin' +here an' lookin' at that woman's white hair an' cheeks, 'n' only last +Sunday she was 's handsome a pictur's ye ever see, her hair a twinklin' in +the sun like a brown beech-tree, an' her cheeks jest like roses? Nateral +feelin's! It's enough to make the Elder rise up afore ye, to hear ye say +sech a thing, Eben Hill; 'n' ef 'twan't jest the funeral that 'tis, I +b'leeve I'd thrash ye right an' left, here'n sight o' yer own mother's +tombstone, ye miserable, sneakin' fool. Ef there was ever a woman that was +carryin' a hull town straight into the Lord's heaven on her own shoulders, +it's Mis' Kinney, an' that blessed boy o' her'n 's goin' to be jest like +her. Look at him now, a workin' his poor little mouth an' lookin' up to +her and tryin' not to cry." + +Poor little Reuby! when the first shovelful of earth fell on the coffin, +his child's heart gave way, and he broke into loud crying, which made the +roughest men there hide their eyes. Draxy caught him up in her arms and +whispered something which quieted him instantly. Then she set him down, +and he stood till the end, looking away from the grave with almost a smile +on his face. He told some one, the next day, that he kept saying over to +himself all that time: "Beautiful gates of precious stones and angels +with harps."--"That's the city, you know, where my papa has gone. It's not +half so far off as we think; and papa is so happy there, he don't even +miss us, though he can see us every minute. And mamma and I are going +there pretty soon; next summer perhaps." + + + +Part II. + + +For the first few days after the funeral, Draxy seemed to sink; the void +was too terrible; only little Reuby's voice roused her from the apathetic +silence in which she would sit by the hour gazing out of the east +bay-window on the road down which she had last seen her husband walk. She +knew just the spot where he had paused and turned and thrown kisses back +to Reuby watching him from the window. + +But her nature was too healthy, too full of energy, and her soul too full +of love to remain in this frame long. She reproached herself bitterly for +the sin of having indulged in it even for a short time. + +"I don't believe my darling can be quite happy even in heaven, while he +sees me living this way," she said sternly to herself one morning. Then +she put on her bonnet, and went down into the village to carry out a +resolution she had been meditating for some days. Very great was the +astonishment of house after house that morning, as Draxy walked quietly +in, as had been her wont. She proposed to the mothers to send their +younger children to her, to be taught half of every day. + +"I can teach Reuby better if I have other children too," she said. "I +think no child ought to be sent into the district school under ten. The +confinement is too much for them. Let me have all the boys and girls +between six and eight, and I'll carry them along with Reuby for the next +two or three years at any rate," she said. + +The parents were delighted and grateful; but their wonder almost swallowed +up all other emotions. + +"To think o' her!" they said. "The Elder not three weeks buried, an' she a +goin' round, jest as calm 'n' sweet's a baby, a gettin' up a school!" + +"She's too good for this earth, that's what she is," said Angy Plummer. "I +should jest like to know if anybody'd know this village, since she came +into 't. Why we ain't one of us the same we used to be. I know I ain't. I +reckon myself's jest about eight years old, if I have got three boys. That +makes me born the summer before her Reuby, 'an that's jest the time I was +born, when my Benjy was seven months old!" + +"You're jest crazy about Mis' Kinney, Angy Plummer," said her mother. "I +b'lieve ye'd go through fire for her quicker 'n ye would for any yer own +flesh an' blood." + +Angy went to her mother and kissed the fretful old face very kindly. +"Mother, you can't say I hain't been a better daughter to you sence I've +knowed Mis' Kinney." + +"No, I can't," grumbled the old woman, "that's a fact; but she's got a +heap o' new fangled notions I don't believe in." + +The school was a triumphant success. From nine until twelve o'clock every +forenoon, twelve happy little children had a sort of frolic of learning +lessons in the Elder's sacred study, which was now Draxy's sitting-room. +Old Ike, who since the Elder's death had never seemed quite clear of +brain, had asked so piteously to come and sit in the room, that Draxy let +him do so. He sat in a big chair by the fire-place, and carved whistles +and ships and fantastic toys for the children, listening all the time +intently to every word which fell from Draxy's lips. He had transferred to +her all the pathetic love he had felt for the Elder; he often followed her +at a distance when she went out, and little Reuby he rarely lost sight of, +from morning till night. He was too feeble now to do much work, but his +presence was a great comfort to Draxy. He seemed a very close link between +her and her husband. Hannah, too, sometimes came into the school at +recess, to the great amusement of the children. She was particularly fond +of looking at the blackboard, when there were chalk-marks on it. + +"Make a mark on me with your white pencil," she would say, offering her +dark cheek to Reuby, who would scrawl hieroglyphics all over it from hair +to chin. + +Then she would invite the whole troop out into the kitchen to a feast of +doughnuts or cookies; very long the recesses sometimes were when the +school was watching Hannah fry the fantastic shapes of sweet dough, or +taking each a turn at the jagged wheel with which she cut them out. + +Reuben also came often to the school-room, and Jane sometimes sat there +with her knitting. A strange content had settled on their lives, in spite +of the sorrow. They saw Draxy calm; she smiled on them as constantly as +ever; and they were very old people, and believed too easily that she was +at peace. + +But the Lord had more work still for this sweet woman's hand. This, too, +was suddenly set before her. Late one Saturday afternoon, as she was +returning, surrounded by her escort of laughing children, from the woods, +where they had been for May-flowers, old Deacon Plummer overtook her. + +"Mis' Kinney, Mis' Kinney," he began several times, but could get no +further. He was evidently in great perplexity how to say the thing he +wished. + +"Mis' Kinney, would you hev-- + +"Mis' Kinney, me and Deacon Swift's been a sayin'-- + +"Mis' Kinney, ain't you got--" + +Draxy smiled outright. She often smiled now, with cordial good cheer, when +things pleased her. + +"What is it, Deacon? out with it. I can't possibly tell unless you make it +plainer." + +Thus encouraged, good Deacon Plummer went on: "Well, Mis' Kinney, it's +jest this: Elder Williams has jest sent word he can't come an' preach +to-morrer, and there ain't nobody anywhere's round thet we can get; and +De'n Swift 'n me, we was a thinkin' whether you wouldn't be willin' some +of us should read one o' the Elder's old sermons. O Mis' Kinney, ye don't +know how we all hanker to hear some o' his blessed words agin." + +Draxy stood still. Her face altered so that the little children crowded +round her in alarm, and Reuby took hold of her hand. Tears came into her +eyes, and she could hardly speak, but she replied,-- + +"Yes, indeed, Mr. Plummer, I should be very glad to have you. I'll look +out a sermon to-night, and you can come up to the house in the morning and +get it." + +"O Mis' Kinney, do forgive me for speakin'. You have allers seem so borne +up, I never mistrusted that't'd do any harm to ask yer," stammered the +poor Deacon, utterly disconcerted by Draxy's tears, for she was crying +hard now. + +"It hasn't done any harm, I assure you. I am very glad to do it," said +Draxy. + +"Yes, sir, my mamma very often cries when she's glad," spoke up Reuby, his +little face getting very red, and his lips quivering. "She's very glad, +sir, if she says so." + +This chivalrous defense calmed poor Draxy, but did not comfort the Deacon, +who hurried away, saying to himself,-- + +"Don't believe there was ever such a woman nor such a boy in this world +before. She never shed a tear when we brought the Elder home dead, nor +even when she see him let down into the very grave; 'n' I don't believe +she's cried afore anybody till to-day; 'n' that little chap a speakin' up +an' tellin' me his ma often cried when she was glad, an' I was to believe +her spite of her crying! I wish I'd made Job Swift go arter her. I'll make +him go arter that sermon anyhow. I won't go near her agin 'bout this +bisness, that's certain;" and the remorse-stricken, but artful deacon +hastened to his brother deacon's house to tell him that it was "all +settled with Mis' Kinney 'bout the sermon, an' she was quite willin';" +and, "O," he added, as if it were quite a second thought, "ye'd better go +up an' git the sermon, Job, in the mornin,' ye're so much nearer, an' +then, 's ye've to do the readin,' maybe she'll have somethin' to explain +to ye about the way it's to be read; th' Elder's writin' wan't any too +easy to make out, 's fur 's I remember it." + +Next morning, just as the first bells were ringing, Deacon Swift knocked +timidly at the door of the Elder's study. Draxy met him with a radiant +face. She had been excited by reading over the sermon she had after long +deliberation selected. The text was,-- + +"Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you." The sermon had been +written soon after their marriage, and was one of her husband's favorites. +There were many eloquent passages in it, which seemed now to take on a new +significance, as coming from the lips of the Elder, absent from his flock +and present with Christ. + +"O Mis' Kinney, I recollect that sermon 's if 'twas only yesterday," said +Deacon Swift. "The hull parish was talkin' on't all the week; ye couldn't +have picked out one they'd be so glad to hear; but dear me! how I'm ever +goin' to read it in any kind o' decent way, I don't know; I never was a +reader, anyhow, 'n' now I've lost my front teeth, some words does pester +me to git out." + +This opened the way for Draxy. Nearly all night she had lain awake, +thinking how terrible it would be to her to hear her husband's beloved +words indistinctly and ineffectively read by Deacon Swift's cracked and +feeble voice. Almost she regretted having given her consent. At last the +thought flashed into her mind, "Why should I not read it myself? I know I +could be heard in every corner of that little church." The more she +thought of it, the more she longed to do it, and the less she shrank from +the idea of facing the congregation. + +"'It's only just like a big family of children,' Seth always used to say, +'and I'm sure I feel as if they were mine now, as much as ever they were +his. I wish I dared do it. I do believe Seth would like it,' and Draxy +fell asleep comforted by the thought. Before breakfast she consulted her +father, and he approved it warmly. + +"I believe your mission isn't done yet, daughter, to these people of your +husband's. The more you speak to 'em the better. It'll be jest like his +voice speaking from heaven to 'em," said Reuben, "an' I shouldn't wonder +if keepin' Elder Williams away was all the Lord's doin', as the blessed +saint used to say." + +Reuben's approval was all that Draxy needed to strengthen her impulse, and +before Deacon Swift arrived her only perplexity was as to the best way of +making the proposition to him. All this difficulty he had himself smoothed +away by his first words. + +"Yes, I know, Deacon Swift," she said. "I've been thinking that perhaps it +would tire you to read for so long a time in a loud voice; and besides, +Mr. Kinney's handwriting is very hard to read." + +Draxy paused and looked sympathizingly in the deacon's face. The mention +of the illegible writing distressed the poor man still more. He took the +sermon from her hand and glanced nervously at the first page. + +"Oh my! Mis' Kinney," he exclaimed, "I can't make out half the words." + +"Can't you?" said Draxy, gently. "It is all as plain as print to me, I +know it so well. But there are some abbreviations Mr. Kinney always used. +I will explain them to you. Perhaps that will make it easier." + +"O Mis' Kinney, Mis' Kinney! I can't never do it in the world," burst out +the poor deacon. "O Mis' Kinney, why can't you read it to the folks? +They'd all like it, I know they would." + +"Do you really think so, Mr. Swift?" replied Draxy; and then, with a +little twinge of conscience, added immediately, "I have been thinking of +that very thing myself, that perhaps, if it wouldn't seem strange to the +people, that would be the best way, because I know the handwriting so +well, and it really is very hard for a stranger to read." + +"Yes, yes, that's the very thing," hastily exclaimed the relieved +deacon,--"that's it, that's it. Why, Mis' Kinney, as for their thinkin' it +strange, there ain't a man in the parish that wouldn't vote for you for +minister twice over if ye wuz only a man. I've heerd 'em all say so more +'n a thousand times sence." Something in Draxy's face cut the Deacon's +sentence short. + +"Very well, Mr. Swift," she said. "Then I will try, since you think it +best. My father thought it would be a good plan too, or else I should not +have been willing," she added, gently. + +"Reuben Miller's daughter" was still as guileless, reverent, potent a +thought in Draxy's heart as when, upon her unconscious childish lips, the +words had been a spell, disarming and winning all hearts to her. + +The news had gone all through the village on Saturday night, that Deacon +Swift was to read one of Elder Kinney's sermons the next day. The whole +parish was present; not a man, not a woman was missing except those who +were kept at home by sickness. A tender solemnity was in every face. Not +often does it happen to a man to be so beloved by a whole community as was +Elder Kinney by this people. + +With some embarrassment and hesitation, Deacon Swift read the hymns and +made one of the prayers; Deacon Plummer made the other. Then there came a +pause. Draxy flushed scarlet and half rose in her pew. She had not thought +to tell the Deacon that he must explain to the people beforehand why she +read the sermon. She had taken it for granted that he would do so; but he +did not comprehend that he ought, and only looked nervously towards her, +waiting for her to come forward. This was the one moment which tried +Draxy's soul; there was almost vexation in her look, as hastily laying +aside her bonnet she walked up to the table in front of the pulpit, and, +turning towards the people, said in her clear, melodious voice,-- + +"Dear friends, I am sorry Deacon Swift did not explain to you that I was +to read the sermon. He asked me to do so because Mr. Kinney's handwriting +is very hard for a stranger to read." + +She paused for a second, and then added: + +"The sermon which I have chosen is one which some of you will remember. It +was written and preached nine years ago. The text is in the beautiful +Gospel of St. John, the 14th chapter and the 27th verse,-- + +"'Peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you.'" + +After pronouncing these words, Draxy paused again, and looking towards her +pew, made a slight sign to Reuby. The child understood instantly, and +walked swiftly to her. + +"Sit in this chair here by mamma, Reuby darling," she whispered, and Reuby +climbed up into the big chair on her right hand, and leaned his fair +golden head against the high mahogany back. Draxy had become conscious, in +that first second, that she could not read with Reuby's wistful face in +sight. Also she felt a sudden yearning for the support of his nearer +presence. + +"Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you," she repeated, and went +on with the sermon. Her tones were low, but clear, and her articulation so +perfect that no syllable was lost; she could have been distinctly heard in +a room twice as large as this. The sight was one which thrilled every +heart that looked on it; no poor laboring man there was so dull of sense +and soul that he did not sit drinking in the wonderful picture: the tall, +queenly woman robed in simple flowing white, her hair a coronet of snowy +silver; her dark blue eyes shining with a light which would have been +flashingly brilliant, except for its steadfast serenity; her mouth almost +smiling, as the clear tones flowed out; sitting quiet, intent, by her +side, the beautiful boy, also dressed in white, his face lighted like hers +by serene and yet gleaming eyes; his head covered with golden curls; his +little hands folded devoutly in his lap. One coming suddenly upon the +scene might well have fancied himself in another clime and age, in the +presence of some rite performed by a mystic priestess clothed in samite. +But the words which fell from the lips were the gentlest words of the +gentlest religion earth has known; and the heart which beat under the +clinging folds of the strange white garb was no priestess' heart, but a +heart full, almost to breaking, of wifehood, of motherhood. + +It does not need experience as an orator to give significance to the +magnetic language of upturned faces. Before Draxy had read ten pages of +the sermon, she was so thrilled by the consciousness that every heart +before her was thrilled too, that her cheeks flushed and her whole face +glowed. + +The sermon had sounded eloquent when the Elder preached it; but now, from +Draxy's lips, it was transcendent. As she read the closing paragraph,-- + +"His peace He leaves with us: his peace He gives unto us: not such peace +as He knew on earth: such peace as He knows now in heaven, on the right +hand of His Father; even that peace He bids us share--that peace, the +peace of God which passeth understanding,"--she seemed to dilate in +stature, and as she let the sermon fall on the table before her, her +lifted eyes seemed arrested in mid air as by a celestial vision. + +Then in a second more, she was again the humble, affectionate Draxy, whom +all the women and all the little children knew and loved; looking round on +them with an appealing expression, she said,-- + +"Dear friends, I hope I have not done wrong in standing up here and taking +it upon me to read such solemn words. I felt that Mr. Kinney would like to +speak to you once more through me." + +Then taking little Reuby by the hand, she walked slowly back to her pew. + +Then Deacon Swift made sad work of reading the hymn,-- + +"Blest be the tie that binds," + +And the choir made sad work of singing it. Nobody's voice could be trusted +for many syllables at a time, but nobody listened to the music. Everybody +was impatient to speak to Draxy. They clustered round her in the aisle; +they crowded into pews to get near her: all the reticence and reserve of +their New England habit had melted away in this wonderful hour. They +thanked her; they touched her; they gazed at her; they did not know what +to do; even Draxy's calm was visibly disturbed by the atmosphere of their +great excitement. + +"O Mis' Kinney, ef ye'll only read us one more! just one more! won't ye, +now? Do say ye will, right off, this arternoon; or read the same one right +over, ef that's any easier for ye. We'd like to hear jest that 'n' nothin' +else for a year to come! O Mis' Kinney! 'twas jest like hearin' the Elder +himself." + +Poor Draxy was trembling. Reuben came to her rescue. + +"I hope you won't take it unkindly of me," he said, "but my daughter's +feeling more than's good for her. She must come home now." And Reuben drew +her hand into his arm. + +The people fell back sorry and conscience-stricken. + +"We orter ha' known better," they said, "but she makes us forgit she's +flesh 'n' blood." + +"I will read you another sermon some time," said Draxy, slowly. "I shall +be very glad to. But not to-day. I could not do it to-day." Then she +smiled on them all, with a smile which was a benediction, and walked away +holding Reuby's hand very tightly, and leaning heavily on her father's +arm. + +The congregation did not disperse; nothing since the Elder's death had so +moved them. They gathered in knots on the church steps and in the aisles, +and talked long and earnestly. There was but one sentiment, one voice. + +"It's a thousand shames she ain't a man," said some of the young men. + +"It 'ud be a thousand times more ef she wuz," retorted Angy Plummer. "I'd +like to see the man that 'ud do what she does, a comin' right close to the +very heart o' yer's ef she was your mother 'n' your sister 'n' your +husband, and a blessed angel o' God, all ter once." + +"But Angy, we only meant that then we could hev her for our minister," +they replied. + +Angy turned very red, but replied, energetically,-- + +"There ain't any law agin a woman's bein' minister, thet I ever heerd on. +Howsomever, Mis' Kinney never'd hear to anythin' o' that kind. I don' no' +for my part how she ever mustered up courage to do what she's done, so +kind o' backward 'n' shy's she is for all her strength. But for my part, I +wouldn't ask for no other preachin' all the rest o' my life, than jest to +hear Mis' Kinney read one o' her husband's sermons every Sunday." + +"Why, Angy Plummer!" burst from more lips than one. But the bold +suggestion was only the half-conscious thought of every one there, and the +discussion grew more and more serious. Slowly the people dispersed to +their homes, but the discussion still continued. Late into night, by many +a fireside, the matter was talked over, and late the next night, and the +next, until a vague hope and a still vaguer purpose sprang up in the +parish. + +"She said she'd read another some day," they reiterated. "Most likely +she'd 's soon do it next Sunday, 'n' sooner, 'cause she'd be more used +to't than ef she waited a spell between." + +"But it won't do to take it for granted she's goin' to, 'n' not git +anybody," said Deacon Swift, in great perplexity. "I think Brother Plummer +'n' me'd better go 'n' ask her." + +"No," said Angy, "let me go. I can talk it over better'n you can. I'll +go." + +And Angy went. The interview between the two women was long. Angy pleaded +as nobody else in the parish could have done; and Draxy's heart was all on +her side. But Draxy's judgment was unconvinced. + +"If I could be sure, Angy, that it would be best for the people, I should +not hesitate. But you know very well, if I begin I shall keep on," she +said. + +She consulted Reuben. His heart, too, was on the people's side, but his +judgment was like hers, perplexed. + +"One thing's very certain, daughter: there is not anybody they can ever +find to settle here, or that they are likely to, who can preach as the +Elder did. His old sermons are worlds better than any new ones they'll +get." + +"Yes, indeed, I know that," said Draxy. "That's what makes me feel as if I +must do it." + +This had been her strongest motive. Only too well she knew what would be +the probable calibre of a man who would come to this poor and lonely +little village which she so loved. + +At last she consented to make the experiment. "I will read for you every +Sunday, two sermons of Mr. Kinney's," she said, "until you hear of some +one whom you would like to settle for your minister." + +Angy Plummer, clapped her hands when her father repeated at tea on +Thursday evening what "Mis' Kinney" had said. + +"That's good's settlin' her," she exclaimed. "Oh, I never thought she'd +come to it," and real tears of joy stood in Angy's eyes. + +"I don't know 'bout that, Angy," replied the Deacon; "there's a good deal +to be thought on, fust 'n' last. Folks '11 talk like everythin', I expect, +'n' say we've got a woman preacher. It wouldn't never do for any great +length o' time; but it will be a blessin' to hear some th' Elder's good +rousin' comfortin' sermons for a spell, arter the stuff we hev been a +havin', 'n' they can't say she's any more 'n' a reader anyhow. That's +quite different from preachin'." + +"Of course it is," said Angy, who was wise enough to keep some of her +thoughts and hopes to herself; "they're's different's any other two +things. I don't suppose anybody'd say you was a settin' up to preach, if +you'd ha' read the sermons, 'n' I don't see why they need to any more o' +Mis' Kinney." And so, on the next Sunday Draxy's ministry to her husband's +people began. Again with softened and gladdened faces the little +congregation looked up to the fair, tall priestess with her snow-white +robes and snow-white hair, and gleaming steadfast eyes, standing meekly +between the communion-table and the chair in which sat her golden-haired +little son. Her voice was clearer and stronger than ever; and there was a +calm peacefulness in her whole atmosphere which had not been there at +first. + +Again the people crowded around, and thanked her, and clasped her hands. +This time she answered them with cordial good cheer, and did not tremble. +To little Reuby also they spoke gratefully. + +"You help too, Reuby, don't you?" said Angy Plummer,--"do you like it?" + +"Very much, ma'am; mamma says I help, but I think she's mistaken," replied +the little fellow, archly. + +"Yes you do, you darling," said Mrs. Plummer, stooping and kissing him +tenderly. Angy Plummer loved Reuby. She never looked at him without +thinking that but for his existence the true mother-heart would perhaps +never have been born in her bosom. + +The reading of the sermons grew easier and easier to Draxy, Sunday by +Sunday. She became conscious of a strange sense of being lifted out of +herself, as soon as she began to speak. She felt more and more as if it +were her husband speaking through her; and she felt more and more closely +drawn into relation with the people. + +"Oh, father dear," she said more than once, "I don't know how I shall ever +give it up when the time comes. It makes me so happy: I feel almost as if +I could see Seth standing right by me and holding my gown while I read. +And father, dear," she proceeded in a lower, slower voice, "I don't know +but you'll think it wrong; I'm almost afraid to tell you, but sometimes I +say words that aren't in the sermons; just a sentence or two, where I +think Seth would put it in if he were here now; and I almost believe he +puts the very words into my head." + +She paused and looked anxiously and inquiringly at her father. + +"No, Draxy," replied Reuben solemnly, "I don't think it wrong. I feel more +and more, every Sunday I listen to you, as if the Lord had set you apart +for this thing; and I don't believe he'd send any other angel except your +husband on the errand of helpin' you." + +The summer passed, and the parish gave no signs of readiness for a new +minister. When Draxy spoke of it, she was met by such heartfelt grief on +all sides that she was silenced. At last she had a long, serious talk with +the deacons, which set her mind more at rest. They had, it seemed, +consulted several neighboring ministers, Elder Williams among the number, +and they had all advised that while the congregation seemed so absorbed in +interest, no change should be made. + +"Elder Williams he sez he'll come over regular for the communion," said +Deacon Plummer, "and for baptisms whenever we want him, and thet's the +main thing, for, thank the Lord, we haint many funerals 'n course of a +year. And Mis' Kinney, ef ye'll excuse my makin' so bold, I'll tell ye +jest what Elder Williams said about ye: sez he, It's my opinion that ef +there was ever a woman born thet was jest cut out for a minister to a +congregation, it's that Elder's wife o' your'n; and sez we to him 'Thet's +jest what the hull town thinks, sir, and it's our opinion that ef we +should try to settle anythin' in the shape of a man in this parish, there +wouldn't be anythin' but empty pews for him to preach to, for the people'd +all be gone up to Mis' Kinney's.'" + +Draxy smiled in spite of herself. But her heart was very solemn. + +"It is a great responsibility, Deacon Plummer," she said, "and I feel +afraid all the time. But my father thinks I ought to do it, and I am so +happy in it, it seems as if it could not be a mistake." + +As months went on, her misgivings grew less and less; and her impulses to +add words of her own to her husband's sermons grew more and more frequent. +She could not but see that she held the hearts of the people in her hands +to mould them like wax; and her intimate knowledge of their conditions and +needs made it impossible for her to refrain from sometimes speaking the +words she knew they ought to hear. Whenever she did so at any length, she +laid her manuscript on the table, that they might know the truth. Her +sense of honesty would not let her do otherwise. It was long before +anybody but Angy Plummer understood the meaning of these intervals. The +rest supposed she knew parts of the sermon by heart. + +But at last came a day when her soul was so stirred within her, that she +rose up boldly before her people and said,-- + +"I have not brought any sermon of Mr. Kinney's to read to you to-day. I am +going to speak to you myself. I am so grieved, so shocked at events which +have taken place in this village, the past week, that I cannot help +speaking about them. And I find among Mr. Kinney's sermons no one which +meets this state of things." + +The circumstances to which Draxy alluded had been some disgraceful scenes +of excitement in connection with the Presidential election. Party spirit +had been growing higher and higher in Clairvend for some years; and when, +on the reckoning of the returns on this occasion, the victorious party +proved to have a majority of but three, sharp quarreling had at once +broken out. Accusations of cheating and lying were freely bandied, and +Deacon Plummer and George Thayer had nearly come to blows on the steps of +the Town House, at high noon, just as the school-children were going home. +Later in the afternoon there had been a renewal of the contest in the +village store, and it had culminated in a fight, part of which Draxy +herself had chanced to see. Long and anxiously she pondered, that night, +the question of her duty. She dared not keep silent. + +"It would be just hypocrisy and nothing less," she exclaimed to herself, +"for me to stand up there and read them one of Seth's sermons, when I am +burning to tell them how shamefully they have behaved. But I suppose it +will be the last time I shall speak to them. They'll never want to hear me +again." + +She did not tell her father of her resolution till they were near the +church. Reuben started, but in a moment he said, deliberately,-- + +"You're quite right, daughter; may the Lord bless you!" + +At Draxy's first words, a thrill of astonishment ran over the whole +congregation. Everybody knew what was coming. George Thayer colored +scarlet to the roots of his hair, and the color never faded till the +sermon was ended. Deacon Plummer coughed nervously, and changed his +position so as to cover his mouth with his hand. Angy put her head down on +the front of the pew and began to cry. + +"Render, therefore, unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and unto God +the things that are God's," came in clear ringing tones from Draxy's lips. +Then she proceeded, in simple and gentle words, to set forth the right of +every man to his own opinions and convictions; the duty of having earnest +convictions and acting up to them in all the affairs of life. George +Thayer and the Deacon looked easier. Her words seemed, after all, rather a +justification of their vehemence of feeling. + +But when she came to speak of the "things that are God's," her words +pierced their very souls. The only thing that enabled George Thayer to +bear up under it at all was, as he afterwards said in the store, keeping +his "eyes fixed steady on old Plummer," "'cause, you know, boys, I never +jined the church nor made any kind o' profession o' goin' in for any +things o' God's, nohow; not but what I've often wished I could see my way +to: but sez I to myself, ef he kin stan' it I kin, an' so I held out. But +I tell you, boys, I'd rather drive the wust six-hoss team I ever got hold +on down Breakneck Hill 'n the dark, than set there agin under thet woman's +eyes, a blazin' one minnit, 'n fillin' with tears the next: 'n' I don't +care what anybody sez; I'm a goin' to see her an' tell her that she +needn't be afeard o' ever hevin to preach to me s' good s' by my name, in +the meeting 'us agin, by thunder!" + +"Suppose the blessed Saviour had come walking through our streets, looking +for his children last Wednesday," said Draxy, "He would say to himself, +'I shall know them, wherever I find them: I have given them so many +badges, they will be sure to be wearing some of them. They suffer long and +are kind; they envy not, vaunt not, are not puffed up: they are not easily +provoked, think no evil, seek not their own, rejoice in the truth; they do +not behave unseemly.' Alas, would the dear Jesus have turned away, +believing Himself a stranger and friendless in our village? Which one of +you, dear men, could have sprung forward to take him by the hand? What +terrible silence would have fallen upon you as he looked round on your +angry faces!" + +Tears were rolling down little Reuby's face. Slyly he tried to wipe them +away, first with one hand, then with the other, lest his mother should see +them. He had never in his life seen such an expression of suffering on +her face. He had never heard such tones of pain in her voice. He was +sorely perplexed; and the sight of his distressed little face was almost +more than the people could bear. + +When Draxy stopped speaking, Deacon Plummer did a manly thing. He rose +instantly, and saying "Let us pray," poured out as humble and contrite a +petition for forgiveness as ever went up on wings of faith to Heaven. It +cleared the air, like sweet rain; it rolled a burden off everybody's +heart--most of all, perhaps, off Draxy's. + +"He is not angry, after all," she said; "God has laid it to his heart;" +and when, at the end of the services, the old man came up to her and held +out his hand, she took it in both of hers, and said, "Thank you, dear +Deacon Plummer, thank you for helping me so much to-day. Your prayer was +better for the people than my little sermon, a great deal." The deacon +wrung her hands, but did not speak a word, only stooped and kissed Reuby. + +After this day, Draxy had a new hold on the people. They had really felt +very little surprise at her speaking to them as she did. She had slowly +and insensibly to herself grown into the same place which the Elder had +had in their regard; the same in love and confidence, but higher in +reverence, and admiration, for although she sympathized just as lovingly +as he in all their feelings, they never for a moment ceased to feel that +her nature was on a higher plane than his. They could not have put this in +words, but they felt it. + +"Donno, how 'tis," they said, "but Mis' Kinney, even when she's closest to +ye, an' a doin' for ye all the time, don't seem just like a mortal woman." + +"It's easy enough to know how 'tis," replied Angy Plummer, once, in a +moment of unguarded frankness, "Mis Kinney is a kind o' daughter o' God, +somthin' as Jesus Christ was His Son. It's just the way Jesus Christ used +to go round among folks, 's near 's I can make out; 'n' I for one, don't +believe that God jest sent Him, once for all, 'n' haint never sent anybody +else near us, all this time. I reckon He's a sendin' down sons and +daughters to us oftener 'n' we think." + +"Angy Plummer, I call that downright blasphemy," exclaimed her mother. + +"Well, call it what you're a mind to," retorted the crisp Angy. "It's what +I believe." + +"'Tis blasphemy though, to be sayin' it to folks that can't understand," +she muttered to herself as she left the room, "ef blasphemy means what +Mis' Kinney sez it does, to speak stupidly." + +Three years had passed. The novelty of Draxy's relation to her people had +worn off. The neighboring people had ceased to wonder and to talk; and the +neighboring ministers had ceased to doubt and question. Clairvend and she +had a stout supporter in old Elder Williams, who was looked upon as a high +authority throughout the region. He always stayed at Reuben Miller's +house, when he came to the town, and his counsel and sympathy were +invaluable to Draxy. Sometimes he said jocosely, "I am the pastor of +Brother Kinney's old parish and Mis' Kinney is my curate, and I wish +everybody had as good an one." + +It finally grew to be Draxy's custom to read one of her husband's sermons +in the forenoon, and to talk to the people informally in the afternoon. +Sometimes she wrote out what she wished to say, but usually she spoke +without any notes. She also wrote hymns which she read to them, and which +the choir sometimes sang. She was now fully imbued with the feeling that +everything which she could do, belonged to her people. Next to Reuben, +they filled her heart; the sentiment was after all but an expanded and +exalted motherhood. Strangers sometimes came to Clairvend to hear her +preach, for of course the fame of the beautiful white-robed woman-preacher +could not be confined to her own village. This always troubled Draxy very +much. + +"If we were not so far out of the world, I should have to give it up," she +said; "I know it is proper they should come; but it seems to me just as +strange as if they were to walk into the study in the evening when I am +teaching Reuby. I can't make it seem right; and when I see them writing +down what I say, it just paralyzes me." + +It might have seemed so to Draxy, but it did not to her hearers. No one +would have supposed her conscious of any disturbing presence. And more +than one visitor carried away with him written records of her eloquent +words. + +One of her most remarkable sermons was called "The Gospel of Mystery." + +The text was Psalm xix. 2:-- + + "Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge." + +First she dwelt on the sweet meaning of the word Gospel. "Dear friends," +she said, "it is a much simpler word than we realize; it is only 'good +news,' 'good tidings.' We get gospels every day. Our children send us good +news of their lives. What gospels of joy are such letters! And nations to +nations send good news: a race of slaves is set free; a war has ended; +shiploads of grain have been sent to the starving; a good man has been +made ruler; these are good tidings--gospels." + +After dwelling on this first, simplest idea of the word, until every one +of her hearers had begun to think vividly of all the good tidings +journeying in words back and forth between heart and heart, continent and +continent, she spoke of the good news which nature tells without words. +Here she was eloquent. Subtle as the ideas were, they were yet clothed in +the plain speech which the plain people understood: the tidings of the +spring, of the winter, of the river, of the mountain; of gold, of silver, +of electric fire; of blossom and fruit; of seed-time and harvest; of suns +and stars and waters,--these were the "speech" which "day uttered unto +day." + +But "knowledge was greater" than speech: night in her silence "showed" +what day could not tell. Here the faces of the people grew fixed and +earnest. In any other hands than Draxy's the thought would have been too +deep for them, and they would have turned from it wearily. But her +simplicity controlled them always. "Stand on your door-steps on a dark +night," she said,--"a night so dark that you can see nothing: looking out +into this silent darkness, you will presently feel a far greater sense of +how vast the world is, than you do in broad noon-day, when you can see up +to the very sun himself." + +More than one young face in the congregation showed that this sentence +struck home and threw light on hitherto unexplained emotions. "This is +like what I mean," continued Draxy, "by the Gospel of Mystery, the good +tidings of the things we cannot understand. This gospel is everywhere. Not +the wisest man that has ever lived can fully understand the smallest +created thing: a drop of water, a grain of dust, a beam of light, can +baffle his utmost research. So with our own lives, with our own hearts; +every day brings a mystery--sin and grief and death: all these are +mysteries; gospels of mystery, good tidings of mystery; yes, good tidings! +These are what prove that God means to take us into another world after +this one; into a world where all things which perplexed us here will be +explained.... O my dear friends!" she exclaimed at last, clasping her +hands tightly, "thank God for the things which we cannot understand: +except for them, how should we ever be sure of immortality?" + +Then she read them a hymn called "The Gospel of Mystery." Coming after the +sermon, it was sweet and clear to all the people's hearts. Before the +sermon it would have seemed obscure. + + The Gospel of Mystery. + + Good tidings every day, + God's messengers ride fast. + We do not hear one half they say, + There is such noise on the highway, + Where we must wait while they ride past. + + Their banners blaze and shine + With Jesus Christ's dear name, + And story, how by God's design + He saves us, in His love divine, + And lifts us from our sin and shame. + + Their music fills the air, + Their songs sing all of Heaven; + Their ringing trumpet peals declare + What crowns to souls who fight and dare, + And win, shall presently be given. + + Their hands throw treasures round + Among the multitude. + No pause, no choice, no count, no bound, + No questioning how men are found, + If they be evil or be good. + + But all the banners bear + Some words we cannot read; + And mystic echoes in the air, + Which borrow from the songs no share, + In sweetness all the songs exceed. + + And of the multitude, + No man but in his hand + Holds some great gift misunderstood, + Some treasure, for whose use or good + His ignorance sees no demand. + + These are the tokens lent + By immortality; + Birth-marks of our divine descent; + Sureties of ultimate intent, + God's Gospel of Eternity. + + Good tidings every day. + The messengers ride fast; + Thanks be to God for all they say; + There is such noise on the highway, + Let us keep still while they ride past. + +But the sermon which of all others her people loved best was one on the +Love of God. This one she was often asked to repeat,--so often, that she +said one day to Angy, who asked for it, "Why, Angy, I am ashamed to. +Everybody must know it by heart. I am sure I do." + +"Yes, that's jest the way we do know it, Mis' Kinney, by heart," said the +affectionate Angy, "an' that's jest the reason we want it so often. I +never told ye what George Thayer said the last time you read it to us, did +I?" + +"No, Angy," said Draxy. + +"Well, he was singing in the choir that day, 'n place o' his brother, who +was sick; 'n' he jumped up on one o' the seats 'n' swung his hat, jest 's +you was goin' down the aisle, 'n' we all ketched hold on him to pull him +down, 'n' try to hush him; for you can't never tell what George Thayer'll +do when his blood's up, 'n' we was afraid he was agoin' to holler right +out, 's ef he was in the town-'us; but sez he, in a real low, trembly kind +o' voice, + +"'Ye needn't be afraid, I ain't agoin' to whoop;--taint that way I +feel,--but I had to do suthin' or I should bust': 'n' there was reel tears +in his eyes--George Thayer's eyes, Mis' Kinney! Then he jumped down, 'n' +sez he, 'I'll tell ye what that sermon's like: it's jest like one great +rainbow all round ye, and before 'n' behind 'n' everywheres, 'n' the end +on't reaches way to the Throne; it jest dazzles my eyes, that's what it +does.'" + +This sermon had concluded with the following hymn, which Draxy had written +when Reuby was only a few weeks old:-- + + The Love of God. + + Like a cradle rocking, rocking, + Silent, peaceful, to and fro, + Like a mother's sweet looks dropping + On the little face below, + Hangs the green earth, swinging, turning, + Jarless, noiseless, safe and slow; + Falls the light of God's face bending + Down and watching us below. + + And as feeble babes that suffer, + Toss and cry, and will not rest, + Are the ones the tender mother + Holds the closest, loves the best, + So when we are weak and wretched, + By our sins weighed down, distressed, + Then it is that God's great patience + Holds us closest, loves us best. + + O great Heart of God! whose loving + Cannot hindered be nor crossed; + Will not weary, will not even + In our death itself be lost-- + Love divine! of such great loving, + Only mothers know the cost-- + Cost of love, which all love passing, + Gave a Son to save the lost. + +There is little more to tell of Draxy's ministry. It closed as suddenly as +it had begun. + +It was just five years after the Elder's death that she found herself, one +Sunday morning, feeling singularly feeble and lifeless. She was bewildered +at the sensation, for in her apparent health she had never felt it before. +She could hardly walk, could hardly stand. She felt also a strange apathy +which prevented her being alarmed. + +"It is nothing," she said; "I dare say most women are so all the time; I +don't feel in the least ill;" and she insisted upon it that no one should +remain at home with her. It was a communion Sunday and Elder Williams was +to preach. + +"How fortunate it is that Mr. Williams was here!" she thought languidly, +as she seated herself in the eastern bay-window, to watch Reuby down the +hill. He walked between his grandparents, holding each by the hand, +talking merrily and looking up into their faces. + +Draxy watched them until their figures became dim, black specks, and +finally faded out of sight. Then she listened dreamily to the notes of the +slow-tolling bell; when it ceased she closed her eyes, and her thoughts +ran back, far back to the days when she was "little Draxy" and Elder +Kinney was only her pastor. Slowly she lived her life since then over +again, its joy and its sorrow alike softened in her tender, brooding +thoughts. The soft whirring sound of a bird's wings in the air roused her: +as it flew past the window she saw that it was one of the yellow-hammers, +which still built their nests in the maple-grove behind the house. + +"Ah," thought she, "I suppose it can't be one of the same birds we saw +that day. But it's going on errands just the same. I wonder, dear Seth, if +mine are nearly done." + +At that instant a terrible pain shot through her left side and forced a +sharp cry from her lips. She half rose exclaiming, "Reuby, oh, darling!" +and sank back in her chair unconscious. + +Just as Elder Williams was concluding the communion service, the door of +the church was burst open, and old Ike, tottering into the aisle, cried +out in a shrill voice:-- + +"Mis' Kinney's dead! Mis' Kinney's dead!" + +The scene that followed could not be told. With flying feet the whole +congregation sped up the steep hill--Angy Plummer half lifting, half +dragging Reuby, and the poor grandparents supported on each side by strong +men. As they drew near the house, they saw Draxy apparently sitting by the +open window. + +"O mamma! why that's mamma," shrieked Reuby, "she was sitting just so when +we came away. She isn't dead." + +Elder Williams reached the house first, Hannah met him on the threshold, +tearless. + +"She dead, sir. She's cold as ice. She must ha' been dead a long time." + +Old Ike had been rambling around the house, and observing from the outside +that Draxy's position was strange, had compelled Hannah to go into the +room. + +"She was a smilin' just's you see her now," said Hannah, "'n' I couldn't +ha' touched her to move her more'n I could ha' touched an angel." + +There are griefs, as well as joys, to which words offer insult. Draxy was +dead! + +Three days later they laid her by the side of her husband, and the +gray-haired, childless old people, and the golden-haired, fatherless and +motherless boy, returned together broken-hearted to the sunny parsonage. + +On the village a terrible silence, that could be felt, settled down; a +silence in which sorrowing men and women crept about, weeping as those who +cannot be comforted. + +Then week followed after week, and soon all things seemed as they had +seemed before. But Draxy never died to her people. Her hymns are still +sung in the little lonely church; her gospel still lives in the very air +of those quiet hills, and the people smile through their tears as they +teach her name to little children. + + + + +Whose Wife Was She? + + + +I was on my knees before my chrysanthemum-bed, looking at each little +round tight disk of a bud, and trying to believe that it would be a snowy +flower in two weeks. In two weeks my cousin Annie Ware was to be married: +if my white chrysanthemums would only understand and make haste! I was +childish enough to tell them so; but the childishness came of love,--of my +exceeding, my unutterable love for Annie Ware; if flowers have souls, the +chrysanthemums understood me. + +A sharp, quick roll of wheels startled me. I lifted my head. The wheels +stopped at our gate; a hurried step came down the broad garden-path, and +almost before I had had time to spring to my feet, Dr. Fearing had taken +both my hands in his, had said,--"Annie Ware has the fever,"--had turned, +had gone, had shut the garden gate, and the same sharp quick roll of +wheels told that he was far on his way to the next sufferer. + +I do not know how long I stood still in the garden. A miserable sullenness +seemed to benumb my faculties. I repeated,-- + +"Annie Ware has the fever." Then I said,-- + +"Annie Ware cannot die; she is too young, too strong, and we love her +so." + +Then I said again,-- + +"Annie Ware has the fever," and all the time I seemed not to be thinking +about her at all, but about the chrysanthemums, whose tops I still idly +studied. + +For weeks a malignant typhus fever had been slowly creeping about in the +lower part of our village, in all the streets which had been under water +in the spring freshet. + +These streets were occupied chiefly by laboring people, either +mill-operatives, or shopkeepers of the poorer class. It was part of the +cruel "calamity" of their "poverty" that they could not afford to have +homesteads on the high plateau, which lifted itself quite suddenly from +the river meadow, and made our village a by-word of beauty all through New +England. + +Upon this plateau were laid out streets of great regularity, shaded by +grand elms, many of which had been planted by hands that had handled the +ropes of the _Mayflower_. Under the shade of these elms stood large +old-fashioned houses, in that sort of sleepy dignity peculiar to old New +England. We who lived in these houses were also sleepy and dignified. We +knew that "under the hill," as it was called, lived many hundreds of men +and women, who were stifled in summer for want of the breezes which swept +across our heights, cold in winter because the wall of our plateau shut +down upon them the icy airs from the frozen river, and cut off the +afternoon sun. We were sorry for them, and we sent them cold meat and +flannels sometimes; but their life was as remote from our life as if they +never crossed our paths; it is not necessary to go into large cities to +find sharp lines drawn between the well-to-do and the poverty-stricken. +There are, in many small villages, "districts" separated from each other +by as distinct a moral distance as divides Fifth Avenue from the Five +Points. + +And so it had come to pass that while for weeks this malignant fever had +been creeping about on the river shore, we, in our clearer, purer air, had +not felt even a dread of it. There had not been a single case of it west +of the high water mark made by the terrible freshet of the previous +spring. We sent brandy and wine and beef-tea into the poor, comfortless, +grief-stricken houses; and we said at tea-time that it was strange, people +would persist in living down under the bank: what could they expect? and +besides, they were "so careless about drainage and ventilation." + +Now, on the highest and loveliest spot, in the richest and most beautiful +house, the sweetest and fairest girl of all our village lay ill of the +deadly disease. + +"Annie Ware has the fever." I wondered if some fiend were lurking by my +side, who kept saying the words over and over in my ear. With that +indescribable mixture of dulled and preternaturally sharpened sense which +often marks the first moments of such distress, I walked slowly to my +room, and in a short time had made all the necessary preparation for +leaving home. I felt like a thief as I stole slowly down the stairs, with +my travelling-bag in my hand. At the door I met my father. + +"Hey-day, my darling, where now? Off to Annie's, as usual?" + +He had not heard the tidings! Should I tell him? I might never see him +again; only too well I knew the terrible danger into which I was going. +But he might forbid me. + +"Yes, off to Annie's," I said in a gay tone, and kissing him sprang down +the steps. + +I did not see my father again for eighteen days. + +On the steps of my uncle's house I met old Jane, a colored woman who had +nursed Annie Ware when she was a baby, and who lived now in a little +cottage near by, from whose door-steps she could see Annie's window, and +in whose garden she raised flowers of all sorts, solely for the pleasure +of carrying them to Annie every day. + +Jane's face was positively gray with sorrow and fear. She looked at me +with a strange sort of unsympathizing hardness in her eyes. She had never +loved me. I knew what she thought. She was saying to herself: "Why not +this one instead of the other?" + +"O auntie!" I said, "I would die for Annie; you know I would." + +At this she melted. "O honey! don' ye say that. The Lord"--but she could +say no more. She threw her apron up over her head and strode away. + +The doors of the house stood open. I walked through room after room, and +found no human being. At last, at the foot of the stairs in the back part +of the house, I came upon all the servants huddled together in a cowering, +weeping group. Flat on the floor, with his face to the wall, lay black +Caesar, the coachman. I put my hand on his shoulder. He jerked away +impatiently. + +"Yer jest lemme lone, will yer?" he said in a choking voice; then lifting +up his head, and seeing it was I, he half sprang to his feet, with a look +of shame and alarm, and involuntarily carrying his hand to his head, +said:-- + +"O miss! who's gwine to think yer"--here he too broke down, and buried his +face in his great hands. + +I did not speak, but the little group instinctively opened to let me pass +up the stairs. I had a vague consciousness that they said something as I +turned into a little cross-hall which led to Annie's room; but without +attending to their words I opened her door. The room was empty; the bed +stripped of clothes; the windows wide open. I sank into a chair, and +looked from side to side. I was too late, after all! That was why none of +the servants dared speak to me. A little slipper of Annie's lay on the +floor by the bed. I took it up and turned it over and over in my hands. +Then I became conscious that my Aunt Ann was speaking to me,--was calling +me by name, earnestly, repeatedly, with terror in her voice. + +"My dear, dear child; Helen, Helen, Helen, she is not dead. She is in my +room. Come and see for yourself." + +I had seen my Aunt Ann every day for nineteen years,--I never knew her +until that moment; I never saw her real face until that moment. + +I followed her slowly through rooms and passageways till she reached her +own chamber. The door was open; the room was very dark. On the threshold +she paused, and whispered, "You must not be frightened, darling. She will +not know you. She has not known any one for six hours." + +I knelt down by the bed. In a few moments my eyes became used to the +darkness, and I saw Annie's face lying motionless on the farther edge of +the bed, turned to the wall. It was perfectly white except the lips, which +were almost black, and were swollen and crusted over with the fearful +fever. Her beautiful hair fell in tangled masses, and half covered her +face. + +"She seems to be lying very uncomfortably," said Aunt Ann, "but the doctor +ordered that she should not be disturbed in any way." + +I looked at my aunt's face and listened to her voice in bewilderment. The +whole world had for years called her, and with apparent justice, "a hard +and unsympathizing woman." No human being had ever seen a really free +unconstrained smile on her face, or heard from her lips an impulsive word. +When it was known that the genial, rollicking, open-hearted Henry Ware was +to marry her, everybody shuddered. As years went on, everybody who sat by +Henry Ware's fireside, and was kindled and made welcome by his +undiminished and unconquerable cheeriness, felt at the same time chilled +and paralyzed by the courteous, unexceptionable dignity of Mrs. Ware. Even +I, having the freedom of a daughter in their house, and loving my uncle +hardly less than I loved my father, had never once supposed that anybody +could love Aunt Ann, or that she would permit it. I always felt a little +terror when I saw Annie kiss her, or my uncle put his arm around her. My +own loving, caressing, over-flowing mother had given me by inheritance, +and had taught me by example, a type of love which knew no life without +expression. And very well I knew that that sweet mother of mine, whom the +whole town loved, and who herself loved the whole world, seemed always +turned into stone by the simple presence of Aunt Ann. + +And now Aunt Ann was sitting on the floor by my side, clinging to my hand, +resting my head on her bosom, and, as I felt instantly and instinctively, +revealing in her every tone, look, word, such intensity and passionateness +of feeling as I had never in my whole life seen before. I saw then that +she had always held me side by side with her own child in her heart, and +that she knew the rare quality of the love I had for Annie. + +"I ought not to have let you come here," she said, more as if speaking to +herself than to me; "they, too, have but one." + +"But, Aunt Ann, you could not have kept me out," I whispered. + +"Yes, I knew that, my child," she replied; "but no one else would know +it." + +From that moment there was between my Aunt Ann and me a subtle bond which +partook of all the holiest mysteries of love. There were both motherhood +and the love of lovers in my love for Annie. Annie's mother felt them, and +was willing to have her own motherhood added to and ministered to by them. +From that moment I believe not even her husband seemed so near to her in +her relation with her child as I. + +I will not write out the record of the next two weeks. They seemed, as +they passed, a thousand years; and yet, in looking back on them, they seem +only like one terrible breathless night. My aunt and I alone did all that +was done for Annie. There were whole days and whole nights during which +she talked incessantly, sometimes with such subtle semblance of her own +sweet self that we could hardly believe she did not know what she said; +sometimes with such wild ravings that we shook in terror, and could not +look at her nor at each other. There were other days and nights through +which she lay in a sleep, which seemed-no more like real sleep than the +shrill voice of her ravings had seemed like her real voice. These were +most fearful of all. Through all these days and nights, two men with white +faces and folded arms walked up and down in the rooms below, or crouched +on the thresholds of our doors, listening for sign or word from us. One +was Annie's father, and the other was her lover, George Ware. He was her +second cousin, fifteen years older than she, and had loved her since the +day she was one year old, when at the ceremony of her christening, he, a +proud shy boy of sixteen, had been allowed to carry her up-stairs with her +sweet name resting fresh and new on her little dewy forehead. Ah, seldom +does such love spring and grow and blaze on this earth as had warmed the +very air around Annie from the moment of her birth. George Ware was a man +of rare strength, as this love showed; and with just such faithfulness as +his faithfulness to Annie, he had loved and cared for his mother, who had +been for twenty years a widow. They lived on the outskirts of the town, +in a small house almost buried in the heart of a pine wood. The wood was +threaded in all directions by miles of narrow paths which shone in the +shaded sunlight as if they were satin-floored. For nineteen years it had +been George Ware's joy to roam these paths with his cousin Annie; first, +the baby whom he drew in her wicker wagon; next, the wayward little child +who walked with stumbling steps and clung to his finger; next, the gay +school-girl who brought all her perplexities and all her joys to be +confided to him under the pines; next, the shyer and more silent maiden +who came less often, but lingered helplessly until twilight made the +fragrant aisles solemn and dim as cloisters; at last, the radiant, the +child-like woman, the promised wife! + +No winter could set a barrier across these pine-wood paths. When the whole +country about lay blocked and drifted, and half buried with snow, all +these spicy foot-roads were kept clear and level, and ready for Annie's +feet. Whole days of George Ware's strength went into the work and the joy +of doing this. In open spaces where the snow had drifted deep, he wrought +it into solid walls almost as high on either hand as Annie's head. In dark +nooks, where the spreading pines and hemlocks lay low and wide, he tossed +the snow into fantastic and weird masses on the right and left, and +cleared great spaces where he knew the partridge-berry would be ready with +a tiny scarlet glow to light up the spot. + +This was George Ware's wooing. It never stepped into the glare, the +contention of profaner air. It was not a seeking, a finding, a conquest; +but a slow, sure growth of possession, which had as eternal foundation and +seemed as eternally safe as the results of organic law. + +George's picture hung in Annie's room, opposite the foot of her bed. +Opposite the foot of the bed in her mother's room hung a large engraving +of the Sistine Madonna. I fancied that in Annie's quieter moments her eyes +rested with a troubled look upon this picture, and one day, when she was +in a deep sleep, I exchanged the pictures. I felt as if even lifeless +canvas which had George's face painted upon it, might work her good. + +At last there came a night,--they said it was the fourteenth, but the +words conveyed no meaning to me,--there came a night when Dr. Fearing, who +had been sitting by Annie's bed for two hours, watching her every breath, +sprang suddenly to his feet, and beckoned to my aunt and me to follow him +into the next room. He shut the door, walked very swiftly up to us, looked +first into her face then into mine; then felt her pulse, and then mine, +and then turning to me, said,-- + +"It will have to be you." We looked at him in sudden terror. The tears +were rolling down his wrinkled cheeks. + +"What is it, William?" gasped Aunt Ann. + +"It will have to be you," he went on, looking me in the face, and taking +no notice of her question; "your pulse can be trusted. There has been a +change. When Annie wakes out of this sleep she will know you. It may be in +two hours, and it may not be for six. But if in that first moment she is +alarmed, or agitated in any way, she will die." + +"O William, let me stay. I will be calm," moaned my poor aunt. + +Then I observed, for the first time, that she had called him "William." +And then, for the first and last time, I heard Dr. Fearing call my Aunt +Ann "darling," and I remembered in that instant that it had been said once +in my hearing, that it was because of his love for Mrs. Henry Ware that +Dr. William Fearing had lived and would die a lonely man. + +"Darling," he said, and put one hand on her shoulder, "you would kill your +child. I forbid you to cross the threshold of that room till I come back. +You will thank me to-morrow. Can you not trust me, Ann?" and he looked +down from his full height, this brave old man, into the face of the woman +he had loved, with a look like the look of one who dies to save another. +It was but for one second, and then he was again the physician, and +turning to me, went on, "I have another patient to whom I must instantly +go, and whom I may not be able to leave for hours. You can do all that I +would do,--I believe,"--then he felt my pulse again, and nodding his head +with a sort of grim professional satisfaction, which no amount of emotion +could wholly divert from its delight in the steady nerves and undisturbed +currents of a healthy body,--resumed, "You have but one thing to do: when +she wakes, look perfectly composed; if she speaks, answer her in a +perfectly natural voice; give her two drops of this medicine, and tell her +to go to sleep again. If you do this, she will fall asleep at once. If +you show the least agitation, she may die,--probably will!"--and Dr. +Fearing was gone. + +My aunt sat silently weeping. I kissed her without speaking, and went back +to my chair by Annie's bed. I dropped the two drops of medicine into a +spoon, and propped the spoon carefully on a little silver tray, so that I +could reach it instantly. It was just three o'clock in the morning. Hour +after hour passed. I could not hear Annie's breath. My own dinned in my +ears like the whir of mills. A terror such as I can never describe took +possession of me. What if I were to kill Annie? How could I look composed? +speak naturally? What would she say? If I could but know and have my +answer ready! + +I firmly believe that the dawn of light saved my senses and Annie's life. +When the first red beam shot through the blinds at the farther end of the +room, tears came into my eyes. I felt as if angels were watching outside. +A tiny sunbeam crept between the slats and fell on the carpet. It was no +more than a hair's breadth, but it was companionship to me. Slowly, +steadily it came towards me. I forgot all else in watching it. To this day +I cannot see a slow-moving sunbeam on a crimson floor without a shudder. +The clock struck six, seven, eight, nine. The bells rang for schools; the +distant hum of the town began. Still there was no stir, no symptom of +life, in the colorless face on the pillow. The sunbeam had crept nearly to +my feet. Involuntarily I lifted my right foot and stretched it out-to meet +the golden messenger. Had I dared to move I should have knelt and reached +my hand to it instead. Perhaps even the slight motion I did make, +hastened Annie's waking, for at that instant she turned her head uneasily +on the pillow and opened her eyes. I saw that she knew me. I wondered how +I could have distrusted my own strength to meet her look. I smiled as if +we were at play together, and said,-- + +"Good morning, dear." + +She smiled languidly and said, "How came I in mamma's bed?" + +I said, quietly, "Take this medicine, darling;" and almost before the +drops had passed her lips her eyes closed, and she had fallen asleep +again. + +When Dr. Fearing came into the room at noon, he gave one swift, anxious +glance at her face, and then fell on his knees and folded his face in his +hands. I knew that Annie was safe. + +Then he went into the next room, silently took Aunt Ann by the hand, and +leading her back to Annie's bedside, pointed to the little beads of +moisture on her forehead and said,-- + +"Saved!" + +The revulsion was too much for the poor mother's heart. She sank to the +floor. He lifted her in his arms and carried her out, and for the rest of +that day my Aunt Ann, that "hard and unsympathizing woman," passed from +one strange fainting-fit into another, until we were in almost as great +fear for her life as we had been for Annie's. + +At twilight Annie roused from her sleep again. She was perfectly tranquil, +but too weak to lift even her little hand, which had grown so thin and so +wrinkled that it looked like a wilted white flower lying on the white +counterpane. + +Hour by hour she gained strength under the powerful restoratives which +were used, and still more from the wonderful elasticity of her +temperament. From the very first day, however, an indefinable terror of +misgiving seized me as often as I heard her voice or looked into her eyes. +In vain I said to myself: "It is the weakness after such terrible +illness;" "it is only natural." I felt in the bottom of my heart that it +was more. + +On the fourth day she said suddenly, looking up at the picture of George +Ware,-- + +"Why! Why is Cousin George's picture in here? Where is the Madonna?" + +I replied: "I moved it in here, dear, for you. I thought you would like +it." + +"No," she said, "I like the Madonna best: the dear little baby! Please +carry George back into my room where he belongs." + +My heart stood still with terror. She had never called George Ware her +cousin since their engagement. She especially disliked any allusion to +their relationship. This was her first mention of his name, and it was in +all respects just what it would have been a year before. Dr. Fearing had +forbidden us to allude to him, or to her wedding-day, or, in fact, to any +subject calculated to arouse new trains of thought in her mind. I wondered +afterward that we did not understand from the first how he had feared that +her brain might not fully recover itself, as the rest of her exquisitely +organized body seemed fast doing. + +Day after day passed. Annie could sit up; could walk about her room; she +gained in flesh and color and strength so rapidly that it was a marvel. +She was gentle and gay and loving; her old rare, sweet self in every +little way and trait and expression; not a look, not a smile, not a tone +was wanting; but it was the Annie of last year, and not of this. She made +no allusion to her wedding, the day for which had now passed. She did not +ask for George. The whole year had dropped out of her memory; part of her +brain was still diseased. No human touch could venture to deal with it +without the risk of the most terrible consequences. + +Dr. Fearing's face grew day by day more and more anxious; he was baffled; +he was afraid. He consulted the most eminent physicians who had had +experience in diseases of the brain. They all counseled patience, and +advised against any attempt to hasten her recollections upon any point; +they all had known similar cases, but never one so sharply defined or so +painful as this. Still they were unanimous in advising that nothing should +be said to startle her; that all must be trusted to time. + +Through these terrible days George Ware was braver than any one else. His +faith in the absoluteness of his hold on Annie was too great to be +disturbed. He was by nature as patient as he was resolute. He had not +wooed his wife for eighteen years to lose her now in any way except by +death, he thought. He comforted us all. + +"Do be brave, sweet mother of Annie," he used to say to my poor Aunt Ann; +"all will be well. It is nothing to me to wait another year, after having +waited all these. It is not even hard for me to go without seeing her, if +that is best." + +Nevertheless, his face grew thin and his eye heavy and his form bent, as +week after week passed, and he came daily to the house, only to be told +the same weary thing, that Annie had not asked for him. The physicians had +said that it would be better that she should not see him until she had of +her own accord mentioned his name. Her nerves were still in such a state +that any surprise threw her into palpitation and alarm which did not pass +off for hours. No human being could tell how great might be the shock of +seeing his face; how much it might recall to her; and whether, if it +recalled all, she could bear it. From the outset George believed the +physicians were wrong in this; but he dared not urge his instinct against +their knowledge; and he was patient of nature, and so the days went on, +on, on; and there was no change except that Annie grew steadily better and +our hearts grew steadily sicker and sicker until we almost looked back +with longing on the days when we feared she would die. And yet in every +respect, except the memory of her lover, Annie was the same as before. The +closest scrutiny could discover no other change in her, except perhaps +that she seemed even gayer than she used to seem, and a shade less tender, +but this also was as she had been before she had promised to be George +Ware's wife. + +One morning George brought me a small bunch of lovely wild things from the +pine woods, Tiarella leaves just tipped with claret color by the early +frosts, sprays of Linnea, two or three tiny white maiden's hair ferns, all +tied by a knot of patridge-berry vines thick-set with scarlet berries. + +"Give these to Annie for me, will you, dear Helen?" he said, "and observe +very carefully how she is affected by them." + +I remembered that it was just one year ago that day, that he had asked her +to be his wife, and I trembled to think of what hidden meanings I might be +messenger in carrying her this silent token. But I too felt, as George +did, that she was drifting farther and farther away from the memories we +desired she should regain; and that no physician's knowledge could be so +true as love's instinct; and I asked no counsel of any one, but went +swiftly to Annie with the leaves in my hand. + +"O you darling! How perfectly lovely," she exclaimed with a laugh of +delight. "Why these must have come from George's woods. Have you been up +there?" + +"No, dear," I said, "George brought them for you, this morning." + +"Oh, the good darling!" she exclaimed. "Is it decided about his going to +India?" + +I could not repress a little cry of anguish and terror. A year before, +there had been a plan for his going out to India on a mercantile venture, +which promised great profit. It had been given up, partly because his +mother felt that she could not live without him, partly because he felt +that he could not longer live without Annie. + +"What is it, dear?" she said, in her softest, most sympathizing voice, +with a little flush of alarm on her pale cheek; "what hurt you? are you +ill? Oh, my poor Helen, you are all worn out with nursing me. I will nurse +you presently." + +"Only a little twinge of my old neuralgia, dear," I said faintly; "these +autumn winds are setting it at work again." + +She looked anxiously at me for a few seconds, and then began to untie the +bunch of leaves, and spread out the long vines on the bed. + +"Oh, if I only had some moss," she said. + +I ran to the green-house and brought her handfuls of beautiful dripping +mosses from the rocks in the fernery. She filled a saucer with them, +putting the Tiarella leaves all round the rim, and winding the Linnea +vines in and out as they grow in the woods. Then she leaned back on her +pillows and began breaking the partridge-berry vines into short bits, each +with a scarlet berry on it. These she set upright in the moss, changing +and rearranging them so often that I wondered what could be her purpose, +and leaned forward to see. + +"No, no," she said playfully, pushing me back, "not till it is done." + +Presently she said, "Now look!" + +I looked and saw a perfect, beautifully formed G made by the scarlet +berries on the green moss. + +"There," she said, "I'll send that back to George, to show him that I have +found him in the berries; or, no," she added, "we'll keep it till he comes +to see me. The doctor said I could be carried down-stairs to-morrow, and +then I shall begin to 'receive,'" and she laughed a gay little laugh, and +sank back tired. + +That moment stands out in my memory as the saddest, hardest one of all. I +think at that moment hope died in my heart. + +When I told George of this, and showed him the saucer of moss--for she +had ordered it to be set on the drawing-room table, saying, "It is too +pretty to stay up here with bottles and invalids,"--he buried his face in +his hands for many minutes. When he lifted it, he looked me steadily in +the eye, and said,-- + +"She has utterly forgotten this whole year. But I will win her again." + +Then he knelt down and kissed every little leaf and berry which her hands +had touched, and went away without speaking another word. + +It was decided after this that it could do no harm for him to see her. +Indeed, he now demanded it. His resolution was taken. + +"You need not fear," he said to Dr. Fearing, "that I shall agitate her by +approaching her as if she were my own. She is not my own. But she will +be!" + +We all sat with trembling hands and beating hearts as the hour approached +at which we knew the experiment was to be made. + +Annie had been carried down-stairs, and laid upon a lounge in the western +bay-window of the library. The lounge was covered with dark green damask. +Old Caesar had so implored to be allowed to carry her down, that Annie had +insisted that he should be gratified; and she went down as she had so +often done in her childhood, with her soft white face lying close to his +shining black one. + +As he put her down, in her rose-colored wrapper, on the dark green damask, +he knelt before her and burst out in spite of himself, into a sort of wild +chant of thanksgiving; but as we entered the door he sprang up ashamed, +and turning to Aunt Ann, said: "Beg pardon, missis, but this rose yere was +too much pink rose for old Caesar!" + +It was "too much pink rose" for any human eyes to see unmoved. We all +cried: and Annie herself shed a few tears, but finally helped us all by +saying gayly,-- + +"You'll make me ill again if you all go on like this. I hate people that +cry." + +No stranger's eye would have detected the thousandth part of a second's +pause which George Ware's feet made on the threshold of that room when his +eyes first saw Annie. Before the second had ended he was simply the eager, +glad, affectionate cousin, and had taken calmly and lovingly the child's +kiss which Annie gave him as she had given it every day of her life. + +We could not speak. My uncle tried to read his newspaper; my aunt's hands +shook in their pretense of sewing; I threw myself on the floor at the foot +of Annie's lounge and hid my face in its cushions. + +But George Ware's brave voice went steadily on. Annie's sweet glad tones, +weak and low, but still sweeter than any other tones I ever heard, chimed +in and out like fairy bells from upper air. More than an hour passed. I do +not know one word that we said. + +Then George rose, saying: "I must not tire you, little Annie, so I am +going now." + +"Will you come, again to-morrow?" she asked as simply as a little child. + +"Yes, dear, if you are not the worse for this," he replied, and kissed her +forehead and walked very quickly away without looking back. I followed +him instantly into the hall, for I had seen that in his face which had +made me fear that, strong man as he was, he would fall. I found him +sitting on the lowest step of the staircase, just outside the door. + +"My God, Helen," he gasped, "it isn't only this last year she has +forgotten. She has gone back five years." + +"Oh no, dear George," I said; "you are mistaken. She remembers everything +up to a year ago. You know she remembered about your going to India." + +"That is nothing," he said impatiently. "You can't any of you, see what I +mean, I suppose. But I tell you she has forgotten five years of me. She is +to me just as she was when she was fourteen. Do you think I don't know the +face and voice and touch of each day of my darling's life? oh, my God! my +God!" and he sank down on the stair again in a silence which was worse +than groans. I left him there and went back to Annie. + +"How old Cousin George looks," she was saying, as I entered the room; "I +didn't remember that he was so old. Why, he looks as old as you do, sweet +papa. But then," reflectively, "after all, he is pretty old. He is fifteen +years older than I am--and I am nineteen: thirty-four! that is old, is it +not papa?" said she, half petulantly. "Why don't you speak, any of you?" + +"You are getting too tired, my darling," said her father, "and now I shall +carry you up-stairs." + +After Annie was asleep, my Aunt Ann and I sat for hours in the library, +going over and over and over, with weary hopelessness, all her words and +looks, and trying to comfort each other. I think each knew the utter +despair of the other's heart. + +From this time George came and went with all his old familiarity: not a +day passed without his seeing Annie, and planning something for her +amusement or pleasure. Not a day passed without her showing in many ways +that he made a large part of her life, was really a central interest in +it. Even to us who knew the sad truth, and who looked on with intentness +and anxiety hardly less than those with which we had watched her sick-bed +weeks before--even to us it seemed many times as if all must be right. No +stranger but would believe them lovers; not a servant in the house dreamed +but that Miss Annie was still looking forward to her wedding. They had all +been forbidden to allude to it, but they supposed it was only on account +of her weakness and excitability. + +But every day the shadow deepened on George Ware's face. I could see, +though he would not admit it, that the same despair which filled my soul +was settling down upon his. Dr. Fearing, too, who came and spent long +evenings with us, and cautiously watched Annie's every tone and look, grew +more and more uneasy. Dr. ----, one of the most distinguished physicians +of the insane, in the country, was invited to spend a few days in the +house. He was presented to Annie as an old friend of her father's, and won +at once her whole confidence and regard. For four days he studied her +case, and frankly owned himself baffled, and unable to suggest any measure +except the patient waiting which was killing us all. + +To tell this frail and excitable girl, who had more than once fainted at +a sudden noise, that this man whom she regarded only as her loving cousin +had been her promised husband--and that having been within two weeks of +her wedding-day, she had now utterly forgotten it, and all connected with +it--this would be too fearful a risk. It might deprive her forever of her +reason. + +Otherwise, she seemed in every respect, even in the smallest particular, +herself. She recollected her music, her studies, her friends. She was +anxious to resume her old life at all points. Every day she made allusions +to old plans or incidents. She had forgotten absolutely nothing excepting +the loverhood of her lover. Every day she grew stronger, and became more +and more beautiful, There was a slight under-current of arch +mischievousness and half petulance which she had never had before, and +which, added to her sweet sympathetic atmosphere, made her indescribably +charming. As she grew stronger she frolicked with every human being and +every living thing. When the spring first opened and she could be out of +doors, she seemed more like a divine mixture of Ariel and Puck than like a +mortal maiden. + +I found her one day lying at full length on the threshold of the +greenhouse. Twenty great azaleas were in full bloom on the shelves--white, +pink, crimson. She had gathered handfuls of the fallen blossoms, and was +making her gray kitten, which was as intelligent and as well trained as a +dog, jump into the air to catch them as she tossed them up. I sat down on +the grass outside and watched her silently. + +"Oh, you sober old Helen," she said, "you'll be an owl for a thousand +years after you die! Why can't you caper a little? You don't know how nice +it is." + +Just then George came slowly walking down the garden path, his hands +clasped behind him, his head bent forward, and his eyes fixed on the +ground. + +He did not see us. Annie exclaimed,-- + +"There's Cousin George, too! Look at him! Wouldn't you think he had just +heard he was to be executed at twelve to-day! I don't see what ails +everybody." + +"George, George," she called, "come here. For how many years are you +sentenced, dear, and how could you have been so silly as to be found out?" +And then she burst into a peal of the most delicious laughter at his +bewildered look. + +"I don't know, darling, for how many years I am sentenced. We none of us +know," he said, in a tone which was sadder than he meant it should be, and +sobered her loving heart instantly. She sprang to her feet, and threw both +her arms around his right arm, a pretty trick she had kept from her +babyhood, and said,-- + +"Oh you dear, good darling, does anything really trouble you? How +heartless I am. But you don't know how it feels to have been so awfully +ill, and then to get well again. It makes one feel all body and no soul; +but I have soul enough to love you all dearly, you know I have; and I +won't have you troubled; tell me what it is this minute;" and she looked +at him with tears in her eyes. + +One wonders often if there be any limit to human endurance. If there be, +who can say he has reached it? Each year we find that the thing which we +thought had taken our last strength, has left us with strength enough to +bear a harder thing. It seemed so with such scenes as this, in those sunny +spring days when Annie Ware first went out into life again. Each day I +said, "There can never be another moment quite so hard to meet as this!" +and the next day there came a moment which made me forget the one which +had gone before. + +It was an ill fortune which just at this time made it imperatively +necessary for George to go to the West for three months. He had no choice. +His mother's whole property was at stake. No one but he could save it; it +was not certain that he could. His last words to me were,-- + +"I trust more in you, Helen, than in any other human being. Keep my name +constantly in her thought; write me everything which you would tell me if +I were here." + +It had become necessary now to tell the sad story of the result of Annie's +illness to all those friends who would be likely to speak to her of her +marriage. The whole town knew what shadow rested on our hearts; and yet, +as week after week went by, and the gay, sweet, winning, beautiful girl +moved about among people again in her old way, people began to say more +and more that it was, after all, very foolish for Annie Ware's friends to +be so distressed about her; stranger things had happened; she was +evidently a perfectly well woman; and as for the marriage, they had never +liked the match--George Ware was too old and too grave for her; and, +besides, he was her second cousin. + +Oh, the torture of the "ante-mortems" of beloved ones, at which we are +all forced to assist! + +Yet it could not be wondered at, that in this case the whole heart of the +community was alive with interest and speculation. + +Annie Ware's sweet face had been known and loved in every house in our +village. Her father was the richest, most influential man in the county, +and the most benevolent. Many a man and woman had kissed Henry Ware's baby +in her little wagon, for the sake of Henry Ware's good deeds to them or +theirs. And while Mrs. Ware had always repelled persons by her haughty +reticence, Annie, from the first day she could speak until now, had won +all hearts by her sunny, open, sympathizing nature. No wonder that now, +when they saw her again fresh, glad, beautiful, and looking stronger and +in better health than she had ever done, they said that we were wrong, +that Annie and Nature were right, and that all would be well! + +This spring there came to our town a family of wealth and position who had +for many years lived in Europe, and who had now returned to make America +their home. They had taken a furnished house for a year, to make trial of +our air, and also, perhaps, of the society, although rumor, with the usual +jealousy, said that the Neals did not desire any intimacy with their +neighbors. The grounds of the house which they had hired joined my +uncle's, and my Aunt Ann, usually averse to making new acquaintances, had +called upon them at once, and had welcomed them most warmly to her house. +The family consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Neal and two sons, Arthur and Edward. +They were people of culture, and of wide experience; but they were not of +fine organization nor of the highest breeding; and it will ever remain a +mystery to me that there should have seemed to be, from the outset, an +especial bond of intimacy between them and my uncle and aunt. I think it +was partly the sense of relief with which they welcomed a new interest--a +little break in the monotony of anxiety which had been for so many months +corroding their very lives. + +Almost before I knew that the Neals were accepted as familiar friends, I +was startled one morning, while we were at breakfast, by the appearance of +Annie on her pony, looking in at our dining-room window. She had a pretty +way of riding up noiselessly on the green grass, and making her pony, +which was tame as a Newfoundland dog, mount the stone steps, and tap with +his nose on the panes of the long glass door till we opened it. + +I never saw her so angelically beautiful as she was this morning. Her +cheeks were flushed and her dark blue eyes sparkled like gems in the sun. +Presently she said, hesitating a little,-- + +"Edward Neal is at the gate; may I bring him in? I told him he might come, +but he said it was too like burglary;" and she cantered off again without +waiting to hear my mother's permission. + +All that morning Annie Ware and Edward Neal sat with me on our piazza. I +looked and listened and watched like one in a dream, or under a spell. I +foresaw, I foreknew what was to come; with the subtle insight of love, I +saw all. + +Never had I seen Annie so stirred into joyousness by George's presence as +she seemed to be by this boy's. The two together overflowed in a sparkling +current of gayety, which was irresistible. They seemed two divine children +sent out on a mission to set the world at play. What Edward Neal's more +sensuous and material nature lacked, was supplied by the finer, subtler +quality of Annie's. From that first day I could never disguise from myself +that they seemed, so far as mere physical life goes, the absolute +counterparts of each other. + +I need not dwell on this part of my story. When young hearts are drawing +together, summer days speed on very swiftly. George Ware, alas! was kept +at the West week after week, until it came to be month after month. My +uncle and aunt seemed deliberately to shut their eyes to the drift of +events. I think they were so thankful to watch Annie's bounding health and +happiness, to hear glad voices and merry laughs echoing all day in their +house, that they could not allow themselves to ask whether a new kernel of +bitterness, of danger, lay at the core of all this fair seeming. As for +the children, they did not know that they were loving each other as man +and woman. Edward Neal was only twenty-one, Annie but nineteen, and both +were singularly young and innocent of soul. + +And so it came to be once more the early autumn; the maple leaves were +beginning to be red, and my chrysanthemums had again set their tiny round +disks of buds. Edward, and Annie had said no word of love to each other, +but the whole town looked on them as lovers, and people began to reply +impatiently and incredulously to our assurances that no engagement +existed. + +Early in October George came home, very unexpectedly, taking even his +mother by surprise. He told me afterwards that he came at last as one +warned of God. A presentiment of evil, against which he had struggled for +weeks, finally so overwhelmed him that he set off for home without half an +hour's delay. I found him, on the night after his arrival, sitting in his +old place in the big arm-chair at the head of Annie's lounge; she still +clung to some of her old invalid ways, and spent many evenings curled up +like a half-shut pink rose on the green damask cushions. He looked worn +and thin, but glad and eager, and was giving a lively account of his +Western experiences when the library door opened, and coming in +unannounced, with the freedom of one at home, Edward Neal entered. + +"O Edward, here is Cousin George," exclaimed Annie, while a wave of rosy +color spread over her face, and half rising, she took George's hand in +hers as she leaned towards Edward. + +"Oh, I'm so glad to see you, Mr. Ware," said Edward, with that indefinable +tone of gentle respect which marks a very young man's recognition of one +much older, whom he has been led to admire. "Annie has been talking to me +about you all summer. I feel as if I knew you almost as well as she does. +I'm heartily glad to see you." + +A man of finer grain than Edward Neal would have known the whole truth in +that first second, by the blank stern look which spread like a cloud over +George Ware's face; but the open-hearted fellow only thought that he had +perhaps seemed too familiar and went on,-- + +"I beg your pardon, Mr. Ware. It must appear strange to you that I took +the liberty of being so glad; but you don't know how kindly I have been +allowed to feel that your friends here would permit me to call all their +friends mine," and he glanced lovingly and confidently at my aunt and +uncle, who answered by such smiles as they rarely gave. Oh, no wonder they +loved this genial, frank sunny boy, who had brought such light into their +life. + +In a moment George was his courteous self again, and began to express his +pleasure at meeting Mr. Neal, but Annie interrupted him. + +"Oh, now don't be tiresome; of course you are to be just as good friends +with Edward as you are with me: sit down, Edward. He is telling us the +most delicious stories. He is the dearest Cousin George in the world," she +added, stroking his hand which she still kept in hers. + +It gave Edward no more surprise to see her do this than it would have done +to see her sit in her father's lap. Even I felt with a sudden pang that +George Ware seemed at that moment to belong to another generation than +Edward and Annie. + +Edward seated himself on a low cricket at the foot of the lounge, and, +looking up in George's face, said most winningly,-- + +"Please go on, Mr. Ware." Then he turned one full, sweet look of greeting +and welcome upon Annie, who beamed back upon him with such a diffused +smile as only the rarest faces have. Annie's smile was one of her greatest +charms. It changed her whole face; the lips made but a small part of it; +no mortal ever saw it without smiling in answer. + +It was beyond George Ware's power long to endure this. Probably his +instinct felt in both Edward's atmosphere and Annie's more than we did. He +rose very soon and said to me, "If you are going home to-night, Helen, +will you let me walk up with you? I have business in that part of the +town; but I must go now. Perhaps that will hurry you too much?" he added, +with a tone which was almost imploring. + +I was only too glad to go. Our leave-taking was very short. A shade of +indefinable trouble clouded every face but Edward's and Annie's. + +George did not speak until we had left the house. Then he stopped short, +took both my hands in his, with a grasp that both hurt and frightened me, +and exclaimed,-- + +"How dared you keep this from me! How dared you!" + +"O George," I said, "there was nothing to tell." + +"Nothing to tell!" and his voice grew hoarse and loud. "Nothing to tell! +Do you mean to say that you don't know, have not known that Annie loves +that boy, that puppy?" + +I trembled from head to foot. I could not speak. He went on:-- + +"And I trusted you so; O Helen, I can never forgive you." + +I murmured, miserably, for I felt myself in that moment really guilty,-- + +"What makes you think she loves him?" + +"You cannot deceive me, Helen," he replied. "Do not torture me and +yourself by trying. Tell me now, how long this 'Edward' has been sitting +by her lounge. Tell me all." + +Then I told him all. It was not much. He had seen more that evening, and +so had I, than had ever existed before. His presence had been the one +element which had suddenly defined that which before had been hardly +recognized. + +He was very quiet after the first moment of bitterness, and asked me to +forgive his impatient words. When he left me he said,-- + +"I cannot see clearly what I ought to do. Annie's happiness is my only +aim. If this boy can create it, and I cannot--but he cannot: she was as +utterly mine as it is possible for a woman to be. You none of you knew how +utterly! Oh, my God, what shall I do!" and he walked away feebly and +slowly like an old man of seventy. + +The next day Aunt Ann sent for me to come to her. I found her in great +distress. George had returned to the house after leaving me, and had had +almost a stormy interview with my uncle. He insisted upon asking Annie at +once to be his wife; making no reference to the past, but appearing at +once as her suitor. My uncle could not forbid it, for he recognized +George's right, and he sympathized in his suffering. But his terror was +insupportable at the thought of having Annie agitated, and of the possible +results which might follow. He implored George to wait at least a few +weeks. + +"What! and see that young lover at my wife's feet every night!" said +George, fiercely. "No! I will risk all, lose all, if need be. I have been +held back long enough," and he had gone directly from my uncle's room to +Annie herself. + +In a short time Annie had come to her mother in a perfect passion of +weeping, and told her that Cousin George had asked her to be his wife; and +that she had never dreamed of such a thing; and she thought he was very +unkind to be so angry with her; how could she have supposed he cared for +her in that way, when he had been like her elder brother all his life. + +"Why, he seems almost as old as papa," said poor Annie, sobbing and +crying, "and he ought to have known that I should not kiss him and put my +arms around him if--if"--she could not explain; but she knew! + +Annie had gone to her own room, ill. My aunt and I sat together in the +library silently crying; we were wretched. "Oh, if George would only have +waited," said Aunt Ann. + +"I think it would have made no difference, aunty," said I. + +"No, I am afraid not," replied she, and each knew that the other was +thinking of Edward Neal. + +George Ware left town the next day. He sent me a short note. He could not +see any one, he said, and begged me to give a farewell kiss for him to +"the sweet mother of my Annie. For mine she is, and will be in heaven, +though she will be the wife of Edward Neal on earth." + +When I next saw our Annie she was Edward Neal's promised bride. A severe +fit of illness, the result of all these excitements, confined me to my +room for three weeks after George's departure; and I knew only from Aunt +Ann's lips the events which had followed upon it. + +George Ware's presence on that first evening had brought revelation to +Edward Neal as well as to all the other members of that circle. That very +night he had told his parents that Annie would be his wife. + +The next night, while poor George was swiftly borne away, Edward was +sitting in my uncle's library, listening with a blanched cheek to the +story of Annie's old engagement. My uncle's sense of honor would not let +him withhold anything from the man seeking her for his wife. The pain soon +passed by, when he was told that she had that very day refused her cousin, +and betrayed almost resentment at his offer. Edward Neal had not a +sufficiently subtle nature, nor acquaintance enough with psychological +phenomena to be disturbed by any fears for the future. He dismissed it all +as an inexplicable result of the disease, but a fixed fact, and a great +and blessed fortune for him. My uncle, however, was less easily assured. +He insisted upon delay, and upon consulting the same physicians who had +studied Annie's case before. They all agreed that she was now a perfectly +healthy and strong woman, and that to persist in any farther recognition +of the old bond, after she had so intelligently and emphatically +repudiated all thought of such a relation to her cousin, was absurd. Dr. +Fearing alone was in doubt, He said little; but he shook his head and +clasped his hands tight, and implored that at least the marriage should be +deferred for a year. + +Annie herself, however, refused to consent to this: of course no +satisfactory reason could be alleged for any such delay; and she said as +frankly as a little child, "Edward and I have loved each other almost +from the very first; there is nothing for either of us to do in life but +to make each other happy; and we shall not leave papa and mamma: so why +should we wait?" + +They were not married, however, until spring. The whole town stood by in +speechless joy and delight when those two beautiful young beings came out +from the village church man and wife. It was a scene never to be +forgotten. The peculiar atmosphere of almost playful joyousness which they +created whenever they appeared together was something which could not be +described, but which diffused itself like sunlight. + +We all tried resolutely to dismiss memory and misgiving from our hearts. +They seemed disloyalty and sin. George Ware was in India. George Ware's +mother was dead. The cottage among the pines was sold to strangers, and +the glistening brown paths under the trees were neglected and unused. + +Edward and Annie led the same gay child-like lives after their marriage +that they had led before: they looked even younger and gayer and sunnier. +When they dashed cantering through the river meadows, she with rosy cheeks +and pale brown curls flying in the wind, and he with close crisp black +hair, and the rich, dark, glowing skin of a Spaniard, the farming men +turned and rested on their tools, and gazed till they were out of sight. +Sometimes I asked myself wonderingly, "Are they ever still, and tender, +and silent?" "Is this perpetual overflow the whole of love?" But it seemed +treason to doubt in the presence of such merry gladness as shone in +Annie's face, and in her husband's too. It was simply the incarnate +triumph and joy of young life. + +The summer went by; the chrysanthemums bloomed out white and full in my +garden; the frosts came, and then the winter, and then Annie told me one +day that before winter came again she would be a mother. She was a little +sobered as she saw the intense look on my face. + +"Why, darling, aren't you glad? I thought you would be almost as glad as I +am myself?" Annie sometimes misunderstood me now. + +"Glad! O Annie," was all I could say. + +From that day I had but one thought, Annie's baby. Together we wrought all +dainty marvels for its ward-robe; together we planned all possible events +in its life: from the outset I felt as much motherhood to the precious +little unseen one as Annie did. She used to say to me, often,-- + +"Darling, it will be half my baby, and half yours." + +Annie was absolutely and gloriously well through the whole of those +mysterious first months of maternity which are to so many women exhausting +and painful. Every nerve of her body seemed strung and attuned to normal +and perfect harmony. She was more beautiful than ever, stronger than ever, +and so glad that she smiled perpetually without knowing it. For the first +time since the old days, dear Dr. Fearing's face lost the anxious look +with which his eyes always rested upon her. He was more at ease about her +now. + +Before light one Sunday morning in December, a messenger rang furiously +at our bell. We had been looking for such tidings and were not alarmed. It +was a fearful storm; wind and sleet and rain and darkness had attended the +coming of Annie's little "Sunday child" into its human life. + +"A boy--and Miss Annie's all right," old Caesar said, with a voice almost +as hoarse as the storm outside; and he was gone before we could ask a +question farther. + +In less than an hour I stood on the threshold of Annie's room. But I did +not see her until noon. Then, as I crept softly into the dimly-lighted +chamber, the whole scene so recalled her illness of two years before that +my heart stood still with sudden horror, in spite of all my joy. Now, as +then, I knelt silently at her bedside, and saw the sweet face lying white +and still on the pillow. + +She turned, and seeing me, smiled faintly, but did not speak. + +At her first glance, a speechless terror seized me. This was my Annie! The +woman who for two years had been smiling with my Annie's face had not been +she! The room grew dark. I do not know what supernatural power came to my +aid that I did not faint and fall. + +Annie drew back the bed-clothes with a slow, feeble motion of her right +hand, and pointed to the tiny little head nestled in her bosom. She smiled +again, looked at me gently and steadily for a second, and then shut her +eyes. Presently I saw that she was asleep; I stole into the next room and +sat down with my face buried in my hands. + +In a moment a light step aroused me. Aunt Ann stood before me, her pale +face all aglow with delight. + +"O Helen my darling! She is so well. Thank God! thank God!" and she threw +her arms around me and burst into tears. + +I felt like one turned to stone. Was I mad, or were they? + +What had I seen in that one steady look of Annie's eyes? Was she really +well? I felt as if she had already died! + +Agonizingly I waited to see Dr. Fearing's face. He came in before tea, saw +Annie for a few minutes, and came down-stairs rubbing his hands and +singing in a low tone. + +"I never saw anything like that child's beautiful elasticity in my life," +he said. "We shall have her dancing down-stairs in a month." + +The cloud was utterly lifted from all hearts except mine. My aunt and +uncle looked at each other with swimming eyes. Edward tried to laugh and +look gay, but broke down utterly, and took refuge in the library, where I +found him lying on the floor, with his face buried in Annie's lounge. + +I went home stupefied, bewildered. I could not sleep. A terror-stricken +instinct told me that all was not right. But how should I know more than +physician, mother, husband? + +For ten days I saw my Annie every day for an hour. Her sweet, strange, +gentle, steady look into my eyes when we first met always paralyzed me +with fear, and yet I could not have told why. There was a fathomless +serenity in her face which seemed to me super-human. She said very +little. The doctor had forbidden her to talk. She slept the greater part +of the time, but never allowed the baby to be moved from her arms while +she was awake. + +There was a divine ecstasy in her expression as she looked down into the +little face; it never seemed like human motherhood. + +One day Edward came to me and said,-- + +"Do you think Annie is so well as they say? I suppose they must know; but +she looks to me as if she had died already, and it were only her glorified +angel-body that lies in that bed?" + +I could not speak to him. I knew then that he had seen the same thing that +I had seen: if his strong, rather obtuse material nature had recognized +it, what could so blind her mother and father and the doctor? I burst into +tears and left him. + +At the end of a week I saw a cloud on Dr. Fearing's face. As he left +Annie's room one morning, he stopped me and said abruptly,-- + +"What does Annie talk about?" + +"She hardly speaks at all," I said. + +"Ah," he said. "Well, I have ordered her not to talk. But does she ask any +questions?" he continued. + +"No," I said; "not of me. She has not asked one." + +I saw then that the same vague fear which was filling my heart was taking +shape in his. + +From that moment, he watched her hourly, with an anxiety which soon +betrayed itself to my aunt. + +"William, why does not Annie get stronger?" she said suddenly to him one +day. + +"I do not know why," he answered, with a solemn sadness and emphasis in +his tone which was, as I think, he intended it to be, a partial revelation +to her, and a warning. Aunt Ann staggered to a chair and looked at him +without a word. He answered her look by one equally agonized and silent, +and left the room. + +The baby was now two weeks old. Annie was no stronger than on the day of +his birth. She lay day and night in a tranquil state, smiling with +inexpressible sweetness when she was spoken to, rarely speaking of her own +accord, doing with gentle docility all she was told to do, but looking +more and more like a transfigured saint. All the arch, joyous, playful +look was gone; there was no added age in the look which had taken its +place; neither any sorrow; but something ineffably solemn, rapt, removed +from earth. Sometimes, when Edward came to her bedside, a great wave of +pitying tenderness would sweep over her face, giving it such a heavenly +look that he would fall on his knees. + +"O Helen," he said once, after such a moment as this, "I shall go mad if +Annie does not get well. I do not dare to kiss even her hand. I feel as if +she never had been mine." + +At last the day and the hour and the moment came which I had known would +come. Annie spoke to me in a very gentle voice, and said,-- + +"Helen, darling, you know I am going to die?" + +"Yes dear, I think so," I said, in as quiet a voice as hers. + +"You know it is better that I should, darling?" she said with a trembling +voice. + +"Yes, dear, I know it," I replied. + +She drew a long sigh of relief. "I am so glad, darling; I thought you knew +it, but I could not be sure. I think no one else understands. I hope dear +mamma will never suspect. You will not let her, if you can help it, the +dear doctor will not tell her; he knows, though. Darling, I want you to +have my baby. I think Edward will be willing. He is so young, he will be +happy again before long; he will not miss him. You know we have always +said it was partly your baby. Look at his eyes now, Helen," she said, +turning the little face towards me, and into a full light. + +I started. I had never till that moment seen in them a subtle resemblance +to the eyes of George Ware. We had said that the baby had his mother's +eyes--so he had; but there had always been a likeness between Annie's eyes +and George's though hers were light-blue, and his of a blue so dark that +it was often believed to be black. All the Wares had a very peculiar +luminousness of the eye; it was so marked a family trait that it had +passed into almost proverbial mention, in connection with the +distinguished beauty of the family. "The Ware eye" was always +recognizable, no matter what color it had taken from the admixture of +other blood. + +At that moment I saw, and I knew that Annie had seen, that the baby's eyes +were not so much like her own as like the deeper, sadder, darker eyes of +her cousin--brave, hopeless, dear George, who was toiling under the sun of +India, making a fortune for he knew not whom. + +We neither of us spoke; presently the little unconscious eyes closed in +sweet sleep, and Annie went on, holding him close to her heart. + +"You see, dear, poor mamma will not be able to bear seeing him after I +die. Common mothers would love him for my sake. But mamma is not like +other women. She will come very soon where I am, poor mamma; and then you +will have to take papa home to your house, and papa will have comfort in +little Henry. But he must be your baby, Helen. I shall speak to Edward +about it soon." + +She was not strong enough to talk long. She shed no tears, however, and +looked as calm as if she were telling me of pleasant plans for a coming +earthly summer. I also was perfectly calm, and felt strangely free from +sorrow. Her absolute spirituality bore me up. It was as if I spoke with +her in heaven, thousands of centuries after all human perplexities had +passed away. + +After this day she grew rapidly weaker. She had no pain. There was not a +single physical symptom in her case which the science of medicine could +name or meet. There was literally nothing to be done for her. Neither +tonic nor stimulant produced the least effect. She was noiselessly sinking +out of life, as very old people sometimes die, without a single jar, or +shock, or struggle. Her beautiful serenity and entire freedom from +suffering blinded Aunt Ann's eyes to the fact that she was dying. This was +a great mercy, and we were all careful not by a word or look to rouse her +to the truth. To all her mother's inquiries Annie invariably replied, +"Better, dear mamma, better, only very weak," and Aunt Ann believed, +until the very last, that the spring would make her well again. + +Edward Neal's face during these weeks was like the face of a man lost in a +trackless desert, seeking vainly for some sign of road to save his life. +Sickness and death were as foreign to the young, vital, irrepressible +currents of his life, as if he had been a bird or an antelope. But it was +not now with him the mere bewildered grief of a sensuous animal nature, +such as I should have anticipated that his grief would be. He dimly felt +the truth, and was constantly terrified by it. He came into Annie's +presence more and more reverently each day. He gazed speechlessly into her +eyes, which rested on him always with angelic compassion and tenderness, +but with no more look of human wifely thought than if he and she were +kneeling side by side before God's white throne. Sometimes he dared not +touch even so much as the hand on which his own wedding-ring rested. +Sometimes he would kneel by the bedside and bury his face and weep like a +little child. Then he would throw himself on his horse and gallop away and +not come home until twilight, when he was always found on Annie's lounge +in the library. One night when I went to him there he said, in a tone so +solemn that the voice did not sound like his,-- + +"Helen, there is something I do not understand about Annie. Do people +always seem so when they are going to die? I do not dare to ask her if she +loves me. I feel just as much awe of her as if she had been in heaven. It +seems sometimes as if I must be going mad, for I do not feel in the least +as if she had ever been my wife." + +"She never has, poor boy," I thought, but I only stroked his hair and +said nothing; wondering in my heart at the certainty with which in all +natures love knows how to define, conquer, reclaim his own. + +The day before Annie died she asked for her jewel-case, and spent several +hours in looking over its contents and telling me to whom they should be +given. I observed that she seemed to be searching uneasily for something +she could not find. + +"What is it, dear?" I said. She hesitated for a secondhand then replied,-- + +"Only a little ring I had when I was a girl." + +"When you were a girl, my darling!" I exclaimed. She smiled gently and +said,-- + +"I feel like an old woman now. Oh, here it is," she added, and held it out +to me to open for her the tiny padlock-shaped locket which hung from it. +It had become so tightly fastened together that it was with great +difficulty I could open it. When I did so, I saw lying in the hollow a +little ring of black hair, and I remembered that Annie had worn the ring +when she was twelve years old. + +She asked me to cut a few of the silky hairs from the baby's head, and +then one little curl from her own, and laying them with the other, she +shut the locket and asked for a piece of paper and pencil. She wrote one +word with great difficulty, folded the ring in the paper, wrote another +word on the outside, and laid it in a corner of the jewel-case. Then she +sank back on the pillows, and slipping her left hand under her cheek said +she was very tired, and almost instantly fell into a gentle sleep. She did +not wake until twilight. I was to sleep on the lounge in her room that +night, and when she woke I was preparing it. + +"Darling," she said, "could you sleep as well in my big chair, which can +be tipped back?" + +"Certainly, sweet," I said; "but why?" + +"Because that can be drawn up so much nearer me; it will be like sleeping +together." + +At nine o'clock the nurse brought the baby in and laid him in Annie's +bosom, sound asleep. Annie would not let him lie anywhere else, and was so +grieved at any remonstrance, that the doctor said she must be indulged in +the desire. When she was awake and was not speaking to us, her eyes never +left the baby's face. + +She turned over, with her face to the chair in which I lay, and reached +out her left hand towards me. I took it in mine, and so, with our hands +clasped above the little sleeping baby, we said "good-night" to each +other. + +"I feel much better to-night than I have for some days, dear Helen," she +said; "I should not wonder if we all three slept until morning." + +Very soon I saw that she was asleep. I watched her face for a long time; +it was perfectly colorless and very thin, and yet there was not a look of +illness on it. The ineffable serenity, the holy peace, made it look like +the face of one who had been transfigured, translated; who had not known +and who never could know any death. I cannot account for the sweet calm +which I felt through all these weeks. I shed no tears; I did not seem even +to sorrow. I accepted all, as Annie herself accepted it, without wonder, +without murmur. During the long hours of this last night I lived over +every hour of her precious, beautiful life, as I had known and shared it, +until the whole seemed to me one fragrant and perfect flower, ready to be +gathered and worn in the bosom of angels. At last I fell asleep. + +I was wakened by a low murmur from the baby, who stirred uneasily. Annie's +hand was still locked in mine; as I sought to disengage it cautiously, I +felt, with a sudden horror, that the fingers were lifeless. I sprang to my +feet and bent over her; she did not breathe. Out of that sweet sleep her +body had passed into another which would know no waking, and her soul had +awakened free. Slowly I withdrew the little sleeping baby from her arms +and carried it to the nurse. Then I went to Dr. Fearing's room; he had +slept in the house for a week; I found him dressed, but asleep on a +lounge. He had lain in this way, he told me, for four nights, expecting +that each would be the last. When I touched him on the shoulder he opened +his eyes, without surprise or alarm, and said,-- + +"Did she wake?" + +"No," I replied, and that was all. + +The day was just breaking: as the dark gray and red tints cleared and +rolled away, and left a pale yellow sky, the morning star, which I could +see from Annie's bedside, faded and melted in the pure ether. Even while I +was looking at it it vanished, and I thought that, like it, Annie's bright +soul, disappearing from my sight, had blended in Eternal Day. + + * * * * * + +This was four years ago. My Aunt Ann died, as Annie had said she would, +in a very few months afterward. My uncle came, a broken and trembling man, +to live with us, and Edward Neal gladly gave his little son into my hands, +as Annie had desired. He went abroad immediately, finding it utterly +impossible to bear the sight of the scenes of his lost happiness. He came +back in two years, bringing a bright young wife with him, a sunny-haired +English girl, who, he said, was so marvelously like Annie. She is like the +Annie whom he knew! + +Every day their baby boy is brought to our house to see his brother; but I +think two children of one name never before looked so unlike. + +My little Henry is the centre of his grandfather's life and of mine. He is +a pensive child, and has never been strong; but his beauty and sweetness +are such that we often tremble when we look in his face and remember +Annie. + +George Ware is still in India. Every ship brings brave sweet letters, and +gifts for the baby. I sent him the little paper which I found in the +corner of Annie's jewel-case, bearing his name. I knew that it was for him +when I saw her feeble hands laying the baby's hair and hers together in +the locket. + +In November Annie's grave is snowy with white chrysanthemums. She loved +them better than any other flowers, and I have made the little hillock +almost into a thicket of them. + +In George Ware's last letter he wrote:-- + +"When the baby is ten years old I shall come home. He will not need me +till then; till then, he is better in your hands alone; after that I can +help you." + + + + +The One-Legged Dancers. + + + +Very early one morning in March, ten years ago, I was sitting alone on one +of the crumbling ledges of the Coliseum: larks were singing above my head; +wall-flowers were waving at my feet; a procession of chanting monks was +walking slowly around the great cross in the arena below. I was on the +highest tier, and their voices reached me only as an indistinct wail, like +the notes of a distant Aeolian harp; but the joyous sun and sky and songs, +were darkened and dulled by their presence. A strange sadness oppressed +me, and I sank into a deep reverie. I do not know how long I had been +sitting there, when I was suddenly roused by a cry of pain, or terror, and +the noise of falling stones. I sprang to my feet and, looking over, saw a +young and beautiful woman lying fearfully near the edge of one of the most +insecure of the projecting ledges on the tier below me--the very one from +which I had myself nearly fallen, only a few days before, in stretching +over after some asphodels which were beyond my reach. + +I ran down as fast as possible, but when I reached the spot she had +fainted, and was utterly unconscious. She was alone; I could see no other +human being in the Coliseum. The chanting monks had gone; even the +beggars had not yet come. I tried in vain to rouse her. She had fallen so +that the hot sun was beating full on her face. I dared not leave her +there, for her first unconscious movement might be such that she would +fall over the edge. But I saw that she must have shade and water, or die. +Every instant she grew whiter and her lips looked more rigid. I shouted +aloud, and only the echoes answered me, as if in mockery. A little lark +suddenly flew out from a tuft of yellow wall-flower close by, and burst +into a swift carol of delight as he soared away. At last, with great +efforts, I succeeded in dragging her, by her feet--for I dared not venture +out so far as the spot on which her head lay--to a safer place, and into +the partial shade of a low bush. As I did this, one of her delicate hands +was scratched and torn on the rough stones, and drops of blood came to the +surface. In the other hand were crushed a few spikes of asphodel, the very +flowers, no doubt, which had lured me so near the same dangerous brink. It +seemed impossible to go away and leave her, but it was cruel to delay. My +feet felt like lead as I ran along those dark galleries and down the stone +flights of giddy stairs. Just in the entrance stood one of those +pertinacious sellers of old coins and bits of marble. I threw down a piece +of silver on his little stand, seized a small tin basin in which he had +his choicest coins, emptied them on the ground, and saying, in my poor +Italian, "Lady--ill--water," I had filled the basin at the old stone +fountain near by, and was half way up the first flight of stairs again, +before he knew what had happened. + +When I reached the place where I had left the beautiful stranger she was +not there. Unutterable horror seized me. Had I, after all, left her too +near that crumbling edge? I groaned aloud and turned to run down. A feeble +voice stopped me--a whisper rather than a voice, for there was hardly +strength to speak,-- + +"Who is there?" + +"Oh, thank God," I exclaimed, "you are not dead!" and I sprang to the next +of the cross corridors, from which the sound had come. + +She was there, sitting up, leaning against the wall. She looked almost +more terrified than relieved when she saw me. I bathed her face and hands +in the water, and told her how I had found her insensible, and had drawn +her away from the outer edge before I had gone for the water. She did not +speak for some moments, but looked at me earnestly and steadily, with +tears standing in her large blue eyes. + +Then she said, "I did not know that any one but myself ever came to the +Coliseum so early. I thought I should die here alone; and Robert was not +willing I should come." + +"I owe you my life," she added, bursting into hysterical crying. + +Then in a few moments she half laughed, as if at some droll thought, and +said, "But how could you drag me? You are not nearly so big as I am. The +angels must have helped you;" and holding up the poor crushed asphodels, +she went on: "As soon as I came to myself, I saw the asphodels in my hand, +and I said, 'Asphodel for burial;' and tried to throw them away, so that +if Robert came he would not find me dead with them in my hand, for only +yesterday he said to me, 'Please never pick an asphodel--I can't bear to +see you touch one.'" + +Slowly I soothed her and she recovered her color and strength. The owner +of the basin, followed by a half-dozen chattering vetturini, had climbed +up to us, but we had peremptorily sent them all away. It was evident that +she was not seriously hurt. The terror, rather than the fall, had caused +her fainting. It was probably a sudden dizziness which had come as she +drew back and turned after picking the flowers. Had she fallen in the act +of picking them she must have been dashed to the ground below. At the end +of an hour she was so nearly well, that she walked slowly down the long +stairs, leaning on my arm, and taking frequent rests by the way. I was +about to beckon to one of the vetturini, when she said, "Oh no! my own +carriage is near here, up by the gate of the Palace of the Caesars. I +rambled on, without thinking at first of coming to the Coliseum: it will +do me good to walk back; every moment of the air makes me feel better." + +So we went slowly on, up the solemn hill, arm in arm like friends, sitting +down now and then on old fallen columns to rest, and looking back at the +silent, majestic ruins, which were brightened almost into a look of life +under the vivid sun. My companion spoke little; the reaction after her +fearful shock had set in; but every few moments her beautiful eyes would +fill with tears as she looked in my face and pressed my arm. I left her at +her apartment on the Via Felice; my own was a mile farther on, in the +Piazza del Popolo, and I would not let her drive so far. + +"It grieves me not to go with you to your door," she said, as she bade me +good-bye, "but I shall come and see you to-morrow and bring my husband." + +"No, you must not," I replied. "To-morrow you will be wise enough--or, if +you are not wise enough, you will be kind enough to me because I ask +it--to lie in bed all day, and I shall come very early in the morning to +see how you are." + +She turned suddenly on the carriage-steps, and, leaning both her hands on +my knees, exclaimed, in a voice full of emotion. + +"Will you let me kiss you? Not even my mother gave me what you have given. +For you have given me back life, when it was too infinitely precious to +lose. Surely you will not think me presuming?" and her cheek flushed a +little. + +"Presuming! my dear child, I loved you the first moment I saw you lying +there on the stones; and I am almost old enough to be your mother, too," I +replied, and I kissed her sweet face warmly. + +This was the beginning of my acquaintance and friendship with Dora +Maynard. + +At eleven o'clock the next morning I went to see her. I was shown into a +room, whose whole air was so unlike that of a Roman apartment, that I +could scarcely believe I had not been transported to English or American +soil. In spite of its elegance, the room was as home-like and cozy as if +it nestled in the Berkshire hills or stood on Worcestershire meadows. The +windows were heavily curtained, and the furniture covered with gay chintz +of a white ground, with moss-rose buds thickly scattered over it between +broad stripes of rose-pink. The same chintz was fluted all around the +cornice of the room, making the walls look less high and stately; the +doorways, also, were curtained with it. Great wreaths and nodding masses +of pampas grass were above the doors; a white heron and a rose-colored +spoonbill stood together on a large bracket in one corner, and a huge gray +owl was perched on what looked like a simple old apple-tree bough, over an +inlaid writing-table which stood at an odd slant near one of the windows. +Books were everywhere--in low swinging shelves, suspended by large green +cords with heavy tassels; on low bracket shelves, in unexpected places, +with deep green fringes or flutings of the chintz; in piles on Moorish +stools or old Venice chests. Every corner looked as if somebody made it a +special haunt and had just gone out. On a round mosaic table stood an +exqusite black-and-gilt Etruscan patera filled with white anemones; on +another table near by stood a silver one filled with the same flowers, +pink and yellow. Each was circled round the edge with fringing masses of +maiden-hair fern. Every lounge and chair had a low, broad foot-stool +before it, ruffled with the chintz; and in one corner of the room were a +square pink and white and green Moorish rug, with ten or a dozen +chintz-covered pillows, piled up in a sort of chair-shaped bed upon it, +and a fantastic ebony box standing near, the lid thrown back, and +battledoors and shuttlecocks, and many other gay-colored games, tossed in +confusion. The walls were literally full of exquisite pictures; no very +large or rare ones, all good for every-day living; some fine old +etchings, exquisite water-colors, a swarthy Campagna herds-boy with a +peacock feather and a scarlet ribbon in his black hat, and for a +companion-picture, the herds-boy of the mountains, fair, rosy, standing +out on a opaline snow-peak, with a glistening Edelweiss in his hand; +opposite these a large picture of Haag's, a camel in the desert, the Arab +wife and baby in a fluttering mass of basket and fringe and shawl and +scarf, on his back; the Arab father walking a few steps in advance, +playing on musical pipes, his tasseled robe blowing back in the wind; on +one side of this a Venice front, and on another a crag of Norway pines; +here and there, small leaves of photographs from original drawings by the +old masters, Leonardo, Raphael, Titian, and Luini; and everywhere, in all +possible and impossible places, flowers and vines. I never saw walls so +decorated. Yellow wall-flowers waved above the picture of the Norway +pines; great scarlet thistles branched out each side of the Venetian +palace; cool maiden-hair ferns seemed to be growing all around the glowing +crimson and yellow picture of the Arabs in the Desert. Afterward I learned +the secret of this beautiful effect; large, flat, wide-mouthed bottles, +filled with water, were hung on the backs of the picture frames, and in +these the vines and flowers were growing; only a worshipper of flowers +would have devised this simple method of at once enshrining them, and +adorning the pictures. + +In one of the windows stood a superbly-carved gilt table, oblong, and with +curiously-twisted legs which bent inward and met a small central shelf +half-way between the top and the floor, then spread out again into four +strange claw-like vases, which bore each two golden lilies standing +upright. On this stood the most singular piece of wood-carving I ever saw. +It was of very light wood, almost yellow in tint; it looked like rough +vine trellises with vines clambering over them; its base was surrounded by +a thick bed of purple anemones; the smaller shelf below was also filled +with purple anemones, and each of the golden lilies held all the purple +anemones it could--not a shade of any other color but the purple and +gold--and rising above them the odd vine trellises in the pale yellow +wood. As I stood looking at this in mute wonder and delight, but sorely +perplexed to make out the design of the carving, I heard a step behind me. +I turned and saw, not my new friend, as I had expected, but her husband. I +thought, in that first instant, I had never seen a manlier face and form, +and I think so to-day. Robert Maynard was not tall; he was not handsome; +but he had a lithe figure, square-shouldered, straight, strong, vitalized +to the last fibre with the swift currents of absolutely healthy blood, and +the still swifter currents of a passionate and pure manhood. His eyes were +blue, his hair and full beard of the bright-brown yellow which we call, +rightly or wrongly, Saxon. He came very quickly toward me with both hands +outstretched and began to speak. "My dear madam," he said, but his voice +broke, and with a sudden, uncontrollable impulse, he turned his back full +upon me for a second, and passed his right hand over his eyes. The next +instant he recovered himself and went on. + +"I do not believe you will wonder that I can't speak, and I do not believe +you will ever wonder that I do not thank you--I never shall," and he +raised both my hands to his lips. + +"Dora is in bed as you bade her to be," he continued. "She is well, but +very weak. She wants to see you immediately, and she has forbidden me to +come back to her room without you. I think, perhaps," he added +hesitatingly, "she is not quite calm enough to talk long. Forgive me for +saying it. I know you love her already." + +"Indeed I do," replied I, "as if I had known her all my life. I will not +stay long;" and I followed him through a small dining-room, also gay with +flowers and vines, to a little room which had one side almost wholly of +glass and opened on a _loggia_ full of orange-trees and oleanders, +geraniums and roses. I will not describe Dora Maynard's bed-room. It was +the dainty room of a dainty woman, but spiritualized and individualized +and made wonderful, just as her sitting-room was, by a creative touch and +a magnetic presence such as few women possess. I believe that she could +not be for twenty-four hours in the barrenest and ugliest room possible, +without contriving to diffuse a certain enchantment through all its +emptiness. + +She looked far more beautiful this morning than she had looked the day +before. I never forgot the picture of her face as I saw it then, lying on +the white pillow and turned toward the door, with the eager expression +which her waiting for me had given it. Neither of us spoke for some +seconds, and when we did speak we took refuge in commonplaces. Our hearts +were too full--mine with a sudden and hardly explicable overflow of +affection toward this beautiful being whom I had saved from dying; hers +with a like affection for me, heightened a thousand fold by the intense +love of love and of living that filled her whole soul and made her +gratitude to me partake almost of the nature of adoration. I think it was +years before she could see me without recalling the whole scene so vividly +that tears would fill her eyes. Often she would suddenly seize both my +hands in hers, kiss them and say, "Oh! but for these dear, strong, brave +little hands, where should I be!" And whenever we parted for a length of +time she was overshadowed by presentiment. "I know it is superstitious and +silly," she would say, "but I cannot shake off the feeling that I am safer +in the same town with you. I believe if any harm were to threaten me you +would be near." + +But the story I am to tell now is not the story of Dora Maynard's life +after I knew her, nor of our friendship and love for each other, rare and +beautiful as they were. It is the story of her girlhood, and of the +strange wood-carving which stood on the gilded table in the bed of purple +anemones. + +One morning in April, as I climbed the long stone stairs which led to her +apartment, I met Anita, the flower-woman who carried flowers to her every +day. Anita looked troubled. + +"What is the matter, my Anita?" said I; "is the Signora ill?" + +"Ah no, thank the Blessed Virgin!" said Anita; "the dearest, most +beautiful of Signoras is well, but I am obliged to tell her to-day that +there are no more anemones. Biagio went yesterday to the farthest corner +of the Villa Doria, to a dark shady spot beyond the Dove-Cote, which the +strangers know not, hoping to find some; but the heavy rains had beaten +them all down--there is no longer one left. And the Signora had tears in +her eyes when I told her; and she did not care for all the other beautiful +flowers; she said none of them could go on the gold table; never yet has +the Signora put any flowers on the gold table except the purple anemones," +and real tears stood in old Anita's eyes. + +"Why, Anita," said I, "I am sure some other flowers would look very pretty +there. I do not believe the Signora will be unhappy about it." + +Anita shook her head and half smiled with a look of pitying compassion. + +"But, Signora, you do not know; that dearest and most beautiful of +Signoras has visions from the angels about her flowers. Holy Virgin! if +she would but come and hang flowers around the Bambino in our church! None +of the Holy Sisters can so weave them as she does; she makes Festa forever +in the house for the Signor; and I think, Signora," crossing herself and +looking sharply at me, "perhaps the gold table is the shrine of her +religion: does the Signora know?" + +I could not help laughing. "Oh no, Anita," I said; "we do not have shrines +in our religion." + +Anita's face clouded. "Iddio mio!" she said, "but the Virgin will keep the +dearest Signora Maynardi. Biagio and I have vowed to keep a candle always +burning for her in Ara Coeli! The dearest, most beautiful of Signoras;" +and Anita walked disconsolately on, down the stairs. + +I found Dora kneeling before the "gold table," arranging great masses of +maiden-hair fern around the wood carving and in the shelf below. As I saw +the rapt and ecstatic expression of her face, I understood why Anita had +believed the gold table to be a shrine. + +"They do not suit it like the anemones," said she, sadly; "and I can have +no more anemones this year." + +"So poor Anita told me just now on the stairs," replied I. "She was almost +crying, she was so sorry she could not get them for you. But I am sure, +dear, the ferns are beautiful on it. I think the pale green looks even +better than the purple with the gold and the pale yellow wood." + +"I like the purple best," said Dora; "besides, we always had purple at +home," and her eyes filled with tears. Then, turning suddenly to me, she +said, "Why have you never asked me what this is? I know you must have +wondered: it looks so strange--this poor little clumsy bit of American +pine, on my gilt table shrined with flowers!" + +"Yes, I have wondered, I acknowledge, for I could not make out the +design," I replied; "but I thought it might have some story connected with +it, which you would tell me if you wished I should know. I did not think +it clumsy; I think it is fantastic, and has a certain sort of weird +life-likeness about it." + +"Do you really think it has any life-like look about it?" and Dora's face +flushed with pleasure. "I think so, but I supposed nobody else could see +anything in it. No one of my acquaintance has ever alluded to it," +continued she, half laughing, half crying, "but I see them trying to +scrutinize it slyly when they are not observed. As for poor old Anita, I +believe she thinks it is our Fetish. She walks round it on tiptoe with her +hands clasped on her apron." + +"But now," she continued, "I will show you the same design in something +else;" and she led the way through her own bedroom to Robert's, which was +beyond. On the threshold she paused, and kissing me, said: "If you can +stay with me to-day, I will tell you the whole story, dear; but I want you +to look at this chintz first." Then she walked to the window, and drawing +out one of the curtains to its full width, held it up for me to see. It +was a green and white chintz, evidently of cheap quality. At first I did +not distinguish any meaning in the pattern; presently I saw that the +figures were all of vines and vine-leaves, linked in a fantastic fashion +together, like those in the wood-carving on the gold table. + +"Oh, yes," I said, "I see; it is exactly like the carving, only it looks +different, being on a flat surface." + +Dora did not speak; she was gazing absently at the chintz she held in her +hand. Her face looked as if her soul were miles and years away. Presently +I saw a tear roll down her cheek. I touched her hand. She started, and +smiling sweetly, said: "Oh! forgive me. Don't think I am crying for any +sorrow; it is for joy. I am so happy, and my life has been so wonderful. +Now would you really have patience to listen to a long story?" she said, +beseechingly; "a long story all about me--and--Robert? I have been +wanting to tell you ever since I knew you. I think you ought to know all +about us." + +For my answer, I sank into a large chair, drew her down into my lap, and +said: "Begin, you dearest child. Nothing could give me such pleasure. +Begin at the beginning." + +She slipped from my lap to a low footstool at my feet, and resting both +her arms on my knees in a graceful way she had, looked up into my face, +and began by a sentence which made me start. + +"I used to work in a factory." My start was so undisguised, so +uncontrollable, that Dora drew back and her cheeks turned red. + +"Perhaps I ought to have told you before." + +"Oh, my dear, beautiful, marvellous child!" I exclaimed; "you cannot so +misjudge me. I was startled only because you had always seemed to me so +much like one born to all possible luxury. I supposed you had been +nurtured on beauty." + +"So I have been," she replied, earnestly, smiling through tears; +"nevertheless, three years ago I was working in a factory in America." + +I did not interrupt her again; hour after hour passed by; not until +twilight was deepening into dusk did the story come to end. I shall try to +give it in Dora's own words--their simplicity adds so much to it; but I +cannot give the heightened effect with which they fell upon my ears as I +looked down into her sweet child-woman's face. + +"I do not remember much about mamma. It is strange, too, that I do not, +because I was thirteen when she died; but I always loved papa best, and +stayed all the time I could in his study. Mamma was very pretty; the +prettiest woman I ever saw; but I don't know how it was, all her +prettiness did not seem to make papa care about her. He was a +clergyman--an Episcopal clergyman--and his father and his father's father +had been too; so you see for three whole generations it had been all books +and study in the family; but mamma's father was a farmer, and mamma was +stronger than papa; she liked to live in the country and be out of doors, +which he hated. I think I know now just how it all was; but it used to +puzzle me till I grew up. When I was sixteen, my Aunt Abby, papa's sister, +told me that mamma was said to be the most beautiful girl in the whole +State, and that papa fell so in love with her when he was just out of +college, that he came very near dying because his father did not wish them +to be married. Poor papa! it was just so always with him; he had such a +poor feeble body that any trouble or worry made him ill. I can see now +that it was because he and all his family had been such scholars, and +lived in the house, and sat still all their lives; their bodies were not +good for anything: and I am thankful enough that my body is like mamma's; +but I don't know what good it would do me, either, if dear papa hadn't +taught me all his ways of seeing things and feeling things. Mamma never +seemed to care much about anything, except when Dick or Abby were sick, +and she always used to go to sleep in church while papa was saying the +most beautiful things; sometimes it used to make me almost hate her. I +hated everybody that didn't listen to him. But Aunt Abby said once that +very few people could understand him, and that was the reason we never +stayed long in one place. People got tired of hearing him preach. This +made me so angry I did not speak to Aunt Abby for two years, except when I +was obliged to. But I see now that she was right. As I read over papa's +sermons I see that they would seem very strange to common men and women. +He saw much more in every little thing than people generally do. I used to +tell him sometimes he 'saw double,' and he would sigh and say that the +world was blind, and did not see half; he never could take any minute by +itself; there was the past to cripple it and the future to shadow it. +Poor, poor papa! I really think I have learned in a very strange way to +understand his capacity for sadness. I understand it by my own capacity +for joy. I often smile to think how I used to accuse him of seeing double, +for it is the very thing which Robert says to me again and again when a +sight or a sound gives me such intense pleasure that I can hardly bear it. +And I see that while I have nearly the same sensitiveness to all +impressions from things or from people which he had, my body compels the +impressions to be joyous. This is what I owe mamma. If papa could have +been well and strong, he would have sung joy such as no poet has ever sung +since suns began to shine. + +"But most that he wrote was sad; and I am afraid most that he taught the +people was sad too, or, at any rate, not hopeful as it ought to be in this +beautiful, blessed world, which 'God so loved' and loves. So perhaps it +was better for people that papa never preached in any one parish more than +three or four years. Probably God took care to send next a man who would +make everybody take courage again. However, it was very hard for mamma, +and very hard for us; although for us there was excitement and fun in +getting into new houses and getting acquainted with new people; but the +worst thing was that we had very little money, and it used it up so to +move from place to place, and buy new things. I knew all about this before +I was ten years old as well as if I had been forty; and by the time I was +twelve, I was a perfect little miser of both clothes and money--I had such +a horror of the terrible days, which sometimes came, when we sorely wanted +both. + +"Early in the spring after I was thirteen--my birthday was in December--we +went to live in a little place called Maynard's Mills. It was a suburban +village near the largest manufacturing town in the State. The other two +homes which I could remember had been very small country villages, where +none of the people were rich, and only a few attended the Episcopal +church. In Maynard's Mills there were many rich people, and almost +everybody went to our church. The whole place was owned by Mr. Maynard, +Robert's father. He had gone out there to live near his mills, and the +place was so beautiful that family after family of the rich mill-owners +had moved out there. At first they used to go into town to church; but it +was a long drive, cold in winter and hot in summer, and so Mr. Maynard +built a beautiful chapel near his house and sent for papa to come and +preach in it. Mr. Maynard had been his classmate in college and loved him +very much, just because they were 'so different,' papa said, and I think +it must have been so, for Mr. Maynard is the merriest man I ever saw. He +laughs as soon as he sees you, whether there is anything to laugh at or +not, and he makes you feel just like laughing yourself, simply by asking +you how you do. I never saw papa so happy as he was the day Mr. Maynard's +letter came asking him to go there. + +"It was a very kind letter, and the salary, of which Mr. Maynard spoke +almost apologetically, saying that it would be increased in a few years as +the village grew, was more than twice as large as papa had ever received, +and there was a nice parsonage besides. + +"We moved in April. I always associate our moving with blue hepaticas, for +I carried a great basketful of them, which I had taken up roots and all, +in the woods, the morning we set out; and what should I find under papa's +study window but a great thicket of wild ferns and cornel bushes +growing--just the place for my hepaticas, and I set them out before I went +into the house. The house was very small, but it was so pretty that papa +and I were perfectly happy in it. Poor mamma did not like the closets and +the kitchen. The house we had left was a huge, old-fashioned house, with +four square rooms on a floor; one of these was the kitchen, and mamma +missed it very much. But she lived only a few days after we moved in. I +never knew of what disease she died. She was ill but a few hours and +suffered great pain. They said she had injured herself in some way in +lifting the furniture. It was all so sudden and so terrible, and we were +surrounded by such confusion and so many strange faces, that I do not +remember anything about it distinctly. I remember the funeral, and the +great masses of white and purple flowers all over the table on which the +coffin stood, and I remember how strangely papa's face looked. + +"And then Aunt Abby came to live with us, and we settled down into such a +new, different life, that it seemed to me as if it had been in some other +world that I had known mamma. My sister Abby was two years old, and my +darling brother Nat was ten, when mamma died. It is very hard to talk +about dear Nat, I love him so. He is so precious, and his sorrow is so +sacred, that I am hardly willing to let strangers pity him, ever so +tenderly. When he was a baby he sprang out of mamma's lap, one day, as she +was reaching up to take something from the mantel piece. He fell on the +andiron-head and injured his spine so that he could never walk. He is +twenty years old now; his head and chest and arms are about as large as +those of a boy of sixteen, but all the rest of his poor body is shrunken +and withered; he has never stood upright, and he cannot turn himself in +his chair or bed. But his head and face are beautiful. It is not only I +who think so. Artists have seen him sitting at the window, or being drawn +about in his little wagon, and have begged permission to paint his face, +for the face of a saint or of a hero, in their pictures. It is the face of +both saint and hero; and after all that must be always so, I think; for +how could a man be one without being the other? I know some very brave men +have been very bad men, but I do not call them heroes. Nat is the only +hero I ever knew; if I were a poet I would write a poem about him. It +should be called 'THE CROWNLESS KING.' Oh, how he _does_ reign over +suffering, and loss, and humiliation, and what a sweet kingdom spreads out +around him wherever he is! He does everybody good, and everybody loves +him. Poor papa used to say sometimes, 'My son is a far better preacher +than I; see, I sit at his feet to learn;' and it was true. Even when he +was a little fellow Nat used to keep up papa's courage. Many a time, when +papa looked dark and sad, Nat would call to him, 'Dear papa, will you +carry me up and down a little while by the window? I want the sky.' Then, +while they were walking, Nat would say such sweet things about the beauty +of the sky, and the delight it gave him to see it, that the tears would +come into papa's eyes, and he would say, 'Who would think that we could +ever forget for a moment this sky which is above us?' and he would go away +to his study comforted. + +"As I said, when mamma died, Nat was ten and I was thirteen. From that +time I took all the care of him. Aunt Abby, was not strong, and she did +not love children. She was just, and she meant to be always kind to us; +but that sort of kindness is quite different from loving-kindness. Poor +Nat never could bear to have her do anything for him, and so it very soon +came about that I took all the care of him. It was not hard, for he was +never ill; he suffered constant pain but in spite of it he was always +cheerful, always said he felt well, and never had any of the small +ailments and diseases which healthy children are apt to have. 'I +shouldn't know what to do without the ache, Dot,' he said to me one day +when he was only twelve years old. 'I've got so used to it, I should miss +it as much as I should miss you said it helps me to be good. I don't think +I should dare have it go away.' A few years later he wrote some lovely +little verses called 'The Angel of Pain,' which I will show you. Our life +after mamma died was very happy and peaceful. It makes me grieve for her, +even now, to think how little she was missed. We had all loved her. She +was always pleasant and good, and took the best possible care of us and of +everything; but she was not one of those persons whose presence makes +itself necessary to people. It seems hardly right to say such a thing, but +I really think papa seemed more cheerful without her, after the first. I +think that while she lived he was always groping and reaching after +something in her which did not exist. The hourly sight of her reminded him +hourly of his ideal of what a wife might be, and he was forever hoping +that she might come a little nearer to it--enter a little more into his +world of thought and feeling. This is how it has looked to me since I have +been married, and can understand just how terrible it must be to have the +person whom you love best, disappoint you in any way. + +"Nat was in all my classes in school. Although he was three years younger +he was much cleverer than I, and had had nothing to do, poor dear, all his +life, but lie in his chair and read. I used to draw him to and from school +in a little wagon; the boys lifted it up and down the steps so carefully +it did not jar him; and papa had a special desk built for him, so high +that part of the wagon could roll under it, and the lid could rest just +wherever Nat needed it for writing or studying. When we went home, there +was always a sort of procession with us; a good many of the children had +to go in the same direction, but many went simply to walk by Nat's wagon +and talk with him. Whenever there was a picnic or a nutting frolic, we +always took him; the boys took turns in drawing him; nobody would hear a +word of his staying at home; he used to sit in his wagon and look on while +the rest played, and sometimes he would be left all alone for a while, but +his face was always the happiest one there. At school the boys used to +tell him everything, and leave things to his decision. Almost every day, +somebody would call out, at recess or intermission, 'Well, I'll leave it +to Nat'--or 'I'll tell Nat.' One day somebody shouted, 'Take it before the +king--let's call him King Nat.' But it almost made Nat cry. He exclaimed, +'Oh, boys, please don't ever say that again;' and they never did. He had a +great deal more influence over them than any teacher. He could make them +do anything. Sometimes the teachers themselves used to come to him +privately and tell him of things they did not like, which the boys were +getting into the way of doing, and ask him to try to stop them. If Nat had +not been a saint, as I said before, all this would have spoiled him; but +he never thought of its being any special power in him. He used to think +it was only because the boys were so kind-hearted that they could not bear +to refuse any request which a poor cripple made. + +"When I think how happy those days were and how fast the darkest days of +our lives were drawing near, it makes me shrink from happiness almost as +much as from grief. It seems only grief's forerunner. On the evening of my +sixteenth birthday, we were all having a very merry time in papa's study, +popping corn over the open fire. We had wheeled Nat near the fire, and +tied the corn-popper on a broom-handle, so that he could shake the popper +himself; and I never saw him laugh so heartily at anything. Papa laughed +too, quite loud, which was a thing that did not happen many times a year. +It was the last time we heard the full sound of dear papa's voice. Late +that night he was called out to see a poor man, one of the factory +operatives, who was dying. It was a terrible snow-storm, and papa had been +so heated over the fire and in playing with us that he took a severe cold. +The next morning he could not speak aloud. The doctor said it was an acute +bronchitis and would pass off; but it did not, and in a very few weeks it +was clear that he was dying of consumption. Probably the cold only +developed a disease which had been long there. + +"I can't tell you about the last months of papa's life. I think I shall +never be able to speak of them. We saw much worse days afterward, but none +that seemed to me so hard to bear; even when I thought Nat and I would +have to go to the almshouse it was not so hard. The love which most +children divide between father and mother I concentrated on my father. I +loved him with an adoration akin to that which a woman feels for her +husband, and with the utmost of filial love added. Nat loved him almost as +much. The most touching thing I ever saw was to see Nat from his wagon, +or wheeled chair, reaching out to take care of papa in the bed. Nobody +else could give him his medicine so well; nobody could prepare his meals +for him, after he was too weak to use a knife and fork, so well as Nat. +How he could do all this with only one hand--for he could not bend himself +in his chair enough to use the hand farthest from the bed--nobody could +understand; but he did, and the very last mouthful of wine papa swallowed +he took, the morning he died, from poor Nat's brave little hand, which did +not shake nor falter, though the tears were rolling down his cheeks. + +"Papa lived nearly a year; but the last nine months he was in bed, and he +never spoke a loud word after that birthday night when we had been so +happy in the study. He died in November, on a dreary stormy day. I never +shall forget it. He had seemed easier that morning, and insisted on our +all going out to breakfast together and leaving him alone, the doors being +open between the study and the dining-room. We had hardly seated ourselves +at the table when his bell rang. Aunt Abby reached him first. It could not +have been a minute, but he did not know her. For the first and only time +in my life I forgot Nat, and was out of the room when I heard him sob. +Dear Nat! not even then would he think of himself. I turned back. 'Oh, +don't stop to take me, Dot,' he said. 'Run!' But I could not; and when I +reached the door, pushing his chair before me, all was over. However, the +doctor said that, even if we had been there at the first, papa could not +have bid us good-by; that the death was from instantaneous suffocation, +and that he probably had no consciousness of it himself. Papa's life had +been insured for five thousand dollars and he had saved, during the three +years we had lived at Maynard's Mills, about one thousand more. This was +all the money we had in the world. + +"Mr. Maynard had been very kind throughout papa's illness. He had +persuaded the church to continue the salary; every day he had sent +flowers, and grapes, and wine, and game, and everything he could think of +that papa could eat; and, what was kindest of all, he had come almost +every day to talk with him and cheer him up. But he did not mean to let +his kindness stop here. The day after the funeral he came to see us, to +propose to adopt me. I forgot to say that Aunt Abby was to be married soon +and would take little Abby with her; so they were provided for, and the +only question was about Nat and me. + +"Fortunately, dear Nat was in the dining-room and did not see Mr. Maynard +when he came. I have told you what a merry man Mr. Maynard is, and how +kind he is, but he is also a very obstinate and high-tempered man. He had +never loved Nat; I do not know why; I think he was the only human being +who ever failed to love him. He pitied him, of course; but he was so +repelled by his deformity that he could not love him. As soon as Mr. +Maynard said, 'Now, my dear child, you must come to my house and make it +your home always,' I saw that he intended to separate me from Nat. + +"I replied, 'I cannot leave Nat, Mr. Maynard. I thank you very much; you +are very good; but it would break my heart to leave him, and I am sure +papa would never forgive me if I should do it.' + +"He made a gesture of impatience. He had foreseen this, and come prepared +for it; but he saw that I promised to prove even more impracticable than +he had feared. + +"'You have sacrificed your whole life already to that miserable +unfortunate boy,' he said, 'and I always told your father he ought not to +permit it.' + +"At this I grew angry, and I replied:-- + +"'Mr. Maynard, Nat does more for us all, every hour of his life, than we +ever could do for him: dear papa used to say so too.' + +"No doubt papa had said this very thing to Mr. Maynard often, for tears +came into his eyes and he went on:-- + +"'I know, I know--he is a wonderful boy, and we might all learn a lesson +of patience from him; but I can't have the whole of your life sacrificed +to him. I will provide for him amply; he shall have every comfort which +money can command.' + +"'But where?' said I. + +"'In an institution I know of, under the charge of a friend of mine.' + +"'A hospital!' exclaimed I; and the very thought of my poor Nat, who had +been the centre of a loving home-circle, of a merry school playground, +ever since he could remember--the very thought of his finding himself +alone among diseased people, and tended by hired attendants, so overcame +me that I burst into floods of tears. + +"Mr. Maynard, who hated the presence of tears and suffering, as mirthful +people always do, rose at once and said kindly, 'Poor child, you are not +strong enough to talk it over yet; but as your aunt must go away so soon, +I thought it better to have it all settled at once.' + +"'It is settled, Mr. Maynard,' said I, in a voice that half frightened me. +'I shall never leave Nat--never, so long as I live.' + +"'Then you'll do him the greatest unkindness you can--that's all,' replied +Mr. Maynard angrily, and walked out of the room. I locked myself up in my +own room and thought the whole matter over. How I could earn my own living +and Nat's, I did not know. We should have about four hundred dollars a +year. I had learned enough in my childhood of poverty to know that we need +not starve while we had that; but simply not starving is a great way off +from really living; and I felt convinced that it would be impossible for +me to keep up courage or hope unless I could contrive, in some way, to +earn money enough to surround our home with at least a semblance of the +old atmosphere. We must have books; we must have a flower sometimes; we +must have sun and air. + +"At last an inspiration came to me. Down stairs, in the saddened empty +study, sat little Miss Penstock, the village dressmaker, sewing on our +gloomy black dresses. She lived all alone in a very small house near Mr. +Maynard's mill. I remembered that I had heard her say how lonely she found +it living by herself since her married sister, who used to live with her, +had gone to the West. Since then, Miss Penstock had sometimes consented to +go for a few days at a time to sew in the houses of her favorite +employers, just to keep from forgetting how to speak,' the poor little +woman said. But she disliked very much to do this. She was a gentlewoman; +and though she accepted with simple dignity the necessity of earning her +bread, it was bitterly disagreeable to her to sit as a hired sewer in +other people's houses. She liked to come to our house better than to any +other. We also were poor. My Aunt Abby was a woman of great simplicity, +and a quiet, stately humility, like Miss Penstock's own; and they enjoyed +sitting side by side whole days, sewing in silence. Miss Penstock had +always spoken with a certain sort of tender reverence to Nat, and I +remembered that he liked to be in the room where she sewed. All these +thoughts passed through my mind in a moment. I sprang to my feet and +exclaimed, 'That is it--that is it!' and I ran hastily down to the study. +Miss Penstock was alone there. She looked up in surprise at my +breathlessness and my red eyes. I knelt down by her side and took the work +out of her hands. + +"'Dear Miss Penstock,' said I, 'would you rent part of your house?' + +"She looked up reflectively, took off her spectacles with her left hand, +and tapped her knees slowly with them, as she always did when puzzling +over a scanty pattern. + +"'I don't know, Dora, but I might; I've thought of it; it's awful lonely +for me as 'tis. But it's such a risk taking in strangers; is it any +friends of yours you're thinking of?' + +"'Nat and me,' said I, concisely. Miss Penstock's spectacles dropped from +her fingers, and she uttered an ejaculation I never heard from her lips on +any other occasion. 'Good Heavens!' + +"'Yes,' said I, beginning to cry, 'Nat and me! I've got to take care of +Nat, and if you would only let us live with you I think I could manage +beautifully.' Then I told her the whole story of Mr. Maynard's proposal. +While we were talking Aunt Abby came in. The problem was no new one to +her. Papa and she had talked it over many a time in the course of the past +sad year. It seemed that he had had to the last a strong hope that Mr. +Maynard would provide for us both. Poor papa! as he drew near the next +world, all the conventionalities and obligations of this seemed so small +to him, he did not shrink from the thought of dependence upon others as he +would have done in health. + +"'But I always told him,' said Aunt Abby, 'that Mr. Maynard wasn't going +to do anything for Nat beyond what money'd do. He'd give him a thousand a +year, or two, if need be, but he'd never set eyes on him if he could help +it.' + +"'Aunt Abby,' exclaimed I, 'please don't say another word about Mr. +Maynard's helping Nat. I'd die before Nat should touch a cent of his +money.' + +"'There is no use talking that way,' said Aunt Abby, whose tenderest +mercies were often cruelly worded. 'Mr. Maynard's a good, generous man, +and I'm sure he's been the saving of us all. But that's no reason he +should set up to take you away from Nat now; and I know well enough Nat +can't live without you; but I don't see how it's to be managed. And Aunt +Abby sighed. Then I told her my plans; they grew clearer and clearer to me +as I unfolded them; the two gentle-faced spinster women looked at me with +surprise. Miss Penstock wiped her eyes over and over. + +"'If I could only be sure I wasn't going against your best interests to +let you come,' said she. + +"'Oh, Miss Penstock,' exclaimed I, 'don't think so--don't dare to say no +for that reason; for I tell you, I shall go away to some other town with +Nat if you don't take us; there is no other house here that would do; +think how much better it would be for Nat to stay among friends.' + +"'It's lucky I am their guardian,' said Aunt Abby, with an unconscious +defiance in her tone. 'There can't anybody hinder their doing anything I +am willing to have them do. My brother wanted to have Mr. Maynard, too; +but I told him no; I'd either be whole guardian or none.' + +"'I think good Aunt Abby had had a dim foreboding that Mr. Maynard's +kindness might take a shape which it would be hard to submit to. Great as +her gratitude was, her family pride resented dictation, and resented also +the implied slight to poor Nat. As I look back now, I can see that, except +for this reaction of feeling, she never would have consented so easily to +my undertaking all I undertook, in going to housekeeping alone with that +helpless child, on four hundred dollars a year. Before night it was all +settled, and Miss Penstock went home two hours before her time, 'so +stirred up, somehow,' as she said, 'to think of those blessed children's +coming to live in my house, I couldn't see to thread a needle.' After tea +Mr. Maynard came again: Aunt Abby saw him alone. When she came up-stairs +she had been crying, but her lips were closed more rigidly than I ever saw +them. Aunt Abby could be as determined as Mr. Maynard. All she said to me +of the interview was, 'I don't know now as he'll really give in that he +can't have things as he wants to. For all his laughing and for all his +goodness, I don't believe he is any too comfortable to live with. I +shouldn't wonder if he never spoke to one of us again.' + +"But Mr. Maynard was too well-bred a man for any such pettiness as that. +His resentment showed itself merely in a greater courtesy than ever, +combined with a careful absence of all inquiries as to our plans. It hurt +me very much, for I knew how it would have hurt dear papa. But I knew, +too, that I was right and Mr. Maynard was wrong, and that comforted me. + +"Four weeks from the day papa was buried, the pretty parsonage was locked +up, cold, dark, empty. Aunt Abby had gone with little Abby to her new +home, and Nat and I were settled at Miss Penstock's. The night before we +moved, Mr. Maynard left a note at the door for me. It contained five +hundred dollars and these words:-- + +"'Miss Dora will not refuse to accept this from one who hoped to be her +father.' + +"But I could not take it. I sent it back to him with a note like this:-- + +"'DEAR MR. MAYNARD:--I shall never forget that you were willing to be my +father, and I shall always be grateful to you; but I cannot take money +from one who is displeased with me for doing what I think right. I promise +you, however, for papa's sake and for Nat's, that if I ever need help I +will ask it of you, and not of any one else.' + + * * * * * + +"The next time I saw Mr. Maynard he put both his hands on my shoulders and +said: 'You are a brave girl; I wish I could forgive you; but remember your +promise.' And that was the last word Mr. Maynard spoke to me for three +years. + +"Our new home was so much pleasanter than we supposed it could be, that at +first, in spite of our grief, both Nat and I were almost gay. It was like +a sort of picnic, or playing at housekeeping. The rooms were sunny and +cozy. Rich people in splendid houses do not dream how pleasant poor +people's little rooms can be, if the sun shines in and there are a few +pretty things. We kept all the books which could ever be of use to Nat, +and a picture of the Sistine Madonna which Mr. Maynard had given us on the +last Christmas Day, and papa's and mamma's portraits. The books, and +these, made our little sitting-room look like home. We had only two rooms +on the first floor; one of these was a tiny one, but it held our little +cooking-stove and a cupboard, with our few dishes; the other we called +'sitting-room;' it had to be dear Nat's bedroom also, because he could not +be carried up and down stairs. But I made a chintz curtain, which shut off +his bed from sight, and really made the room look prettier, for I put it +across a corner and had a shelf put up above it, on which Nat's stuffed +owl sat. My room was over Nat's, and a cord went up from his bed to a +bell over mine, so that he could call me at any moment if he wanted +anything in the night. Then we had one more little chamber, in which we +kept the boxes of papa's sermons, and some trunks of old clothes, and +things which nobody wanted to buy at the auction, and papa's big chair and +writing-table. We would not sell those. I thought perhaps some day we +should have a house of our own--I could not imagine how; but if we did we +should be glad of that chair and table, and so Aunt Abby let us keep them, +though they were of handsome wood, beautifully carved, and would have +brought a good deal of money. For these four rooms we paid Miss Penstock +three dollars a month; the rent would have been a dollar a week, but she +said it was really worth a dollar a month to her to have people who would +not trouble her nor hurt the house; and as Aunt Abby thought so too, I +believed her. + +"My plan was to have Nat keep on at school, and to take in sewing myself, +or to work for Miss Penstock. For the first year all went so smoothly that +I was content. I used to draw Nat to and from school twice a day, and that +gave me air and exercise. Everybody was very kind in giving me sewing, and +I earned four and five dollars a week. We did not have to buy any clothes, +and so we laid up a little money. But the next year people did not give me +so much sewing; they had given it to me the first year because they were +sorry for us, but now they had forgotten. Very often I would sit idle a +whole week, with no work. Then I used to read and study, but I could not +enjoy anything, because I was so worried. I felt that trouble was coming. +Early in the fall dear Nat was taken ill--the first illness of his life. +It was a slow fever. He was ill for three months. I often wonder how I +lived through those months. When he recovered he seemed better than ever. +The doctor said he had passed a sort of crisis and would always be +stronger for it. The doctor was very kind. Several nights he sat up with +Nat and made me go to bed, and he would not let me pay him a cent, though +he came every day for weeks. When I urged him to let us pay the bill he +grew half angry, and said, 'Do you think I am going to take money from +your father's daughter?' and then I felt more willing to take it for +papa's sake. But the medicines had cost a great deal, and I had not earned +anything; and so, at the end of the second year, we had been obliged to +take quite a sum out of our little capital. I did not tell Nat, and I did +not go to Mr. Maynard. I went on from day to day, in a sort of stupor, +wondering what would happen next. I was seventeen years old, but I knew of +nothing I could do except to sew; I did not know enough to teach. All this +time I never once thought of the mills. I used to watch the men and women +going in and out, and envy them, thinking how sure they were of their +wages; and yet it never crossed my mind that I could do the same thing. I +am afraid it was unconscious pride which prevented my thinking of it. + +"But the day came. It was in the early spring. I had been to the +grave-yard to set out some fresh hepaticas on papa's grave. His grave and +mamma's were in an inclosure surrounded by a high, thick hedge of pines +and cedars close to the public street As I knelt down, hidden behind the +trees, I heard steps and voices. They paused opposite me. The persons were +evidently looking over the fence. Then I distinguished the voice of our +kind doctor. + +"'Poor Kent!' he said, 'how it would distress him to see his children now! +That Nat barely pulled through his fever; but he seems to have taken a new +turn since then and is stronger than ever. But I am afraid they are very +poor.' + +"To my astonishment, the voice that replied was Mr. Maynard's. + +"'Of course they are,' said he impatiently; 'but nobody will ever have a +chance to help them till the last cent's gone. That Dora would work her +fingers off in the mills rather than ask or receive help.' + +"'But good heavens! Maynard, you'd never stand by and see Tom Kent's +daughter in the mills?' exclaimed the doctor. + +"I could not hear the reply, for they were walking away. But the words 'in +the mills' rang in my ears. A new world seemed opening before me. I had no +particle of false pride; all I wanted was to earn money honestly. I could +not understand why I had never thought of this way. I knew that many of +the factory operatives, who were industrious and economical, supported +large families of children on their wages. 'It would be strange enough if +I could not support Nat and myself,' thought I, and I almost ran home, I +was so glad. I said nothing to Nat; I knew instinctively that it would +grieve him. + +"The next day after I left him at school I went to the largest mill and +saw the overseer. He was a coarse, disagreeable man; but he had known my +father and he treated me respectfully. He said they could not give me very +good wages at first; but if I learned readily, and was skillful in tending +the looms, I might in time make a very good living. The sums that he named +seemed large, tried by my humble standard. Even at the beginning I should +earn more than I had been able to for many months at my needle. After tea +I told Nat. He lay very still for some moments; the tears rolled down his +cheeks; then he reached up both hands and drew my face down to his, and +said, 'Dear sister, it would be selfish to make it any harder for you than +it must be at best. But oh, Dot, Dot! do you think you can dream what it +is for me to have to lie here and be such a burden on you?' + +"'Oh, Nat!' I said, 'if you don't want to break my heart, don't speak so. +I don't have to earn any more for two than I should have to alone; it does +not cost anything for you; and if it did, you darling, don't you know that +I could not live without you? you are all I have got in the world.' Nat +did not reply; but all that evening his face looked as I never saw it +before. Nat was fifteen; instinct was beginning to torture him with a +man's sense of his helplessness, and it was almost more than even his +childlike faith and trust could bear. + +"The next day I told Miss Penstock. She had been as kind to us as a mother +through this whole year and a half, and I really think we had taken the +place of children in her lonely old heart. But she never could forget that +we were her minister's children; she always called me Miss Dora, and does +to this day. She did not interrupt me while I told her my plan, but the +color mounted higher and higher in her face. As soon as I stopped +speaking, she exclaimed:-- + +"'Dora Kent, are you mad--a girl with a face like yours to go into the +mills? you don't know what you're about.' + +"'Yes I do, dear Pennie,' I said (Nat had called her Pennie ever since his +sickness, when she had taken tender care of him night and day). 'I know +there are many rude, bad men there, but I do not believe they will trouble +me. At any rate I can but try. I must earn more money, Pennie; you know +that as well as I do.' + +"She did indeed know it; but it was very hard for her to give approbation +to this scheme. It was not until after a long argument that I induced her +to promise not to write to Aunt Abby till I had tried the experiment for +one month. + +"The next day I went to the mill. Everything proved much better than I had +feared. Some of the women in the room in which I was placed had belonged +to papa's Sunday-school, and they were all very kind to me, and told the +others who I was; so from the outset I felt myself among friends. In two +weeks I had grown used to the work; the noise of the looms did not +frighten or confuse me, and it did not tire me to stand so many hours. I +found that I should soon be able to do most of my work mechanically, and +think about what I pleased in the mean time. So I hoped to be able to +study at home and recite my lessons to myself in the mill. The only thing +that troubled me was that I could not take Nat to and from school, and he +had to be left alone sometimes. But I found a very pleasant and faithful +Irish boy, who was glad to earn a little money by drawing him back and +forth, often staying with him after school till I came home at six +o'clock. This boy was the son of the Irish gardener on the overseer's +place. The overseer was an Englishman; his name was Wilkins. He is the +only human being I ever disliked so that it was hard to speak to him. His +brother, too, the agent who had charge of all Mr. Maynard's business, was +almost as disagreeable as he. They both looked like bloated frogs; their +wide, shapeless mouths, flat noses, and prominent eyes, made me shudder +when I looked at them. + +"Little Patrick soon grew fond of Nat, as everybody did who came into +close contact with him; and he used often to stay at our house till late +at night, hearing Nat's stories, and watching him draw pictures on the +blackboard. One of the things I had kept was a great blackboard which papa +had made for him. It was mounted on a stout standard, so that it could be +swung close in front of his chair or wagon, and he would lie there and +draw for hours together. Some of the pictures he drew were so beautiful I +could not bear to have them rubbed out. It seemed almost like killing +things that were alive. Whenever I dared to spend a penny for anything not +absolutely needful, I always bought a sheet of drawing-paper or a crayon; +for Nat would rather have them than anything else in the world--even than +a book--unless the book had pictures. + +"One night, when I went home, I found him sitting up very straight in his +wagon, with his cheeks crimson with excitement. Patrick was with him, and +the table and the whole floor were covered with queer, long, jointed +paste-board sheets, with pieces of gay-colored calicoes, pasted on them. +Patrick looked as excited as Nat, and as soon as I opened the door he +exclaimed, 'Och, Miss Dora, see how he's plazed with um.' I was almost +frightened at Nat's face. 'Why Nat, dear,' said I, 'what are they? I don't +think they are very pretty;' and I picked up one of the queer things and +looked at it. 'The colors are bright and pretty, but I am sure almost all +the patterns are hideous.' + +"'Of course they are,' shouted Nat hysterically. 'That's just it. That's +what pleases me so,' and he burst out crying. I was more frightened still. +Trampling the calicoes under my feet, I ran and knelt by his chair, and +put my arms around him. 'Oh, Nat, Nat, what is the matter?' cried I. +'Patrick, what have you done to him?' Poor Patrick could not speak; he was +utterly bewildered; he began hastily picking up the prints and shuffling +them out of sight. + +"'Don't you touch one!' screamed Nat, lifting up his head again, with +tears rolling down his cheeks. 'Dot, Dot,' he went on, speaking louder and +louder, 'don't you see? those are patterns; Patrick says Mr. Wilkins buys +them. I can earn money too; I can draw a million times prettier ones than +those.' + +"Like lightning the thing flashed through my brain. Of course he could. He +drew better ones every day of his life, by dozens, on the old blackboard, +with crumbling bits of chalk. Again and again I had racked my brains to +devise some method by which he might be taught, as artists are taught, and +learn to put his beautiful conceptions into true shapes for the world to +see. But I knew that materials and instruction were both alike out of our +reach, and I had hoped earnestly that such longing had never entered his +heart. I sat down and covered my face with my hands. + +"'You see, sister,' said Nat in a calmer tone, sobered himself by my +excitement--'you see, don't you?' + +"'Yes, dear, I do see,' said I; 'you will earn much more money than I ever +can, and take care of me, after all.' + +"To our inexperience, it seemed as if a mine had opened at our feet. Poor +Patrick stood still, unhappy and bewildered, twisting one of the +pattern-books in his hand. + +"'An' is it these same that Misther Nat'll be afther tryin' to make?' said +he. + +"'Oh no, Patrick,' said Nat, laughing, 'only the pictures from which these +are to be made.' + +"Then we questioned Patrick more closely. All he knew was that Mr. +Wilkins' sister made many of the drawings; Patrick had seen them lying in +piles on Mr. Wilkins' desk; some of them colored, some of them merely in +ink. The pieces of paper were about the size of these patterns, some six +or eight inches square. + +"'Will I ask Miss Wilkins to come and show yees?' said Patrick. + +"'No, no,' said we both, hastily; 'you must not tell anybody. Of course +she would not want other people to be drawing them too.' + +"'Especially if she can't make anything better than these,' said Nat, +pityingly. Already his tone had so changed that I hardly recognized it. In +that moment the artist-soul of my darling brother had felt its first +breath of the sweetness of creative power. + +"Patrick promised not to speak of it to a human being; as he was going out +of the door he turned back, with a radiant face, and said: 'An 'twas +meself that only thought maybe the calikers'd amuse him for a minnit with +their quare colors,' and he almost somerseted off the door-steps, uttering +an Irish howl of delight. + +"'You've made our fortunes! there'll always be calicoes wanted, and I can +draw fifty patterns a day, and I'll give you half of the first pay I get +for them,' called the excited Nat; but Patrick was off. + +"We sat up till midnight. I was scarcely less overwrought than Nat. He +drew design after design and rejected them as not quite perfect. + +"'You know,' he said, 'I must send something so very good to begin with, +that they can't help seeing at first sight how good it is.' + +"'But not so good that you can't ever make another equal to it,' suggested +I out of my practical but inartistic brain. + +"'No danger of that, Dot,' said Nat, confidently. 'Dot, there isn't +anything in this world I can't make a picture of, if I can have paper +enough, and pencils and paint.' + +"At last he finished three designs which he was willing to send. They +were all for spring or summer dresses. One was a curious block pattern, +the blocks of irregular shapes, but all fitting into each other, and all +to be of the gayest colors. Here and there came a white block with one +tiny scarlet dot upon it; 'That's for a black-haired girl, Dot,' said Nat; +'you couldn't wear it.' + +"The second was a group of ferns tied by a little wreath of pansies; +nothing could be more beautiful. The third was a fantastic mixture of +pine-tassels and acorns. I thought it quite ugly, but Nat insisted on it +that it would be pretty for a summer muslin; and so it was the next year, +when it was worn by everybody, the little plumy pine-tassels of a bright +green (which didn't wash at all), and the acorns all tumbling about on +your lap, all sides up at once. + +"It was one o'clock before we went to bed, and we might as well have sat +up all night, for we did not sleep. The next morning I got up before light +and walked into town, to a shop where they sold paints. I had just time to +buy a box of water-colors and get back to the mill before the bell stopped +ringing. All the forenoon the little white parcel lay on the floor at my +feet. As often as I looked at it, I seemed to see Nat's pictures dancing +on the surface. I had given five dollars for the box; I trembled to think +what a sum that was for us to spend on an uncertainty; but I had small +doubt. At noon I ran home; I ate little dinner--Nat would not touch a +mouthful. 'You must see the pansies and ferns done before you go,' he +said. + +"And before my hour was up they were so nearly done that I danced around +Nat's chair with delight. + +"'I know Mr. Wilkins never saw anything so pretty in his life,' said Nat, +calmly. + +"The thought of Mr. Wilkins was a terrible damper to me. Nat had not seen +him: I had. + +"'Nat,' said I, slowly, 'Mr. Wilkins won't know that it is pretty. He is +not a man; he is a frog, and he looks as if he lied. I believe he will +cheat us.' + +"Nat looked shocked. 'Why Dora, I never in my life heard you speak so. You +shall not take them to him. I will have Patrick take me there.' + +"'No, no, dear,' I exclaimed, 'I would not have you see Mr. Wilkins for +the world. He is horrible. But I am not afraid of him.' + +"I meant that I would not for the world have him see Nat. He was coarse +and brutal enough to be insulting to a helpless cripple, and I knew it. +But Nat did not dream of my reason for insisting so strongly on going +myself, and he finally yielded. + +"I took the pictures to the overseer's office at noon. I knew that 'Agent +Wilkins,' as he was called to distinguish him from his brother, was always +there at that time. He looked up at me, as I drew near the desk, with an +expression which almost paralyzed me with disgust. But for Nat's sake I +kept on. I watched him closely as he looked at the pictures. I thought I +detected a start of surprise, but I could not be sure. Then he laid them +down, saying carelessly, 'I am no judge of these things; I will consult +some one who is, and let you know to-morrow noon if we can pay your +brother anything for the designs.' + +"'Of course you know that the market is flooded with this sort of thing, +Miss Kent,' he added, as I was walking away. I made no reply; I was +already revolving in my mind a plan for taking them to another mill in +town, whose overseer was a brother of one of papa's wardens. The next day +at noon I went to the office; my heart beat fast, but I tried to believe +that I did not hope. Both the brothers were there. The overseer spoke +first, but I felt that the agent watched me sharply. + +"'So your lame brother drew these designs, did he, Miss Dora?' + +"'My brother Nat drew them, sir; I have but one brother, said I, trying +hard to speak civilly. + +"'Well' said he, 'they are really very well done--quite remarkable, +considering that they are the work of a child who has had no instruction; +they would have to be rearranged and altered before we could use them, but +we would like to encourage him and to help you too,' he continued, +patronizingly, 'and so we shall buy them just as they are.' + +"'My brother Nat is not a child,' replied I, 'and we do not wished to be +helped. If the designs are not worth money, will you be so good as to give +them back to me?' and I stepped nearer the desk and stretched out my hand +toward the pictures which were lying there. But Agent Wilkins snatched +them up quickly, and casting an angry glance at his brother, exclaimed:-- + +"'Oh, you quite mistake my brother, Miss Kent; the designs are worth money +and we are glad to buy them; but they are not worth so much as they would +be if done by an experienced hand. We will give you ten dollars for the +three,' and he held out the money to me. Involuntarily I exclaimed, 'I had +not dreamed that they would be worth so much.' Nat could earn then in four +hours' work as much as I could in a week; in that one moment the whole of +life seemed thrown open for us. All my distrust vanished. And when the +agent added, kindly, 'Be sure and bring us all the designs which your +brother makes. I think we shall want to buy as many as he will draw; he +certainly has rare talent,'--I could have fallen on the floor at his feet +to thank him, so grateful did I feel for this new source of income for us, +and still more for the inexpressible pleasure for my poor Nat. + +"From that day Nat was a changed boy. He would not go to school in the +afternoons, but spent the hours from two till five in drawing. I had a +cord arranged from our room to Miss Penstock's, so that he could call her +if at any moment he needed help, and she was only too glad to have him in +the house. When I reached home at six, I always found him lying back in +his chair with his work spread out before him, and such a look of content +and joy on his face, that more than once it made me cry instead of +speaking when I bent over to kiss him. 'Oh, Dot--oh, Dot!' he used to say +sometimes, 'it isn't all for the sake of the money, splendid as that is; +but I do feel as if I should yet do something much better than making +designs for calicoes. I feel it growing in me. Oh, if I could only be +taught; if there were only some one here who could tell me about the +things I don't understand!' + +"'But you shall be taught, dear,' I replied; 'we will lay up all the +money you earn. I can earn enough for us to live on, and then, with your +money, in a few years we can certainly contrive some way for you to +study.' + +"It seemed not too visionary a hope, for Nat's designs grew prettier and +prettier, and the agent bought all I carried him. One week I remember he +paid me thirty dollars; and as he handed it to me, seeing how pleased I +looked, he said,-- + +"'Your brother is getting quite rich, is he not, Miss Kent?' Something +sinister in his smile struck me at that moment as it had not done for a +long time, and I resolved to go more seldom to the office. + +"We did not lay up so much as we hoped to; we neither of us had a trace of +the instinct of economy or saving. I could not help buying a geranium or +fuchsia to set in the windows; Nat could not help asking me to buy a book +or a picture sometimes, and his paints and pencils and brushes and paper +cost a good deal in the course of six months. Still we were very happy and +very comfortable, and the days flew by. Our little room was so cozy and +pretty, that Miss Penstock's customers used often to come in to see it; +and if they happened to come when Nat was there, they almost always sent +him something afterward; so, at the end of two years you never would have +known the bare little room. We had flowers in both windows, and as each +window had sun, the flowers prospered; and we had a great many pretty +pictures on the walls, and Nat's sketches pinned up in all sorts of odd +places. A big beam ran across the ceiling in the middle, and that was +hung full of charcoal sketches, with here and there a sheet just painted +in bars of bright color--no meaning to them, except to 'light up,' Nat +said. I did not understand him then, but I could see how differently all +the rest looked after the scarlet and yellow were put by their side. Some +of our pictures had lovely frames to them, which Nat had carved out of old +cigar-boxes that Patrick brought him. Sometimes he used to do nothing but +carve for a week, and he would say, 'Dot, I do not believe drawing is the +thing I want to do, after all. I want more; I hate to have everything +flat.' Then he would get discouraged and think all he had done was good +for nothing. 'I never can do anything except to draw till I go somewhere +to be taught,' he would say, and turn back to the old calico patterns with +fresh zeal. + +"One day a customer of Miss Penstock's brought Nat a book about grapes, +which had some pictures of the different methods of grape-culture in +different countries. One of these pictures pleased him very much. It +showed the grape-vines looped on low trees, in swinging festoons. He had +the book propped up open at that picture day after day, and kept drawing +it over and over on the blackboard and on paper till I was tired of the +sight of it. It did not seem to me remarkably pretty. But Nat said one +day, when I told him so,-- + +"'It isn't the picture itself, but what I want to make from it. Don't you +see that the trees look a little like dancers whirling round, holding each +other by the hand--one-legged dancers?' + +"I could not see it. 'Well,' said Nat, 'look at this, and see if you can +see it any better;' and he drew out of his portfolio a sheet with a rough +charcoal sketch of six or seven low, gnarled, bare trees, with their +boughs inter-locked in such a fantastic manner that the trees seemed +absolutely reeling about in a crazy dance. I laughed as soon as I saw it. +'There!' said Nat triumphantly; 'now, if I can only get the vines to go +just as I want them to, in and out, you see that will dress up the +dancers.' He worked long over this design. The fancy seemed to have taken +possession of his brain. He gave names to the trees, but he called them +all men: 'It's a jolly crew of old kings,' he said; 'that's Sesostris at +the head, and there's Herod; that old fellow with the gouty stomach under +his left arm.' Nat was now so full of freaks and fun, that our little room +rang with laughter night after night. Patrick used to sit on the floor +sometimes, with his broad Irish mouth stiffened into a perpetual grin at +the sight of the mirth, which, though he could not comprehend it, he found +contagious. + +"'But what will you do with it, Nat?' said I. 'It will never do for a +calico pattern.' + +"'I don't know,' said he reflectively; 'I might make it smaller and hide +the faces, and not make the limbs of the trees look so much like legs, and +call it the "vine pattern," and I guess old Wilkins would think it was +graceful, and I dare say Miss Wilkins would wear it, if nobody else did.' + +"'Oh! Nat, Nat, how can you,' exclaimed I, 'when they have been so good to +pay us so much money?' + +"'I know it,' said Nat, 'it's too bad; I'm ashamed now. But doesn't this +look like the two Wilkins brothers? You said they looked like frogs?' he +ran on, holding up a most ludicrous picture of two tall, lank frogs +standing behind a counter, and stretching out four front legs like greedy +hands across the counter, with a motto coming out of the right-hand frog's +mouth: 'More designs, if you please, Mr. Kent--something light and +graceful for summer wear.' + +"These were the words of a note which Mr. Wilkins had sent to Nat a few +weeks before. I laughed till the tears ran down my cheeks, for really the +frogs did look like the brothers Wilkins. The picture haunted my mind for +weeks afterward, and seemed somehow to revive my old distrust of them. + +"A few days after this Nat had finished a set of designs 'for summer +wear,' as the order said, and among them he had put in the 'One-Legged +Dancers.' + +"'It'll do no harm to try it,' said he. 'I think it would be lovely +printed in bright-green on a white ground, and nobody but you and me would +ever see the kings' legs in it.' + +"It really was pretty; still I could not help seeing legs and heads and +King Herod's stomach in it; and, moreover, it was entirely too large a +figure for that year's fashions in calico or muslin. However, I said +nothing and carried it with the rest. When I went the next day, Mr. +Wilkins said, as he handed me the money,-- + +"'Oh, by the way, Miss Kent, one of the drawings has been mislaid. I +suppose it is of no consequence; we could not use it; it was quite too +large a figure, and seemed less graceful than your brother's work usually +is; it was a picture of grape-vines.' + +"'Oh,' said I, 'I told Nat I didn't believe that would be good for +anything. No, it is not of the least consequence.' + +"When I repeated this to Nat, he did not seem surprised at their refusal +of the design; they had already refused several others in the course of +the year. But he seemed singularly disturbed at the loss of the drawing. +At last he urged me to go and ask if it had not been found. + +"'I may do something with it yet, Dot,' he said. 'I know it is a good +design for something, if not for calico, and I don't believe they have +lost it. It is very queer.' + +"But Mr. Wilkins assured me, with great civility and many expressions of +regret, that the design was lost: that they had made careful search for it +everywhere. + +"The thing would have passed out of my mind in a short time but for Nat's +pertinacious reference to it. Every few days he would say, 'It is very +queer, Dot, about the One-Legged Dancers. How could such a thing be lost? +They never lost a drawing before. I believe Miss Wilkins has got it, and +is going to paint a big picture from it herself!' + +"'Why, Nat!' I exclaimed, 'aren't you ashamed? that would be stealing.' + +"'I don't care, Dot,' he said again and again, 'I never shall believe that +paper was lost.' + +"I grew almost out of patience with him; I never knew him to be unjust to +any one, and it grieved me that he should be so to people who had been our +benefactors. + +"About four months later, one warm day in April, I walked over to the +town after my day's work was done, to buy a gown for myself, and a new box +of paints for Nat. I did not go to town more than two or three times a +year, and the shop-windows delighted me as much as if I had been only +eleven years old. As I walked slowly up and down, looking at everything, I +suddenly started back at the sight of a glossy green and white chintz, +which was displayed conspicuously in the central window of one of the +largest shops. There they were, just as Nat had drawn them on the missing +paper, 'The One-Legged Dancers!' Nat was right. It was a pretty pattern, a +very pretty pattern for a chintz; and there was--I laughed out in spite of +myself, as I stood in the crowd on the sidewalk--yes, there was the ugly +great knot in one of the trees which had made King Herod's stomach. But +what did it mean? No chintzes were made in any of Mr. Maynard's mills, +nor, so far as I knew, in any mill in that neighborhood. I was hot with +indignation. Plainly Nat's instinct had been a true one. The Wilkinses had +stolen the design and had sold it to some other manufacturers, not +dreaming that the theft could ever be discovered by two such helpless +children as Nat and I. + +"I went into the shop and asked the price of the chintz in the window. + +"'Oh, the grape-vine pattern? that is a new pattern, just out this spring; +it is one of the most popular patterns we ever had. A lovely thing, miss,' +said the clerk, as he lifted down another piece of it. + +"'I will take one yard,' said I with a choking voice. I was afraid I +should cry in the shop. 'Do you know where this chintz is made?' I added. + +"The clerk glanced at the price-ticket and read me the name. It was made +by a firm I had never heard of, in another State. No wonder the Wilkinses +thought themselves safe. + +"When I showed Nat the chintz he seemed much less excited than I expected. +He was not so very much surprised; and, to my great astonishment, he was +not at first sure that it would be best to let the Wilkinses know that we +had discovered their cheating. But I was firm; I would have no more to do +with them. My impulse was to go to Mr. Maynard. Although during these +three years he had never come to see us, I felt sure that, in the bottom +of his heart, there still was a strong affection for us; and, above all, +he was a just man. He would never keep in his employ for one day any +person capable of such wrong as the Wilkinses had done us. + +"'But,' persisted Nat, 'you do not know that either of the Mr. Wilkinses +had anything to do with it. They may both have honestly supposed it was +lost. It's much more likely that their sister stole it.' + +"I had not thought of this before. Poor Miss Wilkins! Nat's artistic soul +had been so outraged by some of her flagrant calicoes that he believed her +capable of any crime. + +"At last I consented to go first to the Wilkinses themselves, and I +promised to speak very calmly and gently in the beginning, and betray no +suspicion of them. I carried the chintz. When I entered the office, the +overseer was talking in one corner with a gentleman whose back was turned +to me. The agent sat by the counter. + +"'Mr. Wilkins,' said I, 'do you remember the grape-vine pattern my brother +drew last winter--the one which you refused?' + +"The instant I spoke, I saw that he did remember. I saw that he was +guilty, and I saw it all with such certainty that it enabled me to be very +calm. + +"'Let me see,' said he, trying to pretend to be racking his memory; 'the +grape-vine pattern? It seems to me that I do recall something about a +design with that name. Did you say we refused it?' + +"'Yes, you refused it, but you did not return the drawing. You said it had +been lost,' I replied. + +"'Ah, yes, yes--now I recollect,' he said, recovering himself somewhat; +'we made great search for the drawing; I remember all about it now;' and +he paused as if waiting civilly to know what more there could possibly be +to be said on that point. But I watched him closely and saw that he was +agitated. I looked him steadily in the eye and did not speak, while I +slowly opened my little bundle and unrolled the piece of chintz. + +"'Can you possibly explain this mystery, then, sir, that here is my +brother's design printed on this chintz?' said I, in a clear, distinct +tone, holding out the yard of chintz at its full length. As I said the +words 'my brother's design,' the gentleman who had been talking with the +overseer turned quickly round, and I saw that it was Mr. Maynard's +youngest son Robert, who a year before had come home from Germany, and had +recently been taken into the firm as partner. He stepped a little nearer +me, and was evidently listening to my words. + +"'Come into this room, Mr. Maynard, if you please, and we will finish +discussing the matter we were speaking of,' said Overseer Wilkins, turning +pale, and speaking very hurriedly, and trying to draw Mr. Maynard into the +inner office-room. + +"'And--if you will call some other time, Miss Kent,' said Agent Wilkins, +turning away from me and walking toward Mr. Maynard, in his anxiety to +prevent my being seen or heard, 'I will try to attend to this matter; but +just now I have not another moment to spare,' and he began at once to talk +in a loud and voluble manner. + +"I do not know how I had strength and courage to do what I did then; I do +not know where the voice came from with which I spoke then; Robert has +always said that I looked like a young lioness, and that my voice sounded +like the voice of one crying 'fire.' I stepped swiftly up to him, and +before the astounded Wilkins could speak a word, I had held up the chintz +and exclaimed, 'But Mr. Maynard will have time to spare, and I thank God +he is here. Mr. Maynard, this design is one of my brother's drawing; he +has made most of the calico designs printed in your father's mills for a +year and a half: I brought this one to the agent; he said it was not good +for anything, but he stole the paper and sold it, and here it is!' and +then suddenly my strength all disappeared, great terror seized me, and I +burst into tears. Both the agent and the overseer began to speak at once. + +"'Be silent,' thundered Robert, in the most commanding tone I ever heard +out of human lips. 'Be silent, both of you!' Then he took the chintz away +from me, and taking both my hands in his, led me to a chair, saying, in a +voice as sweet and gentle as the other was terrible, 'Pray be calm, my +dear young lady--this matter shall be looked into. Sit down and do not try +to speak for a few minutes.' + +"Then he walked over to the brothers; even through my tears I could see +how terrified they looked; they seemed struck dumb with fright; he spoke +to them now in the most courteous manner, but the courtesy was almost +worse than the anger had been before. + +"'I shall have to ask you for the use of the office for a short time, +gentlemen. This is an affair I prefer to investigate immediately, and I +would like to see this young lady alone.' They both began to speak again, +but he interrupted them. + +"'I will send for you presently; not a word more now, if you please;' and +in spite of themselves they were obliged to walk out of the room. As they +turned to shut the door their faces frightened me. + +"'Oh!' I exclaimed; 'oh, Mr. Maynard, they will kill Nat I must go home at +once,' and I rose trembling in every nerve. He made me sit down again, and +brought me a glass of wine, and said, 'Do not be afraid, my dear child, +they will not dare harm your brother. Drink this, and tell me your whole +story.' + +"Then I told him all. He interrupted me only once, to ask me about the +prices paid us for two or three especial patterns which he happened to +recollect. When I stopped, he jumped up from his chair and walked up and +down in front of me, ejaculating, 'By Jove! this is infernal--I never +heard of such a contemptible bit of rascality in my life. I have told my +father ever since I came home that these men had bad faces, and I have +looked carefully for traces of cheating in their accounts. But they were +too cowardly to try it on a large scale.' + +"He then told me that the originality and beauty of the designs which the +Wilkinses had furnished the firm of late had attracted general attention; +that they had said the best ones were the work of a sister in England, the +others of the sister living with them. When he told me the prices which +had been paid for them, I could not help groaning aloud and burying my +face in my hands. 'Oh, my poor Nat!' I exclaimed, 'you might have had +everything you wanted for that.' + +"'But he shall have it still, Miss Kent,' said Robert--'I shall give you a +check for the whole amount before you leave this room, and I do assure you +that your brother has a fortune in his talent for drawing. Probably this +work is only the beginning of what he will do.' + +"As Robert opened the office-door for me to pass out, I saw the two Mr. +Wilkinses standing together at the gate through which I must go. Robert +answered my look of alarm by saying, 'I shall walk home with you, Miss +Kent. They shall not annoy you.' + +"As we came near, they both lifted their hats with obsequious, angry bows. +Robert did not look at them, but said in a low tone, as we passed, 'Go to +the office and wait there till I return.' + +"When he bade me good-by at my door, he said, 'I shall go now to find my +father, and if he is at home the brothers Wilkins will be dismissed from +our employ in less than one hour,' I looked after him as long as I could +see him. Then I went into our little sitting-room, sank into a chair, and +sat motionless, turning the check over and over in my hand, and wondering +if I really were awake and alive, or if all were a dream. In a few moments +Nat came home. As Patrick lifted the wagon up over the door-steps, and Nat +caught sight of my face, he called out, 'Oh, sister, what is the +matter--are you ill?' I ran to him and put the check into his hands, but +it was some minutes before I could speak. The wonderful fortune did not +overwhelm Nat as it had me. He was much stronger than I. Every stroke of +his pencil during the last year had developed and perfected his soul. He +was fast coming to have that consciousness of power which belongs to the +true artist, and makes a life self-centred. + +"'I have felt that all this would come, dear,' he said, 'and more than +this too,' he added dreamily, 'we shall go on; this is only the outer gate +of our lives,' + +"He prophesied more truly than he knew when he said that--my dear blessed +artist-souled martyr! + +"I need not dwell on the details of the next half-year. A few words can +tell them; and then, again, worlds of words could not tell them. + +"Three months from the day I carried the piece of chintz into the +overseer's office, Robert and I were married in the beautiful chapel where +papa used to preach. All the mills were shut, and the little chapel was +crowded with the workmen and workwomen. When we came out they were all +drawn up in lines on the green, and Robert and Mr. Maynard both made them +little speeches. Nat and Miss Penstock and Patrick were in Mr. Maynard's +carriage, and Robert and I stood on the ground by the carriage-door. After +the people had gone, Mr. Maynard came up to me and put both his hands on +my shoulders, just as he had done three years before, and said, 'You were +a brave girl, but you had to take me for your father, after all.' + +"Nat's wedding-present to me was a wood-carving of the 'One-Legged +Dancers'--the one which stands on the little gilt table. I shall never be +separated from it. + +"When I first found out how very rich Robert was, I was afraid; it seemed +to me almost wrong to have so much money. But I hope we shall not grow +selfish. And I cannot but be grateful for it, when I see what it has done +for my darling brother. He is living now in a beautiful apartment in New +York. Patrick is with him, his devoted servant, and Miss Penstock has gone +to keep house for them. Nat is studying and working hard; the best artists +in the city are his friends, and his pictures are already known and +sought. When Robert first proposed this arrangement, Nat said, 'Oh no, no! +I cannot accept such a weight of obligation from any man, not even from a +brother.' + +"Robert rose and knelt down by Nat's chair, and even then he was so far +above him he had to bend over. + +"'Nat,' said he, in a low tone, 'I never knelt to any human being before: +I didn't kneel to Dora when I asked her to give herself to me, for I was +sure I could so give myself to her as to make her happy; but it is to +you, after all, that I owe it that she is mine; I never can forget it for +an hour, and I never can repay you--no, not in my whole life-time, nor +with all my fortune.' + +"Then he told him that the sum which it would need to support him and Miss +Penstock and Patrick in this way was so small, in comparison with our +whole income, that it was not worth mentioning. 'And at any rate,' he +said, 'it is useless for you to remonstrate, Nat, for I have already made +fifty thousand dollars' worth of stock so entirely yours, that you cannot +escape from it. The papers are all in my father's hands, and the income +will be paid to you, or left subject to your order, quarterly. If you do +not spend it, nobody else will;' and then Robert bent down lower, and +lifting Nat's thin hands tenderly in his, pressed them both against his +check, in the way I often did. It was one of the few caresses Nat loved. I +stood the other side of the chair, and I stooped down and kissed him, and +said:-- + +"'And, Nat, I cannot be quite happy in any other way.' + +"So Nat yielded. + +"It was hard to come away and leave him. For some time I clung to the hope +that he might come with us; but the physicians all said it would be +madness for him to run the risk of a sea-voyage. However, I know that for +him, the next best thing to seeing Europe himself is to see it through my +eyes. I write to him every week, and I shall carry home to him such +art-treasures as he has never dreamed of possessing. + +"Next year we shall go home, and then he will come back to Maynard's +Mills and live with us. Robert is having a large studio built for him on +the north side of the house, with a bed-room and little sitting-room +opening out of it. Miss Penstock, too, will always live with us; we shall +call her 'housekeeper,' to keep her contented, and Patrick is to stay as +Nat's attendant. Poor fellow, he is not quite full-witted, we think; but +he loves Nat so devotedly that he makes a far better servant than a +cleverer boy would with a shade less affection. + +"And now you have heard the story of my life, dear friend," said Dora, as +she rose from the seat and lighted the rose-colored tapers in two low +swinging Etruscan candlesticks just above our heads--"all that I can tell +you," she added slowly. "You will understand that I cannot speak about the +happiest part of it. But you have seen Robert. The only thing that +troubles me is that I have no sorrow. It seems dangerous. Dear Nat, +although he has all he ever hoped for, need not fear being too happy, +because he has the ever-present pain, to make him earnest and keep him +ready for more pain. I said so to him the day before I came away, and he +gave me those verses I told you of, called 'The Angel of Pain,'" + +Then she repeated them to me:-- + + The Angel of Pain. + + Angel of Pain, I think thy face + Will be, in all the heavenly place, + The sweetest face that I shall see, + The swiftest face to smile on me. + All other angels faint and tire; + Joy wearies, and forsakes desire; + Hope falters, face to face with Fate, + And dies because it cannot wait; + And Love cuts short each loving day, + Because fond hearts cannot obey + That subtlest law which measures bliss + By what it is content to miss. + But thou, O loving, faithful Pain-- + Hated, reproached, rejected, slain-- + Dost only closer cling and bless + In sweeter, stronger steadfastness. + Dear, patient angel, to thine own + Thou comest, and art never known + Till late, in some lone twilight place + The light of thy transfigured face + Sudden shines out, and, speechless, they + Know they have walked with Christ all day. + +When she had done we sat for some time silent. Then I rose, and kissing +her, still silent, went out into the unlighted room where the gilt table +stood. A beam of moonlight fell, broad and white, across its top, and +flickered on the vine-leaves and the ferns. In the dim weird light their +shapes were more fantastic than ever. + +The door into the outer hall stood open. As I went toward it, I saw old +Anita toiling slowly up the stairs, with a flat basket on her head. Her +wrinkled face was all aglow with delight. As soon as she reached the +threshold she set the basket down, and exclaiming, "Oh look, look, +Signora!" lifted off the cover. It was full of fresh and beautiful +anemones of all colors. She moved a few on top and showed me that those +beneath were chiefly purple ones. + +"Iddio mio! will not the dearest of Signoras be pleased now!" she said. +"The saints wish that she shall have all she desires; did not my Biagio's +brother come in from Albano this morning? and as I was in the Piazza +Navona, buying oranges, I heard him calling from a long way off, 'Ho +Anita, my Anita, here are anemones for your beautiful Signora with the +bright hair.' + +"They grow around an old tomb a mile away from his vineyard, and he set +out from his home long before light to get them for me; for he once saw +the Signora and he had heard me say that she never could have enough of +anemones. Iddio mio! but my heart is glad of them. Ah, the dearest of +Signoras!" and, with a tender touch, Anita laid the cool vine-leaves +lightly back upon the anemones and hurried on in search of Dora. + + + + +How One Woman Kept Her Husband. + + + +Why my sister married John Gray, I never could understand. I was +twenty-two and she was eighteen when the marriage took place. They had +known each other just one year. He had been passionately in love with her +from the first day of their meeting. She had come more slowly to loving +him: but love him she did, with a love of such depth and fervor as are +rarely seen. He was her equal in nothing except position and wealth. He +had a singular mixture of faults of opposite temperaments. He had the +reticent, dreamy, procrastinating inertia of the bilious melancholic man, +side by side with the impressionable sensuousness, the sensitiveness and +sentimentalism of the most sanguine-nervous type. There is great charm in +such a combination, especially to persons of a keen, alert nature. My +sister was earnest, wise, resolute. John Gray was nonchalant, shrewd, +vacillating. My sister was exact, methodical, ready. John Gray was +careless, spasmodic, dilatory. My sister had affection. He had tenderness. +She was religious of soul; he had a sort of transcendental perceptivity, +so to speak, which kept him more alive to the comforts of religion than +to its obligations. My sister would have gone to the stake rather than +tell a lie. He would tell a lie unhesitatingly, rather than give anybody +pain. My sister lived earnestly, fully, actively, in each moment of the +present. It never seemed quite clear whether he were thinking of to-day, +yesterday, or to-morrow. She was upright because she could not help it. He +was upright,--when he was upright,--because of custom, taste, and the +fitness of things. What fatal discrepancies! what hopeless lack of real +moral strength, enduring purpose, or principle in such a nature as John +Gray's! When I said these things to my sister, she answered always, with a +quiet smile, "I love him." She neither admitted nor denied my accusations. +The strongest expression she ever used, the one which came nearest to +being an indignant repelling of what I had said, was one day, when I +exclaimed:-- + +"Ellen, I would die before I'd risk my happiness in the keeping of such a +man." + +"My happiness is already in his keeping," said she in a steady voice, "and +I believe his is in mine. He is to be my husband and not yours, dear; you +do not know him as I do. You do not understand him." + +But it is not to give an analysis of her character or of his, nor to give +a narrative of their family history, that I write this tale. It is only +one episode of their life that I shall try to reproduce here, and I do it +because I believe that its lesson is of priceless worth to women. + +Ellen had been married fourteen years, and was the mother of five +children, when my story begins. The years had gone in the main peacefully +and pleasantly. The children, three girls and two boys, were fair and +strong. Their life had been a very quiet one, for our village was far +removed from excitements of all kinds. It was one of the suburban villages +of ----, and most of the families living there were the families of +merchants or lawyers doing business in the town, going in early in the +morning, and returning late at night. There is usually in such communities +a strange lack of social intercourse; whether it be that the daily +departure and return of the head of the family keeps up a perpetual +succession of small crises of interest to the exclusion of others, or that +the night finds all the fathers and brothers too tired to enjoy anything +but slippers and cigars, I know not; but certain it is that all such +suburban villages are unspeakably dull and lifeless. There is barely +feeling enough of good neighborhood to keep up the ordinary interchange of +the commonest civilities. + +Except for long visits to the city in the winter, and long journeys in the +summer, I myself should have found life insupportably tedious. But Ellen +was absolutely content. Her days were unvaryingly alike, a simple routine +of motherly duties and housekeeping cares. Her evenings were equally +unvaried, being usually spent in sewing or reading, while her husband, in +seven evenings out of ten, dozed, either on the sofa, or on one of the +children's little beds in the nursery. His exquisite tenderness to the +children, and his quiet delight in simply being where they were, were the +brightest points in John Gray's character and life. + +Such monotony was not good for either of them. He grew more and more +dreamy and inert. She insensibly but continually narrowed and hardened, +and, without dreaming of such a thing, really came to be less and less a +part of her husband's inner life. Faithful, busy, absorbed herself in the +cares of each day, she never observed that he was living more and more in +his children and his reveries, and withdrawing more and more from her. She +did not need constant play and interchange of sentiment as he did. +Affectionate, loyal, devoted as she was, there was a side of husband's +nature which she did not see nor satisfy, perhaps, never could. But +neither of them knew it. + +At this time Mr. Gray was offered a position of importance in the city, +and it became necessary for them to move there to live. How I rejoiced in +the change. How bitterly I regretted it before two years had passed. + +Their city home was a beautiful one, and their connections and +associations were such as to surround them at once with the most desirable +companionships. At first it was hard for Ellen to readjust her system of +living and to accustom herself to the demands of even a moderately social +life. But she was by nature very fond of all such pleasures, and her house +soon became one of the pleasantest centres, in a quiet way, of the +comparatively quiet city. John Gray expanded and brightened in the new +atmosphere; he had always been a man of influence among men. All his +friends,--even his acquaintances,--loved him, and asked his advice. It was +a strange thing that a man so inert and procrastinating in his own +affairs, should be so shrewd and practical and influential in the affairs +of others, or in public affairs. This, however, was no stranger than many +other puzzling incongruities in John Gray's character. Since his college +days he had never mingled at all in general society until this winter, +after their removal to town; and it was with delight that I watched his +enjoyment of people, and their evident liking and admiration for him. His +manners were singularly simple and direct; his face, which was not wholly +pleasing in repose, was superbly handsome when animated in conversation; +its inscrutable reticence which baffled the keenest observation when he +was silent, all disappeared and melted in the glow of cordial +good-fellowship which lighted every feature when he talked. I grew very +proud of my brother as I watched him in his new sphere and surroundings; +and I also enjoyed most keenly seeing Ellen in a wider and more +appreciative circle. I spent a large part of the first winter in their +house, and shared all their social pleasures, and looked forward to ever +increasing delight, as my nieces should grow old enough to enter into +society. + +Early in the spring I went to the West and passed the entire summer with +relatives; I heard from my sister every week; her letters were always +cheerful and natural, and I returned to her in the autumn, full of +anticipations of another gay and pleasant winter. + +They met me in New York, and I remembered afterwards, though in the +excitement of the moment I gave it no second thought, that when John +Gray's eyes first met mine, there was in them a singular and indefinable +expression, which roused in me an instant sense of distrust and +antagonism. He had never thoroughly liked me. He had always had an +undercurrent of fear of me. He knew I thought him weak: he felt that I had +never put full confidence in him. That I really and truly loved him was +small offset for this. Would it not be so to all of us? + +This part of my story is best told in few words. I had not been at home +one week before I found that rumor had been for some months coupling John +Gray's name with the name of Mrs. Emma Long, a widow who had but just +returned to----, after twelve years of married life in Cuba. John had +known her in her girlhood, but there had never been any intimacy or even +friendship between them. My sister, however, had known her well, had +corresponded with her during all her life at the South, and had invited +her to her house immediately upon her return to----. Emma Long was a +singularly fascinating woman. Plain and sharp and self-asserting at +twenty-two, she had become at thirty-five magnetic and winning, full of +tact, and almost beautiful. We see such surprising developments +continually: it seems as if nature did her best to give every woman one +period of triumph and conquest; perhaps only they know its full sweetness +to whom it comes late. In early youth it is accepted unthinkingly, as is +the sunshine,--enjoyed without deliberation, and only weighed at its +fullness when it is over. But a woman who begins at thirty to feel for the +first time what it is to have power over men, must be more or less than +woman not to find the knowledge and the consciousness dangerously sweet. + +I never knew--I do not know to-day, whether Emma Long could be justly +called a coquette. That she keenly enjoyed the admiration of men, there +was no doubt. Whether she ever were conscious of even a possible harm to +them from their relation to her, there was always doubt, even in the minds +of her bitterest enemies. I myself have never doubted that in the affair +between her and John Gray she was the one who suffered most; she was the +one who had a true, deep sentiment, and not only never meant a wrong, but +would have shrunk, for his sake, if not for her own, from the dangers +which she did not foresee, but which were inevitable in their intimacy. I +think that her whole life afterward proved this. I think that even my +sister believed it. + +Mrs. Long had spent six weeks in my sister's house, and had then +established herself in a very beautiful furnished house on the same +street. Almost every day Mrs. Long's carriage was at my sister's door, to +take my sister or the children to drive. Almost every evening Mrs. Long +came with the easy familiarity of an habituated guest in the house, to sit +in my sister's parlor, or sent with the easy familiarity of an old friend +for my sister and her husband to come to her, or to go with her to the +theatre or to the opera. + +What could be more natural?--what could be more delightful, had the +relation been one which centred around my sister instead of around my +sister's husband? What could be done, what offense could be taken, what +obstacle interposed, so long as the relation appeared to be one which +included the whole family? Yet no human being could see John Gray five +minutes in Emma Long's presence without observing that his eyes, his +words, his consciousness were hers. And no one could observe her in his +presence without seeing that she was kindled, stimulated, as she was in no +other companionship. + +All this the city had been seeing and gossiping over for four months. All +this, with weary detail, was poured into my ears by kind friends. + +My sister said no word. For the first time in my life there was a barrier +between us I dared not pass. Her every allusion to Mrs. Long was in the +kindest and most unembarrassed manner. She fell heartily and graciously +into every plan which brought them together: she not only did this, she +also fully reciprocated all entertainments and invitations; it was as +often by Ellen's arrangement as by Mrs. Long's that an evening or a day +was spent by the two families together. Her manner to Mrs. Long was +absolutely unaltered. Her manner to John was absolutely unaltered. When +during an entire evening he sat almost motionless and often quite +speechless, listening to Mrs. Long's conversation with others, Ellen's +face never changed. She could not have seemed more unconscious if she had +been blind. There were many bonds of sympathy between John Gray and Emma +Long, which had never existed between him and his wife. They were both +passionately fond of art, and had studied it. Ellen's taste was +undeveloped, and her instinctive likings those of a child. But she +listened with apparent satisfaction and pleasure to long hours of +conversation, about statues, pictures, principles of art, of which she was +as unable to speak as one of her own babies would have been. Mrs. Long +was also a woman who understood affairs; and one of her great charms to +men of mind was the clear, logical, and yet picturesque and piquant way in +which she talked of men and events. Ellen listened and laughed as heartily +as any member of the circle at her repartee, her brilliant +characterization, her off-hand description. + +To John Gray all this was a new revelation. He had never known this sort +of woman. That a woman could be clever as men are clever, and also be +graceful, adorned, and tender with womanliness, he had not supposed. + +Ah, poor Emma Long! not all my loyalty to my sister ever quite stifled in +my heart the question whether there was not in Mrs. Long's nature +something which John Gray really needed--something which Ellen, +affectionate, wise, upright, womanly woman as she was, could never give to +any man. + +The winter wore on. Idle and malicious tongues grew busier and busier. +Nothing except the constant presence of my sister wherever her husband and +Mrs. Long were seen together, prevented the scandal from taking the most +offensive shape. But Ellen was so wise, so watchful, that not even the +most malignant gossip-monger, could point to anything like a clandestine +intercourse between the two. + +In fact, they met so constantly either in Mrs. Long's house or my +sister's, that there was small opportunity for them to meet elsewhere. I +alone knew that on many occasions when Mrs. Long was spending the evening +at our house, Ellen availed herself of one excuse and another to leave +them alone for a great part of the time. But she did this so naturally, +that is, with such perfect art, that not until long afterward did I know +that it had been intentional. This was one great reason of my silence +during all these months. In her apparent ignorance and unsuspiciousness of +the whole thing, she seemed so gay, so happy, so sweet and loving, how +could I give her a pain? And if she did not see it now, she might never +see it. It could never surely become any more apparent. No man could give, +so far as simple manner was concerned, more unmistakable proof of being +absorbed in passionate love for a woman, than John Gray gave in Emma +Long's presence. I began to do Ellen injustice in my thoughts. I said, +"After all, she has not much heart; no woman who loved a man passionately +could look on unmoved and see him so absorbed in another." + +How little I knew! Towards spring Ellen suddenly began to look ill. She +lost color and strength, and a slight cough which she had had all winter +became very severe. Her husband was alarmed. We all were distressed. Our +old family physician, Dr. Willis, changed color when he felt Ellen's +pulse, and said, involuntarily,-- + +"My dear child, how long have you had such fever as this?" + +Ellen changed color too, under his steady look, and replied,-- + +"I think, doctor, I have had a little fever for some weeks. I have not +felt really well since the autumn, and I have been meaning for some time +to have a long consultation with you. But we will not have it now," she +added playfully, "I have a great deal to tell you which these good people +are not to hear. We will talk it over some other time," and she looked at +him so meaningly that he understood the subject must be dropped. + +That night she told me that she wished me to propose to John to go over +with me and spend the evening at Mrs. Long's; that she had sent for Dr. +Willis, and she wished to have a long talk with him without John's knowing +it. + +"Dear," said I hastily, "I will not go to Mrs. Long's with John. I hate +Mrs. Long." + +"Why, Sally, what do you mean! I never heard you so unjust. Emma is one of +the very sweetest women I ever saw in my life. How can you say such a +thing! Everybody loves and admires her. Don't go if you feel so. I never +dreamed that you disliked her. But I thought John would be less likely to +suspect me of any desire to have him away, if you proposed going there; +and I must have him out of the house. I cannot talk with the doctor if he +is under the roof." She said these last words with an excited emphasis so +unlike her usual manner, that it frightened me. But I thought only of her +physical state; I feared that she suspected the existence of some terrible +disease. + +I went with John to Mrs. Long's almost immediately after tea. He accepted +the proposal with unconcealed delight; and I wondered if Ellen observed +the very nonchalant way in which he replied when she said she did not feel +well enough to go. He already liked better to see Mrs. Long without his +wife's presence, cordial and unembarrassed as her manner always was. His +secret consciousness was always disturbed by it. + +When we reached Mrs. Long's house, we learned that she had gone out to +dinner. John's face became black with the sudden disappointment, and quite +forgetting himself, he exclaimed: "Why, what does that mean? She did not +tell me she was going." + +The servant stared, but made no reply. I was confused and indignant; but +John went on: "We will come in and wait. I am sure it is some very +informal dinner, and Mrs. Long will soon be at home." + +I made no remonstrance, knowing that it might annoy and disturb Ellen to +have us return. John threw himself into a chair in front of the fire, and +looked moodily into the coals, making no attempt at conversation. I took +up a book. Very soon John rose, sauntered abstractedly about the room, +took up Mrs. Long's work-basket, and examined every article in it, and at +last sat down before her little writing-desk, which stood open. Presently +I saw that he was writing. More than an hour passed. I pretended to read; +but I watched my brother-in-law's face. I could not mistake its language. +Suddenly there came a low cry of delight from the door, "Why, John!" + +Mrs. Long had entered the house by a side door, and having met no servant +before reaching the drawing-room, was unprepared for finding any one +there. From the door she could see John, but could not see me, except in +the long mirror, to which she did not raise her eyes, but in which I saw +her swift movement, her outstretched hands, her look of unspeakable +gladness. In less than a second, however, she had seen me, and with no +perceptible change of manner had come rapidly towards me, holding out her +left hand familiarly to him, as she passed him. Emma Long was not a +hypocrite at heart, but she had an almost superhuman power of acting. It +was all lost upon me, however, on that occasion. I observed the quick +motion with which John thrust into a compartment of the desk, the sheet on +which he had been writing; I observed the clasp of their hands as she +glided by him; I observed her face; I observed his; and I knew as I had +never fully known before how intensely they loved each other. + +My resolution was taken. Cost what it might, come what might, I would +speak fully and frankly to my sister the next day. I would not longer +stand by and see this thing go on. At that moment I hated both John Gray +and Emma Long. No possible pain to Ellen seemed to me to weigh for a +moment against my impulse to part them. + +I could not talk. I availed myself of the freedom warranted by the +intimacy between the families, and continued to seem absorbed in my book. +But I lost no word, no look, which passed between the two who sat opposite +me. I never saw Emma Long look so nearly beautiful as she did that night. +She wore a black velvet dress, with fine white lace ruffles at the throat +and wrists. Her hair was fair, and her complexion of that soft pale tint, +with a slight undertone of brown in it, which is at once fair and warm, +and which can kindle in moments of excitement into a brilliance far +outshining any brunette skin. She talked rapidly with much gesture. She +was giving John an account of the stupidity of the people with whom she +had been dining. Her imitative faculty amounted almost to genius. No +smallest peculiarity of manner or speech escaped her, and she could become +a dozen different persons in a minute. John laughed as he listened, but +not so heartily as he was wont to laugh at her humorous sayings. He had +been too deeply stirred in the long interval of solitude before she +returned. His cheeks were flushed and his voice unsteady. She soon felt +the effect of his manner, and her gayety died away; before long they were +sitting in silence, each looking at the fire. I knew I ought to make the +proposition to go home, but I seemed under a spell; I was conscious of a +morbid desire to watch and wait. At length Mrs. Long rose, saying,-- + +"If it will not disturb Sally's reading, I will play for you a lovely +little thing I learned yesterday." + +"Oh, no," said I. "But we must go as soon as I finish this chapter." + +She passed into the music-room and looked back for John to follow her; but +he threw himself at full length on the sofa, and said,-- + +"No, I will listen here." + +My quickened instinct saw that he dared not go; also that he had laid his +cheek in an abandonment of ecstasy on the arm of the sofa on which her +hand had been resting. Even in that moment I had a sharp pang of pity for +him, and the same old misgiving of question, whether my good and sweet and +almost faultless Ellen could be loved just in the same way in which Emma +Long would be! + +As soon as she had finished the nocturne, a sad, low sweet strain, she +came back to the parlor. Not even for the pleasure of giving John the +delight of the music he loved would she stay where she could not see his +face. + +But I had already put down my book, and was ready to go. Our good-nights +were short and more formal than usual. All three were conscious of an +undefined constraint in the air. Mrs. Long glanced up uneasily in John's +face as we left the room. Her eyes were unutterably tender and childlike +when a look of grieved perplexity shadowed them. Again my heart ached for +her and for him. This was no idle caprice, no mere entanglement of senses +between two unemployed and unprincipled hearts. It was a subtle harmony, +organic, spiritual, intellectual, between two susceptible and intense +natures. The bond was as natural and inevitable as any other fact of +nature. And in this very fact lay the terrible danger. + +We walked home in silence. A few steps from our house we met Dr. Willis +walking very rapidly. He did not recognize us at first. When he did, he +half stopped as if about to speak, then suddenly changed his mind, and +merely bowing, passed on. A bright light was burning in Ellen's room. + +"Why, Ellen has not gone to bed!" exclaimed John. + +"Perhaps some one called," said I, guiltily. + +"Oh, I dare say," replied he; "perhaps the doctor has been there. But it +is half-past twelve," added he, pulling out his watch as we entered the +hall. "He could not have stayed until this time." + +I went to my own room immediately. In a few moments I heard John come up, +say a few words to Ellen, and then go down-stairs, calling back, as he +left her room,-- + +"Don't keep awake for me, wifie, I have a huge batch of letters to answer. +I shall not get through before three o'clock." + +I crept noiselessly to Ellen's room. It was dark. She had extinguished the +gas as soon as she had heard us enter the house! I knew by the first sound +of her voice that she had been weeping violently and long. I said,-- + +"Ellen, I must come in and have a talk with you." + +"Not to-night, dear. To-morrow I will talk over everything. All is +settled. Good-night. Don't urge me to-night, Sally. I can't bear any +more." + +It is strange--it is marvellous what power there is in words to mean more +than words. I knew as soon as Ellen had said, "Not to-night, dear," that +she divined all I wanted to say, that she knew all I knew, and that the +final moment, the crisis, had come. Whatever she might have to tell me in +the morning, I should not be surprised. I did not sleep. All night I +tossed wearily, trying to conjecture what Ellen would do, trying to +imagine what I should do in her place. + +At breakfast Ellen seemed better than she had seemed for weeks. Her eyes +were bright and her cheeks pink; but there was an ineffable, almost solemn +tenderness in her manner to John, which was pathetic. Again the suspicion +crossed my mind that she knew that she must die. He too was disturbed by +it; he looked at her constantly with a lingering gaze as if trying to read +her face; and when he bade us good-by to go to the office, he kissed her +over and over as I had not seen him kiss her for months. The tears came +into her eyes, and she threw both arms around his neck for a second,--a +very rare thing for her to do in the presence of others. + +"Why, wifie," he said, "you musn't make it too hard for a fellow to get +off!--Doesn't she look well this morning, Sally?" turning to me. "I was +thinking last night that I must take her to the mountains as soon as it +was warm enough. But such cheeks as these don't need it." And he took her +face in his two hands with a caress full of tenderness, and sprang down +the steps. + +Just at this moment Mrs. Long's carriage came driving swiftly around the +corner, and the driver stopped suddenly at sight of John. + +"Oh, Mr. Gray, Mr. Gray!" called Emma, "I was just coming to take Ellen +and the children for a turn, and we can leave you at the office on our +way." + +"Thank you," said John, "but there are several persons I must see before +going to the office, and it would detain you too long. I am already much +too late," and without a second look he hurried on. + +I saw a slight color rise in Mrs. Long's cheek, but no observer less +jealous than I would have detected it; and there was not a shade less +warmth than usual in her manner to Ellen. + +Ellen told her that she could not go herself, but she would be very glad +to have some of the children go; and then she stood for some moments, +leaning on the carriage-door and talking most animatedly. I looked from +one woman to the other. Ellen at that moment was more beautiful than Mrs. +Long. The strong, serene, upright look which was her most distinguishing +and characteristic expression, actually shone on her face. I wished that +John Gray had stopped to see the two faces side by side. Emma Long might +be the woman to stir and thrill and entrance the soul; to give stimulus to +the intellectual nature; to rouse passionate emotion; but Ellen was the +woman on whose steadfastness he could rest,--in the light of whose sweet +integrity and transparent truthfulness he was a far safer, and would be a +far stronger man than with any other woman in the world. + +As the carriage drove away with all three of the little girls laughing and +shouting and clinging around Mrs. Long, a strange pang seized me. I looked +at Ellen. She stood watching them with a smile which had something +heavenly in it. Turning suddenly to me, she said: "Sally, if I were dying, +it would make me very happy to know that Emma Long would be the mother of +my children." + +I was about to reply with a passionate ejaculation, but she interrupted +me. + +"Hush, dear, hush. I am not going to die,--I have no fear of any such +thing. Come to my room now, and I will tell you all." + +She locked the door, stood for a moment looking at me very earnestly, then +folded me in her arms and kissed me many times; then she made me sit in a +large arm-chair, and drawing up a low foot-stool, sat down at my feet, +rested both arms on my lap, and began to speak. I shall try to tell in her +own words what she said. + +"Sally, I want to tell you in the beginning how I thank you for your +silence. All winter I have known that you were seeing all I saw, feeling +all I felt, and keeping silent for my sake. I never can tell you how much +I thank you; it was the one thing which supported me. It was an +unspeakable comfort to know that you sympathized with me at every point; +but to have had the sympathy expressed even by a look would have made it +impossible for me to bear up. As long as I live, darling, I shall be +grateful to you. And, moreover, it makes it possible for me to trust you +unreservedly now. I had always done you injustice, Sally. I did not think +you had so much self-control." + +Here she hesitated an instant. It was not easy for her to mention John's +name; but it was only for a second that she hesitated. With an impetuous +eagerness unlike herself, she went on. + +"Sally, you must not blame John. He has struggled as constantly and nobly +as a man ever struggled. Neither must you blame Emma. They have neither of +them done wrong. I have watched them both hour by hour. I know my +husband's nature so thoroughly that I know his very thoughts almost as +soon as he knows them himself. I know his emotions before he knows them +himself. I saw the first moment in which his eyes rested on Emma's face as +they used to rest on mine. From that day to this I have known every phase, +every step, every change of his feeling towards her; and I tell you, +Sally, that I pity John from the bottom of my heart. I understand it all +far better than you can, far better than he does. He loves her at once far +more and far less than you believe, and he loves me far more than you +believe! You will say, in the absolute idealization of your inexperienced +heart, that this is impossible. I know that it is not, and I wish I could +make you believe it, for without believing it you cannot be just to John. +He loves me to-day, in spite of all this, with a sort of clinging +tenderness born of this very struggle. He would far rather love me with +all his nature if he could, but just now he cannot. I see very clearly +where Emma gives him what he needs, and has never had in me. I have +learned many things from Emma Long this winter. I can never be like her. +But I need not have been so unlike her as I was. She has armed me with +weapons when she least suspected it. But she is not after all, on the +whole, so nearly what John needs as I am. If I really believed that he +would be a better man, or even a happier one with her as his wife, I +should have but one desire, and that would be to die. But I think that it +is not so. I believe that it is in my power to do for him, and to be to +him, what she never could. I do not wonder that you look pityingly and +incredulously. You will see. But in order to do this, I must leave him." + +I sprang to my feet. "Leave him! Are you mad?" + +"No, dear, not at all; very sane and very determined. I have been for six +months coming to this resolve. I began to think of it in a very few hours +after I first saw him look at Emma as if he loved her. I have thought of +it day and night since, and I know I am right. If I stay, I shall lose his +love. If I go, I shall keep it, regain it, compel it." She spoke here +more hurriedly. "I have borne now all I can bear without betraying my +pain to him. I am jealous of Emma. It almost kills me to see him look at +her, speak to her." + +"My poor, poor darling!" I exclaimed; "and I have been thinking you did +not feel it!" + +She smiled sadly, and tossed back the sleeve of her wrapper so as to show +her arm to the shoulder. I started. It was almost emaciated. I had again +and again in the course of the winter asked her why she did not wear her +usual style of evening dress, and she had replied that it was on account +of her cough. + +"It is well that my face does not show loss of flesh as quickly as the +rest of my body does," she said quietly. "I have lost thirty-five pounds +of flesh in four months, and nobody observed it! Yes, dear," she went on, +"I have felt it. More than that, I have felt it increasingly every hour, +and I can bear no more. Up to this time I have never by look or tone shown +to John that I knew it. He wonders every hour what it means that I do not. +I have never by so much as the slightest act watched him. I have seen +notes in Emma's handwriting lying on his desk, and I have left the house +lest I might be tempted to read them! I know that he has as yet done no +clandestine thing, but at any moment I should have led them both into it +by showing one symptom of jealousy. And I should have roused in his heart +a feeling of irritation and impatience with me, which would have done in +one hour more to intensify his love for her, and to change its nature from +a pure, involuntary sentiment into an acknowledged and guilty one, than +years and years of free intercourse could do. But I have reached the +limit of my physical endurance. My nerves are giving away. I am really +very ill, but nothing is out of order in my body aside from the effects of +this anguish. A month more of this would make me a hopelessly broken-down +woman. A month's absence from the sight of it will almost make me well." + +I could not refrain from interrupting her. + +"Ellen, you are mad! you are mad! You mean to go away and leave him to see +her constantly alone, unrestrained by your presence? It has almost killed +you to see it. How can you bear imagining it, knowing it?" + +"Better than I can bear seeing it, far better. Because I have still +undiminished confidence in the real lastingness of the bond between John +and me. Emma Long would have been no doubt a good, a very good wife for +him. But I am the mother of his children, and just so surely as right is +right, and wrong is wrong, he will return to me and to them. All wrong +things are like diseases, self-limited. It is wrong for a man to love any +woman better than he loves his wife; I don't deny that, dear," she said, +half smiling through her tears at my indignant face; "but a man may seem +to do it when he is really very far from it. He may really do it for days, +for months--for years, perhaps; but if he be a true man, and his wife a +true wife, he will return. John is a true husband and a still truer +father: that I am the mother of his five children, he can never forget. If +I had had no children, it would be different. If I had ever been for one +moment an unloving wife, it would be different; but I am his; I believe +that he is mine; and that I shall live to remind you of all these things, +Sally, after time has proved them true." + +I was almost dumb with surprise. I was astounded. To me it seemed that her +plan was simply suicidal. I told her in the strongest words I could use of +the scene of the night before. + +"I could tell you of still more trying scenes than that, Sally. I know far +more than you. But if I knew ten times as much, I should still believe +that my plan is the only one. Of course I may fail. It is all in God's +hands. We none of us know how much discipline we need. But I know one +thing: if I do not regain John in this way, I cannot in any. If I stay I +shall annoy, vex, disturb, torture him! Once the barriers of my silence +and concealment are broken down, I shall do just what all other jealous +women have done since the world began. There are no torments on earth like +those which a jealous woman inflicts, except those which she bears! I will +die sooner than inflict them on John. Even if the result proves me +mistaken, I shall never regret my course, for I know that the worst is +certain if I remain. But I have absolute faith,"--and her face was +transfigured with it as she spoke,--"John is mine. If I could stay by his +side through it all and preserve the same relation with him which I have +all winter, all would sooner or later be well. I wish I were strong +enough. My heart is, but my body is not, and I must go." + +When she told me the details of her plan, I was more astounded than ever. +She had taken Dr. Willis into her full confidence. (He had been to us +father and physician both ever since our father's death.) He entirely +approved of her course. He was to say--which indeed he could do +conscientiously--that her health imperatively required an entire change of +climate, and that he had advised her to spend at least one year abroad. It +had always been one of John's and Ellen's air-castles to take all the +children to England and to Germany for some years of study. She proposed +to take the youngest four, leaving the eldest girl, who was her father's +especial pet and companion, to stay with him. A maiden aunt of ours was to +come and keep the house, and I was to stay with the family. This was the +hardest of all. + +"Ellen, I cannot!" I exclaimed. "Do not--oh, do not trust me. I shall +never have strength. I shall betray all some day and ruin all your hopes." + +"You cannot, you dare not, Sally, when I tell you that my life's whole +happiness lies in your silence. John is unobservant and also unsuspicious. +He has never had an intimate relation with you. You will have no +difficulty. But you must be here,--because, dear, there is another +reason," and here her voice grew very unsteady, and tears ran down her +cheeks. + +"In spite of all my faith, I do not disguise from myself the possibility +of the worst. I cannot believe my husband would ever do a dishonorable +thing. I do not believe that Emma Long would. And yet, when I remember +what ruin, has overtaken many men and women whom we believed upright, I +dare not be wholly sure. And I must know that some one is here who would +see and understand if a time were approaching at which it would be +needful for me to make one last effort with and for my husband face to +face with him. Unless that comes, I do not wish you to allude to the +subject in your letters. I think I know just how all things will go. I +believe that in one year, or less, all will be well. But if the worst is +to come, you with your instincts will foresee it, and I must be told. I +should return then at once. I should have power, even at the last moment, +I believe, to save John from disgrace. But I should lose his love +irrecoverably; it is to save that that I go." + +I could say but few words. I was lifted up and borne out of myself, as it +were, by my sister's exaltation. She seemed more like some angel-wife than +like a mortal woman. Before I left her room at noon, I believed almost as +fully as she did in the wisdom and the success of her plan. + +There was no time to be lost. Every day between the announcement of her +purpose and the carrying of it out, would be a fearful strain on Ellen's +nerves. Dr. Willis had a long talk with John in his office while Ellen was +talking with me. John came home to dinner looking like a man who had +received a mortal blow. Dr. Willis had purposely given him to understand +that Ellen's life was in great danger. So it was, but not from the cough! +At first John's vehement purpose was to go with them. But she was prepared +for this. His business and official relations were such that it was next +to impossible for him to do it, and it would at best involve a great +pecuniary sacrifice. She overruled and remonstrated, and was so firm in +her objections to every suggestion of his of accompanying or following +her, that finally, in spite of all his anxiety, John seemed almost piqued +at her preference for going alone. In every conversation on the subject I +saw more and more clearly that Ellen was right. He did love her--love her +warmly, devotedly. + +Two weeks from the day of my conversation with her they sailed for +Liverpool. The summer was to be spent in England, and the winter in Nice +or Mentone. + +Alice, the eldest daughter, a loving, sunshiny girl of twelve, was +installed in her mother's room. This was Ellen's especial wish. She knew +that in this way John would be drawn to the room constantly. All her own +little belongings were given to Alice. + +"Only think, Auntie," said she, "mamma has given me, all for my own, her +lovely toilette set, and all the Bohemian glass on the bureau, and her +ivory brushes! She says when she comes home she shall refurnish her room +and papa's too!" + +Oh, my wise Ellen. Could Emma Long have done more subtly! + +Early on the first evening after John returned from New York, having seen +them off, I missed him. I said bitterly to myself, "At Mrs. Long's, I +suppose," and went up-stairs to find Alice. As I drew near her room I +heard his voice, reading aloud. I went in. He and Alice were lying +together on a broad chintz-covered lounge, as I had so often seen him and +Ellen. + +"Oh, Auntie, come here," said Alice, "hear mamma's letter to me! She gave +it to papa in New York. She says it is like the sealed orders they give to +captains sometimes, not to be opened till they are out at sea. It is all +about how I am to fill her place to papa. And there are ever so many +little notes inside, more orders, which even papa himself is not to see! +only I suppose he'll recognize the things when I do them!" + +At that moment, as I watched John Gray's face, with Alice's nestled close, +and his arms clasped tight around her, while they read Ellen's letter, a +great load rolled off my heart. I went through many dark days afterward, +but I never could quite despair when I remembered the fatherhood and the +husbandhood which were in his eyes and his voice that night + +The story of the next twelve months could be told in few words, so far as +its external incidents are concerned. It could not be told in a thousand +volumes, if I attempted to reproduce the subtle undercurrents of John +Gray's life and mine. Each of us was living a double life; he more or less +unconsciously; I with such sharpened senses, such overwrought emotions, +that I only wonder that my health did not give way. I endured vicariously +all the suspense and torment of the deepest jealousy, with a sense of more +than vicarious responsibility added, which was almost more than human +nature could bear. Ellen little knew how heavy would be the burden she +laid upon me. Her most express and explicit direction was that the +familiar intimacy between our family and Mrs. Long's was to be preserved +unaltered. This it would have been impossible for me to do if Mrs. Long +had not herself recognized the necessity of it, for her own full enjoyment +of John's society. But it was a hard thing; my aunt, the ostensible head +of our house, was a quiet woman who had nothing whatever to do with +society, and who felt in the outset a great shrinking from the brilliant +Mrs. Long. I had never been on intimate terms with her, so that John and +Alice were really the only members of the household who could keep up +precisely the old relation. And so it gradually came about that to most of +our meetings under each other's roofs, strangers were asked to fill up the +vacant places, and in spite of all Emma Long's efforts and mine, there was +a change in the atmosphere of our intercourse. But there was intimacy +enough to produce the effect for which Ellen was most anxious, i.e., to +extend the shelter of our recognition to the friendship between John and +Emma, and to remove from them both all temptation to anything clandestine +or secret. They still saw each other almost daily; they still shared most +of each other's interests and pleasures; they still showed most +undisguised delight in each other's presence. Again and again I went with +them to the opera, to the theatre, and sat through the long hours, +watching, with a pain which seemed to me hardly less than Ellen's would +have been, their constant sympathy with each other in every point of +enjoyment, their constant forgetfulness of every one else. + +But there was, all this time, another side to John Gray's life, which I +saw, and Emma Long did not see. By every steamer came packages of the most +marvelous letters from Ellen: letters to us all; but for John, a diary of +every hour of her life. Each night she spent two hours in writing out the +record of the day. I have never seen letters which so reproduced the +atmosphere of the day, the scene, the heart. They were brilliant and +effective to a degree that utterly astonished me; but they were also +ineffably tender and loving, and so natural in their every word, that it +was like seeing Ellen face to face to read them. At first John did not +show them even to me; but soon he began to say, "These are too rare to be +kept to myself; I must just read you this account;" or, "Here is a page I +must read," until it at last became his habit to read them aloud in the +evenings to the family, and even to more intimate friends who chanced to +be with us. He grew proud beyond expression of Ellen's talent for writing; +and well he might. No one who listened to them but exclaimed, "There never +were such letters before!" I think there never were. And I alone knew the +secret of them. + +But these long, brilliant letters were not all. In every mail came also +packages for Alice--secret, mysterious things which nobody could see, but +which proved to be sometimes small notes, to be given to papa at +unexpected times and places; sometimes little fancy articles, as a +pen-wiper, or a cigar-case, half worked by Ellen, to be finished by Alice, +and given to papa on some especial day, the significance of which "only +mamma knows;" sometimes a pressed flower, which was to be put by papa's +plate at breakfast, or put in papa's button-hole as he went out in the +morning. I was more and more lost in astonishment at the subtle and +boundless art of love which could so contrive to reach across an ocean, +and surround a man's daily life with its expression. There were also in +every package, letters to John from all the children: even the baby's +little hand was guided to write by every mail, "Dear papa, I love you +just as much as all the rest do!" or, "Dear papa, I want you to toss me +up!" More than once I saw tears roll down John's face in spite of him, as +he slowly deciphered these illegible little scrawls. The older children's +notes were vivid and loving like their mother's. It was evident that they +were having a season of royal delight in their journey, but also evident +that their thoughts and their longings were constantly reverting to papa. +How much Ellen really indited of these apparently spontaneous letters I do +not know; but no doubt their tone was in part created by her. They showed, +even more than did her own letters, that papa was still the centre of the +family life. No sight was seen without the wish--"Oh, if papa were here!" +and even little Mary, aged five, was making a collection of pressed leaves +for papa, from all the places they visited. Louise had already great +talent for drawing, and in almost every letter came two or three childish +but spirited little pictures, all labelled "Drawn for papa!" "The true +picture of our courier in a rage, for papa to see." "The washerwoman's +dog, for papa," etc., etc. Again and again I sat by, almost trembling with +delight, and saw John spend an entire evening in looking over these little +missives and reading Ellen's letters. Then again I sat alone and anxious +through an entire evening, when I knew he was with Emma Long. But even +after such an evening, he never failed to sit down and write pages in his +journal-letter to Ellen--a practice which he began of his own accord, +after receiving the first journal-letter from her. + +"Ha! little Alice," he said, "we'll keep a journal too, for mamma, won't +we! She shall not out-do us that way." And so, between Alice's letters and +his, the whole record of our family life went every week to Ellen; and I +do not believe, so utterly unaware was John Gray of any pain in his wife's +heart about Emma Long, I do not believe that he ever in a single instance +omitted to mention when he had been with her, where, and how long. + +Emma Long wrote too, and Ellen wrote to her occasional affectionate notes; +but referring her always to John's diary-letters for the details of +interest. I used to study Mrs. Long's face while these letters were read +to her. John's animated delight, his enthusiastic pride, must, it seemed +to me, have been bitter to her. But I never saw even a shade of such a +feeling in her face. There was nothing base or petty in Emma Long's +nature, and, strange as it may seem, she did love Ellen. Only once did I +ever see a trace of pique or resentment in her manner to John, and then I +could not wonder at it. A large package had come from Ellen, just after +tea one night, and we were all gathered in the library, reading our +letters and looking at the photographs--(she always sent unmounted +photographs of the place from which she wrote, and, if possible, of the +house in which they were living, and the children often wrote above the +windows, "_Papa's_ and mamma's room," etc, etc.)--hour after hour passed. +The hall clock had just struck ten, when the door-bell rang violently. +"Good heavens!" exclaimed John, springing up, "that must be Mrs. Long; I +totally forgot that I had promised to go with her to Mrs. Willis's party. +I said I would be there at nine; tell her I am up-stairs dressing," and he +was gone before the servant had had time to open the door. Mrs. Long came +in, with a flushed face and anxious look. "Is Mr. Gray ill?" she said. "He +promised to call for me at nine, to go to Mrs. Willis's, and I have been +afraid he might be ill." + +Before I could reply, the unconscious Alice exclaimed,-- + +"Oh, no; papa isn't ill; he is so sorry, but he forgot all about the party +till he heard you ring the bell. We were so busy over mamma's letters." + +"John will be down in a moment," added I. "He ran up-stairs to dress as +soon as you rang." + +For one second Emma Long's face was sad to see. Such astonishment, such +pain, were in it, my heart ached for her. Then a look of angry resentment +succeeded the pain, and merely saying, "I am very sorry; but I really +cannot wait for him. It is now almost too late to go," she had left the +room and closed the outer door before I could think of any words to say. + +I ran up to John's room, and told him through the closed door. He made no +reply for a moment, and then said,-- + +"No wonder she is vexed. It was unpardonable rudeness. Tell Robert to run +at once for a carriage for me." + +In a very few moments he came down dressed for the party, but with no +shadow of disturbance on his face. He was still thinking of the letters. +He took up his own, and putting it into an inside breast-pocket, said, as +he kissed Alice, "Papa will take mamma's letter to the party, if he can't +take mamma!" + +I shed grateful tears that night before I went to sleep. How I longed to +write to Ellen of the incident; but I had resolved not once to disregard +her request that the whole subject be a sealed one. And I trusted that +Alice would remember to tell it. Well I might! At breakfast Alice said,-- + +"Oh, papa, I told mamma that you carried her to the party in your +breast-pocket; that is, you carried her letter!" + +I fancied that John's cheek flushed a little as he said,-- + +"You might tell mamma that papa carries her everywhere in his +breast-pocket, little girlie, and mamma would understand." + +I think from that day I never feared for Ellen's future. I fancied, too, +that from that day there was a new light in John Gray's eyes. Perhaps it +might have been only the new light in my own; but I think when a man knows +that he has once, for one hour, forgotten a promise to meet a woman whose +presence has been dangerously dear to him, he must be aware of his dawning +freedom. + +The winter was nearly over. Ellen had said nothing to us about returning. + +"Dr. Willis tells me that, from what Ellen writes to him of her health, he +thinks it would be safer for her to remain abroad another year," said John +to me one morning at breakfast. + +"Oh, she never will stay another year!" exclaimed I. + +"Not unless I go out to stay with her," said John, very quietly. + +"Oh, John, could you?" and, "Oh, papa, will you take me?" exclaimed Alice +and I in one breath. + +"Yes," and "yes," said John, laughing, "and Sally too, if she will go." + +He then proceeded to tell me that he had been all winter contemplating +this; that he believed they would never again have so good an opportunity +to travel in Europe, and that Dr. Willis's hesitancy about Ellen's health +had decided the question. He had been planning and deliberating as +silently and unsuspectedly as Ellen had done the year before. Never once +had it crossed my mind that he desired it, or that it could be. But I +found that he had for the last half of the year been arranging his affairs +with a view to it, and had entered into new business connections which +would make it not only easy, but profitable, for him to remain abroad two +years. He urged me to go with them, but I refused. I felt that the father +and the mother and the children ought to be absolutely alone in this +blessed reunion, and I have never regretted my decision, although the old +world is yet an unknown world to me. + +John Gray was a reticent and undemonstrative man, in spite of all the +tenderness and passionateness in his nature. But when he bade me good-by +on the deck of the steamer, as he kissed me he whispered:-- + +"Sally, I shall hold my very breath till I see Ellen. I never knew how I +loved her before." And the tears stood in his eyes. + +I never saw Emma Long after she knew that John was to go abroad to join +Ellen. I found myself suddenly without courage to look in her face. The +hurry of my preparations for Alice was ample excuse for my not going to +her house, and she did not come to ours. I knew that John spent several +evenings with her, and came home late, with a sad and serious face, and +that was all. A week before he sailed she joined a large and gay party for +San Francisco and the Yosemite. In all the newspaper accounts of the +excursion, Mrs. Long was spoken of as the brilliant centre of all +festivities. I understood well that this was the first reaction of her +proud and sensitive nature under an irremediable pain. She never returned +to ----, but established herself in a Southern city, where she lived in +great retirement for a year, doing good to all poor and suffering people, +and spending the larger part of her fortune in charity. Early in the +second year there was an epidemic of yellow fever: Mrs. Long refused to +leave the city, and went as fearlessly as the physicians to visit and +nurse the worst cases. But after the epidemic had passed by, she herself +was taken ill, and died suddenly in a hospital ward, surrounded by the +very patients whom she had nursed back to health. Nothing I could say in +my own words would give so vivid an idea of the meeting between John Gray +and his wife, as the first letter which I received from little Alice:-- + +"DARLING AUNTIE,-- + +"It is too bad you did not come too. The voyage was horrid. Papa was so +much sicker than I, that I had to take care of him all the time; but my +head ached so that I kept seeing black spots if I stooped over to kiss +papa; but papa said, I was just like another mamma. + +"Oh, Auntie, only think, there was a mistake about the letters, and mamma +never got the letter to tell her that we were coming; and she was out on +the balcony of the hotel when we got out of the carriage, and first she +saw me; and the lady who was with her said she turned first red and then +so white the lady thought she was sick; and then the next minute she saw +papa, and she just fell right down among all the people, and looked as if +she was dead; and the very first thing poor papa and I saw, when we got +up-stairs, was mamma being carried by two men, and papa and I both thought +she was dead; and papa fell right down on his knees, and made the men put +mamma down on the floor, and everybody talked out loud, and papa never +spoke a word, but just looked at mamma, and nobody knew who papa was till +I spoke, and I said,-- + +"'That's my mamma, and papa and I have just come all the way from +America,"--and then a gentleman told me to kiss mamma, and I did; and then +she opened her eyes; and just as soon as she saw papa, she got a great +deal whiter and her head fell back again, and I was so sure she was dying, +that I began to cry out loud, and I do think there were more than a +hundred people all round us; but Louise says there were only ten or +twelve; and then the same gentleman that told me to kiss mamma took hold +of papa, and made him go away; and they carried mamma into a room, and +laid her on a bed, and said we must all go out; but I wouldn't: I got +right under the bed, and they didn't see me; and it seemed to me a +thousand years before anybody spoke; and at last I heard mamma's voice, +just as weak as a baby's--but you know nobody could mistake mamma's voice; +and said she, 'Where is John--I saw John;' and then the gentleman +said,--oh, I forgot to tell you he was a doctor,--he said,-- + +"'My dear madam, calm yourself'--and then I cried right out again, and +crept out between his legs and almost knocked him down; and said I, 'Don't +you try to calm my mamma; it is papa--and me too, mamma!' and then mamma +burst out crying; and then the old gentleman ran out, and I guess papa was +at the door, for he came right in; and then he put his arms round mamma, +and they didn't speak for so long, I thought I should die; and all the +people were listening, and going up and down in the halls outside, and I +felt so frightened and ashamed, for fear people would think mamma wasn't +glad to see us. But papa says that is always the way when people are more +glad than they can bear; and the surprise, too, was too much for anybody. +But I said at the tea-table that I hoped I should never be so glad myself +as long as I lived; and then the old gentleman,--he's a very nice old +gentleman, and a great friend of mamma's, and wears gold spectacles,--he +said, 'My dear little girl, I hope you _may_ be some day just as glad,' +and then he looked at papa and mamma and smiled,--and mamma almost cried +again! Oh, altogether it was a horrid time; the worst I ever had; and so +different from what papa and I thought it would be. + +"But it's all over now, and we're all so happy, we laugh so all the time, +that papa says it is disgraceful; that we shall have to go off and hide +ourselves somewhere where people can't see us. + +"But Auntie, you don't know how perfectly splendid mamma is. She is the +prettiest lady in the hotel, Louise says. She is ever so much fatter than +she used to be. And the baby has grown so I did not know her, and her +curls are more than half a yard long. Louise and Mary have got their hair +cut short like boys, but their gowns are splendid; they say it was such a +pity you had any made for me at home. But oh, dear Auntie, don't think I +shall not always like the gowns you made for me. Charlie isn't here; he's +at some horrid school a great way off; I forget the name of the place. But +we are all going there to live for the summer. Mamma said we should keep +house in an 'apartment,' and I was perfectly horrified, and I said, +'Mamma, in one room?' and then Louise and Mary laughed till I was quite +angry; but mamma says that here an 'apartment' means a set of a good many +rooms, quite enough to live in. I don't believe you can have patience to +read this long letter; but I haven't told you half; no, not one half of +half. Good-by, you darling aunty. ALICE. + +"P.S.--I wish you could just see mamma. It isn't only me that thinks she +is so pretty; papa thinks so too. He just sits and looks, and looks at +her, till mamma doesn't quite like it, and asks him to look at baby a +little!" + +Ellen's first letter was short. Her heart was too full. She said at the +end,-- + +"I suppose you will both laugh and cry over Alice's letter. At first I +thought of suppressing it. But it gives you such a graphic picture of the +whole scene that I shall let it go. It is well that I had the excuse of +the surprise for my behavior, but I myself doubt very much if I should +have done any better, had I been prepared for their coming. + +"God bless and thank you, dear Sally, for this last year, as I cannot. + +"ELLEN." + +These events happened many years ago. My sister and I are now old women. +Her life has been from that time to this, one of the sunniest and most +unclouded I ever knew. + +John Gray is a hale old man; white-haired and bent, but clear-eyed and +vigorous. All the good and lovable and pure in his nature have gone on +steadily increasing: his love for his wife is still so full of sentiment +and romance that the world remarks it. + +His grandchildren will read these pages, no doubt, but they will never +dream that it could have been their sweet and placid and beloved old +grandmother who, through such sore straits in her youth, kept her husband! + + + + +Esther Wynn's Love-Letters. + + + +My uncle, Joseph Norton, lived in a very old house. It was one of those +many mansions in which that father of all sleepers, George Washington, +once slept for two nights. This, however, was before the house came into +the possession of our family, and we seldom mentioned the fact. + +The rooms were all square, and high; many of the walls were of wood +throughout, panelled from the floor to the ceiling, and with curious china +tiles set in around the fire-places. In the room in which I always slept +when I visited there, these wooden walls were of pale green; the tiles +were of blue and white, and afforded me endless study and perplexity, +being painted with a series of half-allegorical, half-historical, +half-Scriptural representations which might well have puzzled an older +head than mine. The parlors were white, with gold ornaments; the library +was of oak, with mahogany wainscoting, and so were the two great central +halls, upper and lower. The balustrade of the staircase was of apple-tree +wood, more beautiful than all the rest, having fine red veins on its dark +polished surface. These halls were lined with portraits of dead Nortons, +men and women, who looked as much at home as if the grand old house had +always borne their name. And well they might, for none of the owners who +had gone before had been of as gentle blood as they; and now they would +probably never be taken down from the walls, for my uncle had bought the +house, and my uncle's son would inherit it; and it had never yet been +known that a Norton of our branch of Nortons had lived wastefully or come +to want. + +My uncle had married very late in life: he was now a gray-haired man, with +little children around his knee. It was said once in my presence, by some +one who did not know I listened, that his heart had been broken when he +was little more than a boy, by the faithlessness of a woman older than +himself, and that he would never have married if he had not seen that +another heart would be broken if he did not. Be that as it may, his +bearing towards his wife was always of the most chivalrous and courteous +devotion, so courteous as perhaps to confirm this interpretation of his +marriage. + +My aunt was an uninteresting woman, of whom, if she were not in sight, one +never thought; but she had great strength of affection and much good sense +in affairs. Her children loved her; her husband enjoyed the admirably +ordered system of her management, and her house was a delightful one to +visit. Although she did not contribute to the flavor of living, she never +hindered or thwarted those who could. There was freedom in her presence, +from the very fact that you forgot her, and that she did not in the least +object to being forgotten. Such people are of great use in the world; and +make much comfort. + +At the time when the strange incidents which I am about to tell occurred, +my aunt had been married twelve years, and had four children; three girls, +Sarah, Hilda, and Agnes, and a baby boy, who had as yet no name. Sarah was +called "Princess," and her real name was never heard. She was the oldest, +and was my uncle's inseparable companion. She was a child of uncommon +thoughtfulness and tenderness. The other two were simply healthy, happy +little creatures, who gave no promise of being any more individual than +their serene, quiet mother. + +I was spending the winter in the family, and going to school, and between +my uncle and me there had grown up an intimate and confidential friendship +such as is rare between a man of sixty and a girl of fifteen. I understood +him far better than his wife did; and his affection for me was so great +and so caressing that he used often to say, laughingly, "Nell, my girl, +you'll never have another lover like me!" + +We were sitting at breakfast one morning when Princess came in, holding a +small letter in her hand. + +"Look, papa mia!" she said; "see this queer old letter I found on the +cellar stairs. It looks a hundred years old." + +My uncle glanced up, carelessly at first, but as soon as he saw the paper +he stretched out his hand for it, and looked eager. It did indeed seem as +if it were a hundred years old; yellow, crumpled, torn. It had been folded +in the clumsy old way which was customary before the invention of +envelopes; the part of the page containing the address had been torn out. +He read a few words, and the color mounted in his cheek. + +"Where did you say you found it, Princess?" he said. + +"On the cellar stairs, papa; I went down to find Fido, and he was playing +with it." + +"What is it, Joseph?" said Aunt Sarah, in tones a shade more eager than +their wont. + +"I do not know, my dear," replied my uncle; "it is very old," and he went +on reading with a more and more sobered face. + +"Robert," said he, turning to the waiter, "do you know where this paper +could have come from? Have any old papers been carried down from the +garret, to light the fire in the furnace?" + +"No, sir," said Robert, "not that I know, sir." + +"There are whole barrels of old papers under the eaves in the garret," +said Aunt Sarah; "I have always meant to have them burned up; I dare say +this came out of one of them, in some way;" and she resumed her habitual +expression of nonchalance. + +"Perhaps so," said Uncle Jo, folding up the paper and putting it in his +pocket. "I will look, after breakfast." + +She glanced up, again surprised, and said, "Why? is it of any importance?" + +"Oh, no, no," said he hastily, with a shade of embarrassment in his voice, +"it is only an old letter, but I thought there might be more from the same +person." + +"Who was it?" said Aunt Sarah, languidly. + +"I don't know; only the first name is signed," said he evasively; and the +placid lady asked no more. The children were busy with Fido, and breakfast +went on, but I watched my uncle's face. I had never seen it look just as +it looked then. What could that old yellow letter have been? My magnetic +sympathy with my uncle told me that he was deeply moved. + +At dinner-time my uncle was late, and Aunt Sarah said, with a little less +than her usual dignity, "I never did see such a man as Mr. Norton, when he +takes a notion in his head. He's been all the morning rummaging in clouds +of dust in the garret, to find more of those old letters." + +"Who wrote it, Auntie?" said I. + +"Heaven knows," said she; "some woman or other, fifty years ago. He says +her name was Esther." + +"Did you read it?" I asked tremblingly. Already I felt a shrinking sense +of regard for the unknown Esther. + +Aunt Sarah looked at me with almost amused surprise. "Read it, child? no, +indeed! What do I care what that poor soul wrote half a century ago. But +your uncle's half out of his head about her, and he's had all the servants +up questioning them back and forth till they are nearly as mad as he is. +Cook says she has found several of them on the cellar stairs in the last +few weeks; but she saw they were so old she threw them into the fire, and +never once looked at them; and when she said that, your uncle just +groaned. I never did see such a man as he is when he gets a notion in his +head,"--she repeated, hopelessly. + +My uncle came in flushed and tired. Nothing was said about the letters +till, just as dinner was over, he said suddenly:-- + +"Robert, if you find any more of these old papers anywhere, bring them to +me at once. And give orders to all the servants that no piece of old +paper with writing on it is to be destroyed without my seeing it." + +"Yes, sir," said Robert, without changing a muscle of his face, but I saw +that he too was of Mrs. Norton's opinion as to his master's oddity when he +once got a notion in his head. + +"Who was the lady, papa?" said little Agnes. "Did you know her?" + +"My dear, the letter is as old as papa is himself," said he. "I think the +lady died when papa was a little baby." + +"Then what makes you care so much, papa?" persisted Agnes. + +"I can't tell you, little one," said he, kissing her, and tossing her up +in the air; but he looked at me. + +In the early twilight that afternoon I found my uncle lying with closed +eyes on the lounge in the library. He was very tired by his long +forenoon's work in the garret. I sat down on the floor and stroked his +dear old white hair. + +"Pet," he said, without opening his eyes, "that letter had the whole soul +of a woman in it." + +"I thought so, dear," said I, "by your face." + +After a long interval he said: "I could not find a word more of her +writing; I might have known I should not;" and again, after a still longer +silence, "Would you like to read it, Nell?" + +"I am not sure, Uncle Jo," I said. "It seems hardly right. I think she +would not so much mind your having it, because you are a man; but another +woman! no, uncle dear, I think the letter belongs to you." + +"Oh, you true woman-hearted darling," he said, kissing me; "but some day +I think I shall want you to read it with me. She would not mind your +reading it, if she knew you as I do." + +Just then Aunt Sarah came into the room, and we said no more. + +Several days passed by, and the mysterious letter was forgotten by +everybody except my uncle and me. + +One bitterly cold night we were sitting around a blazing coal fire in the +library. It was very late. Aunt Sarah was asleep in her chair; my uncle +was reading. Suddenly the door opened and Robert came in, bringing a +letter on his little silver tray: it was past eleven o'clock; the evening +mail had been brought in long before. + +"Why, what is that, Robert?" said Uncle Jo, starting up a little alarmed. + +"One of them old letters, sir," replied Robert; "I just got it on the +cellar stairs, sir." + +My uncle took the letter hastily. Robert still stood as if he had more to +say; and his honest, blank face looked stupefied with perplexity. + +"If you please, sir," he began, "it's the queerest thing ever I saw. That +letter's been put on them stairs, sir, within the last five minutes." + +"Why, Robert, what do you mean?" said my uncle, thoroughly excited. + +"Oh dear," groaned Aunt Sarah, creeping out of her nap and chair, "if you +are going into another catechism about those old letters, I am going to +bed;" and she left the room, not staying long enough to understand that +this was a new mystery, and not a vain rediscussing of the old one. + +It seemed that Robert had been down cellar to see that the furnace fire +was in order for the night. As soon as he reached the top of the stairs, +in coming up, he remembered that he had not turned the outside damper +properly, and went back to do it. + +"I wasn't gone three minutes, sir, and when I came back there lay the +letter, right side up, square in the middle of the stairs; and I'd take my +Bible oath, sir, as 'twan't there when I went down." + +"Who was in the hall when you went down, Robert?" said my uncle sternly. + +"Nobody, sir. Every servant in the house had gone to bed, except Jane" (my +aunt's maid), "and she was going up the stairs over my head, sir, when I +first went down into the cellar. I know she was, sir, for she called +through the stairs to me, and she says, 'Master'll hear you, Robert.' You +see, sir, Jane and me didn't know as it was so late, and we was frightened +when we heard the clock strike half-past eleven." + +"That will do, Robert," said Uncle Jo. "You can go," and Robert +disappeared, relieved but puzzled. There seemed no possible explanation of +the appearance of the letter there and then, except that hands had placed +it there during the brief interval of Robert's being in the cellar. There +were no human hands in the house which could have done it. Was a restless +ghost wandering there, bent on betraying poor Esther's secrets to +strangers? What did it, what could it mean? + +"Will you read this one with me, Nell?" said my uncle, turning it over +reverently and opening it. + +"No," I said, "but I will watch you read it;" and I sat down on the floor +at his feet. + +The letter was very short; he read it twice without speaking; and then +said, in an unsteady voice: "This is an earlier letter than the other, I +think. This is a joyous one; poor Esther! I believe I know her whole +story. But the mystery is inexplicable! I would take down these walls if I +thought I could get at the secret." + +Long past midnight we sat and talked it all over; and racked our brains in +vain to invent any theory to account for the appearance of the letters on +that cellar stairway. My uncle's tender interest in the poor dead Esther +was fast being overshadowed by the perplexing mystery. + +A few days after this, Mary the cook found another of the letters when she +first went down-stairs in the morning, and Robert placed it by my uncle's +plate, with the rest of his mail. It was the strangest one of all, for +there was not a word of writing in it that could be read. It was a foreign +letter; some lines of the faded old postmarks were still visible on the +back. The first page looked as if it had been written over with some sort +of sympathetic ink; but not a word could be deciphered. Folded in a small +piece of the thinnest of paper was a mouldy and crumbling flower, of a +dull-brown color; on the paper was written,--"Pomegranate blossom, from +Jaffa," and a few lines of poetry, of which we could make out only here +and there a word. + +Even Aunt Sarah was thoroughly aroused and excited now. Robert had been in +the cellar very late on the previous night, and was sure that at that time +no papers were on the stairs. + +"I never go down them stairs, sir," said Robert, "without looking--and +listening too," he added under his breath, with a furtive look back at the +cook, who was standing in the second doorway of the butler's pantry. The +truth was, Robert had been afraid of the cellar ever since the finding of +the second letter: and all the servants shared his uneasiness. + +Between eleven at night and seven the next morning, this mute ghostly waif +from Palestine, with the half-century old dust of a pomegranate flower in +its keeping, had come up that dark stairway. It appeared now that the +letters were always found on the fourth stair from the top. This fact had +not before been elicited, but there seemed little doubt about it. Even +little Princess said,-- + +"Yes, papa, I am sure that the one I found was on that stair; for I now +remember Fido came up with only just one or two bounds to the top, as soon +as he saw me." + +We were very sober. The little children chattered on; it meant nothing to +them, this breath from such a far past. But to hearts old enough to +comprehend, there was something infinitely sad and suggestive in it. I +already felt, though I had not read one word of her writing, that I loved +the woman called Esther; as for my uncle, his very face was becoming +changed by the thought of her, and the mystery about the appearance of the +letters. He began to be annoyed also; for the servants were growing +suspicious, and unwilling to go into the cellar. Mary the cook declared +that on the morning when she found this last letter, something white +brushed by her at the foot of the stairs; and Robert said that he had for +a long time heard strange sounds from that staircase late at night. + +Just after this, my aunt went away for a visit; and several days passed +without any further discoveries on the stairs. My uncle and I spent long +hours in talking over the mystery, and he urged me to read, or to let him +read to me, the two letters he had. + +"Pet," he said, "I will tell you something. One reason they move me so is, +that they are strangely like words written by a woman whom I knew thirty +years ago. I did not believe two such women had been on the earth." + +I kissed his hand when he said this; yet a strange unwillingness to read +Esther's letters withheld me. I felt that he had right, and I had not. + +But the end of the mystery was near. It was revealed, as it ought to have +been, to my uncle himself. + +One night I was wakened out of my first sleep by a very cautious tap at my +door, and my uncle's voice, saying,-- + +"Nell--Nell, are you awake?" + +I sprang to the door instantly. + +"O uncle, are you ill?" (My aunt had not yet returned.) + +"No, pet. But I want you down-stairs. Dress yourself and come down into +the library." + +My hands trembled with excitement as I dressed. Yet I was not afraid: I +knew it was in some way connected with "Esther," though my uncle had not +mentioned her name. + +I found him sitting before the library table, which was literally covered +with old letters, such as we had before seen. + +"O uncle!" I gasped as soon as I saw them. + +"Yes, dear! I have got them all. There was no ghost!" + +Then he told me in few words what had happened. It seemed that he had gone +down himself into the cellar, partly to satisfy himself that all was right +with the furnace, partly with a vague hope of finding another of the +letters. He had found nothing, had examined the furnace, locked the door +at the head of the cellar stairs, and gone up to his bed-room. While he +was undressing, a strange impulse seized him to go back once more, and see +whether it might not happen to him as it had to Robert, to find a letter +on returning after a few moments' interval. + +He threw on his wrapper, took a candle, and went down. The first thing he +saw, on opening the door, which he had himself locked only five minutes +before, was a letter lying on the same fourth stair! + +"I confess, Nell," said he, "for a minute I felt as frightened as black +Bob. But I sat down on the upper step, and resolved not to go away till I +had discovered how that letter came there, if I stayed till day-light!" + +Nearly an hour passed, he said; the cold wind from the cellar blew up and +swayed the candle-flame to and fro. All sorts of strange sounds seemed to +grow louder and louder, and still he sat, gazing helplessly in a sort of +despair at that motionless letter, which he had not lifted from the stair. +At last, purely by accident, he looked up to the staircase overhead--the +front stairs, down which he had just come from his room. He jumped to his +feet! There, up among the dark cobwebbed shadows, he thought he saw +something white. He held up the candle. It was, yes, it was a tiny corner +of white paper wedged into a crack; by standing on the beam at the side he +could just reach it. He touched it,--pulled it;--it came out +slowly,--another of Esther's letters. They were hid in the upper +staircase! The boards had been worn and jarred a little away from each +other, and the letters were gradually shaken through the opening; some +heavier or quicker step than usual giving always the final impetus to a +letter which had been for days slowly working down towards the fated +outlet. + +Stealthily as any burglar he had crept about his own house, had taken up +the whole of the front staircase carpet, and had with trouble pried off +one board of the stair in which the letters were hid. There had been a +spring, he found, but it was rusted and would not yield. He had carefully +replaced the carpet, carried the letters into the library, and come for +me; it was now half-past one o'clock at night. + +Dear, blessed Uncle Jo! I am an old woman now. Good men and strong men +have given me love, and have shown me of their love for others; but never +did I feel myself so in the living presence of incarnate love as I did +that night, sitting with my white-haired uncle, face to face with the +faded records of the love of Esther Wynn. + +It was only from one note that we discovered her last name. This was +written in the early days of her acquaintance with her lover, and while +she was apparently little more than a child. It was evident that at first +the relation was more like one of pupil and master. For some time the +letters all commenced scrupulously "my dear friend," or "my most beloved +friend." It was not until years had passed that the master became the +lover; we fancied, Uncle Jo and I, as we went reverently over the +beautiful pages, that Esther had grown and developed more and more, until +she was the teacher, the helper, the inspirer. We felt sure, though we +could not tell how, that she was the stronger of the two; that she moved +and lived habitually on a higher plane; that she yearned often to lift the +man she loved to the freer heights on which her soul led its glorified +existence. + +It was strange how little we gathered which could give a clew to her +actual history or to his. The letters almost never gave the name of the +place, only the day and year, many of them only the day. There was dearth +of allusions to persons; it was as if these two had lived in a separate +world of their own. When persons were mentioned at all, it was only by +initials. It was plain that some cruel, inexorable bar separated her from +the man she loved; a bar never spoken of--whose nature we could only +guess,--but one which her strong and pure nature felt itself free to +triumph over in spirit, however submissive the external life might seem. + +Their relation had lasted for many years; so many, that that fact alone +seemed a holy seal and testimony to the purity and immortality of the bond +which united them. Esther must have been a middle-aged woman when, as the +saddened letters revealed, her health failed and she was ordered by the +physicians to go to Europe. The first letter which my uncle had read, the +one which Princess found, was the letter in which she bade farewell to +her lover. There was no record after that; only two letters which had come +from abroad; one was the one that I have mentioned, which contained the +pomegranate blossom from Jaffa, and a little poem which, after long hours +of labor, Uncle Jo and I succeeded in deciphering. The other had two +flowers in it--an Edelweiss which looked as white and pure and immortal as +if it had come from Alpine snows only the day before; and a little crimson +flower of the amaranth species, which was wrapped by itself, and marked +"From Bethlehem of Judea." The only other words in this letter were, "I am +better, darling, but I cannot write yet." + +It was evident that there had been the deepest intellectual sympathy +between them. Closely and fervently and passionately as their hearts must +have loved, the letters were never, from first to last, simply lovers' +letters. Keen interchange of comment and analysis, full revelation of +strongly marked individual life, constant mutual stimulus to mental growth +there must have been between these two. We were inclined to think, from +the exquisitely phrased sentences and rare fancies in the letters, and +from the graceful movement of some of the little poems, that Esther must +have had ambition as a writer. Then, again, she seemed so wholly, simply, +passionately, a woman, to love and be loved, that all thought of anything +else in her nature or her life seemed incongruous. + +"Oh," groaned Uncle Jo, after reading one of the most glowing letters, +"oh, was there really ever in any other man's arms but mine a woman who +could say such things as these between kisses? O Nell, Nell, thank God +that you haven't the dower of such a double fire in your veins as Esther +had!" + +All night we sat reading, and reading, and reading. When the great clock +in the hall struck six, we started like guilty persons. + +"Oh, my childie," said Uncle Jo, "how wrong this has been in me! Poor +little pale face, go to bed now, and remember, I forbid you to go to +school to-day; and I forbid your getting up until noon. I promise you I +will not look at another letter. I will lock them all up till to-morrow +evening, and then we will finish them." + +I obeyed him silently. I was too exhausted to speak; but I was also too +excited to sleep. Until noon I lay wide awake on the bed, in my darkened +room, living over Esther Wynn's life, marvelling at the inexplicable +revelation of it which had been put into our hands, and wondering, until +the uncertainty seemed almost anguish, what was that end which we could +never know. Did she die in the Holy Land? or did she come home well and +strong? and did her lover die some day, leaving his secret treasure of +letters behind him, and poor stricken Esther to go to her grave in fear +lest unfriendly hands might have gained possession of her heart's records? +He was a married man we felt sure. Had the wife whom he did not love paced +up and down and up and down for years over these dumb witnesses to that of +which she had never dreamed? The man himself, when he came to die, did he +writhe, thinking of those silent, eloquent, precious letters which he must +leave to time and chance to destroy or protect? Did men carry him, dead, +down the very stairs on which he had so often knelt unseen and wafted +kisses towards the hidden Esther? + +All these conjectures and questions, and thousands more, hurried in wild +confusion through my brain. In vain I closed my eyes, in vain I pressed my +hands on my eyelids; countless faces, dark, light, beautiful, plain, +happy, sad, threatening, imploring, seemed dancing in the air around my +bed, and saying, "Esther, Esther!" + +We knew she was fair; for there was in one of the letters a tiny curl of +pale brown hair; but we believed from many expressions of hers that she +had no beauty. Oh, if I could but have known how she looked! + +At last I fell asleep, and slept heavily until after dark. This refreshed +my overwrought nerves, and when at nine o'clock in the evening I joined my +uncle in the library, I was calmer than he. + +We said very few words. I sat on his knee, with one arm around his neck, +and hand in hand we reverently lifted the frail, trembling sheets. + +We learned nothing new; in fact, almost any one of the letters was a +rounded revelation of Esther's nature, and of the great love she bore--and +there was little more to learn. There were more than a hundred of the +letters, and they embraced a period of fifteen years. We arranged them in +piles, each year by itself; for some years there were only two or three; +we wondered whether during those years they had lived near each other, and +so had not written, or whether the letters had been destroyed. When the +last letter was laid where it belonged, we looked at each other in +silence, and we both sighed. + +Uncle Jo spoke first. + +"Childie, what shall we do with them?" + +"I do not know, uncle," I said. "I should feel very guilty if we did not +make sure that no one else read them. I should feel very guilty myself, +except that I have read them with you. They seem to me to belong to you, +somehow." + +Uncle Jo kissed me, and we were silent again. Then he said, "There is but +one way to make sure that no human being will ever read them--that is, to +burn them; but it is as hard for me to do it as if they had been written +to me." + +"Could you not put them back in the stair, and nail it up firmly?" said I. + +It was a stormy night. The wind was blowing hard, and sleet and snow +driving against the windows. At this instant a terrible gust rattled the +icy branches of the syringa-bushes against the window, with a noise like +the click of musketry, and above the howling of the wind there came a +strange sound which sounded like a voice crying, "Burn, burn!" + +Uncle Jo and I both heard it, and both sprang to our feet, white with a +nervous terror. In a second he recovered himself, and said, laughing, "Pet +we are both a good deal shaken by this business. But I do think it will be +safer to burn the letters. Poor, poor Esther. I hope she is safe with her +lover now." + +"Oh, do you doubt it?" said I; "I do not." + +"No," said he, "I do not, either. Thank God!" + +"Uncle Jo," said I, "do you think Esther would mind if I copied a few of +these letters, and two or three of the poems? I so want to have them that +it seems to me I cannot give them up; I love her so, I think she would be +willing." + +The storm suddenly died away, and the peaceful silence around us was +almost as startling as the fierce gust had been before. I took it as an +omen that Esther did not refuse my wish, and I selected the four letters +which I most desired to keep. I took also the pomegranate blossom, and the +Edelweiss, and the crimson Amaranth from Bethlehem. + +"I think Esther would rather that these should not be burned," I said. + +"Yes; I think so too," replied Uncle Jo. + +Then we laid the rest upon the fire. The generous hickory logs seemed to +open their arms to them. In a few seconds great panting streams of fire +leaped up and rushed out of our sight, bearing with them all that was +perishable of Esther Wynn's letters. Just as the crackling shadowy shapes +were falling apart and turning black, my uncle sprang to an Indian cabinet +which stood near, and seizing a little box of incense-powder which had +been brought from China by his brother, he shook a few grains of it into +the fire. A pale, fragrant film rose slowly in coiling wreaths and clouds +and hid the last moments of the burning of the letters. When the incense +smoke cleared away, nothing could be seen on the hearth but the bright +hickory coals in their bed of white ashes. + +"I shall make every effort," said Uncle Jo, "to find out who lived in this +house during those years. I presume I can, by old records somewhere." + +"Oh, uncle," I said, "don't. I think they would rather we did not know any +more." + +"You sweet woman child!" he exclaimed. "You are right. Your instinct is +truer than mine. I am only a man, after all! I will never try to learn who +it was that Esther loved." + +"I am very glad," he added, "that this happened when your Aunt Sarah was +away. It would have been a great weariness and annoyance to her to have +read these letters." + +Dear, courteous Uncle Jo! I respected his chivalrous little artifice of +speech, and tried to look as if I believed he would have carried the +letters to his wife if she had been there. + +"And I think, dear," he hesitatingly proceeded, "we would better not speak +of this. It will be one sacred little secret that you and your old uncle +will keep. As no more letters will be found on the stairs, the whole thing +will be soon forgotten." + +"Oh yes, uncle," replied I; "of course it would be terrible to tell. It +isn't our secret, you know; it is dear Esther Wynn's." + +I do not know why it was that I locked up those four letters of Esther +Wynn's and did not look at them for many months. I felt very guilty in +keeping them; but a power I could not resist seemed to paralyze my very +hand when I thought of opening the box in which they were. At last, long +after I had left Uncle Jo's house, I took them out one day, and in the +quiet and warmth of a summer noon I copied them slowly, carefully, word +for word. Then I hid the originals in my bosom, and walked alone, without +telling any one whither I was going, to a wild spot I knew several miles +away, where a little mountain stream came foaming and dashing down +through a narrow gorge to empty itself into our broad and placid river. I +sat down on a mossy granite boulder, and slowly tore the letters into +minutest fragments. One by one I tossed the white and tiny shreds into the +swift water, and watched them as far as I could see them. The brook lifted +them and tossed them over and over, lodged them in mossy crevices, or on +tree roots, then swept them all up and whirled them away in dark depths of +the current from which they would never more come to the surface. It was a +place which Esther would have loved, and I wondered, as I sat there hour +after hour, whether it were really improbable, that she knew just then +what I was doing for her. I wondered, also, as I often before had +wondered, if it might not have been by Esther's will that the sacred hoard +of letters, which had lain undiscovered for so many years, should fall at +last into the hands of my tender and chivalrous Uncle Jo. It was certainly +a strange thing that on the stormy night which I have described, when we +were discussing what should be done with the letters, both Uncle Jo and I +at the same instant should have fancied we heard the words "Burn, burn!" + +The following letter is the earliest one which I copied. It is the one +which Robert found so late at night and brought to us in the library:-- + +"FRIDAY EVENING. + +"SWEETEST:--It is very light in my room to-night. The full moon and the +thought of you! I see to write, but you would forbid me--you who would +see only the moonlight, and not the other. Oh, my darling! my darling! + +"I have been all day in fields and on edges of woods. I have never seen +just such a day: a June sun, and a September wind; clover and butter-cups +under foot, and a sparkling October sky overhead. I think the earth +enjoyed it as a sort of masquerading frolic. The breeze was so strong that +it took the butterflies half off their air-legs, and they fairly reeled +about in the sun. As for me, I sat here and there, on hillocks and stones, +among ferns, and white cornels, and honey-bees, and bobolinks. I was the +only still thing in the fields. I waited so long in each spot, that it was +like being transplanted when I moved myself to the north or the south. And +I discovered a few things in each country in which I lived. For one thing, +I observed that the little busy bee is not busy all the while; that he +does a great amount of aimless, idle snuffing and tasting of all sorts of +things besides flowers; especially he indulges in a running accompaniment +of gymnastics among the grass-stalks, which cannot possibly have anything +to do with honey. I watched one fellow to-day through a series of positive +trapeze movements from top to bottom and bottom to top of a grass-tangle. +When he got through he shook himself, and smoothed off his legs exactly as +the circus-men do. Then he took a long pull at a clover well. + +"Ah, the clover! Dearest! you should have seen how it swung to-day. The +stupidest person in the world could not have helped thinking that it kept +time to invisible band-playing, and was trying to catch hold of the +buttercups. I lay down at full length and looked off through the stems, +and then I saw for the first time how close they were, and that they +constantly swayed and touched, and sometimes locked fast together for a +second. Stately as a minuet it looked, but joyous and loving as the +wildest waltz I ever danced in your arms, my darling. Oh, how dare we +presume to be so sure that the flowers are not glad as we are glad! On +such a day as to-day I never doubt it; and I picked one as reverently and +hesitatingly as I would ask the Queen of the Fairies home to tea if I met +her in a wood. + +"Laughing, are you, darling? Yes, I know it. Poor soul! You cannot help +being a man, I suppose. Nor would I have you help it, my great, strong, +glorious one! How I adore the things which you do, which I could not do. +Oh, my sweet master! Never fear that I do you less reverence than I +should. All the same, I lie back on my ferny hillock, and look you in the +eye, and ask you what you think would become of you if you had no little +one of my kind to bring you honey! And when I say this--you--ah, my +darling, now there are tears in my eyes, and the moonlight grows dim. I +cannot bear the thinking what you would do when I said those words! +Good-night! Perhaps in my sleep I will say them again, and you will be +there to answer. In the morning I shall write out for you to-day's clover +song. + +"YOUR OWN." + +The clover song was not in the letter. We found it afterward on a small +piece of paper, so worn and broken in the folds that we knew it must have +been carried for months in a pocket-book. + + A Song of Clover. + + I wonder what the Clover thinks?-- + Intimate friend of Bob-o-links, + Lover of Daisies slim and white, + Waltzer with Butter-cups at night; + Keeper of Inn for travelling Bees, + Serving to them wine dregs and lees, + Left by the Royal Humming-birds, + Who sip and pay with fine-spun words; + Fellow with all the lowliest, + Peer of the gayest and the best; + Comrade of winds, beloved of sun, + Kissed by the Dew-drops, one by one; + Prophet of Good Luck mystery + By sign of four which few may see; + Symbol of Nature's magic zone, + One out of three, and three in one; + Emblem of comfort in the speech + Which poor men's babies early reach; + Sweet by the roadsides, sweet by sills, + Sweet in the meadows, sweet on hills, + Sweet in its white, sweet in its red, + Oh, half its sweet cannot be said; + Sweet in its every living breath, + Sweetest, perhaps, at last, in death! + Oh, who knows what the Clover thinks? + No one! unless the Bob-o-links! + +The lines which were written on the paper inclosing the pomegranate flower +from Jaffa we deciphered with great trouble. The last verse we were not +quite sure about, for there had been erasures. But I think we were right +finally. + + Pomegranate blossom! Heart of fire! + I dare to be thy death, + To slay thee while the summer sun + Is quickening thy breath; + To rob the autumn of thy wine;-- + Next year of all ripe seeds of thine, + That thou mayest bear one kiss of mine + To my dear love before my death. + + For, Heart of fire, I too am robbed + Like thee! Like thee, I die, + While yet my summer sun of love + Is near, and warm, and high; + The autumn will run red with wine; + The autumn fruits will swing and shine; + But in that little grave of mine + I shall not see them where I lie. + + Pomegranate blossom! Heart of fire! + This kiss, so slow, so sweet, + Thou bearest hence, can never lose + Even in death its heat. + Redder than autumns can run with wine, + Warmer than summer suns can shine, + Forever that dear love of mine + Shall find thy sacred hidden sweet! + +The next letter which I copied was one written five years after the first; +it is not so much a letter as an allegory, and so beautiful, so weird, +that we wondered Esther did not set it to tune as a poem. + +"SUNDAY MORNING. + +"MY DARLING:--Even this blazing September sun looks dull to me this +morning. I have come from such a riotous dream. All last night I walked in +a realm of such golden splendor, that I think even in our fullest noon I +shall only see enough light to grope by for days and days. + +"I do not know how to tell you my dream. I think I must put it in shape +of a story of two people; but you will know, darling, that in my dream it +was you and I. And I honestly did dream it, love, every word just as I +shall write it for you; only there are no words which so glow and light +and blaze as did the chambers through which we walked. I had been reading +about the wonderful gold mines of which every one is talking now, and this +led to my dream. + +"You can laugh if you like, sweet master mine, but I think it is all true, +and I call it + +"The Mine of Gold. + +"There is but one true mine of gold; and of it no man knows, and no woman, +save those who go into it. Neither can they who go tell whether they sink +into the earth's heart or are caught up into the chambers of the air, or +led to the outer pavilions of the sea. Suddenly they perceive that all +around, above, below them is gold: rocks of gold higher than they can see; +caves whose depths are bright with gold; lakes of gold which is molten and +leaps like fire, but in which flowers can be dipped and not wither; sands +of gold, soft and pleasant to touch; innumerable shapes of all things +beautiful, which wave and change, but only from gold to gold; air which +shines and shimmers like refiner's gold; warmth which is like the glow of +the red gold of Ophir; and everywhere golden silence! + +"Hand in hand walk the two to whom it is given to enter here: of the gold, +they may carry away only so much as can be hid in their bosoms; grains +which are spilled, or are left on their garments, turn to ashes; only to +each other may they speak of these mysteries; but all men perceive that +they have riches, and that their faces shine as the faces of angels. + +"Suddenly it comes to pass that one day a golden path leads them farther +than they have ever gone before, and into a vast chamber, too vast to be +measured. Its walls, although they are of gold, are also like crystal. +This is a mystery. Only three sides are walled. The fourth side is the +opening of a gallery which stretches away and away, golden like a broad +sunbeam: from out the distance comes the sound of rushing waters; however +far they walk in that gallery, still the golden sunbeam stretches before +them; still the sound of the waters is no nearer: and so would the sunbeam +and the sound of the waters be forever, for they are Eternity. + +"But there is a fourth mystery. On the walls of crystal gold, on all +sides, shine faces; not dead faces, not pictured faces; living +faces--warm, smiling, reflected faces. + +"Then it is revealed to the two who walk hand in hand that these are the +faces of all who have ever entered in, as they, between the walls of +crystal gold; flashing faces of the sons of God looking into eyes of +earthly women;--these were the first: and after them, all in their +generations until to-day, the sons of men with the women they have loved. +The men's faces smile; but the faces of the women have in them a joy +greater than a smile. + +"Presently the two who walk hand in hand see their own faces added to the +others, with the same smile, the same joy; and it is revealed to them that +these faces are immortal. Through all eternity they will shine on the +walls of crystal gold; and those who have once looked on them can never +more see in each other change or loss of beauty. + +"If as they walk there, in the broad sunbeam, an angel meets them, bearing +the tokens of a golden bowl that is broken and a silver cord that is +unloosed, they follow him without grief or fear, thinking on that chamber +of crystal gold! + +"Good-by, darling! + +"ESTHER." + +The third letter was written three years after this one. Sadness was +beginning to cloud the free, joyous outpourings of Esther's heart. +Probably this sadness was one of the first symptoms of the failure of her +health. It was from this letter chiefly--although there were expressions +in others which deepened the impression--that we inferred that her lover +had tried to stimulate in her an intellectual ambition. + +"WEDNESDAY EVENING. + +"DEAR ONE:--Your last letter gave me great pain. It breaks my heart to see +you looking so earnestly and expectantly into my future. Beloved, that I +have grown and developed so much in the last seven years is no proof that +I can still keep on growing. If you understood, darling, you would see +that it is just the other way. I have grown year by year, hour by hour, +because hour by hour I have loved you more. That is all! I have felt the +growth. I know it, as clearly as you do. But I know the secret of it as +you do not; and I know the limit of it, as you cannot. I cannot love you +more, precious one! Neither would I if I could! One heart-beat more in a +minute, and I should die! But all that you have so much loved and cared +for, dear, calling it intellectual growth and expansion in me, has been +only the clearing, refining, and stimulating of every faculty, every +sense, by my love for you. When I have said or written a word which has +pleased you thus, if there were any special fitness or eloquence in the +word, it was only because I sought after what would best carry my thought +to you, darling; what would be best frame, best setting, to keep the +flowers or the sky which I had to see alone,--to keep them till you could +see them too! Oh, dear one, do understand that there is nothing of me +except my heart and my love! While they were wonderingly, tremblingly, +rapturously growing within me, under the sweet warmth of your love, no +wonder I changed day by day. But, precious one, it is ended. The whole +solemn, steadfast womanhood within me recognizes it. Beloved master, in +one sense you can teach me no more! I am content. I desire nothing. One +moment of full consciousness of you, of life, of your love, is more than +all centuries of learning, all eternities of inspiration. I would rather +at this moment, dear, lay my cheek on your hand, and sit in my old place +by your knee, and feel myself the woman you have made me, than know all +that God knows, and make a universe! + +"Beloved, do not say such things to me any more; and whenever you feel +such ambition and hope stirring in your heart, read over this little +verse, and be sure that your child knew what she said when she wrote +it:-- + + "The End of Harvest. + + "O Love, who walkest slow among my sheaves, + Smiling at tint and shape, thy smile of peace, + But whispering of the next sweet year's increase,-- + O tender Love, thy loving hope but grieves + My heart! I rue my harvest, if it leaves + Thee vainly waiting after harvests cease, + Like one who has been mocked by title lease + To barren fields. + + Dear one, my word deceives + Thee never. Hearts one summer have. Their grain + 'Is sown not that which shall be!' + + Can new pain + Teach me of pain? Or any ecstasy + Be new, that I should speak its name again? + My darling, all there was or is of me + Is harvested for thine Eternity! + + ESTHER." + +The fourth letter was the one which Princess had found, the first which my +uncle had read--Esther's farewell to her lover before going abroad. No +wonder that it so moved him! + +"SUNDAY NIGHT. + +"MY DARLING:--I implore you not to come. Have I not loved you enough, all +these years long, for you to trust me, and believe that it is only because +I love you so much that I cannot, cannot see you now? Dear, did I ever +before ask you to forego your wish for mine? Did I ever before withhold +anything from you, my darling? Ah, love, you know--oh, how well you know, +that always, in every blissful moment we have spent together, my bliss +has been shadowed by a little, interrupted by a little, because my soul +was forever restlessly asking, seeking, longing, for one more joy, +delight, rapture, to give to you! + +"Now listen, darling. You say it is almost a year since we met; true, but +if it were yesterday, would you remember it any more clearly? Why, my +precious one, I can see over again at this moment each little movement +which you made, each look your face wore; I can hear every word; I can +feel every kiss; very solemn kisses they were too, love, as if we had +known. + +"You say we may never meet again. True. But if that is to be so, all the +more I choose to leave with you the memory of the face you saw then, +rather than of the one you would see to-day. Be compassionate, darling, +and spare me the pain of seeing your pain at sight of my poor changed +face. I hope it is not vanity, love, which makes me feel this so strongly. +Being so clearly and calmly conscious as I am that very possibly my +earthly days are near their end, it does not seem as if mere vanity could +linger in my soul. And you know you have always said, dearest, that I had +none. I know I have always wondered unspeakably that you could find +pleasure in my face, except occasionally, when I have felt, as it were, a +great sudden glow and throb of love quicken and heat it under your gaze; +then, as I have looked up in your eyes, I have sometimes had a flash of +consciousness of a transfiguration in the very flesh of my face, just as I +have a sense of rapturous strength sometimes in the very flesh and bone of +my right hand, when I strike on the piano some of Beethoven's chords. But +I know that, except in the light of your presence, I have no beauty. I +had not so much to lose by illness as other women. But, dear one, that +little is gone. I can read in the pitying looks of all my friends how +altered I am. Even if I did not see it with my own eyes, I should read it +in theirs. And I cannot--oh, I cannot read it in yours! + +"If I knew any spell which could make you forget all except some one rare +moment in which you said in your heart, 'she never looked so lovely +before!' oh, how firmly I would bind you by it! All the weary indifferent, +or unhappy looks, love, I would blot out from your memory, and have the +thought of me raise but one picture in your mind. I would have it as if I +had died, and left of my face no record on earth except one wonderful +picture by some great master, who had caught the whole beauty of the one +rarest moment of my life. Darling, if you look back, you will find that +moment; for it must have been in your arms; and let Love be the master who +will paint the immortal picture! + +"As for this thin, pale, listless body, which just now answers to the name +of me, there is nothing in or about it which you know. Presently it will +be carried like a half-lifeless thing on board a ship; the winds will blow +roughly on it and it will not care. If God wills, darling, I will come +back to you well and strong. If I cannot come well and strong, I hope +never to come at all. + +"Don't call me cruel. You would feel the same. I also should combat the +resolve in you, as you do in me. But in my heart I should understand. I +should sympathize, and I should yield. + +"God bless you, darling. I believe He will, for the infinite goodness of +your life. I thank Him daily that He has given it to me to bless you a +little. If I had seen you to say farewell, my beloved, I should not have +kissed you many times, as has been our wont. That is for hours of joy. I +should have kissed you three times--only three times--on your beautiful, +strong, gentle lips, and each kiss would have been a separate sacrament, +with a bond of its own. I send them to you here, love, and this is what +they mean! + + "Three Kisses of Farewell. + + "Three, only three my darling, + Separate, solemn, slow; + Not like the swift and joyous ones + We used to know + When we kissed because we loved each other + Simply to taste love's sweet, + And lavished our kisses as the summer + Lavishes heat,-- + But as they kiss whose hearts are wrung, + When hope and fear are spent, + And nothing is left to give, except + A sacrament! + + "First of the three, my darling, + Is sacred unto pain; + We have hurt each other often; + We shall again, + When we pine because we miss each other, + And do not understand + How the written words are so much colder + Than eye and hand. + I kiss thee, dear, for all such pain + Which we may give or take; + Buried, forgiven, before it comes + For our love's sake! + + "The second kiss, my darling, + Is full of joy's sweet thrill; + We have blessed each other always; + We always will. + We shall reach until we feel each other, + Past all of time and space; + We shall listen till we hear each other + In every place; + The earth is full of messengers, + Which love sends to and fro; + I kiss thee, darling, for all joy + Which we shall know! + + "The last kiss, oh, my darling, + My love--I cannot see + Through my tears, as I remember + What it may be. + We may die and never see each other, + Die with no time to give + Any sign that our hearts are faithful + To die, as live. + Token of what they will not see + Who see our parting breath, + This one last kiss, my darling, seals + The seal of death!" + +It was on my sixteenth birthday that I copied these letters and poems of +Esther Wynn's. I kept them, with a few other very precious things, in a +curious little inlaid box, which came from Venice, and was so old that in +many places its sides were worm-eaten. It was one of my choicest +treasures, and I was never separated from it. + +When I was twenty years old I had been for two years a happy wife, for one +year a glad mother, and had for some time remembered Esther only in the +vague, passing way in which happy souls recall old shadows of the griefs +of other hearts. As my boy entered on a second summer he began to droop a +little, and the physician recommended that we should take him to the +sea-side; so it came to pass that on the morning of my twentieth birthday +I was sitting, with my baby in my arms, on a rocky sea-shore, at one of +the well-known summer resorts of the New Hampshire coast. Near me sat a +woman whose face had interested me strangely ever since my arrival. She +seemed an invalid; but there was an atmosphere of overflowing vitality +about her, in spite of her feebleness, which made her very presence +stimulating and cheering to every one. I had longed to speak with her, but +as yet had not done so. While I sat watching her face and my baby's, and +the face of the sea, she was joined by her husband, who had just come from +a walk in the fields, and had brought her a large bouquet of red clover +and feathery grasses. She took it eagerly with great delight, and +exclaimed:-- + + "I wonder what the Clover thinks? + Intimate friend of Bob-o-links!" + +I could not control the sudden start with which I heard these words. Who +was this that knew Esther Wynn's verses by heart? I could hardly refrain +from speaking to her at once, and betraying all. But I reflected instantly +that I must be very cautious; it would be almost impossible to find out +what I longed to know without revealing how my own acquaintance with the +verses had come about. Days passed before I ventured to allude to the +subject; but one evening, as we were walking together, she stooped and +picked a clover-blossom, and said,-- + +"I really think I love red clover better than any wild flower we have." + +"I thought so," said I, "when I saw you take that big bunch your husband +brought you the other morning. That was before I knew you: I felt almost +rude, I watched you so, in spite of myself." + +"But I had watched you quite as much," said she, smiling; "I thought then +of giving you a part of the clover. Edward always brings me huge bouquets +of it every day; he knows so well how I love it." + +"I heard you quote a little couplet of verse about it then," said I, +looking away from her, that she might not see my face: "I was so near you +I could not help hearing what you said." + +"Oh, yes," said she, + + "I wonder what the Clover thinks? + Intimate friend of Bob-o-links'-- + +"I do not know but that old clover-song is the real reason I love clover +so. My mother taught it to me when I was a little child. It is all very +quaint and sweet. Would you like to hear it?" + +I felt myself color scarlet, but I replied,-- + +"Oh, yes, pray repeat it." + +When she had repeated the verses she went on speaking, to my great relief, +saving me from the necessity of saying anything. + +"That was written a great many years ago, by an aunt of my mother's. My +mother has a little manuscript book bound in red morocco, very faded and +worn, which my grandmother kept on her bureau till she died, last year; +and it has in it this little clover-song and several others, with Aunt +Esther's diary while she was abroad. She died abroad; died in Jerusalem, +and was buried there. There was something mysteriously sad in her life, I +think: grandmother always sighed when she spoke of her, and used to read +in the little red book every day. She was only her half-sister, but she +said she loved her better than she did any sister of her own. Once I asked +grandmamma to tell me about her, but she said, 'There is nothing to tell, +child. She was never married: she died the autumn before your mother was +born, and your mother looked very much like her when she was young. She is +like her, too, in many ways,' and that was all grandmamma would ever say. +But we always called her Aunt Esther, and know all her verses by heart, +and the diary was fascinating. It seems strange to read such vivid written +records of people you never saw; don't you think so?" + +"Yes, it must, very," said I. + +She went on: "I always had a very special love for this old Aunt Esther, +which I could hardly account for. I am to have the little red book when my +mother dies; and"--she hesitated a moment--"and I named my first baby for +her, Esther Wynn. The baby only lived to be a few weeks old, and I often +think, as I look at her little grave-stone, of the other one, so many +thousand miles away, alone in a strange land, bearing the same name." + +On my way home I stopped for a few days' visit at Uncle Jo's. Late one +night, sitting in my old place at his feet in the library, I told him this +sequel to the romance of the letters. + +"Oh, childie, how could you help showing that you knew about her?" said +he. "You must have betrayed it." + +"No, I am sure I did not," I said. "I never spoke about it after that day, +and she was too absorbed herself in the reminiscences to observe my +excitement." + +"What was your friend's name?" said Uncle Jo. + +I told him. He sprang from his chair, and walked rapidly away to the end +of the library; presently he came back, and standing before me, said,-- + +"Nell! Nell! your friend's mother is the woman of whom I once spoke to +you! I might have known that the subtle kinship I felt between Esther Wynn +and her was no chance resemblance. I never heard of the name 'Wynn,' +however. But you said she was only a half-sister; that accounts for it. I +might have known! I might have known!" he exclaimed, more to himself than +to me, and buried his face in his hands I stole away quietly and left him; +but I heard him saying under his breath, "Her aunt! I might have known!" + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Saxe Holm's Stories, by Helen Hunt Jackson + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SAXE HOLM'S STORIES *** + +***** This file should be named 10926.txt or 10926.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/9/2/10926/ + +Produced by Distributed Proofreaders + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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